A long while later.... The wrap

Well we've been back in Australia for 2 months, yet we've been so slack and never finished the story... It's going to be a shortened version as this far out the memory has faded a little (*sigh*) but I wanted to finish it.

We left Winslow, Arizona on April 21st and followed some of James' mates back to Albaquerque, New Mexico. In the afternoon we went to check out Brian and Catherine's new digs - very impressive - and then went to one of their favourite Mexican places for dinner. Honestly, there is no substitute for real Mexican! And then, despite being well and trully stuffed, at Brian's insistence, we got dessert... I am not sure if I have ever been quite that full in my life.

The next morning we dropped our hire car back and flew out of Albaquerque's Sunport. (no, that's not a typo - they seriously call it that) Being a nice early flight, we arrived in Chicago around lunch time. James' mate Chad picked us up from the airport and once we'd visited a little train shop in Des Plaines and found some lunch (I like Potbelly!) we did the thing that comes naturally to James and Chad.... We chased trains! The boys managed to find a little dead end street that fronted straight onto the tracks, so they set up and started snapping. The battery in Chad's car suddenly dying when we went to move was a bit of an unexpected hic-up, but thankfully the friendly mechanic across the street was more than happy to give us a jump start.

After dropping our things off at Chad's place we went to pick up his wife, Angela. Angela works at The Morton Arboretum, the place is simply amazing! We only took a quick look around, but I was just in awe! That evening we went for pizza and then hung out at Chad and Angela's.

Wednesday the 23rd we jumped on the Metra and took a ride into downtown Chicago. I am so in love with the place! It is just beautiful! From the water taxis to the Tulip lined streets and the Bascule bridges, it is an amazing place and I would have sincerely loved to spend more time there. We shopped in Michigan Ave, checked out Millenium Park and just wandered around stickybeaking at whatever took our fancy.

That night Chad and Angela took us to one of their favourite restraunts - what a treat! There was so many amazing things on the menu that just the simple task of choosing a meal was something I struggled with! James stuck with his theme and got ribs, while I tried an absolutely amazing pork dish. Afterwards we hit the The Cheesecake Factory (don't even think about comparing it to the Cheesecake Shop, it's got nothing on this!) and then went back to Chad and Angela's and watched a highly amusing episode of America's Port. Look out for drunk guys coming in hard an fast in sail boats! I'm quite sure that nobody else is going to get that, but James and I just got a fantastic laugh out of it!

Thursday the 24th we bid a sad farwell to Chicago and, after a nightmare experience at their airport, we took a Jet Blue flight to New York. If you are planning on flying domestic in the US, I would suggest you try them - nice big comfy seats and plenty of leg room, even though you're in cattle class!

JFK looked like it was about ready to fall down, but we eventually found our luggage and someone to show us where to catch the shuttle bus. When our driver arrived we were delayed somewhat while he argued with a black lady about why he could not take her where she wanted to go and tried to explain to her that if she stepped inside she could book her own shuttle. Then came the fun bit. Our van was completely full so I got to sit up front with the driver. Talk about scary! This guy didn't seem to be able to pick a lane so he just drove in as many as he could at once. He also sent text messages, checked his pager and had a chat to his girlfriend in some other language while he negotiated the crazy New York streets. After we nearly took out a pedestrian, I was very glad to be told that we were to be his first stop.

Our hotel, The Red Roof Inn, was on 32nd Street, otherwise known as Korean Way thanks to it's abundance of Korean restraunts. So first night there we went out for Korean BBQ. A very different, but highly enjoyable experience which I would heartily recommend! The waiter even convinced me to eat kimichi - that's an achievement! After dinner we went and explored Times Square. The place is a real eye opener! People everywhere, shops open til 2 in the morning... You name it, it's happening there.

On the Friday we got all touristy and set out for Central Park. I've seen it in movies and I've seen James' pictures of previous visits there, but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer size and beauty of the place. And there was ducks everywhere! Very exciting! We managed to spend several hours there before going to check out the shops in Fifth Avenue and getting some Pop Burgers for lunch - they were so cute! One of the shops we went to look at was the Apple Shop. Bad idea! The place was so packed that there was something like 6 people looking at each product. We walked straight back out again. An interesting point about that particular Apple Shop is that since it has opened,a couple of years ago now, it has not once been closed since. That's right, it's open 24/7 - the doors are never closed. Only in America... And for that matter, only in New York.

On our way back to the hotel we sought out a little pub called The Australian and celebrated Anzac day in true Aussie fashion - with a proper Aussie beer. We had tried to find a service to attend, but they all required you to have RSVP'd to the Embassy well beforehand. It was nice to be around people who had 'normal' accents for a bit! That night we found a cute little Japanese place a few streets over. I didn't love the food, it was done a bit different to what I'm used to, but it was a nice little place. Baskins did nicely for dessert.

Friday was also the day that the Canadian band kids arrived. Like over a hundred of them. From that minute on the hotels lifts suddenly became far more difficult to catch and the food and seats in the breakfast room went so much quicker.

Saturday the 26th was serious shopping day. In the morning we started in Chinatown where we were offered everything from handbags to sunglasses. Also stumbled across the funniest name for a shop ever - Shoegasm! From Chinatown we continued on into SoHo and then NoHo. In a disturbing development, James bought more stuff than I did. I had decided to wear my little flat work shoes that day and boy was that a bad mistake.. Those shoes were not made for walking and my feet felt like they were on fire, making for a very unhappy Heidi.


We spent most of Sunday morning in Macy's filling in the blanks for all the stuff I hadn't managed to find elsewhere. A discount card we got just for being tourists came in real handy! The mission was then on to find a certain pair of sunglasses I really wanted, but had stuggled to find in the colour I wanted. We made the trek to the Oakley Shop and I was so excited when I finally got what I wanted. James also managed to get a nice shirt.
Margie and Simon arrived from Washington in the afternoon and after they had a quick powernap we met up and made our way to 42nd Street to see the Broadway version of Mary Poppins. The show was simply amazing and I am even willing to admit that I cried at one point. Funilly enough, there was a group of Australians sitting behind us. After the show we settled on an Irish pub and despite all of us saying we weren't real hungry, managed to order starters and meals and go away feeling like we were about to burst.

Monday morning we woke to the awful sight of a wet, rainy New York City. Considering it was supposed to be the day we went and did touristy things like the Brooklyn Bridge, we weren't real excited. After a bit of phone tag, we met Margie and Simon at Starbucks (so James could make sure his brain was working) to plan what to do with the dismal looking day. The Brooklyn Bridge, Ellis Island and Lady Liberty all got ruled out and Margie suggested the Gallery of Modern Art. But everyone else in New York had decided to do the same thing and the line to get in was about a mile long. Undeterred, we deployed our umbrellas and set out for the next museum. Sadly this particular one was closed on a Monday, as was the next one! We eventually found a museum that was actually open and didn't have a line to get in and jumped at the chance.

Lunch was in a little diner just off Fifth Avenue and boy were the meals huge! I don't think any of us managed to finish. After checking out Grand Central Station, we traipsed back to Times Square and decided to split up for a bit. We needed to buy another bag to fit all our extra purchases in and I still had a little bit of shopping I wanted to do. After freshing ourselves up a bit, we braved the rain once again and walked the couple of blocks down to Margie and Simon's hotel. I remember lots of cocktails, good food and a lot of laughter. It was a nice way to spend the last night of our honeymoon.

Tuesday was a sad day. We got ourselves up bright and early to pack and had no time to do anything else before our shuttle bus arrived. We fought our way through the throngs of Candian band kids who also happened to be checking out and our much less crazy driver provided us with a far more pleasant trip back to the airport.

Our American Airlines flight left JFK on time, but unfortunately this did not set the tone for the rest of the trip home. After arriving in LAX and getting completely confused by the worlds worst set out and most ridiculous airport, we finally arrived at our terminal only to be told that our Air New Zealand flight was running at least 4 hours late. They managed to squeeze us onto another flight, but it still left about an hour after our original flight and as such we missed our connection to Brisbane.

We eventually departed Auckland at around 9am and thanks to a fairly empty flight, we managed to get upgraded to premium economy. Made the whole debarcle a little better, but I still think I'll be boycotting Air New Zealand in future.

We had a fantastic trip and would only change one thing - to make it longer!

A while later...

My, how slack we have been with updating this lately... Sorry! Things have been a little busy since Winslow and we are now up to about day 19.

We left Winslow on Monday the 21st and drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The next day we flew to Chicago and stayed there for 2 nights. On Thursday the 24th we flew out for New York, which is where we will spend the remainder of our time here. Margie Brewer is flying in tomorrow (Sunday April 27) and will spend a bit of time with us - we'll probably try to catch a Broadway show.

We fly home - via LA and Auckland - next Tuesday. Thanks to the time zones, we won't arrive in Australia until the Thursday.

It's all gone way too quickly! It doesn't seem like 3 weeks since the wedding and it certainly doesn't feel like we've been here for 19 days. We will update this properly a little later (possibly once we're back in Australia) but for now I have shopping to do!

Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Heidi and James xoxo

P.S. No we don't have a jacuzi at our hotel this time... Very disappointing...

Nevada and Arizona - Days 9,10,11 & 12

Phew... It's been a while! This honeymooning thing keeps you pretty busy....

As James mentioned in the previous post, we arrived in Las Vegas on Tuesday night and despite having a few navigational issues (Jill failed us slightly here....) we eventually found our way into Caesar's Palace, even if we did take the back door! We freshened up and headed out into the casino to try and find some dinner, but the place is massive! We got ourselves a little lost and were having trouble trying to find some food we could actually afford! Eventually we found a Planet Hollywood and figured it sounded pretty damn good - we were both starving by this point! Thankfully we managed to find our way back to our room afterwards and after a nice little dip in our jacuzi, we settled in for a much needed sleep.


Day 9 - April 16 we dragged ourselves out of bed well after 9 (we're getting a little too used to this...) and set out in search of outlet shopping. We thought we were going to one, but actually went the wrong way up the strip and found another one instead. It didn't bother me! There was shops, I was happy! The place was huge so we spent hours there... I got a couple of new knit sweaters and a good price on a perfume I wanted. James managed to find Lee jeans for $18 and was pretty chuffed with himself. All in all a very satisfying outing.


That night we decided we wanted to do an all-you-can-eat buffet and settled on the Bellagio. The line to get in was huge, but fortunately it moved fairly quickly and we were in before we knew it. The buffet was just massive! It blew us both away. We learned quickly that the best way to tackle such an abundance of food was to not bother finishing that which you didn't really like. Plus there was an impressive dessert bar that we were determined to make the most of! I think the desserts were the highlight for me... The lemon meringue pie and some kind of raspberry chocolate cake were a close tie for my favourites. We left, as my dad would say, having had 'an elegant sufficiency'. Please read as 'we stuffed ourselves silly and could have been rolled out the door'!


Afterwards we went to check out the famous Bellagio fountain. I'm not sure if they really hadn't been working the night before, or if maybe we were just looking at the wrong times... They were definately working that night though and wow! It's such an amazing thing to watch - and the crowds that line the pool obviously also agree!


Then we took off up the strip to take a look around. Thus far I had thought that Vegas seemed pretty nice, but then we came across the greasy characters every 10 metres who wanted to give you a business card for some half naked woman. According to their T-shirts, they worked for "Girls Direct" and could have a girl to you inside 20 minutes. Classy. We checked out the M&M shop, the Coke shop and more souvenier shops than you can poke a stick at! I eventually settled on a CSI shirt for myself and considered buying my brother a shirt that said "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". We wandered the strip til about midnight before we decided to call it a night. Although we did of course have to have another dip in the jacuzi before going to bed ;)


Day 10 - April 17 was another late start. We went and checked out the breakfast buffet in Caesar's and made sure we got our moneys worth! A very cool feature of Caesar's was our ability to check out via the TV in our room! No waiting in line, we simply used the remote. Very impressive! And then we went outlet shopping again...! We decided to go in search of the shops we had meant to go to on the Wednesday and boy did we have trouble finding them! Unlike the other shops, there was no massive billboard announcing their presence and the map we had in our hotel guide really didn't give us much help... It was worth it in the long run though! Again, several bargains - I got a Lacoste jumper reduced from $195 to $40! James also got himself some more jeans and a few other things. By the time we left it was about 3pm!


We had halfway intended on heading to the Grand Canyon that afternoon, but it was too late by then so we thought we would try for Williams with a stop off in Kingman for petrol. We arrived at Kingman and pulled into the servo to grab some gas. I went inside in search of the bathroom and James followed suite once he had finished fueling up. When we walked back out there was a guy walking around our car. "Where'd you get this car from?" he asked. "San Francisco," James replied. "Is it through Avis? You've got a bald tire." It turned out he worked for the tire place next door and we're lucky he noticed as we didn't actually just have a bald tire, we had 2. To cut a long story short, Avis refused to just let him put new tires on it. Had it been one tire that needed changing it would have been fine, but because there was 2, they had to recall the car. There was no Avis dealer in Kingman though so they had to get a tow-truck to bring us the replacement vehicle and take ours back. I had noticed that the passenger front tire looked a bit worn, but apparently the one on the drivers side was down to the steel belt and probably about to blow out. We had stupidly 'assumed' that the car was fine when we picked it up and hadn't looked to closely at it. We had gone around and noted all the previous paint chips etc, but the tires weren't something we had thought of. How the car was given to us in such un-roadworthy condition I will never know. The lesson, I guess, is to never assume anything, 'cause we all know what that does!


Our replacement vehicle is a Ford Edge. (note - the pic isn't of ours... We haven't actually taken one so I just stole someone else's photo of one the same colour!) It's not as nice to drive (rough), has bad blind spots and only does about 24 miles to the gallon. (The Impala did 31, my Mini does 39!) Thankfully we don't have it for too much longer though. It was obvious that they were a bit rushed when they sent the car out to us... It only had 3/4 of a tank of petrol, there's a baby seat in the back (!) and yesterday we found a container of baby food under the back seat.... It's a car though and we're just grateful that they replaced it so quickly and nothing bad happened in the Impala.

Once the tow truck driver left we decided to take our new wheels out and look for some dinner. We settled on the Dambar Steakhouse. It's a pretty cool place! I guess places like Lone Star are trying to get the same feel, but there's nothing like the original!

After dinner Jill got us lost again, telling us to take roads that didn't exist. There was also another dirt road involved, so James was happy to be driving an SUV rather than the sedan. Poor Jill... We think she may have a very old map of Kingman.

Day 11 - April 18 was an 'early' start. The alarm went off at 6am and we dragged ourselves out to make use of Best Western's rather comprehensive complimentary continental breakfast. We settled for bagels and some fruit, but had we wanted we could have cooked ourselves a waffle! By the time we hit the road it was around 8 o'clock and then James insisted he needed a coffee. What a debarcle! Mc Donalds didn't have any, there was no Starbucks in town and we couldn't see anything that really looked like it might sell coffee. Eventually we stopped at a Sonic, but they will only take drive through orders and won't accept cash! James had to stand at this little booth thing, place his order and pay by card! Rather strange... The drive to Williams was fairly uneventful. We stopped for another coffee (I think he's addicted....), filled the car up and went and checked out the Grand Canyon Railway Station. We saw a train leaving but unfortunately it wasn't the steam train.


From Williams we set off to the Grand Canyon. We arrived around midday and found ourselves a park on the side of the road and wandered over. It's pretty incredible, one minute you are walking through trees, the next you're staring at this massive hole in the fround. I convinced James to clamber out onto a bit of an outcrop (everyone was doing it and it was not a difficult climb) so I could take his photo. There was a tree blocking part of my view though so I decided to put the bigger lense on the camera. I was standing on a flat rock surface so put the video down and then put the big lense (in its case) down so I could take the other off. There must have been a bit of a slant to my flat surface though as the lense rolled straight off the edge and fell about 3 metres... Thankfully it came out unscathed and still works fine but I had myself pretty upset for a while.


The Canyon is pretty amazing, but out of it and Yosemite, I would rate Yosemite higher. There is far more to do at Yosemite, where at the Canyon you just sort of stare at this rather large hole in the ground. Even from different places, it still looks pretty much the same. I would love to go back and actually do a tour down into the Canyon, go rafting on the Colorado River etc. We also seemed to be there at a bad time light wise - everything just seemed very overexposed - the pictures look it too. It's a real shame...


We left the Canyon and set out for Winslow via Flagstaff. On our way we went through the San Francisco Peaks which still have snow on them. There was even drifts of snow along the road every few minutes! I wanted to stop and play, but it was difficult to find a place to stop and where there was a place, there wasn't snow! Flagstaff is very cute - kinda like a postcard small American town. It obviously gets bloody cold there though - everyone had a chimney. We stopped at Starbucks (anyone counting how many coffees he's had so far today?!) and in the car park was a guy with a mobile BBQ. It smelled so good! I wished we had seen him around lunch time as I wanted to try it so badly, but figured I'd better not spoil my dinner. Gees, I'm starting to sound like a grown up....


All coffeed up, we set off for Winslow and I was put on official train video duties. Thankfully we only saw one. Driving into Winslow was like having a bad nightmare. The place is an absolute dive, and that's being nice to it! I was quite horrified and decided then and there that there was no way I would be setting foot outside of the hotel by myself. Thankfully our hotel - the La Posada - is very nice and James' mates and wives are all very friendly and normal. Since San Francisco I have noticed that my skin is very dry, but in the last few days I have started to itch all over and noticed during the drive that I had eczema like sores on my legs. I had been using plenty of moisturiser but it didn't seem to help at all so we went down to Safeway and managed to find some bath oil stuff that is helping heaps, but now my eyes are all red and puffy - going to have to make another trip for some eye drops. The bath oil smells like cod liver oil, but thankfully I only have to sit in it, not drink it!

That night we dined at The Turquoise Room - the La Posada's own restaurant. I'm going to go right out on a limb here and say that it it was the best steak I have ever eaten! Our very friendly waiter also gave us a complimentary bowl of creamed corn chowder and black bean soup just because he thought we needed to try it - he was right, it is so good! After several cocktails and such good food I was feeling pretty happy! James had creme brulee for dessert (he hasn't stopped raving about it since he was here last) and I must say it was pretty nice.


Day 12 - April 19 we slept in (again) which was probably aided by the cocktails from the night before. We went back to the Turquoise Room again and had some breakfast - again the food was fantastic and the coffee was definately the best I've ever tasted in a restaurant. James spent the day wandering in and out to check out the trains while I tidied up a few things and replied to a few emails. Courteousy of a massive breakfast, I had no need for lunch and we set off to find a laundromat around 1. We settled on the first one we found, just up the street a bit and the place was packed! One of the first things I noticed as we walked in was there was only one other white guy in the room, everyone else was hispanic. He obviously noticed too as later when James went to check our washing the guy said to him, "I'd nearly forgotten what white people look like!" I got plenty of reading done while we waited - loving my Underbelly book!


Once the clothes were done drying we went back to the hotel and James deserted me in favour of the trains. Gave me some time to write this though, so who am I to complain?! He got some very nice photos with the sunset behind the trains.

Once again we dined in the Turquoise room. I had a different steak which wasn't as good as the one from the day before, but still nice. Also limited myself to one cocktail only....! And for those who are wondering if we have a jacuzi, the answer is yes! I'm just not quite game to turn the bubbles on while the oil is in the water though. Can't say replacing a jacuzi is my idea of honeymoon funds well spent!

Love to all,
Heidi and James

Central California - Days 6, 7 & 8

Day 6 - April 13 turned out being as warm as Saturday and I was happy to break out the shorts again - James here folks. It was time to leave our plush surrounds of Hotel Kabuki and start our roadtrip down the coast. We grabbed a few photos of the gardens inside the Kabuki and took off in search of breakfast and found a Crepe Cafe right near the Avis dealer. Sunday must be a popular day for car rentals, as I had finished my massive coffee (that I had taken with me from breakfast) while we were waiting in line. But we were on our way soon enough - sitting on the wrong side of the car, driving on the wrong side of the road. Crazy! The road closure in front of the Kabuki due to the Cherry Blossam Festival and San Fran's many one-way streets presented some interesting challenges, but we soon found ourselves back there loading the car and heading off.


Our route for the day was California Hwy 1, which essientially follows the Californian coast all the way south to LA. It's ranked as one of the best drives in the world for it's sensational views of the coast and it lived up to expectations. Assisting us on our trip was "Jill" - our friendly GPS navigator who, over the course of the last few days, has already paid for her rental price. We found our way to Santa Cruz for lunch and did a lap around the famous Santa Cruz broadwalk - which was apparently quite popular with the locals and tourists on any warm Sunday afternoon - the beach was packed with swimmers, bakers and volleyballers. We got back on to Hwy 1, continued south and soon found our way into the Monterey / Carmel enclave - where I picked up a much needed coffee. The beach at Carmel was similarly packed - it looked very inviting, but I don't think it rates as highly as Byron Bay. Carmel was a beautiful looking town and Heidi and I both agreed my Mum would have needed a week to go through all the little boutiques and galleries - and a different Visa card every day!


We made several stops over the course of the day to take advantage of the many vistas and photo opportunities. I took alot of photos, most of which were of the many bridges that span the creeks and inlets along the route. There's some impressive concrete arches that were built in the 1930's that are still in use today that we just don't see back home. Heidi took alot of video too - less of it is focused on the bridges though ;-)

The coastline is naturally full of wildlife. We didn't see any seals along the way, but the number of eagles we saw just crusing on the uplifts was amazing. I'm sure Heidi saw some more "giant" seagulls too.


We pulled into San Simeon right on 6pm and managed to score a pretty flash suite right on the beach. It was a simple Best Western, but their set up was quite nice. It wasn't cold enough to use the in-room fireplace, but we took advantage of the outdoor "fire pits" that was closest to the room to warm ourselves after dinner. The in room soaking tub also provided some much needed releif after a day of driving. The adjacent restaurant also got a workout - Heidi got to sink her teeth into a steak and I dinned out on a fresh piece of snapper...and a Sierra Nevada beer.


Day 7 - April 14. San Simeon also gave us a chance to do some washing, which we took care of the following morning after breakfast. Soon we were back on the road again and after a few miles south, we turned inland and began our journey east towards Las Vegas. The central coast region was beautifully lush and green. The trip east took us over the coastal ranges and soon we were into the San Jaoquin Valley - which was far browner. The trip was pretty uneventful - the highlight for Heidi was probably seeing the million oil donkeys going at it in Oakdale before we got onto I-5. We soon found ourselves in Bakersfield. Jill managed to find us the nearest In-and-Out Burger, which we both agree lived up to Kerryn's recommendations.

From Bakersfield we followed the railway east to the little town of Tehachapi which is the location of a mountain pass on the way to Mojave to further points east. It's far tougher for the railways than the highway though, and a special loop was built by the railways to help them gain elevation quickly. We got off the highway and checked out the loop from some back roads. Heidi got behind the wheel and I kept a keen eye peeled for trains, but we didn't see any. We found another Best Western in Tehachapi for the night and set up camp. The day had been fairly warm, but the wind had picked up during the day and had even gotten quite cool that night. It didn't stop Heidi from insisting on a quick visit to the outdoor jacuzi at 8pm, even though her breath was blowing smoke as we walked there! It was worth it though, as the water was beautiful (hot!) and we were sheltered from the breeze. Naturally, as soon as the sun went down, the trains began rumbling past the hotel with incredible frequency...much to my disgust. Fortunately Heidi was tired enough that they didn't keep her awake that night.


Day 8 - April 15. Tehachapi is only about 4 hours from Vegas, which provided us a few hours this morning to chase some trains at the loop and around Tehachapi before we left town. The Best Western provided a free continental breakfast which we took advantage of (rice bubbles for us) on the basis of grabbing something filling (and coffee) for morning tea before we headed to Vegas. Heidi took the wheel again and we headed down towards Monolith when we came across a container train heading towards the loop, so we headed back there. We hung out on the loop for an hour or so and saw three trains, meaning I left Tehachapi happy. A hot apple scroll and a coffee in the Apple Shed meant I left Tehachapi full too ;-)


We left Tehachapi and followed the railway south to Mojave (still no trains along the way) and soon found ourselve heading across the desert to Barstow...which is an interesting little town. Heidi wanted to experience a Taco Bell meal...and maybe regrets that now. I remember visiting Barstow about 15 years ago and having lunch in a McDonalds made from converted passenger cars...it's still there, but about 15 times bigger and busier! We went looking for trains in nearby ghost towns (essientially) Daggett and Yermo, to no avail - the Union Pacific just hasn't been co-operating in SoCal. This involved me directing Heidi up a service road paralleling I-15 through Yermo and a point where I has worked out we could get back onto the highway....until we came across a Road Closed sign. Jill worked out the quickest way to get us back onto the highway, which I followed against my instincts (there was on on-ramp a few miles back along the service road), and we soon found ourselves travelling along several miles of dirt "road" that made me wish we had taken a SUV from Avis. Alls well that ends well and I had soon settled into for the remaining 2hr drive to Vegas.


At 70 miles/hr (ie, 110km/hr) it was a pretty cruisy drive and we were soon checking into Caesar's Palace in Vegas. Las Vegas isn't the first city in Nevada, and we didn't see a sign for the state line - but you could tell where it was from when the casinos began...the road got better too, so at least they're putting all that revenue to use. Anyway, we got to Las Vegas without any further problems, scored an upgrade when we checked in and settled in ok. Our upgrade consisted of a jacuzi (I'm getting used to these!) and a view of the pool - but the best fact is that we're across the road from the Bellagio fountain....which we still haven't seen yet! Not sure if it's the wind (it's quite gusty here) or a maintenance issue, but I'm not sure if they're working. But we're off to investigate that now, so an update of the rest of our adventures in Vegas will follow later. J out.

p.s - James wrote this a day or so back and I was supposed to add photos and post it... I haven't had a chance yet and it's starting to be a little old, so I'm just going to post it as is and add some photos a little later. We've got 3 days in Winslow coming up.... I will have heaps of time then! So stay tuned for pics of Vegas and the Canyon :) -Heidi

San Francisco - Days 3,4 and 5

Day 3 - Thursday April 10th we caught the ferry over to a little town called Sausalito to meet up with James' friend Chuck. Chuck owns a little model train shop but happily closed for the day to come and show us around. The views of the Bay Bridge, Alcatraz and Golden Gate Bridge on the way over were just fantastic. Sausalito is just gorgeous and, in direct contrast with how dirty and dingy some parts of San Francisco are, Sausalito is just so clean, quiet and pretty! It's also protected from the wind due to coastal mountains, so it doesn't get anywhere near as cold as the city - today was just beautiful weather!

Thanks to a late start we hadn't managed to eat breakfast, so on arrival (about 10:40am) we found a little cafe and grabbed some breakfast. Rather yummy, but they seem to insist on burning/drying out the bacon here! I also tried my first bagel - so good! Why do we not have these in Australia?!

Chuck picked us up soon after we finished breakfast and we spent the next few hours touring around in his purple PT Cruiser - nice car! First we took a trip up to a viewing spot for the Golden Gate Bridge. There are a lot of deserted buildings there that used to be barracks for an army outpost when they thought they were going to be attacked from the sea. It was also used again during World War 2. Nowadays it is all national park. It was pretty interesting up there and the view of the bridge was pretty amazing.

Then we took off up to a little town called Tiburon (yes, like the car). It is such a gorgeous little place. There is a rail museum of sorts there, but unfortunately it wasn't open when we were there. They had really strange opening hours! Apparently they used to ship trains accross the bay from San Francisco to Tiburon and they have a model of what it used to be like. Right up James' alley!

Having eaten breakfast so late, we substituted lunch with some ice-cream then went to check out Chuck's shop. A little later we took off up towards Muir Woods (extremely windy road!) and stopped at a little place called the Pelican Inn where we grabbed a beer and some fish and chips - it's ok! I only had a tiny bit. Chuck then dropped us back to the ferry terminal, but we discovered we had missed the ferry by 4 minutes, so had to wait an hour for the next one! It gave us some time to explore the town though and we also wrote some post cards.

We caught the cable car home from the pier again (the novelty hasn't worn off yet!)and then went back to the same little Japanese place we went to the first night. They're so cheap and the food is so good...



Day 4 - Friday April 11 we dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:30 and were picked up by Incredible Tours at around 6:20. After picking up serveral other tourists from around the city, we headed out to Yosemite National Park. I was pretty tired so poor James had to put up with me sleeping on his shoulder for around 2.5 of the 3.5 hours it took us to get there. I did the same thing on the way back....

Words simply cannot describe how amazing Yosemite is, so I'm not going to try.... Here's some pictures instead!



Thankfully it was a fairly warm day so we ditched our jumpers early on and were actually cursing having worn singlets after a while. We had the most amazing time there just exploring... We had 3 hours to explore by ourselves which we thought would be heaps of time, but you really need more! We definately want to come back and spend a few days... If that's long enough!


Day 6 - Saturday April 13 and despite having slept an extra 5 hours on James shoulder yesterday, I still managed to sleep in til 9 o'clock. This honeymoon thing is agreeing with us way too well...

Today was a beautiful day - in contrast to the cool weather we have had lately, it was even warmer than it was yesterday. We eventually got ready and went down to Union Square in search of some breakfast and were wishing we hadn't worn jeans by the time we had walked about 4 blocks. After wandering for a while, we settled on Mel's Drive-In for breakfast - you may recognise the name from movies (American Graffiti etc). Sadly their pancakes didn't even live up to Denny's and their waffles had nothing on Raahib's! Still a pretty cool place though.


After doing a spot of shopping (as per usual it was James that actually found stuff he liked and I came home empty handed) we came back to the hotel, ditched the jeans for a skirt/ shorts and then went down to check out the Cherry Blossom Festival which is going on on our doorstep. We wandered around and had a look at the displays and then went and found the food. There was easily thousands of people there so we had to wait a bit for the food, but boy was it worth it! BBQ pork riblets weren't the most Japanese thing, but damn they were good! And everyone else seemed to agree too!


After a bit more wandering we managed to find SafeWay and picked up some food for our road-trip (starts tomorrow!). While we were there we picked up a 1 pint "keg" of Heineken beer. Only cost us $2.65!!! I was still in shock over the beer when we came across the Malibu - what would cost you around $32 in Australia was about $17 here!!!!!!!!!!!! Similar story with the Khalua. We came back to the hotel, drank our beer and then lazed around for the afternoon. It was nice.

Tomorrow, as mentioned, we set off on our road-trip to Las Vegas. We pick up our hire care in the morning and then head off down the coast. We are due in Vegas on Tuesday. Not sure if we will have net access til then.

Hope you're all well! Heidi and James xo