VEGAS

Hey,

Well our week at vegas has come to an end. Had heaps of fun, definitely exceeded our expectations. We stayed the first night in Arizona Charlies which was off the strip, the following day we checked into the Tropicana which is right next door to the MGM Grand, and it turned out to be a great location.

We went to a Cirque De Soleil show called 'Ka' at MGM one night which was awesome, the whole thing was set on this huge rotating, revolving stage which apparently cost 160 million dollars just for the stage. Was a really cool show.

We actually ended up winning more money then we lost which was good also, Leah turned into a professional pokie player, and i discovered that the only way to win on roulette is if your completely hammered.

We are heading towards Sedona today with a stop at Hoover Dam, after that we will spend some time at the Grand Canyon, and after that we dont know.

heres a few pics of LV.



New York, New York Casino


From our hotel


First night out

LA + JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK + VEGAS ARRIVAL

well, weve been pretty busy since last post.

From Santa Cruz, we drove south and got a hotel in Santa Barbara. Really nice town, typically very californian.
We only stayed a day there because it seemed pretty expensive and we couldnt find cheap enough accomodation.

So we decided to head straight to LA. Got another room there in Santa Monica which was awesome, right in the middle of everything, (Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier etc) We caught up with 2 friends who we were living with in Canada, that was really good.

We cruised into Hollywood to see what it was all about and it was pretty dissapointing, but kind of what we expected. Pretty old and run down but it was cool to see the stars on the walk thing and the sign.
We got some tickets to the taping of the show " The Doctors" which is shown in Oz so you might be seeing us soon. We met up with our old swedish roomates from Canada there which was awesome. The taping was pretty fun and interesting, but you wouldnt want to go to more than once. Pretty funny how fake everything is.

Anyway LA was a heap of fun, very expensive to stay if you want a decent location. We will stop in again on the way home and stay in the hostel which is way cheaper (would have done it this time but had nowhere safe to park the car). Was good to catch up with a bunch of roomates and share stories etc.

From LA we headed west on the craziest Freeway we have been on yet, 7 to 8 lanes of pure mayhem, was pretty good to make it through there.
We headed to Palm Springs for just a few hours to check it out and eat some food. It was full of old rich people and heaps of gay people which was surprising. The check for for our lunch for instance came out in a red high heel shoe!!! It was like an upmarket Noosa or something.

From there we headed towards Joshua Tree National Park which is in the Mojave Desert. We got the last campground spot in the park on a cancellation which was lucky, and The Swedes turned up with there travelling buddies so we had about 8 people on our site. It was such an rad place, hard to explain but just so different to any place ive ever seen. we got some good photos of it. There are 4 or 5 campgrounds in the park and they were all booked out, so we could only stay for one night there which sucked, we did a few hikes and went to a cactus garden, this place called skull rock.
Joshua Tree was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.

Failing to get any accomodation in JTNP, we decided to move on to Las Vegas,which is where we are now and we will be here for a week. We got lost instantly and I got directions of a Homeless Back man which turned out to be very accurate, and he only charged me $5, what a nice man. We booked one night at 'Arizona Charlies' and 5 nights at 'The Tropicana' which is on the strip. Already lost $30 on roulette but leah turned $1 into $28 on the pokies, so we
are even for the time being, haha.

Here are some photos.

View of the beach, from Santa Monica Pier.


Hollywood, walk of fame.
Venice Beach.

Palm Springs

Driving in Palm Springs


Joshua Tree National Park, Jumbo Rocks.


Pretty Jumbo i guess.


JTNP is in the Mojave Desert

Leah being dwarfed by rocks


A Joshua Tree

A bunch of Cactai. I stood on one while doing a wee. haha.


Cholla Catcus Garden

We met our swedish roomates and shared a site.


leah and joshua.

SAN FRANCISCO + YOSEMITE + SANTA CRUZ

Hi,

Well we have been prety busy lately so no time to update this thing.

We spent 5 days in San Francisco and we stayed in a nice hotel down by the Marina District which was a huge change from staying in the car and smelling each others farts. The hotel location was awesome, we walked and checked out the Golden Gate Bridge which was Massive!, then we did a tour out to Alcatraz which was really interesting. Down by the all the Piers were some intersiting street performers and other cool stuff. Checked out the San Fran Giants Baseball Game one day which was good. We both really liked San Fran, probably the nicest major city we have been to so far.

After all that, we decided to head out about 3 or 4 hours east to Yosemite National Park. We didnt really know what to expect out there, when we arrived it had snowed the previous week so there was a little bit of snow around which made the place look even better. We ended up going down into the valley on 'Earth Day' so they had all these free health/environment stores and got a free lunch and a bunch of other goodies.

The actual Park was unbelievable, i nearly drove off the road a few times because its hard to concentrate when the scenery around you is so awesome. we got a heap of photos there but they really dont do it any justice. By far the most awesome place we have seen so far. 300meter high waterfalls ,rediculous gorges which made 200ft trees look like toothpicks. Yeah, just a really aweosme place.

From there, we drove back out west to the coast, adn stopped in Santa Cruz, the weather was awesome, we were in shorts! and shirts! it was a good little town, seals everywhere. There was surf but it wasnt the best and it looked pretty cold.

Anyway, we are headed for Santa Barbara today and then a few days around L.A, but we will most probably be in Las Vegas by the end of the week. Going to spend a week out there. should be good

heres a couple of photos:

BALL GAME AT AT&T PARK


WINDIEST STREET IN THE WORLD (WE TOOK THIS ONE FOR YOU DORRY)


ALCATRAZ, HOME TO THE WORST CRIMS IN THE WORLD, CAPONE, CONNERY. ETC


FISH AND CHIPS IN THE MARINA DISTRICT


VIEW FROM OUR HOTEL

MORE PHOTOS

BRIDGE


YOSEMITE HALF DOME


YOSEMITE BIG CLIFF


BIG WATERFALL, THESE WERE EVERYWHERE

LEAH AND 'EL CAPITAN'

More Oregon pics + California Redwoods

Hey,

Well, this morning we were in Oregon and now we are in California which is state number 4 so far. We didnt really plan on driving all that much today but we ended up doing around 600km I think, i havent checked the odometer.

The plan was to cross the border and camp at one of the Redwood State Parks, but it turned out that the State parks cost about $45 a night, so we had a look at the trees, (My god..... the trees, ill get to them in a second.) and then just started driving with no aim of where we where going to end up. Most of the towns we went through today in Nth Cali were pretty poor and a bit sketchy so we just kept driving until we ended up in this little RV park somwhere south of Eureka but north of Fort Bragg. Anyway it looks like we will be in San Francisco by tomorrow.

This roadtrip is going at a pace much faster than what we anticipated but it still feels like we are taking our time and just seeing the sights until we want to move on.

Today we saw the first surfers out surfing in Sth Oregon with their full wetsuits boots and head mask things, the surf looked pretty good , i wanted to rip off a peice of tree or something and paddle out.

Also the Mighty Redwood forests just over the border in California were just stupidly big. We felt like we were in a matchbox car driving though the forest. We have some photos of them but the pictures dont really do it any justice at all. The place was just magic.

Yeah so San Fran tomorrow, we are going to stay in a hotel for a few days as the camping in this state is expensive. Going to hopefully check out a Giants baseball game, and Alcatraz and all the other stuff that San Fran is famous for.

photos......................

oh yeah we went to the biggest sea cave in the world the other day and it had 400 sea lions in it, it was cool.

surf on the Oregon Coast

This little rock break was going off, and no one out except seals.


First dude we saw surfing all the way from the Canadian Coast down..


Big ass sea cave, filled with sea lions. Smelled like John West's balls!


Leah on the beach in Oregon.


CALIFORNIA........ Some wild Elk.



The Redwoods, this isnt even the biggest one


Those crazy californians and their hydrophonics.


More tree.

Seattle and the Oregon coast

Hey,

SEATTLE: We have been and gone. We spent a few days there and it was a pretty awesome city. Definitely has some interesting people. Didnt seem to be as many homeless people as Vancouver, but we probably didnt see as much of it as Van. We checked out the Experience Music Project which is great museum, Pike Place Market was cool, Leah bought a cup of tea from the original Starbucks. Cool street performers about there.


WHERE WE ARE NOW: Well we kept heading south from Seattle the brakes on the car started getting pretty dodgy so we had to pull in and get them fixed the other day. took the whole day and cost about $550 US. Pain in the arse. Anyway kept heading south through Portland and then west to Highway 101, which is the coast road that runs right down to San Fran. Stayed in a cool State Park for a couple of nights and that brings us right up to where im writing this from. Lincoln City McDonalds, just had a big mac. and about to head south for a few more hours.

got a few pics.

Inside the Experience Music Project Museum. Best Place.



Leah outside the Music Museum.



South Seattle looking towards an NFL Stadium


Pike Place Market entrance. The 'Soul of Seattle'.


Obligitory space needle photo.



START OF OREGON: These little pricks are everywhere.


Sam and the Oregon Coast becoming one!


Harsh Coastline, so nice.

Ucluelet, Tofino and the U.S motha flippin A

Hi.

The last few days have been beautiful, frustrating, soggy, cold, fun, and relaxed. We drove about 3 hours to Ucluelet which is on the west coast of Van. Island, and it was one of the coolest little places we have been so far. The drive there from the east side was great, massive rapids and waterfalls everywhere. Pretty dangerous road though. The only problem over there was the weather, it was raining hard most of the time and about galeforce winds. We would still bet there if the weather was good.

Anyway, we decided to make our way back to the east coast and we ended up camping in the Walmart carpark (which is actually legal over here) and free. There were about 5 other campers doing the same ting.

We caught the ferry back to the mainland this morning and started heading south. We got caught at the US border in traffic for about 2 hours, then got a interogated a little bit because we didnt have a solid travel itinerary. It wasnt to bad though.

Right now we are about 15km east of Seattle in a nice camping ground on a lake. We are hitting the big smoke tomorrow. cant wait.

Some photos....

This one is the day before we left for the west coast at a town called Nanaimo.



Driftwood on the main surf beach near Tofino.



At Long Beach, 50 knot wind blowing in my face.



USA/Canada Border



Samamish Lake near Seattle. Leah making a curry. Our esky is older than us. $10 at the thrift store. works a treat.