TBC :)Our USA tour is now over and after our 6 hour flight from JFK Airport in NYC to Heathrow, me and Zena are now back in lovely Somerset!
I thought I would do a quick overview of our trip through the United States of America... After a lovley 12 hour flight from Fiji to LAX, I was
stopped by the Federalos for an hour long Passport check.. I thought my US trip was gonna be cut right down.. No problems though and we were picked up by Danni, and given a quick tour through
Santa Monica,
Beverly Hills and
Downtown LA whilst we suffered from jetlag!
After a day around Orange County, and of course a free day out to Disneyland where we went on all the main rides -
Splash Mountain,
Thunder Mountain,Â
Indiana Jones, and the Disney California Adventure
Rollercoaster we headed off on our 10 day Cali Roadtrip.. with La Rue the dog!!
Our first stop (after outlet shopping in Barstow) was
Las Vegas, and as we didn't go out until midnight we found ourselves wandering
Ceasers Palace at 3 in the morning!! The next few days were spent
downtown Vegas, and also around the
main Casinos themselves. However, we had to get out of Vegas for a while, so went and had a look at Red Rock Canyon. This was before our detour to the Grand Canyon via
Hoover Dam and a
small section of
Route 66...
The
Grand Canyon was really impressive.. if you ever get the chance, try and book ahead and do a mule ride to the bottom of the canyon. We didn't though. All we saw was the
impressive views, from
numerous viewpoints.. We headed back to Vegas, and after finding that we had no chance of a room anywhere we slept on a casino bars floor at the entrance to
Death Valley!
Death Valley was
overcast the day we went through, but you can see why it can get so hot. The
lowest point in continential USA is here.. We drove on through a Naval Bombing Range and onto the Sierra Nevada mountain Range. Home to the
Giant Sequioa National Park, it was amazing to see some huge trees and feel so insignificant.
General Sherman, the biggest tree in the world, is over 2300 years old!!
We didn't have time for Yosemite, instead we headed to
San Francisco. The
Golden Gate bridge,
Chinatown, the
Worlds bendiest street, and
Alcatraz were all on offer here. We also saw
Barry Bonds hit his 710th Homer when we saw
SF Giants vs
NY Mets.. We all love San Francisco. Its a wonderful city. After a few days here we headed back to LA via the Pacific Coast Highway...
After saying byeee to Danni and Mr La Rue, we headed to collect a
driveaway car, unfortunately our Toyota Matrix was not ready for a few days, so me and Zena went to
Hollywood and then to
Venice Beach. The next day we left LA for Route 66!!
Route 66 - I have wanted to do this for ages. I believe its iconic of the USA; small town America, cars and apple pie! 2319 miles through 8 states. We had to deliver a car from LA to Rochester NY via Chicago under a deadline - 9 days and 3000 miles!! The first night was spent getting out of LA and into
Barstow CA. Stayed in the Route 66 motel! The next day we saw hundreds of
Harley Davidsons on our way to
Flagstaff AZ. We headed through the
Petrified Forest and
Painted Desert NP, which was really picturesque as well as very old! A night in
Albuerqueque NM was followed by a look round the
Route 66 Auto Museum, and we also reached the
midpoint of our journey to Chicago.
I bought some genuine cowboy boots the next day in
Amarillo TX, closely followed by some lunch at
Arnold Burgers... mmmm!
1 1/2 lb of burger which I tried damn hard to finish! We drove onto
Clinton OK that day, and woke up early to see the
Route 66 Museum. It was great!! Most attractions along the route are free, but the two museums were $5 each.. Bargain!! Oklahoma interstates were toll roads, so we took Route 66 through some lovely towns. We stayed in
Baxter Springs KS, and in the morning headed to
Galena. It might as well be a
ghost town. Hardly anyone there, but it was a wonderful place to have a look around. Missouri wasn't that great, so it was straight through to
St Louis MO for the
international bowling Museum..
The last stretch of our trip along Route 66 was started at the
Chain of Rocks Bridge on the Mississipi River. A little bit of history, which hasn't been in use for over 40 years! It was a nice straight road ahead all the way to our Pit Stop, and the
end of Route 66 in
Chicago.. We stayed in a hostel in Lincoln Park, and spent the day there on the El,
sighseeing and some
shopping!! Leaving early the next day was our 500 mile dash through Detroit, Canada and on to the
Niagara Falls. This tourist trap was pretty
spectacular, its actually
three waterfalls. The most famous being
Horseshoe Falls. However we couldn't spend all day here, and we drove onto Rochester NY to return the car to its rightful owner! :)
After an eventful night in the Greyhound Bus Terminal, we caught an all nighter to NYC. Our hostel is on 23rd Street, which is in the Chelsea area of Manhatten Island.
Sunday was my 33rd birthday, and I did find out the day before that everything was going to be closed, so with our hangover we went to the beach for the day.It rose to 35°C during the day, and we had to go and relax in the shade for the rest of the day.. I also discovered Brioche with icecream.. basically an icecream in a bun! tasty… That night we went out for a lovely meal at a new restaurant that had only just opened.
Me and Becks finally managed to get away for our first ever holiday together and we chose Sicily.
Taormina is Sicilys tourist town. As many Sicilians wanted to tell us, “You won’t see the true Sicily in Taormina” .. maybe, buts it a wonderful place with an ancient Greek Theatre, and it has great views! Anyway, we arrived at the train station and decided to go walk along the beach to find the way up to Taormina, as its situated on a hill… it wasnt until we had walked about 4km that we realised we had gone the wrong way, and at this point we got the bus to the town!!
