Stuoobs' Travels, Rants and Ramblings

Whistler so far.....

2010-02-12T04:22:00.016Z

We arrived in Whistler on the 1st December and it will be our home until the end April. During our RV trip, we had been keeping an eye on the weather and we were delighted to see that November was the snowiest month on record, where over 5 meters of the white stuff fell. This meant that the season was going to be one of the best yet for snow!!!! We are now only 1/2 way through the season and we have already had over 10 metres, which is more that the average.

The house we are staying in we are sharing with 5 - 6 people and it comes with all the mod cons with the best thing about it being that it's only 5 mins walk from the slopes. Perfect.

Whistler is very different from the resorts you find in Europe. There are 2 huge mountains here, Whistler and Blackcomb, with a purpose built village at the base. The difference is that the village has a much more familiar feel about it. I know that sounds so English, but if you are here for 5 months, it's nice to be able to grab a Starbucks, a McDonalds or a Domino's Pizza when you feel the urge.

There is a huge bar scene here too, which again is different from Tignes. In France the bars are small and you are able to strike a rapport with the owners and bar staff, but the bars here are the same size as you'd expect to get in Manchester or London. It does mean, however, that there are some great parties and some electric atmospheres!

But we have come mainly for the snowboarding, which has been excellent so far. One thing that is huge here is the HeliSkiing and Cat Skiing. This is where you get taken to a different mountain where there is no resort or ski lift and the company you use either takes you up the mountain in a helicopter or a Snow Cat. This means you get fresh, untracked powder all day long, and because there were only 12 of us on the mountain on the day we did it, we managed to get 9 beautiful runs in! There was a dump of snow the previous night which meant we were riding on 30cms of fresh powder. Overall, one of the best day's boarding I have ever had.

There are 1000's of Australians here in Whistler, which meant Ozzie day here is one of the highlights of the drinking calender. The place to be on this day is Longhorns Saloon, located at the base of Whistler mountain. Ozzies are queuing up from 8am, and are mostly drunk. Andy, Pezza, Paulie and Karen had scheduled their trip to see Cazzie and I so that it coincided with Ozzie day. All dressed up, we arrived at Longhorns at 1.30pm and walked into the expected carnage. Everyone was in full Ozzie gear, totally smashed and dancing to the plagiaristic Men at Work, John Farnham and Midnight Oil. All the pics from when the guys where here are here.

Another great tradition here is Superbowl Sunday, which means sitting in Tapleys Sports Bar and getting very, very drunk. During this sporting spectacular, I invented "shot pot", which involved putting $20 each into a pint glass and every time there is a touchdown, the waitress brings over shots for us all of her choice and takes the cash out of the pot. Genius. The pics are all here.

The Winter Olympic circus has rolled into town now which last for 2 weeks. Whistler is a host city for the Vancouver 2010 games, with events such as the downhill (the main event), bobsleigh, ski jumping and alpine skiing taking place here. The village has been transformed by the media with huge TV screens, broadcasting booths and music stages. There are performances every afternoon and evening with acts such as Usher, Estelle and The All American Rejects playing. It's going to be a great place to be for the next 2 weeks and there is a terrific buzz about the place.

Overall, this is a great ski resort. The snow was better in Tignes last season, but Whistler has the whole package if you include the restaurants, bars, shops and nightlife.

As I write this, there is a fresh storm cycle starting, which means we should be waking upto 25cms of fresh powder!!

Stuoobs

xxx

A brief RV summary

2010-01-06T02:11:00.011Z

Almost stealing Andy's idea, here are the facts and figures from our 2 month trip.

Miles covered - 6,374
Cost of RV for 56 days - £4848
Cost of Petrol - £1400
Pence per mile based on petrol costs - £0.22

Parks stayed at - 23
Number of nights - 45
Total cost of parks - £1138.40
Ave park cost - £25.30
Most expensive park - Candlestick RV park, San Francisco - £53.12
Cheapest park - Dicks RV park, Great Falls, Montana - £16.16

Hotels stayed at - 4
Number of nights in hotel -10
Cost of hotels - £959.44
Ave cost of hotel per night - £95.94

Cost of bikes - £419.55
Number of miles covered on bikes - 20 ish!
Pence per mile - £20.97

Cost of ferry round trip - £155.35

Total cost of trip - £8921.22
Pence per mile based on total costs = £1.40

Number of Provences in Canada visited - 2
Number of States in America visited - 8
Number of national parks - 8
Largest park - Death Valley
Oldest park - Yellowstone

Highest point - Crater Lake, Oregon - 2487 metres / 8159 feet
Lowest point - Death Valley, Nevada - -85.5 metres / -282 feet below sea level

Biggest city - Los Angeles
Most drunk place - San Diego
Worst hangover - San Diego

Money hemorrhaged at Las Vegas gambling tables - £ not telling
Total cost of free drinks in Las Vegas while hemorrhaging money - £300 ish

I have put together a video slideshow of all the highlights here I hope you enjoy!

Love

Stuoobs

xxx

Seattle - the final destination

2009-12-27T23:33:00.020Z

Neither of us could believe that we had already arrived at our last stop on this trip and that it had come round so quickly. We arrived in Seattle on Black Friday - the biggest sales day of the year in the states. There were no RV parks within 20 miles of Seattle, so we needed to book ourselves into a hotel for the next 3 days. The usually reliable Sat Nav decided that it would be a good idea to take us right through the main shopping area, with millions of shoppers and hundreds of cars! This was probably the most nervous I have been driving the van and I was pretty sure I'd either smash into something or run someone over, but we managed to negotiate the traffic and arrived at our hotel in one piece.

On the agenda for the first night was to go and see the Seattle Space Needle before heading into Belltown for a feed and some beers. I have seen the Space Needle before but it looked really good at night.

As it was night time, we decided to take the ride to the top the day after. Next to the Needle there was a Winter Wonderland exhibition on that had all sorts of Christmassy stuff inside as well as a bunch of dancers on the stage which really got us in the Christmas spirit, even though we hadn't seen any decorations yet!

After food and drinks we called it a night. Saturday was going to be very packed. We walked to Pike Public Market, which has loads of little stalls selling stuff ranging from T-Shirts to fridge magnets to huckleberry jam to fresh fish and meat. The place was buzzing and it must be so satisfying to get all your fresh fruit, veg and meat for your lunch or dinner. There is a fish stall here that every time they get an order for a large fish, the fish gets thrown around like a rugby ball from one side of the stall to the other. It's really fun to watch and attracts a large crowd. The only place that rivals this is the market in Barcelona. One thing that is very cool about Pike Market is that it's the location of the first ever Starbucks. The queue inside was massive, so we didn't bother getting a coffee here, but it was quite cool to see it!! We also decided that we could get a coffee at one of the other billion Starbucks in the city.

After here we headed to Pioneer Square, located in the downtown district, to go and see the Mariners American football stadium, which is now shared with the Seattle Sounders football team. As we pitched up , we were in time to take the tour of the stadium, which was amazing. We were taken round the whole place ranging from the changing rooms, to the corporate entertaining area and even pitchside. To see how this stadium compares to the ones back in England was really good and shows that the Americans really know how to build their sports grounds.

Final part of the day was to go up the Space Needle. which gave us great views of the city. The plan for the evening was to hit the bars in downtown, where we ended up in Fago's Irish bar! I had been here before a few years ago and the place was as good as ever, including the live band that was the same one as I had seen here before. We got chatting to a Sol Campbell and Michael Clarke Duncan lookalike (John Coffey from the Green Mile) and ended up doing a few Lemon Drop shots with them.

A cracking night had by all. We stayed there until we got kicked out and jumped a taxi back to the hotel, where we both wanted a late night snack. Right by our hotel was a place called the
Hurricane Cafe. This place is open 24 hours and there were about 100 people in there. It's probably because we were both drunk, but the food we ordered tasted soooo good!!!

Sunday rolled around and we had planned to spend the day watching American footy in the local sports bar, which is exactly what we did, and after quite a few beers, another few bars we called it quits and headed back to the hotel.

Seattle is a great place that has everything. A lively nightlife, suburb restaurants, great shopping and a fantastic market as well. It's somewhere most Britons will never go as it's not touristy, but it's one of my favorite places and a perfect way to finish a perfect trip.

All the pics are here.

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Thanksgiving in Portland

2009-12-20T06:59:00.007Z

Portland was our penultimate stop on our travels and we were due to be there on Thanksgiving, which we were both really looking forward to. As you will know, Thanksgiving is one of the major holidays in America and we wanted to get into the spirit of things so we booked ourselves into a plush restaurant for the occasion.

We still had 2 days to go before the big day, so after checking into the RV park, we took the bus into the city centre for a wander and some beers and found ourselves at a bar called Rock Bottom Brewery. Portland is famous for brewing its own beer and most of the bars here have what are known as "microbrewerys", so we picked from the several in house beers available and I must say, they were pretty good. Much more flavoursome than the mass produced Budweisers or Heinekens that we are used to. After a few of these, we moved on to a few other cool bars before calling it a night.

You may be aware that the state of Oregon has no sales tax, which can be as high as 11.25% in some states. This makes Portland a shopper's paradise and we decided to take full advantage so headed to the outlet mall on the edge of town. This was a tad disappointing as it was very similar to the outlet malls in the UK. We cut our losses here and headed to the premium shopping centre in town. This place had the more upto date styles and both Cazzie and I found a few tax free bargains in the Abercrombie and Fitch shop, so we left with happy faces!

The shopping trip took most of the day, so we retired to the van for the rest of the night.

The next day was Thanksgiving, we were unsure if any bars or shops would be open during the day, so it was a late start as we only got into town for 3pm. We managed to find a hotel bar that was open and sunk a few beers before it was time for out dinner at the Portland City Grill. This place came highly recommended as one of the best places to eat with fantastic panoramic view of the city from the 38th floor location. I don't have any pictures to post here as we were blessed with fog and rain so the views were non existent!

The meal itself was really good. I ordered the traditional turkey dinner and Cazzie opted for the rack of lamb. Add a starter each, 2 deserts and 2 bottles of wine we were expecting a large bill, but once again as there was no sales tax, we ate for $140 or £85, which we were both delighted with.

It was time to visit another one of Portland bars and we managed to find one that had some live music. The gins here were very cheap and flowing very freely. All in all a terrific way to spend thanksgiving.

Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of Portland so I am unable to post any here, which is a shame as Portland is a great place. I think we missed out on a lot of the things to do here as it was Thanksgiving, but we both enjoyed the place nevertheless.

Love

Stuoobs

xxx

What to do on the way to Portland?

2009-12-14T06:14:00.018Z

The drive from Napa Valley to Portland was going to take over 8 hours and not something we wanted to do, so we spent a lot of time trying to find something to do in between. We thumbed through the Lonely Planet guide, searched the Internet and even asked around, and no one could come up with anything half decent to do. As a last resort we unfolded the paper map (yes they still exist) and scoured the area and spotted Crater Lake, a mountain area located about 3 hours South West of Portland. A bit of Google-ing later we decided to give it a go and we are so glad we did.

The park was the best we stayed in. It was run by a retired couple that are ex rv-ers who wanted to build and run a park that they would want to stay in. It was in a terrific location right in the alpine forest, it had super fast and free Internet, steaming hot showers that were spotless, the bathroom it's self was very warm, the site was huge that we allocated to park in and to top it all off, it was one of the cheapest we had stayed at.

As it was late when we arrived, I paid the following morning and went to find Jim, the owner. We chatted for over 25 mins about what to do , what to see and where to eat, so Cazzie and I tidied up and headed off to go and see the waterfalls, lakes and raging rivers.

The main river that flows through this area is called the Rouge River. This flows fast enough to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools every minute and is a whitewater rafters idea of heaven.

The river has created holes in the softer rock and in some parts disappears underground before reappearing a few meters later. This tunnels are called Lava tubes and were very cool to see in action.

After a bit of a walk up and down the river, we headed to Becky's Cafe and as we walked in we saw a huge sign advertising their "Famous Homemade Huckleberry Pie". Huckleberries grow in mid-alpine regions, often on the lower slopes of mountains, so we were in the perfect location. We ate our sandwiches and couldn't wait for our pie and I'm pleased to say it was fantastic. So flavoursome, so juicy, so sweet and so bitter, all at the same time. Almost worth the trip on it's own.

So it was now time to head to Crater Lake, a place we didn't know much about. It's the deepest freshwater lake in North America (1,949 ft deep) and sits in the remains of a blown out volcano, now known as Mount Mazama. As we drove the van further and further up the mountain, the snow got deeper and deeper until it was over 4 foot high, which took us both by surprise.

We parked the van and walked towards the lake which is where we hit the waist deep snow!

After a very tough walk in this snow, we found ourselves in full view of Crater Lake, which was surrounded by snowy covered mountains, over looked by clear blue skies and littered with evergreen trees. A truly stunning sight.

We spent over an hour here wandering around and taking lots of pictures, that can all be seen here.

Crater Lake is not one of the famous tourist hot spots in the States and I'm sure not many people have heard of it, let alone go, which is a real shame. There is lots to see and lots to do here and the decision to come here was totally the right one.

Love

Stuoobs

xxx

Napa v Kelowna

2009-12-09T05:30:00.010Z

Napa Valley was always on the list of places to go as we were both very keen to carry out some wine tasting in the most famous wine making area in the world. Of course we had already been to Kelowna (blog here), and even our tour guide for the day in Kelowna told us that we must do Napa.

We checked into the RV park and wandered into town to see what Napa village was like, and I was pretty convinced that an area famous for wine making would have lots of bars. This was sadly not the case. The place only has 2 pubs, a few restaurants and a lot of retail shops, so you can imagine our disappointment. So after a coffee and some really good garlic butter fries, we called it quits and headed back to the van for the night.

Saturday was our wine tasting day and we have booked ourselves on a limo tour of the area. The price was $99 USD compared to $89 CAD, so more expensive. We also were shocked to find out that we would have to pay for our wine tasting at each vineyard, whereas the the Kelowna tasting were complimentary. You do, however, get your fee knocked off any wine purchase you make.

The limo arrived and had another couple in there, who were on their 1st wedding anniversary. John, the husband, had surprised Cindy with the trip, but the odd thing was that Cindy doesn't really drink and has never had a hangover, so Cazzie and I both thought this was very strange. We did get on very well throughout the day and had a real laugh!

The first vineyard was the biggest of the day but was also a modern art gallery. I wasn't here for art - I was here to drink. We got our tour of the place, allowed to taste some grapes off the vine and saw the bottling area. We were then invited to view some the of modern art, which did not interest us at all, so we headed for the tasting part. This is where I sampled the beauty of decanting wine again. The server poured one glass of wine straight from the bottle and the same wine was served through a hand held decanter. The difference is so noticeable and re-enforced the fact that you MUST decant your red wine, no matter how cheap or expensive. I now have a use for the 3 decanters at home.

I also learnt here that there are several different types of soil in Napa and these areas are called appellations. The terrain can range from rich soil to hard volcanic rock and which type of soil depends on which variety of grape can be grown. There are also huge differences in temperature from the bottom of the valley to the top of the mountains. The fog that comes in from the Pacific helps keep the temperatures lower in the summer, which aids the growing of the vines. With this being the case, our next vineyard only grew Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, which is where we stopped for lunch.

The final vineyard of the day was Mumm Napa, a place that makes sparkling wine and was easily the busiest place we stopped at. It was a different type of tasting as the 4 of us were asked to take a seat and the waitress brought 6 samples of sparking wine, including one made from Pinot Noir grapes, which just didn't taste right. Whether it was all in my mind that red wine shouldn't be fizzy or cold, but I just couldn't come to terms with it. The place was lovely though and Cazzie seemed to like it!!

That final place of the day was an olive oil tasting place which had about 50 different types of olive oil to taste. I particularly enjoyed the lemon and habanero ones!

Of course I am going to compare the day in Napa against the day in Kelowna and when I take everything into consideration, Kelowna gets my vote. The vineyards are nicer, the people are friendlier and the tastings are free. My pallet is not sophisticated enough to judge which wines are better, which I suppose is the only thing that really matters, but if I were to choose between the two, Kelowna would get my vote. The nightlife in Kelowna is much better too!

The Napa photos are here.

Stuoobs

xxx

Jails, bike rides and Irish bars in San Fran

2009-12-03T23:28:00.014Z

I have been to San Francisco twice before, both as a stop off to see the Fodens and both times ending up drunk in Lefty O'Douls, the best piano bar in town.

The RV park was a little bit out of town but right by the 49-ers ground. It was our most expensive park to date and had the worst service. The Chinese people that owned the place just seemed not to care. But the park was clean and showers were good so we weren't really that bothered.

Day one's agenda was to start with breakfast at Mama's, a place that we tried to get into last time I was here but the queue was so long, we decided to leave it. The place came highly recommended in the lonely planet guide, so we were both quite excited. The meal was ok, but not really worth the hype.

It did, however, set us up nicely for our trip to Alcatraz, something that I have always wanted to do. We boarded the ferry for the 12 minute ride to the prison and began the self guided audio tour of the place. I knew this was going to be a bit of a weird place to visit and we were going to hear some stories, especially as the sign on the wall red "Break the rules you go to prison,
break the prison rules you go to Alcatraz". I have never been in a prison but you see them portrayed in films and on tv, but the reality is much worse here. Everyone jokes about the showers, but this was no joke!

This was a huge 24 man shower in the middle of a room with benches around the side so the prison wardens could keep a close watch on all the inmates. For effect, there were bars of soap placed in the holders! (insert own joke here!).

The tour then took us to the recreation area. Rec time was given as reward to the well behaved inmates, but the worst thing about it must have been the beautiful view of San Francisco staring back at them, while they were stuck in one of the toughest prisons in the USA.

Back inside we learnt all about 2 of the escapes that took place, one resulting in a prison riot where 3 inmates were killed and one prison officer. The breakout plan consisted of one guy starving himself so thin that he could squeeze between the library bars, overpower an officer, prise open the bars to the gun gallery using a home made vice, overpower the warden with a gun and break out. This plan worked right up until the key that was needed to open the door was missing, giving time for the alarm to be set off, starting the riot, which lasted for 3 days. The marines were called in and threw grenades into the area that the prisoners were barricaded in. You can still see the holes in the floor and walls from where they exploded.

One other escape consisted of 3 prisoners making fake heads out of soap, hair and dirt to trick the wardens into thinking they were still in bed. They had, over several months, been slowly scraping away at the concrete vent in their cell to make it wide enough to get a man through, escape into the air vents and get out.

Overall 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice. 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and three were lost at sea and never found.

It took us about 2 hours to complete this tour and it was one of the best parts of the trip.

We had worked up a thirst, so headed to Union Square, found ourselves an Irish bar and set about getting smashed. Luckily for us, there were loads of businessmen in town on a conference who were kind enough to buy most of our drink on their company credit cards!! Great night had by all.

Day 2 we were planning on cycling across the Golden Gate bridge, so it was off to the bike rental shop where we decided to hire a tandem for the day. I thought this would only end in tears but I'm please to say that it was a great success, even though we did feel like real idiots!

After a few beers on Pier 39, we headed to another Irish bar, which had live music on. The plan was for a couple of drinks and then back to the van, but we ended up drinking after hours with the band, the owner and the staff. Another top night.

All the highlights are here.

Stuoobs

xxx

Yosemite National Park

2009-12-01T05:44:00.011Z

Yosemite was the 7th National Park that we had adventured into during our trip and it's probably the most well known. We arrived at the RV park very late on, so after a good night's sleep we were ready to drive the short journey to the park.

This national park was again very different from the rest. We started off by seeing one of the huge water falls that are scattered in the park, although sadly most of them have slowed to a trickle due to the time of year. From the pictures on the information board you can see that when the snow melts in the spring, this trickle turns into a major blast. Our journey continued through the park, and after our now customary encounter with some wild deer, we reached our second waterfall.

It was time for lunch, during which Cazzie opening the mayo and it exploded all over her! So we cleaned her up and headed further into the park towards Mirror Lake. We were keen to see if Mirror Lake was going to be anything like Lake Louise, so we parked up, untied the bikes and rode off. It wasn't as impressive mainly due to the lake being somewhat lower than usual, but the views were great.

On the drive out of the park we stopped to see the rivers which were littered with huge boulders that have fallen from mountains or been moved by the glaciers that once existed here. One thing that makes this park different from the rest is that a lot of the rock here is pure granite.

That was it for us in the park for day one and we were not looking forward to going back to the RV park to shower, as they were the worst showers to date. We drove past a hotel on the way back, so we stopped in and asked if we could hire a room for an hour. After few funny looks and a couple of questions, they finally agreed to let us have a suite for $15!!! Winner winner.

Day 2 started early again as we wanted to get the rest of the park covered before we headed to our next destination. It started at another waterfall, where I discovered I had a great knack for rock climbing!

I managed to make my own way down which allowed us to go to Tunnel View, which is not a view of a tunnel as you may think, but the best view in Yosemite Valley.

From here you can see Half Dome, El Capitan, Sentinel Rock and Mt Stuoobs.

From here we drove to Tuolumne Grove to see the Sequoia Trees which are the biggest and oldest trees in the world. They can grow over 60 meters and some of them are over 1,800 years old. We followed the self guided walking trail into the grove which allowed us to see these beasts. Unfortunately we were not able to touch them as they have been sectioned off because too many people were hugging the trees. This meant the ground around the trees was getting damaged and harming the tree. The sign that explained why, stated "too much loved started to kill these trees"!

Yosemite was once again a brilliant park, totally different and we were so glad we took the time to go and visit.

Pictures are here.

Stuoobs

xxx

The Big Sur

2009-11-26T01:57:00.012Z

Our travels now took us to meet up with an old work buddy, Robbie Burns, his wife Carol and their new addition, Andrew. Robbie moved to Ventura about 2 years ago, which is where Carol lives. Ventura is about 1 hour north of LA, right on the coast. It's a lovely place with great beaches, buzzing downtown and historic landmarks. The only problem with Ventura perhaps is that it's over looked by mountains that are covered in trees thast in the summer and autumn can catch fire very easily and threaten the town. The mountain views, however, make it a very beautiful place to live.

Robbie and Carol were very kind and offered us their spare bed for the night with the added treat of the Deva shower he has installed. We jumped at the chance! After a few beers we headed out into Ventura for a lovely meal and a great catch up,before a couple more beers in the local Irish bar. Carol, who wasn't drinking, drove us around Ventura and up into the mountains so we could see the night time view of the city. Cazzie and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay with the Burns' and want to say another big thank you to them both!

The next day we headed north to Santa Barbara, a quaint little town on the coast. We jumped on board another trolley tour that took us around the city to places such as the downtown, the mission (old Spanish Franciscans religious site) and the houses of the rich and famous including Oprah Winfrey. This took about 2 hours so we got out our bikes and rode round some of the cycle routes before calling it quits and heading further north to our RV park in Morro Bay for the night.

We were up bright and early the next day to start our trip up the Highway 1 taking in some sights along the way, which began in Morro Bay with a classic car show and a volcanic rock sticking out the ocean.

After a few stops in a couple of little towns, where we saw a house made totally out of recycled rubbish called Nit Wit, we arrived at Hearst Castle. This place is the home of a former publicist that inherited it from his parents when he was 57 and decided to expand the family home into what I can only describe as an olden day Playboy Mansion. This place has everything including 2 huge swimming pools, vineyards, orchards, a wildlife sanctuary with bears, giraffes and zebras, 56 bedrooms, 61 restrooms, 41 fireplaces, 19 living rooms and a dining room. The castle was damn impressive! The location of this mansion was in the hills and based around the natural springs that are here, which still supply the water to the pools today.

This place is so exclusive that the week previous Brooke Shields held a small party on a veranda there for 4 hours at a cost of $20,000. We spent about 2 hours on the guided tour before jumping back in the van and heading towards the Big Sur campsite for the night.

I had never heard of the Big Sur, but is an area on the coast of California that you drive through taking Highway 1, which runs parallel to its more famous brother, the 101. It's a long and winding road that hugs the Pacific Ocean. Most of you will have seen this road as it's where a lot of car adverts are filmed. This was a great time of year to to this drive as in the Spring and Summer it gets clouded with fog. The views were terrific.

We continued our drive up the Big Sur until we reached the 17 mile drive. This is a scenic road through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach along the Pacific Coastline. Is made up of huge houses and mansions and a number of top end golf courses, including Pebble Beach Golf course. This was the last point on the drive and I can only imagine how good it must be to play here - and expensive.

We did feel very out of place in our hiking boots and scruffy t-shirts, but we didn't care. The drive was a real highlight for us as it takes in 20 or so different points of interest with some spectacular views.

This drive took us 2 days but we could have taken 3 or 4 it was that good.

All the highlight are here!

Stuoobs

xxx

Los Angeles - a place worth visiting?

2009-11-25T03:40:00.001Z

My Mum and Dad, Andy and Karen and Cazzie have all told me that they would not go back to LA and that it's not such a great place to visit. I'll be honest with you, I thought they were crazy. 4 million people live in the city itself and nearly 13 million in the surrounding areas, and they all must love it there. And you know that the rich list all have their mansions here including Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Anthony Hopkins, John Travolta - the list is endless. And it's the capital of the entertainment business. So it's got to be an amazing place.

With this in mind I was sure that I was going to succeed where my parents, bro and girlfriend had failed.

We were staying in Long Beach, which was the nearest RV park to the city itself and I thought it would be pretty close. Our survey says - neeh neeeer! It took 15 mins to walk to the nearest metro station and 45 mins to get to the centre. It only costs $5 for a whole day's travel though. The first day we headed to Hollywood to see the famous Hollywood Boulevard. The metro took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there, and we began our walk to see the stars on the sidewalk. I thought that every star that had their name there had their handprints there too. Our survey says - neeh neeeer! It's just the names of everyone you have ever heard of and some you haven't. We actually walked right past the place where the handprints are and into a coffee shop, where we saw a Micheal Jackson impersonator having a coffee! Very odd indeed. Anyway, after our latte, we stumbled across the place with the handprints, just outside Mann's Chinese Theater.

Hanging around these handprints were loads of people dressed up as famous icons, including the coffee drinking MJ. These are all failed wannabe actors who now earn their money by pouncing upon poor tourists for photos and then demanding money. I got caught by someone who I didn't have a clue who they were trying to be. Any suggestions?

Competition is so fierce that we heard that Spiderman got a bit too aggressive with a non paying tourist. Trouble is, there were 3 working that day and they didn't know which one was the offender, so all had to go!

In the afternoon we visited Beverly Hills mainly to walk up Rodeo Drive to see where all the beautiful people spend their money and to see the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (the one from Pretty Woman). Of course we all know this is where the uber rich and famous live and hang out but it's also the location of the worst toilet Cazzie has every been it and refused to perform. Day was coming to an end so we called it quits.

Day 2 we were heading to Universal Studios. This was a great day as there was hardly anyone in the park and there were no queues for the rides. In fact we were the only ones on the Mummy Ride! The park was good, but not quite upto the standards of the one in Orlando but it did have a lot of similar rides - I even managed to get on the Simpson's ride without feeling sick! We did however, get to do a movie studio tour to see where films past and present have been filmed, which was a lot of fun,and we met Shreck as well!

Day 3 we were going to Downtown LA to see what we could find. This I think was the most disappointing day out of the 3, as there in nothing to do here. Not a lot of bars, restaurants or shops were jumping out at us. It seemed to be a lot of businesses and a couple of music halls. That's it.

We jumped the metro back to Long Beach and spent the afternoon in the pool / jacuzzi before heading out to have a meal and a few drinks in Long Beach.

The drive out of LA included a stop at Venice Beach. This is a very hippy place with lots of stalls for artists, weed sellers, rug makers and clothing along with a skate park. Along the beach front there is no commercial shops allowed ie McDonalds. It gives it quite a nice feel. There is Muscle Beach here to, with an outside gym right on the main sidewalk where all the dudes workout in just their speedos.

Cazzie and I walked up and down the main sidewalk, sniggering to ourselves at the people there before calling it a day.

So I did LA and left with the same opinion as everyone else has. I'm glad I've been, you can do it all in 2 days but it's not worth making a special trip by any means.

Or, I missed what LA's all about too.

Pictures are here.

Stuoobs

xxx

Running for sunsets in San Diego

2009-11-24T18:37:00.001Z

San Diego was the most Southerly point of our trip and one place both of us were excited to visit. We had heard so many good things and were keen to sample them for ourselves.

We arrived late in the evening from Palm Springs, but managed to catch the Visitors Centre before it shut to grab the customary 1000’s of leaflets and brochures to help us plan what to do while here. The planning took up most of the evening but we had a very full schedule ahead of us.

The first day we headed to the world famous San Diego Zoo. This place has 1000’s of animals ranging from monkeys and elephants to jaguars and pandas. We took the shuttle bus round the zoo which took about 30 mins before making our own way on foot to get a closer look. Now having seen quite a lot of wildlife in the various National Parks we have been to, it has sort of taken the edge off seeing these various creatures locked up in cages without the freedom to roam. Don’t get me wrong, the zoo caters for them to a very high standard, but it’s just not the same. I didn’t really get the “WOW” factor feeling seeing a Tiger or a Polar Bear here as I did seeing the whales or the bison in the parks. But, having said that, we did really enjoy the day we spent here and it’s certainly a place to go if you are in SD. Here’s my favourite picture from the zoo – the Meerkats.

One thing you must to in SD is see the sunset over the Pacific – it is supposed to be amazing. We got back to the RV park, showered and headed out towards Mission Beach, which was a 10 min bus ride away. We knew that we had to be at the beach at 4.47pm as that’s what time the sunset, but were we up against it as the bus was running 5 mins late. As we reached our stop, we ran off the bus and towards the beach. People were pointing and laughing as I was running with my camera in my hand ready to capture to moment. As we got there the sun had set behind a band of clouds on the horizon, so the sunset wasn’t that great!

That night we spent down in Mission Blv, right by the beach, where there are lots of bars and places to eat. It is the more relaxed part of SD as it’s the drinking choice for the surfers and beach bums. I can highly recommend it. Cazzie and I got thoroughly “on it” and this was easily the most drunk night of the trip so far.

You will not be surprised to hear that the next morning was the worst hangover of the trip so far and we didn’t make it out of the van until 1 o’clock, when we headed to the Old Town to start a trolley tour. We have done several of these in various cities and it’s the best way to see a city as they let you hop on and hop off so you can explore the places you want to. As we were so hungover though, we just sat on the trolley bus for 2 hours and listened to what our driver / tour guide had to say, before getting off in Little Italy for a much needed slice of pizza. The best part of this tour was at the start – Old Town. Now, who knew that California used to be part of Mexico before the US government bought it off the Mexicans? Old town is where the first Mexican people settled and most if it remains there today. It’s a buzzing little place full of little old Mexican ladies making fresh tacos and burritos in a plaza full of old style restaurants with live music and dancing in the middle. Further into the town there were bands, shops and an old market. I only wish we were in a better state to fully appreciate it!

After our slice of pizza, we started to feel much better and headed to the Gaslamp Quarter, where all the trendy bars and restaurants are. We were recommended to eat at Fred’s, a very good Mexican place. So after a couple of Margaritas (which is rapidly becoming one of my fav drinks) we ate at Fred’s where we had tacos and pulled pork burritos! Wonderful. After a few more beers in a few more bars, we were done and ready for bed. Like many other US cities, there was a late night ice cream place open, so we decided to pop in there and get a quick treat. This quick treat took over 30 mins to get 2 scoops and I still have no idea why. It was organised chaos.

Our 3rd day we had planned to stop off in La Jolla, which is a district just north of SD. This is a great place right by the sea, with loads of boutiques, cafes and bars. It’s also a great surfing spot. We wandered up and down the beach area and around the town before choosing our spot on the rocks to see the sunset.

I feel as we missed out on seeing all of SD due to our hangover, but from what we saw of it, it’s a terrific place and I’m glad we’ve crossed it off the list.

The Zoo highlights are here and SD highlights are here.

Stuoobs

xxx

An Oasis in the desert

2009-11-23T03:44:00.001Z

Palm Springs was yet again one of those places I had heard about, but didn’t know much about. I did know that it was a very wealthy area with lots of hillside mansions and fancy bars / restaurants.

We arrived quite late so checked into the RV park, where I got harassed by a drunk German who thought I was Austrian. Quick shower and after a short 10 mins walk, we were in Downtown. Downtown is a generic term for where all the bars and restaurants are in any American city and it is always signposted. This makes getting a drink very easy. We had a few beers and ended up in a nice, little Italian place before walking back to the van.

The next day I needed a haircut, as my clippers that I brought with me don’t work over here. We hopped on our bikes, I went to the barbers and Cazzie rode to the visitors centre. I was about 15 mins and called Cazzie to see where she was to find out she was about 1/2 way to the centre and totally knackered as it was 5 miles away, uphill and very hot! I got back on my bike and eventually met her there, where we got some leaflets and planned the rest of our day.

Palm Springs gets it’s name from the 1000’s of palm trees that grow by the natural springs that occur here. Make sense I guess! The best place to see these is called Indian Canyon. It’s almost hard to believe that something so green and picturesque can exist in the desert, but all it needs is a little bit of water and hey presto.

We visited Andreas Canyon first and we were stunned!

It really took us by surprise and we took the suggested 2 mile walk to see it all. Words like “wow” and “incredible” were used a lot here!

The second part of this canyon was called Palm Canyon, which was a lot of the same and equally impressive.

It was now time to take the world’s largest rotating aerial tramway to the top of the mountain! This provided us with great views of Palm Springs and surrounding mountains, but due to the smog, it wasn’t too clear. We did manage to see more wildlife at the top – a racoon and it’s 2 pups!

On the drive back down, we got some great pictures of the sky just after sunset – it looked like it was on fire.

That evening we ate in the van and headed out for a few beers and an ice cream!

Palm Springs is a location for the San Andrea Fault line. Most of you will have heard of this as it’s from Superman. Its the fault line that Lex Luthor blows up with a missile and most of California drops in to the sea. For this reason I wanted to go see it, stand across it and get my picture taken there. Just imagine the look on the visitor centre chap’s face when I asked if I could do that. He thought I was a total moron when I asked where the fault line was, only to point out that it 1000’s of kms long, 10’s kms wide and I was standing right in it. I must have looked so disappointed. So Cazzie took my picture by the sign and we went on our merry way.

Palm Springs is a very cool place indeed with lots to do. Perfect weather, a great downtown, lots of shops and golf courses. The only downfall is you are right on a fault line so you are susceptible to a huge earthquake or two. but we both thoroughly enjoyed our time here.

Highlights are here!

Stuoobs

Deep in Death Valley

2009-11-19T19:08:00.002Z

After a 2 1/2 hour drive from Vegas, we eventually arrived at our RV park in Death Valley. I always envisaged Death Valley to be an expanse of sand with a few mountains in-between. In fact it was not sandy but full of rubble and rocks with lots of mountains in-between. The place was baron and dusty with not much life at all. The hottest recorded temp was 134 degrees F / 56.7 degrees C. The chap who recorded it said he saw swallows dropping dead from the sky.

The RV park was part of a hotel complex, so it was quite nice with a couple of restaurants, a shop, a bar, swimming pool and tennis courts. It was also very busy as it was not only the start of their season but it coincided with the annual 49-ers event. The 49-ers are a group of about 5000 people who pitch up every year to hike, explore and hold parties in Death Valley, and throughout the year they are tasked with spreading the world about D.V. and it’s beauty. There were a couple of gathering in the park while we were there that looked a lot of fun with BBQs on the go, beers flowing and fires burning.

The next day we headed out towards Ubehebe Crater, which was formed when hot magma rose to the surface, turning the groundwater into super hot steam which in turn blew a massive crater in the surface of the ground.

This is 3 pictures merged together as it’s so big!

After a bit of a hike here, we headed up to Scotty’s Castle, the only mansion here. It was built by a chap whose doctor told him that the only way to help his illness was to spend a lot of time in a very warm climate – so he chose D.V! This mansion had to be self sufficient, so it was built near one of the few springs here to provide water and hydro-electricity and it had it’s own massive swimming pool! The odd thing is that it wasn't Scotty who built it. Scotty was a guy who became good friends with the owner after trying to swindle money out of him! Scotty is buried in the grounds.

The final port of call for today was the ghost town where up to 10,000 people lived during the height of the Gold Rush. It was full of bars, a school, restaurants and even a library. Today it’s totally deserted. One of the few things still standing is a house made out of glass bottles.

We headed back near our park to a very popular place to watch the sunset, Zabriski Point. The sun sets behind a mountain, not into the ocean, but it was still very impressive.

We were up early the next day and headed straight to Devil’s Golf Course. Surely there isn’t a golf course in D.V. right? There isn’t. Just a huge area with massive rocks of salt left when the lake that was here 10,000 years ago dried up, with the nickname Devil’s Golf Course.

You could hear what sounded like metal cracking which was the salt expanding as the sun heated them all up – very weird.

The last place we saw was an area called Badwater, a name that stuck when an early explorer found water and lead his horse to drink. The horse refused to drink as it was so salty so he named the place Badwater – which stuck. The reason why there is water here is it’s the lowest point in D.V. and also in the US for that matter, so water from the valley ends up here. We were at 282 feet / 85.5 metres below sea level. It used to be a 30 foot deep lake, but again, dried up by the sun leaving a 1 – 5 foot layer of salt behind. We walked out for a 10 mins before the heat and our thirst drove us back.

Death Valley is a great place, full of things you won’t see anywhere else. It’s also massive and it took 2 days to see all the stuff we saw. There is nothing really to see or do between drives. It’s an expanse of nothingness with just a few plants, but to see it will leave you with a good lasting impression.

The highlights can be seen here!

Stuoobs

xxx

Vegas – again!

2009-11-18T05:32:00.001Z

This is the 3rd time in 12 months we have been to Vegas, making it 5 in total. I still can’t get enough of the place. It was once again different as firstly, we were driving there instead of flying and secondly, it was just the two of us. We were both thinking if it would be better or worse than our previous times when we were here in a big group. I’ll let you know!

The drive to Vegas was brilliant. No other city in the world can you see and name all the hotels in one view. It was a shame that it was dusk, just as the sun was setting and the bright lights were coming on, so the pictures didn’t come out prefect – but we were happy enough!

We had booked into Planet Hollywood for 4 nights, checking out on Sunday. It was good as the hotel had oversized parking so we could leave the RV for 4 nights without paying a fortune or worrying about it. After negotiating a quick upgrade to a suite and getting our complimentary bottle of gin, we got to our room, (the bath was bigger than the bed!) showered and headed straight out. Our thoughts were to walk up and down the Strip for a bit, have a few beers and get back to the hotel for a gamble. This didn’t quite go according to plan. We walked as far as Jimmy Buffet’s Margaretville and decided to have one last drink. Cazzie ordered a long island iced tea and I had a frozen margarita. An older chap was sitting next to us and was on his phone. He turned to us and asked where we were from, and then said he was in Vegas on a conference. We found out his name was Tim and he seemed pretty cool and we liked him even more when he offered to buy us a drink. I switched to the long island iced teas and kept chatting. Before we knew it we were engrossed in conversation and finding out that Tim lived near Dallas, sold shoes, was divorced and had a few ladies on the go, 2 of which he got me to ring up and chat with – thankfully they didn't answer. We kept swapping stories and ended up 6 L.I.I.Ts to the good before we realised it was 1am and closing time! After our customary picture with Tim, who took a real liking to Cazzie, we staggered home to pass out. By the way, Tim HAS had his teeth whitened!

The next day arrived and we dragged ourselves to the Bellagio for a very late breakfast. In the queue we met a retired couple from Arizona, who asked if we wanted to sit with them. We were feeling quite popular with the older generation! A pleasant brekie passed and we wandered up and down the strip towards the newest hotel, the Encore, which is owned by Steve Wynn.

The inside was immaculate with great attention to detail. Like the Wynn, the Encore is not a themed hotel, it’s just a bloody nice one! The walk took us up to tea time, so back to PH , a shower, and out again for a meal and a gamble. As we both felt rough from the night before, we were in bed by 1am!

Friday came round and we wanted to go back to the MGM Grand to visit the cafe where we had been on previous visits. After a huge breakfast, we headed for the blackjack tables and got 4 large vodka redbulls down us, which sorted us right out! Then a bit of a pub crawl before ending up at the Paris hotel to buy our tickets to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and these gave us $4 off a souvenir daiquiri – winner. We added our own gin to it back at the hotel.

Dinner was upon us and it was time to try the PH all-you-can-eat buffet. Every hotel has one and you have to go a long way to beat the ones at the Wynn and the Bellagio. The one here didn’t really meet those high standards, but I did really enjoy the desserts!

After a lot of food, it was Eiffel Tower time, which we managed to coincide with a performance of the Bellagio Fountains – views were very good.

After another 21 session at PH, we were done.

Saturday came round – which also happened to be Halloween. We had booked into see Peep Show that evening, which turned out to be a lot of females taking their tops off trying to sing, which was nice. Then it was costume time. Halloween is HUGE in the US and lasts for about 3 weeks. Everyone apart from us in PH was dressed up with costumes ranging from Dracula to Popeye to a bumble bee. It was brilliant and everyone was having a blast. We got chatting to a few people and felt really gutted that we weren't in costume. Maybe next year. I did manage to see Fred Flintstone at one of the tables though!

I mentioned at the start of this blog that we were both thinking if Vegas would be any better / worse with just the two of us. Well it was brilliant as always.

As usual, the pics can be found here.

Stuoobs

xxx

3 National Parks - 1 blog

2009-11-11T03:40:00.015Z

We knew that when we were planning this trip, we would be visiting a lot of National Parks, and I wasn't sure how different they were all going to be. I mean a park just full of green fields, the odd snow covered mountain and a lake or 2. How wrong could I be?

We first hit Bryce Canyon on the recommendation of Cazzie's friend, Vanessa. We thought all the RV parks were shut for the winter, so booked ourselves into a hotel very near the park. Even though this was a lovely hotel with a great meat buffet, we hit problems the next morning in the RV. The temperature had dropped to -7 degrees which meant when we got to the van, there was an icicle hanging from the kitchen sink tap! Not good as this could have meant all the pipes were frozen and frozen pipes = burst pipes. We were frantic with worry and desperately trying to warm the van up, praying that the pipes were OK so we wouldn't be faced with a bust van and a huge repair bill. I found out from reception that the park 1/2 mile away was still open, so we checked into there. Luckily we were OK with the pipes and could now begin our day in the canyon.

We paid our $25 dollars entrance fee and, as always, went to the visitors centre to find out the best things to do. The very helpful lady told us to do "the best 3 mile hike in the world". How could we say no?

We still didn't know what to expect and I'll be honest, it just looked like a load of trees and a few red mountains. Upon arriving at the beginning of our hike, we were greeted by this sight.

It was incredible. The canyon had been carved out over millions of years by the wind, the rain and the constant freeze/thaw cycle. The sandstone and limestone just crumbles away. The tall structures you are left with are called "Hoodoos" and they went on for miles. What made it even more impressive was the greenery that was present too. Unreal. Anyway, we started our hike which took us right down to the bottom of the canyon.

We continued our hike which took us in a big loop. The rest of the park wasn't anything that different, but all the highlights can be seen here, including a really good sunset.

Next stop was Zion, a 1 hour drive from Bryce. This had different rock formations and colours. It wasn't as impressive as Bryce, but still worth spending 1/2 day there.

We managed another hike upto one of the natural springs, but I think it would have been more impressive in the spring time. All the Zion pics are here.

We drove out of Zion Park and into a place called Virgin. This was the location of our best RV park to date. A 5* place with great showers, a pool, spa and games room - but it's the showers that count - it was like having your own en suite bathroom!

The next day we were Vegas bound, but we had spotted en route a place called Valley of Fire, so we decided to give it a go. The rocks here were supposed to look as if they were on fire as the sun hit them. There were different rocks and formations again that make this park unique from the others and the highlights are here.

Cazzie seemed to really love this place!

Overall, these 3 parks were brilliant and so unique. I'm so glad we decided to visit them all. It would have been so easy to miss them out as they aren't the "famous" ones.

After Valley of Fire, we headed to Vegas.......

Stuoobs

xxx

Excuse me, why are you here?

2009-11-09T03:50:00.010Z

The drive to Salt Lake City took us about 5 hours. Again, it was one of those semi-enforced stops as our next destination (Bryce National Park), was over 10 hours drive from Yellowstone and we didn't fancy doing it in a "one-r".

The drive was through Utah where there are 3 things to do.

1 - Drive to Salt Lake City
2 - Fill up with petrol
3 - Drive out of Salt Lake City.

We drove for miles and miles without seeing anything apart from cows, grain fields and tarmac.

For those of you who don't know, SLC is the home of the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons as they are better know. Mormons don't smoke, drink alcohol or tea / coffee. This worried us slightly. It was also where the 2002 Winter Olympics took place as there is some of the best skiing in the States available here.

Anyway, we had booked ourselves into the park for 1 night, which happened to be a Saturday night, so we did hope that there would be some sort of nightlife about. We showered and jumped on the local bus that took us into downtown SLC.

The place seemed to be very quiet, with only a few restaurants about, but all looked busy. After a bit of a wander we decided to ask someone where to go, so we went into the theatre and asked the chaps there. Now when we speak to the locals in most of the places we have visited, we get asked where we are from and what we are doing there. This was slightly different. We did get asked where we were from but then asked WHY we were in SLC. This made us feel very unwelcome. What they actually meant is why on earth would 2 English people bother to come here as there is nothing to do! After a bit of a giggle with them they pointed us in the direction of a few places and we discovered a PF Changs, a chain of Chinese / American restaurants. As we entered the place and the hostess asked us where we wanted to sit, we were asked again what the hell we were doing in SLC. And again by our waitress! Very bizarre!

The meal was excellent and we struck up a bit of a rapport with our waitress who gave us some ideas about where to go for a drink (thank god) and as she was from San Diego, some pointers while we where there too.

We headed towards a bar which was fairly busy, had a few gins and called it a night.

The next day we were heading to Bryce, we decided to see a little bit more of the place, including a free tour round Temple Square, which was built in 2000.

Most of you who know me know I'm not a religious person at all, but I do know a little bit about the Old Testament. Our tour guide, Susan, took us round pointing out the interesting bits of the Square while I was asking her what the difference is between the Mormons and the other religions that believe in God, because I could not see any difference at all. There were parts with Jesus, Moses, Noah, Jerusalem, Adam and Eve - all stuff that you learn about at school. Susan informed me that their Prophet, Joseph Smith, was visited by God in 1863 and that seems to be it.

Upon closer inspection and a few more questions, it seems that the Latter Day Saints religion was set up to swindle money out of their members to fund the lavish lifestyles of their head Prophet and the 12 Apostles. This place oooooozed cash. There was an auditorium that sat over 21,000 people with a fully installed sound system and HD cameras dotted all over the place. This is to broadcast their meetings and conferences to over 80 million members around the world, who are no doubt sat there hanging on every word with their bank details to hand.

As we continued the tour, which was quite good may I add, we saw a huge painting of the head Prophet and 12 Apostles in a massive room - a sort of MD and his Board if you like. We then ended up on the roof of this building, with a view of SLC.

I asked Susan how much this cost to build and she did not have an answer for me, so I assume $millions.

Our final stop was the visitors centre, where "The Universe" was. In the centre was a huge statue of Jesus.

I guess you could argue that all religions are like this in one way or another and I feel as if I'm being a tad harsh here, but the impression I got was one of extortion!

We wandered around a bit more, found a shopping centre which was the busiest place we'd seen all day, and headed back to the RV.

One of my fav thigs I saw here was a sweatshirt with the initials of Salt Lake and the abbreviated Utah state name - SL,UT. Genius.

Stuoobs

xxx

A few days in Yellowstone

2009-11-05T02:56:00.001Z

Our trip from Calgary to Yellowstone involved crossing the Canada / USA border. Most people will have experience of this when you fly to the States. You fill in your IW35 on the plane, you wait in a queue at the airport wondering why it moves so slowly, you then get called to the booth where the very unhappy person asks you a few questions, stamps a few places in your passport and lets you in.

It’s very different in a car if you are a going from Canada to the USA. First of all the queue is massive. Instead of there being just people, there are cars, motorhomes and lorries. Most of the lorries and motorhomes have to be checked for food, milk and goods bought in Canada etc. These rules are the same from when you fly to the States, but they x-ray your luggage and they don’t really expect you to be bringing loads of cheese and fish on a plane. I mention cheese and fish as I saw one of the custom guys carrying a bag full of about 10 massive blocks of cheese and some other guy having an argument with them as he didn’t have a fishing permit to show that he was allowed to catch the fish he had stored in his van. Someone in the customs department ate well that night!

We joined the very long queue, got to the booth in our RV, they took our passports, told us to park up and we waited about 35 mins for the whole process to be completed – and as we were from the UK, it cost $6 each for the privilege.

So we were in the States and on our way to Yellowstone. As it was over 10 hours drive from Calgary, we stopped for the night in Great Falls, where the only thing we did was eat out at night and before departing to Yellowstone, try and see some of these “great falls” but they weren't that great, but the drive did have some good views.

We arrived at our next RV camp late at night and bedded in. The next morning we were up early and raring to go as we had so much to see. A quick stop at the visitors centre to collect maps to learn that the park is over 3,472 square miles and the oldest park in the States then we were off. First stop – the thermal springs area. As we drove up, it looked like there were loads of fires in the distance, but as we got closer, we could see it was the steam coming from these geysers. We parked up and took a walk round to see loads of them bubbling away while stinking of rotten eggs (hydrogen sulphide). It was a very cool place to see and one of the most geothermally ( is that a word?) active places in the world.

Next en route was Old Faithful, a geyser that spurts out between 3,700 and 8,400 gallons of water upto 186 foot in the air and can be predicted to the nearest 15 min of it’s next eruption. We made it with about 25 mins to spare, so took our seats and waited. After a few false starts and a lot of wasted pictures, it blew. As it was very cold, steam covered most of the show, but it was still good to have seen it.

We drove further east through the park, seeing all the areas that have been ravaged by huge forest fires and then around the great lake, which looked more like we were standing on the edge of the ocean! All this took us over 5 hours, and it was time to head back to the park, stopping off to see some otters catching fish and playing in a little lake. We thought that would be the end of our wildlife for the day until we turned a corner and saw a herd of bison right by the side of the road. Cazzie wound the window down to take a few pictures and they started to cross the road right by us. After a few minutes we wanted to leave, so started to pull away when the “daddy” of the group begin making really loud grunting noises and seemed to charge for our van, so I thought sod this and hit the gas!!

After a good night’s sleep in the van we awoke to some pretty bad weather that had closed off most of the routes in the park which meant if we wanted to go a see the rest of the park it was a 3 1/2 hour drive just to get there, so we decided to cut our losses and head to Salt Lake City.

Yellowstone is a great place to visit for a few days. Again, as we were of “off season” West Yellowstone (where we stayed), was quiet with a lot of places closed. I would have loved to have seen all the park, but Mother Nature, who has been very kind to us so far, decided one day was all we were going to get.

A pictures from Yellowstone can be found here. There are a lot, but I am in the process of doing a “highlights” album too – so bear with me!

Stuoobs

xxx

Watching the Flames in Calgary

2009-11-02T02:06:00.005Z

Calgary was our last port of call in Canada before we headed into the States. It was the venue for the 1988 Winter Olympics, the home of the Calgary Stampede and where the Calgary Flames strut their stuff. Add in a large city centre, some nightlife, a few museums and a business district and we thought we couldn't go wrong.

Our Calgary experience didn't start that well. The RV park was about 15 kms from the city and it seemed to be full of people that lived there on a full time basis and didn't really like outsiders. Nevertheless, we bedded in for the night in the RV and made plans for the next day.

We were woken by the sound of the park's cockerel making all sorts of noises as well as the starting up of motorhomes as people began to leave for work. We decided to cut our losses and head out into Calgary. This was a bit of a chore as we could either fork out $50 on a taxi, or $20 on a taxi to take us to the nearest train station. We opted for the latter, which took about 30 mins to get into town, where we went to the nearest hotel to ask for a few hints and tips on what we should get upto.

We had 2 tickets for the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night which we needed to collect from the box office at the Pengrowth Saddledome, which was right next door to Stampede Park. Even though it was raining, we decided to walk it. I have heard really good things about Stampede Park. It's a venue that hosts all sorts of events such as the Calgary Stampede, music concerts, exhibitions and musicals. There was nothing happening while we were there, but the whole place and looks like a lot of fun! After a wander, we collected our tickets and headed back to the city centre.

The main tourist area, or Downtown as it's known, is all pedestrianised. There are loads of shops, bars and clubs that you would expect to find in every city. We took our time walking up and down to see if there was anything different about the city. Sadly there was not.

Out last activity of the day was to visit the Glenbow Museum, a rather famous museum with a load information and artifacts about Canada's history. But for us to have to visit a museum once again highlighted that there just wasn't that much to do.

So it was time to head back to the RV park and catch up on some X-Factor.

Tuesday arrived and we were quite excited to be going to watch an ice hockey game. Ice hockey is massive in Canada, with most games selling out. We had a plan to train into town, take a ride up the Calgary Tower, head into Kensington and visit Chinatown before having a few beers in the "Red Mile". This is where all the hockey fans meet prior to the game.

Calgary Tower was disappointing. It's not even the tallest building in Calgary. It did have a glass bottomed area though, which you could stand on and see 180 foot down, but that was pretty much the highlight.

It was time for beers, so we headed to the Red Mile, chose our sports bar and settled in. Our friendly waitress poured our beers and informed us that she doesn't expect that the Red Mile will get busy tonight as the game is a 7.30 kick off. That didn't dampen out spirits though, and we sank a few more beers, a basket of chicken wings and a burger before following the crowds to the game.

We both really enjoyed it, and unlike other American sports I have been to, I actually followed most of it. The bits it didn't really get were the 1000's of random substitutions that take place every 5 seconds and the lack of cheerleaders, but other than that it was great.

A few more beers during the game meant we were done, so we headed back to the RV for the night.

Cazzie and I both decided that Calgary was one of our least favourite cities, maybe we have been spoilt being able to visit so many different and amazing places, but Calgary wasn't one of them. Maybe we were just unlucky with the weather, the RV park and the time of year.

The pictures can be found here, using a new site called SmugMug - cheers bro!

Stuoobs
xxx

Boozing in Banff

2009-10-27T23:13:00.015Z

We had heard a lot of good things about Banff, mainly because it's a fantastic ski resort with a terrific nightlife, so we were very excited about visiting here. As the ski season was still a few weeks away, we were going to have to enjoy the nightlife to the full, and as were arrived on a Friday, were we well positioned to do so!

The campsite in Banff was our most basic yet as it was our first "winter" campground. This basically means you only have electricity on your allotted campsite and there are showers / restrooms available to use too. It was however, one of the more picturesque stops and certainly the cheapest to date- $25 per night.

We did arrive late after our long day travelling from Jasper, so we took a short drive around Banff to get a feel for the place before retiring for the night.

After a bit of a lie-in the next day, we walked the downhill route towards the town centre to grab some breakfast. The Lonely Planet Guide recommend Melissa's as the best place for brekkie and who were we to argue? After our 30 mins walk, we had worked up an appetite and headed straight for the restaurant to find the queue nearly out the door, but soon learnt that the wait was only 15 mins or so. Was it worth the wait I hear you ask??? Certainly. The place serves up a brilliant "Big Breakfast" with huge, thick pancakes complete with Maple Syrup. This set us up nicely for our boozy afternoon.

As we were both very full, a walk around time was needed before we could crack on. Banff is full of souvenir shops selling everything from gold plated maple leaves to Rocky and Bullwinkle pyjamas. We did notice on our walk however that the place was littered with pubs! It was time to stop walking and start drinking, and where better for an English man to start off than in an Irish bar! A few scoops in there before heading off to other bars that our waitress in Melissa's had told us to visit. The second was a sports bar that was showing the local derby CFL game (Canadian Football League) between Calgary and Saskatchewan. I assumed that everyone would be supporting Calgary as they were the closest town to Banff, but I was wrong. Everybody in there was a huge Saskatchewan fan. The game went one way and then the other, with the result ending up 44 - 44 after overtime. I just had to look that score up was we were on our 7th beer by the end of the game.

We meandered from bar to bar before settling back at the Irish bar, where live music was about to kick off. It did seem that a lot of bars had live bands on each Saturday - all of which were a little bit average if I'm honest, but the locals seem to like it! After taking in another live band, we called it quits at about midnight.

I can see why Banff is such a great ski resort. We were there at probably the quietest time of year and the place still has a real buzz to it.

The next day we were heading the short 1.30hr drive to Calgary, but decided to stop at a local tourist spot called Lake Minnewanka. I think the only reason for this is we were being really childish and kept laughing at the name of the lake. But I'm glad we did as this was yet again, a lovely, picturesque lake in Canada. Clear waters surrounded by snow capped mountains.

After about an hour here we hopped back in the RV and headed off to Calgary.

Our Banff pics can be found here.

Stuoobs

xxx

A 3 stop strategy on the way to Banff

2009-10-22T05:17:00.001+01:00

I am writing this blog as a passenger in the RV while Cazzie is driving. There are times when we will spend most of the day travelling as Canada and America are so huge!

When I last left you we were in Jasper and planning our route to Banff and this involved 3 stops.

1 - Athabasca Falls. The Athabasca river is the longest river in Canada and runs for 1231 kms. The river runs quite peacefully up until it hits softer rock, it erodes it and Athabasca Falls is born. This place is very similar to Maligne Canyon with its frozen waterfalls, swirling pools and blue rivers.

The place is, as all attractions in the National Park, really lovely.

2 – The Columbia Ice Fields. We drove past this on the way up to Jasper from Revelstoke and noticed that there was a visitors centre here. Having seen the leaflets for trips to this Ice Field, we decided to stop on the way to Banff to see what it was all about. Once in the centre, we booked ourselves onto the 90 min tour. This involved getting a bus to the huge Ice Explorer that would then transport us onto the ice field. We hopped on and started a very steep decent to the ice field and then a very slow drive into the middle if it. The ice fields have been created by the coming together of 4 glaciers that create a huge sheet of ice, which in places is over 300 metres thick – that’s the size of the Eiffel Tower. The main glacier is the Athabasca Glacier. As we stepped onto the ice to try and take photos, we were told to stay within the marked areas, as there was a chance you could fall into potholes in the ice and never be seen again. So, remaining very close to the Ice Explorer, we attempted to take photos, which wasn’t easy!

It was very windy and very cold. The lowest recorded temperature here was minus 76 degrees! One thing that did hit home a little was the effect that global warming has had on this place. The ice field has retracted over 100 metres during the past 50 years and is shrinking at a faster rate the ever – about 10 metres per year. We don’t ever really get to see the effects of global warming the the UK, so this got me thinking. Our tour guide in Jasper informed us that the lakes and rivers have dropped by 60 % in the past 20 years too.

3 – Lake Louise. This place was always on the list to go to. I had heard so many nice things about the place, such as it’s the most beautiful, scenic place you will ever go to. We arrived, parked up and took the short walk to the lake and we were not disappointed. It was beautiful. The lake was so still, the views were amazing, there was snow covering the ground and there wasn’t a gust of wind in the air. It also felt like Christmas with all the pine trees about! What was really good about the place was all the touristy shops were 5 kms before the lake, so the lake itself wasn’t spoilt. The only hotel that was there was the impressive Fairmont. We walked 2 kms down one side of the lake and took as many photos as we could, and this one is my favourite.

I could go on about all these places, but again, the photos that I took tell a much better story. Just click on these links and you will see them all.

Athabasca Falls

Columbia Ice Fields

Lake Louise

This has probably been the best day of the trip so far.

After Lake Louise we headed to Banff, which will be the subject of my next blog!

Stuoobs

xxx

Wildlife spotting in Jasper

2009-10-20T03:41:00.014+01:00

After leaving Kelowna, it was about a 10 hour drive to Jasper, our next destination. To break the journey up we stayed the night in Revelstoke. There is nothing to in Revelstoke at this time of year, so after a very brief walk round town, we headed back to the RV site, Cazzie made a chilli and I set about lighting the fire. We cracked open a bottle of red and had our first campfire of the trip.

We were up early the next day to head towards Jasper, which involved driving over the top of the Rockies and Cazzie decided that she wanted to drive this leg, which I was quite pleased about as it meant I could get a proper look at all the views.

There had been some snow overnight and the higher we got, the heavier the snow became, but the Canadians are geared up for much, much worse than this, so our journey was quite a smooth one after the huge snowplows and gritting machines had done their work.

Once we had crossed the BC / Alberta border and started our decent, the snow stopped, the roads became clear and the views became better. It felt like we were stopping at every opportunity to take in the scenery and a snap a few photos.

We arrived in Jasper, but as all the RV parks were shut for the winter, we booked ourselves into a hotel for 2 nights and we took this opportunity to have an early night and enjoy close, warm showers and inside toilets!!!

Up early the next morning as we were being collected at 9am for our wildlife tour. Sundog Tours were the "local experts" at finding wildlife, and sure enough, we saw a Bald Eagle, Mountain Goats, a deer and a coyote.

What we were really after was Elk though, but our "experts" couldn't find any.

Our tour took us up to lunchtime, and we were dropped off back at our hotel, so after a quick bite to eat, we decided to head out to Maligne Lake to see what we could find. After about 15 mins drive, we spotted an Elk just standing by the road. It was brilliant and we felt really chuffed with ourselves - almost like we were better than the pros! After another 2 mins drive, a few cars were stopped on the road, and another 2 elks were about to cross the road.

What we really, really wanted though was a stag, and Cazzie managed to find one in it's natural environment hidden deep in one of the forests. You have to look very carefully to spot him.

We continued down towards Maligne Lake where we met a couple that told us we must do the Maligne Canyon on the way back, so after a few more pictures, we moved on. Maligne Canyon was littered with iced over waterfalls, wildlife and swirling rapid rivers.

Having walked down and back up the canyon, daylight was fading, so we headed back to our hotels room where we once again wanted to take advantage of the home comforts, so we ordered a pizza and bedded in for the night!

I don't feel like I have done this place justice in this blog, but I didn't want to could go on and on about how lovely and picturesque Jasper is. But they say pictures speak a thousand words, so all of ours can be found here.

The town of Jasper is quaint. Lots of gift shops selling little bears, elks and deers, a few restaurants and a couple of places that sell tours etc. A lot of places were closed for the winter and the town itself was quiet.

But let me leave you with my favourite pic of Jasper, a place called Medicine Lake.

Next stop, Banff via Athabasca Falls, the Columbia Ice Fields and Lake Louise!

Stuoobs

xxx

Wine tasting that I can remember this time

2009-10-16T05:03:00.003+01:00

I have photographic evidence to prove that I have been wine tasting before. Andy also did a blog on it which can be found here. I can’t really remember any of it.

We arrived in Kelowna from Harrison Hot Springs and had a wine tasting tour booked starting at 1pm. Our tour guide, Dagmar, was waiting for us at our RV park, so after a quick check-in, we were in the back of the mini bus and off. Dagmar had another 2 couples to collect en-route, who turned out to be Sharon and Michelle (not a lesbian couple as we first thought) and Haydn and Laura.

Dagmar was brilliant as a tour guide. She was retired and both her and her husband work for a wine touring company. She asked us the right questions that got all 6 of us chatting to each other about where we were from and why we were here.

There were 3 wineries planned. The first one was called Mission Hill and was easily the biggest and most impressive. There was a very organised, hour long tour that Dagmar had booked us onto. Now, I could bore you all by telling you that white wine should be served between 10 and 15 degrees and that red wine should be served between 13 and 18 degrees. I could also bang on about how the thicker the grape means the darker the red wine. Or, I could send you all to sleep by letting you know that the older vines yield less grapes, but the are much more flavoursome. But you’ll be glad to know I won’t ramble on about any of that.

After a short video about how the winery started and grew, we were shown around the place to see the vineyards.

Cazzie loving the scenery

After a quick visit to the cellar to see 1000’s of American and French Oak barrels, we were off to the wine tasting session where we were taught how to taste wine. It’s all about rinsing the pallet, swilling the wine in your glass and slurping the wine in your mouth to get all the flavours. It was a lot of fun – even though we didn’t get that much wine!

The wine was ready and waiting for us, complete with a very unused spitting bucket!

This was a really lovely place to visit, but it all felt a bit impersonal as there were 22 people in our group. Nevertheless, we were so impressed with the wines we tasted, we bought a couple of bottles. I did have a Pinot Noir in my hand, but Dagmar said I should wait and buy a bottle from the next place – and who was I to argue?

The next port of call was Quails’ Gate. This was a much smaller winery, where the tasting took part in a corner of the wine shop. As there was only our group taking the tasting we got a much better, personal service. This is where we learnt that the best wines come from older vines matured in brand new oak barrels. Another fact was that you should ALWAYS decant red wine no matter how cheap. The only red wine that doesn’t need decanting is Pinot Noir.

We were given the chance to have a wander around the place, so after buying the Pinot Noir here (Dagmar was right, it was the best Pinot Noir I have tasted) we took a step outside for a few photos.

Final port of call was an organic winery called Kalala. It was a 10 min drive away and we were all now a few glasses to the good, so the journey was a lot of fun. We arrived at Kalala just in time to see some harvesting taking place.

We were allowed to try these grapes out and they were so juicy and tasty.

We tried another 8 wines here, including an ice wine which is a very sweet dessert wine made from grapes that are picked and crushed when the temperature hits –8 degrees.

Overall, it was a top day. The 6 of us decided to meet up after dinner for some beers at the local dive called Blue Gator. It’s not often I walk into a bar and everyone else is more drunk than I am, but this was the case here. Everyone was smashed and dancing to the amateur blues night that takes place every Sunday. Cazzie and I couldn’t take our eyes off most of the people here as they bounced their way from the bar to the dance floor and back again. It was a brilliant laugh! We did our best to play catchup, but there wasn't enough time before closing.

Kelowna is a brilliant place with red hot summers and cold winters meaning you can spend half your year sunbathing and the other half skiing. There is a buzzing nightlife too with a pretty good casino thrown in. Perfect. The views across the 135kms long Okanagan Lake aren’t bad either!

If you are ever in the region, this place is a must.

All the pictures can be found here.

Stuoobs

xxx

Whale watching and attempting to bike ride!

2009-10-14T02:34:00.002+01:00

Our first port of call was Vancouver Island which is situated, as you would expect, off the coast of Canada near Vancouver. It did mean getting a ferry across which took abut 90 mins.

Our RV park was situated about 15 mins outside Victoria, which is the capital of the island. Arrival time was about 7.30pm, so we plugged in and settled in for the night. As this was our 3rd night in Canada, we were still a touch jetlagged so it was an early night.

The plan for the following morning was to go whale watching in the Pacific Ocean, so we hopped on the local bus, which dropped us off right in the centre of Victoria. After a short walk and we arrived at Orca Spirit tours which is where we met Geoff, our very cool captain / tour guide for the day, and the 4 other shipmates who had signed up for the tour. Once we had been fitted up with our lifejackets, we were off.

Cazzie in a very fetching life jacket!

So we were off. Once we have obeyed the speed limits in the harbour, we reached our cruising velocity of 55 mph and started our search. Captain Geoff was constantly on the CB radio, walkie talkie and mobile phone speaking to all other boats in the area, sharing information about where the whales were. Before we found our whales, we stopped off to view the sea lions that were all gathered on a large rock.

These guys weigh about 1 tonne each!

The radio then buzzed with news that there were 5 humpback whales in the area so it was full speed ahead! These humpback whales only appear off the Island for 7 weeks a year on their way to Hawaii, so we were very fortunate to have found them. As we approached we could see their huge tails slapping about in the water.

A tail span of 4 metres and a humpback can weigh up to 36 tonnes

There is something really special about seeing these guys in their natural environment. We have all seen whales at SeaWorld, and don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing what they have trained them to do, but to see them in the open ocean was quite something. One thing I didn’t appreciate was the foul stench of their breath when they surfaced and blew water our of their blow hole.

We stayed around here for about 30 mins with 5 or so other boats before we had to leave. Unfortunately there were no sightings of any Orcas in the area, so my SeaWorld memories will have to do.

Captain Geoff then dropped us all off in a pretty central location in Victoria where, after a quick bite to eat, we started to wander around to see what this place was like. It’s very British with a huge statue of Queen Victoria overlooking the harbour. We meandered through the town, popping into the local boutiques, sampling the freshly made fudge and visiting the Christmas Market. It’s a lovely city and it’s a very desirable (and expensive ) place to live.

The next day we were leaving the Island for Harrison Hot Springs, and decided to take to scenic route back to the ferry.

A view to die for!

This drive took about an hour and was amazing. This route was littered with stunning mansions all with beautiful view of the lake and mountains.

We arrived at the ferry terminal hoping to catch the 2pm ferry, only to be greeted with a massive queue and a ticket for the 5pm crossing. This meant we arrived at our next destination at about 9pm!

The RV park in Harrison Hot Springs was only about 2 kms from the town, so this was the first chance we had to get on our bikes. I was a bit worried that we might look a bit silly with our helmets etc, but I think we managed to pull it off quite well. It was a real laugh from start to finish as we hadn’t ridden bikes for ages and were pretty much all over the place and couldn’t stop giggling!

My favourite bit is the trousers tucked into the socks!

We cycled around for about 3 hours to see the place, but the source for the hot spring water was 2 hours drive up the mountains, so we were unable to see it, which was a shame. The water comes out of the spring at 65 degrees C and they have to cool it down before you can swim in it. We could have swam in the local pool that was fed from the springs, but it looked just like a normal swimming pool, so we knocked that idea on the head. I’m sure there will be plenty more opportunities to have a splash in an outdoor hot spring in the near future.

After another drive in the RV to take in more scenic views, we parked up back at the RV site, opened a bottle of wine (or 3), hopped onto the free wireless network and watched X-Factor!!

Harrison Hot Springs is beautiful, and I imagine a real hot spot in the summer.

All the photos from Vancouver Island and Harrison Hot Springs can be found here.

Vancouver Island - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158526&id=502160409&l=01367625b1

Harrison - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158569&id=502160409&l=28408410ee

Next stop – Kelowna for wine tasting!

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Our journey begins

2009-10-08T06:07:00.002+01:00

I won’t bore you with with our plane ride to Vancouver only to mention that it was the smoothest flight I have even taken. 1 minute of turbulence in the entire 9 hours. Brilliant.

We arrived in Vancouver airport at 6.30 local time tired and a little hungover. The Gin fairy had been good to us on the flight. There wasn’t much we wanted to do on the first evening, so we checked into our hotel, showered, went to the bar for a drink and a late night snack before retiring to bed where I enjoyed half of “Secret Of My Success”.

The RV rental people picked us up the next day at 11.30 to take us to their rental depot. This was huge and had over 400 RV’s parked there, most of which looked massive. This was the part that we were both a tad worried about – the size of the vehicle we were going to be driving for the next 2 months. Upon arrival we were shown into reception where we we told that we had been upgraded to a better RV. Normally I love hearing the word upgrade but this time my only question was “is it going to be any bigger?”, to which we were told it was 4 foot longer, but with more stuff. Yes, that’s right, we were going to have to drive around in a 30 foot long, 12 foot high and 8.5 foot wide monster truck!

Anyway, once we had gotten over our fear of driving this thing, one of that chaps showed us how everything worked from turning the lounge lights on to emptying the toilet tank. All pretty straight forward stuff. After about an hour we were off on route to Whistler. We stopped on the way to collect 2 bikes and stock up on food at Wal-Mart (which by the way is surprisingly crap compared to Tesco).

The drive to Whistler took a couple of hours and we were getting very excited to spend the first ever night in our RV at our first ever RV park! After a night’s rest in a very comfy bed, we were up at about 6.30 (still jetlagged), and headed towards Whistler village for a wander. It was great to see it in summer time with stunning greenery and snowy topped mountains.

The main purpose of the visit here was to drop off our snowboards and luggage and get our discounted season passes. We will be back here in 2 months, and I will no doubt have a lot more to tell you!!

We left to head towards Vancouver Island and this is where I am writing this blog from now. I see this as the proper start to the trip as it’s all new and unplanned!

Stuoobs

xxx

20 more sleeps

2009-09-14T20:02:00.003+01:00

We both woke up today and realised that we only have 3 weeks until we leave for Canada and the USA. I think it's beginning to hit us that we will be away for the best part of 7 months. It's exciting but scary at the same time.

As you probably have guessed, we have been researching what we are going to do and where. All of the RV parks that we will be staying at have information on what there is to do in the area, so we won't really know what we will be doing before we get there, but sure there will be plenty to do once we are.

Our first two RV parks are booked. The one in Whistler and the one on Vancouver Island and the plan is to book our next park one in advance. We have also booked our whale watching tour while we are there and we hope the Orca's are in a playful mood. We have decided to miss out Vancouver on this part of our trip as we can pretty much visit here anytime we want during our 5 months in Whistler. This does give us the opportunity to visit more places or spend longer at places we like. Jamie Oliver did his latest Road Trip program from a place called Cody in Wyoming, a proper cowboy town where they cook steak by putting them on the end of pitchforks and putting them in a big vat of boiling fat - a huge fondue if you like - which is now potentially on this list!

So, between now and then there is plenty to do. Packing for one. We have to squeeze 7 months worth of stuff into 2 suitcases each and a board bag. Not going to be easy as we have to pack for both winter and summer conditions as the weather in Southern California will be shorts and t-shirts.

Short and sweet this time!

Stuoobs

x

p.s. We will have to stock up on lots of supplies just after we collect the van and we plan to do it at Wal-Mart - where we hope to see a lot of people like this!!

Stuoobs' kitchen delights

2009-08-24T19:18:00.004+01:00

I always thought I was an OK cook. From an early age I've needed to be able to use a cooker, a pan, a knife and a microwave. The first attempts were not so great and included the Iceland microwavable kebab (thanks Mum!), making egg toasties by cracking an egg into the bread and closing the toastie maker and not forgetting the disastrous deep fat frying bacon incident. All part of the learning curve I suppose and all took place while at school or university.

Up until recently I did think that I was getting better at cooking, but all it really amounted to was cutting meat up, albeit with a knife now and not cutting it with a pair of scissors, and putting it in an Uncle Ben's sauce - not really cooking, but a lot better than some people I know. And that did me for about 8 years.

You're probably wondering where I am going with all of this.

Last Sunday we decided to have Cazzie's parents over for a Sunday roast. I have done roast beef dinners in the past I'm pretty good at it. My chili and garlic roast potatoes are something I pride myself on. But this Sunday lunch was different. We decided that we would cook everything from start to finish and the menu was......

French Onion Soup

Roast Topside of Beef
Jamie Oliver Carrots
Peas, shallots and ham
Roast Potatoes
Yorkshire Puddings
Cauliflower Cheese

Apple Crumble
Dead Good Custard

I'll be honest - we were both a tad nervous. Our main concern was getting everything to be ready at the same time but with good planning and preparation we hope all would be ok.

Cazzie's parents turned up and all the food was ready exactly when we wanted them to be - it couldn't have worked out any better!

It may seem as if I am blowing my own trumpet and you'd be right. It was a great success and very tasty. My favourite was the apple crumble and custard (which Cazzie took care of). This was the first dessert I'd ever made and I was well chuffed.

I guess the whole point of this blog is to tell those people that are the ready make sauce and microwavable rice generation, that cooking good food is easy - even I can do it. It's all about taking the time and putting in the preparation and anyone can cook a really tasty, excellent meal. Also, all the recipes came from the BBC food website, which are tried and tested methods and are not too difficult to follow.

I have linked in the recipes to each of the ones we used, but I want to include one more that we tried 2 weeks ago when the Forbes' came along.

Roast Rack of Lamb

I hope you find this useful!

Love

Stuoobs
xxx

p.s. If you want my chili and garlic roast potato recipe - just ask!!

Mountains, Bears, Deserts and Vineyards.

2009-08-17T20:52:00.006+01:00

As most of you will know, Cazzie and I have been planning a 7 month trip to Canada and America and it’s my pleasure to tell you all that it’s now sorted.

We leave for Vancouver on Monday 5th October, flying with BA from Heathrow. As we will no doubt be arriving in Canada very drunk, we have decided that it’s probably best to pick the RV up the next day.

Here’s our RV and internal view. It comes equipped with hot shower, flushing toilet, full kitchen and double bed!

We then have a rough plan to follow the blue flags on this map.

I couldn’t get names on this map, but you get the idea!!

We start in Vancouver and the highlights are Banff,Jasper, Calgary, Yellowstone, Las Vegas, Death Valley, Phoenix and right back up through California taking in San Diego, Los Angeles, Yosemite and San Fran (not forgetting the Napa Valley for some wine tasting) before driving back to Canada through Portland and Seattle. If we were just to visit all these blue dots we would cover over 6,500 miles, but we have our Lonely Planet guide to take us off the beaten track if we so desire!! We do have to be careful of bears who have such a keen sense of smell that we need to lock our food up in bear-proof containers in the RV parks!!

We have the RV for 56 nights so we should be able to cover all these places. I have taken Andy’s lead and splashed out on an SLR camera to capture all the stunning views I am reading about.

After the 56 nights are up, we arrive in Whistler on the 1st December until 29th April for the 2009 / 2010 ski season, which includes the 2010 Winter Olympics. I don’t think we could have picked a better in time to be there. We have used the same company that my two friends, Foe and Easty, for our accommodation – SeasonIT.

A view of our house and our outside hot tub.

This place is fab. 300 metres from the Blackcomb slope and 10 mins walk from Longhorns. Perfect!

So that’s the plan. I fully intend to post blogs from where we have been as most of these RV parks have wifi as well as supermarkets, spas and laundromats. I also fully intend to perfect skiing this year as well as snowboarding!

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

The best steak restaurant in the world........perhaps

2009-08-03T19:21:00.016+01:00

I promised when I wrote my Boston Blog that I would tell you all about Abe & Louie's steakhouse - so here we go.

The benchmark for the best steak has always been at Keens Olde English Chophouse located in New York, discovered by Paulie and Andy on our first trip to the Big Apple. I ordered a Kings Prime cut which looked like this.

It was terrific. Melt in your mouth delicious. We ordered a couple of side dishes to accompany the steak, but these remained largely untouched because the steak was that large and that good. If you ever find yourself in New York, this is a place you must visit.

The hunt for the best steak continued when we found ourselves in Chicago last November. My parents had eaten at Smith & Wollensky's here and made a very bold statement that the steak was better than the one they had in Keens. This is something we could not ignore so we booked in to see for ourselves. I decided to order the prime rib.

I don't have a pre-dinner picture, but I'm not sure that this steak was better than Keens. We decided that we would need to eat one night in Keens and the next at S&W's to be able to be sure. Next trip maybe!!

So, me, Cazzie, Paulie and Karen then found ourselves in Boston 7 months later and there was a Smith & Wollensky's right next to our hotel with the general consensus being that we should eat there. After a quick chat to the hotel concierge, he informed us that a place called Abe & Louie was "much better than Smith & Wollensky's).". I'll be honest with you - I didn't believe him, but I have always been a fan of local knowledge, so reservations were made. If we didn't like it, we could always go to S&W the next night.

When we walked in, you could tell that place was going to be something special. Nice low lighting, bustling atmosphere and it was full. What was great about this place was even though the place was full, you didn't feel over crowded. We were shown to our table, which was more like a booth. Our waiter for the evening was called Matt - who as it happens was from Chicago. This was pretty much the only guy we saw for the rest of our meal. What I don't like about some places is when you see 6 different people during your meal. One to show you to the table, one to ask what drinks you want, one to bring the drinks, one to bring the bread, one to take your order and one who brings your order. It's not a personal service. But Abe&Louie was totally different and it was so refreshing. Paulie ordered the wine with Matt who tottered off to go get it. About 2 mins later he came back with a small glass of different wine for Paulie to taste. The wine was better, would accompany the meal better and was actually cheaper. Too many places try and offer you a different bottle of wine that's actually more expensive and try to screw you over.

I had ordered another prime rib - double cut this time - while Cazzie and Karen went for the fillet on the bone. Paulie had the sirloin (I think).

This was the best steak I have ever had. It was stunning. Tasty, juicy, tender, succulent. I could go on. Cazzie, Karen and Paulie agreed. There was no meat left on any one's plate by the end of the meal. The 2 bottles of wine was a perfect accompaniment to the meal. Matt kept dropping by and asking if the meal was OK. He even stopped for a chat about Chicago, Smith & Wollensky's and a gave us a few "must do"'s if we are ever back in the Windy City.

Even the deserts were excellent. We didn't want a huge portion each, so Matt arranged for us to have a selection of all of the best deserts.

Each one was so tasty. Rich and sweet.

The meal was finished off with a very healthy Irish coffee.

This was, without a doubt, the best steak experience I have ever had and if you are ever in Boston, you must go here....and ask for Matt!!

The hunt still continues, but the benchmark is now Abe&Louie.

xxx

I want one of those.

2009-07-28T10:33:00.010+01:00

As a surprise for Cazzie's birthday, I organised for both of us to spend 4 days on the South Coast of France in Nice. My parents have been there and so have Andy and Karen and the reviews were excellent.

The first thing Cazzie knew about our trip was when I told her on the Sunday evening. This gave her 2 days to do her hair, pack and re-pack. I hadn't paid for us to take suitcases on the EasyJet flight from Liverpool, so we needed to fit 4 days worth of stuff in hand luggage.

Our flight was due to leave at 7.15am from Liverpool which meant a 4.30am start. After another seamless check in and security check, we had a few minutes to grab a breakfast before we were due to board. It's only 2 hours to Nice and once there, it was only a 15 min taxi ride to our hotel. We arrived at the hotel at about 11am, but we were unable to check in, so we dumped out stuff with reception and headed out to see what Nice had to offer.

We walked along the sea front, known as the Promenade Des Anglais. The beaches here are pebble ones so they are not great to walk on. It was funny to see the sun worshippers hobbling back from swimming in the sea and back to their towels. It looked very painful! We had our "beach" day planned on Thursday and it was something we were not relishing!

Anyway, we kept walking and decided to divert off the main hike and into the back streets. These were typically Mediterranean. Long narrow streets with little shops, cafes and boutiques dotted all along, with apartments above them. It was lovely. We wound our way through these streets, often stumbling across a little square or plaza with a statue, monument or fountain in it. The only hazard was the cars and crazy people on mopeds that tried their best to knock everyone over. After about 2 hours of wandering, we came across a large area called Rue De France that had restaurants all around the outside and a market selling everything in the middle. Throw in a whole load of bars and a sprinkling of street entertainers and you have a hive of activity! We decided that this was a great place to grab a spot of lunch before heading back to our hotel. We checked in and took full advantage of the roof top pool area that our hotel had. After an afternoon of snoozing and sunning, it was time to shower and head out for something to eat.

This was the greatest sunbed ever - all sunbeds should have a pull down face shade.

We were now ready to eat and couldn't think of anywhere better to go than the place with all the bars and restaurants. estopped off for a bottle of wine on the way and after an hour arrived at the Rue des France again where we found that all the market traders has packed up for the night and all their stalls had been taken over by the restaurants and the whole area was an outside eating area. It was great - but so amazingly busy for a Tuesday and we couldn't work out why. We waited a bit for a table and once sat, tucked into another bottle of wine before ordering pizza.

Towards the end our our meal, we kept hearing loud bangs which turned out to be fireworks, so we quickly settled up the bill and went to see them. There were 1000's of people watching this very impressive firework display, so we figured out that this must be some sort of celebration / anniversary. It turned out that it was Bastille Day, which the French seem to take seriously. The best part about this was on our walk home, we came across a beautiful fountain that we had seen earlier on the in the day and someone had poured a bottle of washing up liquid in it with terrific results.

I don't think I could ever tire of seeing this happen. One more bottle of wine on the way home and it was time for bed. The next day was soon upon us, and after clearing the hangover we hopped upon the Nice tourist trolley which took you around the city in about 45 mins. We discovered that we had been to about 75% of the places on our walk the day before, but enjoyed it nevertheless. Back to the hotel in the afternoon for more sunbathing before heading back out to the Rue Des France for more food. Muscles were on the agenda tonight and were excellent. A couple more bottles of wine and bed again as we had to be up early tomorrow to catch the ferry to Monaco.

Thursday morning – Cazzie’s birthday- came around very quickly and neither of us embraced it with open arms! We grabbed some breakfast on the run from the local boulangerie and headed to the port to catch our ferry to Monaco. Cazzie did not enjoy the ferry ride too much and spent most of it below deck running between the comfy ferry seats and the not so comfy toilet seats! The ferry got us into Monaco at 10am and we were given 7 hours to explore and our first point of call was the changing of the guard at the palace. After a coffee we made the steep climb up the steps to the palace where all took place at 11.55 sharp!! Again, like Nice there were 100's of little side streets with cafes, souvenir shops and boutiques. After witnessing the changeover, we headed to Monte Carlo. Our route took us past the port and this is where I fell in love. I want a boat. Nothing too fancy, but I still want one. These things were amazing and there were loads of them, so they can’t be that expensive can they??? The most expensive one we saw was £7m and I'm convinced it was worth it. These beauties have at least 4 levels, bars, leather sofas, sun decks, hot tubs, huge bedrooms, lcd tvs, satellite TV, lounges, dining rooms, kitchens...the list goes on. I decided that I couldn't afford one but how about hiring one for 2 weeks and port hopping around the Med??? All I would need is 6 other people and surely it would be affordable......anyone got a spare £50,000 for 2 weeks rent??? Oh well - dream over, but here's one to drool over.

So, we arrived in Monte Carlo and under recommendation for Andy, Pezza, Mum and Dad, we plonked ourselves down at the Cafe D'Paris in Casino Square for a drink and to people watch. This place ooooooozes wealth. Not the flash cash you see in the trendy bars in Manchester or London with people poncing around in their Mercedes and BMW's, but the kind of people that have much more money than they know what to do with. Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Ferraris are the norm here. People are minted and they like to show it. Tourists come here just to see these people and how much money there is. After our drink, we wandered around to see the Prada. Gucci, Cartier and Christian Dior shops before it was time to walk back to our ferry.

After another couple bottle of wines with dinner we were done.

Thursday was our last day in Nice and after we took advantage of the hotel buffet we checked out and headed to the beach to top up the tan. As luck would have it, this was the only cloudy day of our holiday, but the clouds soon dispersed and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon on the private hotel beach.

Overall, Nice is great. Only 2 hours away, cheap to get to, great weather, lots to do and I was surprised how reasonably priced everything was in there as well. If you are looking for a quick 3 - 4 days away, Nice is the place for you.

Finally - if you want to get regular updates whenever I update my blog, just fill in your email address on the top right of this page and follow the instructions - just make sure the email doesn’t end up in your "spam" folder!!

Catch you soon

Stuoobs

xxx

The final leg....

2009-07-21T19:48:00.017+01:00

Hands up who knew that Philadelphia was America's first Capital City? My hands are not up. It served as the Capital during the first Revolution. This is where Betty Ross sewed the first American Flag and where the Liberty Bell is. The Liberty Bell is one of the most prominent symbols of the American Revolutionary War and has been described as an icon of liberty and justice. It was the Capital for 10 years while they built Washington DC. The place is full of many different cultures - there is a China Town, a Little Italy and numerous communities.

Cazzie and I arrived here in Philly on Thursday 25th June for our final 3 days in the States. We did not know what to expect here either. We manage to find the hotel with no problem at all as we had hired a car to take us from Washington and had TomTom to guide us. After a very easy check in where the hotel offered us a suite for $20 a night, we had to return the hire car to the Avis centre. The TomTom new exactly where this is but we needed to get gas. I plugged in "gas stations" in the sat nav and it brought up quite a few in the area. I picked the one en route and followed the instructions. I do not know why the TomTom would lie to me but after 15 minutes of dashing about to find fuel (due to the fact that we needed to get the car back to the Avis garage in 20 mins), we decided that it would be cheaper to return the car half full of gas that risk getting charged another days hire. Upon our arrival at the Avis garage, we were told that they shut in 2 hours so we had time to fill up. We were informed that there is only 1 gas station within the Philadelphia city limits. Again, why would my TomTom lie???

All got sorted and we took the short walk to the hotel. I have stayed in a few hotels in my time, but the Sofitel in Philly has the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. I'm not sure it's worth the visit alone, but it's a good tip. I would like to mention at this point that we learnt that Michael Jackson had died. It was quite good (if that's the right expression) that we were in the US and especially Philly. There was a huge African American community here and there seemed to be a really positive reaction to his death. Every 10 minutes we heard a car with it's window's down blasting out Jackson songs, all the TV channels had 24 hour coverage and it was the talk of the town.

As it was late on we walked to China Town, grabbed a quick bite to eat and then we hit the comfy bed.

Friday we were up and about early and headed to the Art Museum. The steps up here are the ones made famous by Rocky - the ones he ran up during his training session!

There was a queue to get your picture taken with the Rocky statue and the obligatory "local" wearing a Rocky T-Shirt trying to screw a dollar out of you for the privilege.

After a long walk in the park that is larger that Central Park in NYC, we headed to the more historical part of town and this is where I decided that the Americans love their water features. It seems around every corner there is another one. This time it was in JFK Plaza. This concluded our stalking of JFK for this trip. In the Plaza there was a free music concert going on and the reason for it was free was that is was performed by kids. They were OK but not good enough for anyone to pay for! The Liberty Bell was next on our list to do followed by a visit to Betty Ross's house. The Liberty Bell was smaller than I imagined and has a huge crack in it. It was only used for a few years before it was silenced. Repairs were carried out a few years later, but cracked again after the first use.

We had worked up a thirst, so after a quick shower back at the hotel we headed out for food and drink. We had a lovely meal washed down with 2 bottles of wine and asked for direction to a good selection of bars. We tried one or two and ended up in a student bar which was great fun!

The next day involved a lot of walking. Philadelphia, along with many other US cities, has a terrific market called the Reading Market. This place is brilliant serving up dishes from every corner of the world. It was that good we returned the next day for lunch!

It was time to head out and get ourselves a famous Philly Cheese Steak and we had 2 options. We could either eat at Pats-Kings of Steaks or Gino's-The best steak in the world. So did we go for the Kings or the Best. We flipped a coin and it was Pats that got the nod. I don't think it mattered as there were 50 queueing outside each place anyway, so either would have been OK. I ordered a "steak wit American cheese wit mushrooms and fries wit cheese whizz". It was a bit of a panic order but it was worth the 30 mins walk, the 60 mins queue and the worry about finding a toilet for Cazzie. This was the biggest surprise as there was no mad dash and the moment passed.

Later that evening, Cazzie wanted to go to a wine bar on 13th street - rated in the lonely planet! The barman was a friendly chap who proceeded to inform us that if we waited around for long enough we would see some prostitutes. Not your normal type of prostitute, but midgets or gay transsexuals. After a long discussion, Cazzie decided she didn't want to get one so we headed to our hotel!

After a good night's sleep and another visit to the Reading Market, it was time to head to the airport.

All the pictures can be found here.

Philadelphia didn't seem to be so great at the time, but having written this blog, looked at the pictures and chat with Cazzie about it again , we decided that Philly is a great city to visit. I think it didn't stand out against our visits to Vegas, Washington, Boston and Houston, but it is well worth a few days.

So that concludes my USA blog. We were away for a total of 21 days, visited 6 cities, travelled over 6,400 miles (just in the US), saw 2 baseball games, had the best steak ever at Abe's & Louie, met a lot of new people (and a puppy) and had an amazing time!

I can highly recommend it.

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Their Nation's Captial

2009-07-09T13:27:00.016+01:00

The next stage of our USA trip took us to Washington DC. The flight from Boston was a short one, but Cazzie still managed to get a good hour's sleep in!

We arrived mid afternoon and decided it would be a good idea to take the subway to our hotel. This seemed like a flawless plan until it was time to get off the subway and walk the "very short distance" to our hotel. After about 30 mins of dragging our ever increasing in weight suitcases around in a very large circle while the temperate got warmer and out clothes wetter, we decided it was time to give in and ask directions. It seemed that we have been doing laps of our hotel!

The hotel was lovely and we managed to check in with no problems. After a quick shower we headed out to have a little wander around while trying not to go and see any of the numerous sights that we had planned to do for the next 2 days. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and a coffee before it was time to meet with Don and Glenna, a couple of my parents friends who live near Washington. We had about 30 mins to kill after getting ready so we popped across the road for a quick drink and this is where we saw that there had been a massive crash on the Subway on the line we were on about 4 hours ago with a few dead and 100's injured! I guess it wouldn't be the same if we visited a country without there being some form of disaster!

The meal with Don and Glenna was lovely. They took us to a suburb of Washington called GeorgeTown where we had Italian, share stories about all our various holidays and future plans, and Don picked up the tab - result! They dropped us back at our hotel just before midnight.

The plan for the next day was to take the hopefully open subway to Union Station which is sort of like Grand Central Station but in DC. This is where we would pick up our tickets for the open top bus tour. The ticket we got was valid for 48 hours and we were delighted it was as there was so much to see and do!

I could detail every single sight we saw, but I think that would even bore me, but there were some real highlights which included Capitol Hill, The White House, The Mall, The Monument, The FBI building and The American History Museum, but there were 2 places that stood out for me, The World War II Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The WW2 Memorial was completed in 2004 (in fact, all the historical building we saw looked like they had just been completed in the last 5 years!), and was there to show all the states that took place during the war. At either end of the monument were the two oceans - Pacific and Atlantic with a fountain in the middle. The whole thing was terrific.

Then there was Arlington National Cemetery. I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't really know what this place was all about and the only reason we went there was because it was on the bus route, but I' so glad we did. This is the place where members of the Armed Forces, members of their family and pretty much anyone else connected to a war that the US has been involved in are buried. It receives 4 million visitors a year. I'm not really sure how to describe it. It's 420 acres and I could not even start to guess how may are buried here. It seems as well that any soldier that died while they were actually serving in the forces got one type of headstone and anyone else who used to be a part of the forces got a choice. This is what got me I think.

This was just one view of one area from one direction. And further more, all these headstone and lined up not just horizontally and vertically, but diagonally too. It was stunning, precise, clean and perfectly maintained. There are other nationalities here too including Korean and Japanese.

President JFK is also buried here, and is one of only 2 Presidents to have that honour. We felt like we were stalking him!

Again, I could go on abut what else is here, but if you are interested, follow this link.

That pretty much brings us to our final night in Washington where we headed back to GeorgeTown for dinner and a drink. After an OK meal we found a piano bar - winner. We got right on it despite that fact that the piano dude was awful!! We decided to go for a wander to see if we could find another bar that tickled our fancy, but being America, a lot of that bars are in hotel and restaurants, so we ended up back in the piano bar. In true style, we finished the night sat round the piano, singling very loudly and telling the guy how great he was!

Overall Washington is a great place. You get to visit all the places you see on the telly and there are some lovely areas to shop, eat and drink as well as lots of suburbs, huge parks, endless fountains and monuments. It's well worth spending 3 days here as there is loads to do!

All the pics can be found here.

One funny stories from DC. We knew that Barak Obama was in the White House when we visited it and he was conducting an interview with Good Morning America. Everytime Cazzie saw a black man she asked me "Is that him???"

Now it's off to Philadelphia!!

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Cheers Boston!

2009-06-28T23:46:00.005+01:00

After a very early flight from Vegas, we arrived in Boston mid afternoon. I knew from previous Vegas trips that we would need something to do on our first night in Boston, otherwise we would all pass out very quickly. With this in mind, we decided to take in a Red Soxs baseball game on Friday night. A quick check-in at the hotel, where we were offered a half price upgrade to a better room that included access to a bar on our floor which served free snacks between 5 and 7 and a free breakfast. The cakes here were amazing!! We enjoyed a few beers here before we headed to Fenway Park.

The plan was to get foot long hotdogs, beer and foam fingers. This was followed with military precision.

After another baseball game where I really didn’t know what was going on and my 3^rd successive game where the home team lost, we all headed to a local bar to grab some fried food and a few more beers. The evening was a great success and stopped us all from pulling the rip cord very early on.

The next day we had booked ourselves on the trolley bus tour of Boston – you know the type – the tours round a city where you get a guide at the front telling you all about the stuff you are passing and you can hop off and hop on where ever you want to, to walk around. It is very touristy but the only way of seeing all the best parts of a city. We took a walk to the first stop and grabbed breakfast on the way. The street we walked down was lovely. Full of boutiques and antique shops. Really English. Really quaint. After a great breakfast, we hopped on the trolley and began our tour. Our guide was excellent and we learnt all about the history of Boston, the English invasion, the famous Tea Party, MIT and Harvard and more importantly, the Cheers bar. There is the replica bar, where we stopped and had a beer, and about 1 mile away is the actual place where all the outside shots were taken.

The replica bar was in a place called Quincy Market. This place was full of shops, bars, restaurants, street entertainers and a large market. It was a great place and really bustling.

We hopped back on the bus and continued our tour. Then we got told something that is truly genius. We had all noticed that there wasn’t much traffic about and wondered why. A few years ago, traffic was so bad in Boston that the powers that be decided to build a network of roads underground. This is a great idea. Anyone that wants to get from one side of Boston to the other now uses these tunnels meaning they don’t have to clog up the city centre. Screw the congestion charge, we could do with this in our major cities. It’s a great idea. The only trouble with this plan was that it is very expensive. Original budget for these tunnels were $3 billion, but it cost nearly four times that much.

A few more stops on the trolley and we were back where we started. It was a great tour and I can highly recommend it.

It was time to head back for a shower, so we took a walk through the park that was by our hotel. There were lots of wedding parties having picturesque photos, boats on the river and lots of little ducklings.

For dinner, we headed to Little Italy and after a few glasses of wine in a few bars, we were ready to eat. We dined in a lovely little Italian restaurant and were given a great table. A few more glasses of wine and lots of lovely food, we were all ready to hits the bars of Boston, so we headed a place that had a live band on and proceeded to get smashed. The band was great and the drinks flowed. A great night had by all and we were chucked out at 2am. Cazzie’s feet were hurting, so we taxied it back to the hotel, where she decided to do cartwheels in the corridor of the hotel at 2.30am which we were amazed that it woke no one up! Videos will appear later on YouTube!

The expected hangover greeted us the next day, so a fry-up was next on the agenda. After a walk around the shops and a trip to a couple more places such as the Boston Library, it was again tea time. There is a bar at the top of the Prudential tower that we wanted to go to which gives great views of Boston. As the weather was rubbish, the views were not so great, but the cocktails were! I think I won with my Tropical Splash.

Hunger was very much upon us, so after a great recommendation from our Concierge, it was time to go to Abe and Louie’s. We were told that this place is much better than Smith and Wollanskies. I was somewhat sceptical but as I always say, there’s nothing like local knowledge. I will be doing a separate post about our dining experience here. Enough said.

After our meal, we were all pretty much spent, so we retired to bed as Cazzie and I had to leave to 9am to catch our flight to Washington DC.

Boston is a terrific city. Full of culture and history with plenty to keep you occupied for 3 days.

See you in DC!

Love

Stuoobs

xxx

Viva Las Vegas

2009-06-24T21:18:00.003+01:00

Let me start off by telling you something that you should already know. Las Vegas is the greatest city on Earth and I will argue this fact with anyone who wants to. This place has everything and lots of it. I not going to bang on anymore about how good it is – but if you only visit one other place in your life, make sure it is Vegas.

This was the 4^th time I have been here. Cazzie and I arrived from Houston on Sunday night and checked into the Bellagio. We wandered around to find something quick to eat before Paulie and Karen arrived from the UK.

We were all set to go at about 8 pm and we headed over to Planet Hollywood Casino. Paulie and Karen grabbed a quick bite to eat while Cazzie and I played the tables. It was fairly clear that this wasn’t going to be a late one as jet-lag and Houston had caught up with us all. After a few gins on the blackjack table, we all called it quits.

So Monday was upon us and the weather was glorious. I have only ever been in Vegas during the winter and therefore never been able to take advantage of any of the wonderful pools that these 5 star hotels have. It was decided to eat at the poolside cafe before spending the next few hours soaking up the sun.

It was now time to get dinner and I have heard that the burgers at the Paris Hotel were the best you can get. I did have my doubts, but I needed to try them for myself. We rocked up to the Burger Brassiere and we were a tad disappointed that it was a sports bar. I was expecting more of a bistro type place. Anyway, we cracked on and ordered the Kobe Beef burger and I have to admit, it was great. I have had plenty of burgers in my time, but this was the best. And not only was this the best burger, we ordered a stack of onion rings, which were right up there too.

This is the beauty of Vegas – 4^th time here and the trip is never the same. In fact, I think the only constant during my 4 trips, apart from the gambling, is the Piano Bar At Times Square in New York New York. This is my fav place in Vegas. 2 duelling pianos, playing requests from the very drunk crowd, but in a way that everyone gets involved. Paulie and I, along with 8 other blokes, ended up in front of a lady on our knees, who was sat on top of the piano having requested “You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling”.

After a few Kamikazes and copious amounts of Vodka Cranberry, we were ready for bed.

Tuesday rolled round and the format was similar to Monday. Bit of breakfast by the pool (well, it was more like lunch by the time we had surfaced) and another sunbathing session. The next place on our list to eat the Bellagio Buffet, rated as the best on the strip. The queue for the buffet was about 70 deep, but I had managed to get us a free line jumping pass, so all 4 of us waltzed straight to the front of the queue, which must have really pissed everyone else off. The buffet itself was amazing. Crabs legs, huge shrimps, Elk, Prime Rib, Italian, Chinese and Indian. There was almost too much to choose from. The best part of this buffet were the desserts.

We all grabbed 2 / 3 each, put them in the centre of the table, took a bit from each one and decided upon our 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd favourite. The results were

1 – Lemon Meringue pie

2 – Chocolate pudding

3 – Strawberry Tart

To be honest, there wasn’t much to choose between them as they were all amazing.

Paulie and I then jumped on the blackjack table while Cazzie and Karen took themselves off to one of the many bars in The Bellagio. Before we knew it we had been sat at the table for 6 hours, had 15 gins and the girls were very drunk! It was about 6 am before we finally called it quits. If my memory serves me correctly, we were the last 21 table still standing!

Wednesday was my birthday and I started it with a hangover. After opening my cards we again headed down to the pool for food and sunbathing. We had booked ourselves into the miX restaurant at The Hote1 (yes, it does end with a 1 not an L) at Mandalay Bay for this evening. It was right at the top of the hotel with fantastic views.

The meal was terrific as was the restaurant. A tad pricey, but hey, it was my birthday. We headed back to the Bellagio where we spent a few more hours and a few more gins on the blackjack table, finally getting to bed at about 3.30 am.

Our last day started like the others with food by the pool. I finished the book I was reading, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, which is very funny. Tonight we had tickets to see The Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Vialli and the Four Seasons. This has been rated at the top show in Vegas and I can’t really argue with that fact. It was brilliant. Really well done and the guy that played Frankie was amazing. When you do go to Vegas next, see this show.

We ended up eating in the Venetian before heading back to the hotel. It was a concisions decision to make this a quiet night as we were up at 6am to catch our flight to Boston.

Again, another wonderful trip to Sin City. As mentioned earlier, it was yet another different Vegas experience. We didn’t really venture out that much. We had done the Grand Canyon, Shopping, walking to all the other Hotels and Casinos, so it was a more relax Vegas trip in the day time. This put us all on good form for the night time activities, not that you can really tell the difference between night and day when you are there.

Anyway, it’s off to Boston. See you there

Love

Stuoobs

xxx

Houston - we have a drinking problem

2009-06-18T23:48:00.010+01:00

One of the main reasons for this trip to the US was to visit Cazzie’s old flat mate, Kati. Kati moved to Houston about 18 months ago to work within the oil industry. All the major players are here, including Exxon Mobil, BP, and Shell. Houston is pretty much built around this with most people here working in or around the energy business.

We arrive after a 4 hour drive from Dallas, Kati picked us up from the car hire place and took us to her apartment. This place was really cool 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, big living room, kitchen with all the mod cons and access to a pool. We were introduced to Bruno, her little puppy who peed everywhere with excitement every time he saw someone new.

There was no time to stop and admire the place though as we had tickets to the Houston Astros baseball game, so we jumped back in the car and headed to the Minute Maid Stadium. I was a little concerned about sitting in the 100 degree heat for 3 hours, but the stadium had a retractable roof, which was closed and the air conditioning was on. After loading up on foot long hot dogs with cheese and chilli and about 5 gallons of coke, we took our seats, which were right at the front. To be honest, I could have been sitting anywhere, as I had no idea what was going on. The American’s have a go at our cricket and say that it’s boring. But at least we get sixes, fours, runs and wickets. The score was 1-0 to the Astros after 9 innings each. Twenty20 is much more exciting and fun!

We decided to call it a day and left early to head back to the apartment. Quick shower and walked to the local bar called Kona for both happy hours. Happy hour started at 4 and went on until 7 and started again at 10 - what did they think was going to happen? There was Cazzie, Kati and myself and we were later joined by Kati part time lodger, Lorisa. Over the next 6 hours we racked up a $500 bar bill that included 20 JagerBombs, 8 Saki bombs, 4 Surfer on Acids and lots of beer, wine and gin. Lorissa’s husband, Joel turned up at about 11 o’clock having driven from this job in Dallas to find Lorisa in a complete and utter mess. He stayed for about an hour and then was forced to take her back to the hotel, where she proceeded to throw up all night! He wasn’t a happy chappy. The rest of us, which now included Kati’s flatmate Jocelyn, stayed at this bar until we were asked to leave. The bar had a really good vibe about it which may have been helped by the fact that the LA Lakers were playing Orlando Magic in the basketball finals. A cracking night had by all!

The next day we dragged our sorry asses out of bed and headed to Memorial Park with Bruno. As we were all feeling a little rough, we stopped my McDonalds for a breakie to take to the park. Memorial Park is where a lot of people go running, which I could not understand. I was breaking out into a sweat just standing there so I can only start to imaging how hot these people where. A lot of the guys were running without a top on, which Cazzie and Kati thoroughly enjoyed. What amused me though was the park had an outside workout area, with things like chin up bars, a press bench and a sit up thingy. All the “beautiful people” hang out here doing their work out so everyone can “admire” them. Cazzie and I were sat watching them, scoffing on our double sausage and egg McMuffin.

We only spent 1 hour in the park as the puppy nearly died of heat exhaustion. Next stop was the supermarket to stock up on food for the BBQ. This is the great thing about Kati’s flat – there is a gas BBQ by the pool that is free to use, and you don’t even have to clean up after you!! Kati, Lorisa, Cazzie and I settled in by the pool and proceeded to cook our fodder while having a few beers.

After a great afternoon dicking about in the pool, it was time to clean ourselves up and get ready to head out for a birthday party. One of Jocelyn’s friends came to pick us all up and drive us to Tipsy Clover, a cool Irish bar with outside drinking. After a few in there, we headed off to the Union Bar, where Cazzie and I decided it was time to dance like total idiots. This went on for about 2 hours and included pole dancing and 80’s classics. A lot of Kati’s friends were in attendance and we all ended up pretty smashed again.

Saturday morning was another hangover so the general consensus was to spend the day by the pool to try and get rid of it. A lot of American Football throwing took place and it pretty much did the trick of sorting us all out. This was a good thing as we were heading to a Hawaiian party that evening. The host had hired a frozen margarita making machine and bought 12 litres of Tequila to go with it. The party was a great success with a lot of time spent in the pool / hot tub. I think at the last count, 10 litres of tequila were drunk. Not a bad effort for 25 people.

Overall Houston is like Dallas, not a touristy place, but having access to a local person, such as Kati, turns it into a fantastic place to go. All the right bars, restaurants, pools, parks and parties are all there without having to put in any effort at all. Kati was a terrific hostess and we would definitely go back there if allowed!

Now it's off to Vegas Baby

Stuoobs xxx

Thunderstorms, Cowboys and ex-Presidents

2009-06-18T23:29:00.008+01:00

So we eventually arrived in Dallas after a very long day’s travelling. We must have been awake for over 24 hours. I now have a new respect for Jack Bauer. We went to pick up our car, and after a very long, confusing conversation with the stupid woman at the car hire place who tried to convince me that the exchange rate was 4 dollars to the pound, we were on our way to the hotel. Needless to say, we went straight to bed.

As expected, we woke up very early and decided to go and get ourselves the best breakfast Dallas had to offer. So after a brief chat to the concierge, we headed out to a place called Breadwinners. To get there we were told to travel on the free trolley bus and all we had to do was tell the driver where we were going and he’d drop us off. A bit odd I thought, but who was I to argue. We walked around the corner and there it was – this very old, rickety, electric powered tram. We hopped on, told the driver where we were going and placed ourselves on the wooden seats. It was like we had been sent back 100 years.

After a fab breakfast, we wandered around Dallas without any real idea where we were going. We did know what we wanted to go and see the 6^th Floor Museum and learn all about where, why and how President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as well as all the 100’s of conspiracy theories that accompany it. This was my own personal highlight in Dallas. It was fascinating. We learnt all about the reason why there was growing unease about JFK’s policies. All to do with the African Americans being given equally rights, the problems the USA were having with CUBA and the threat that the Cold War was going to heat up. The day before the President and his wife arrived in Dallas, a group of

wealthy businessmen paid for an advert in the Dallas Press to attack all of his policies and decisions. There was also a threat from a group of extremists that surfaced and the Secret Service were very worried about the trip that the President was making.

The trip seemed to pass without much incident until the drive through the streets of Dallas. There were videos played showing the route that was taken and you could hear the reporters saying that the threat that was thought to have existed was a false one. Seconds later you can hear shots fired and panic ensued. JFK was rushed to the local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The 6^t^h Floor of this museum is where Lee Harvey Oswald was positioned when he shot the President. From the window you can see a white cross marked on the road to highlight the point where JFK was shot. It was a very weird feeling to see this and one I can’t really describe.

It took about 90 minutes to see everything in the museum, and it could have taken 3 times as long if you took the time to read everything. It was fascinating and if you are ever in Dallas, this is something you must do.

After a quick picture on the grassy knoll, we headed to the Aquarium. This is much better than Melbourne Aquarium.

Dallas isn’t really a touristy place, so we did struggle to find other things to occupy us. There is a good bar scene, but this only really gets going on the weekends. We did manage to eat at my new favourite restaurant in the world.

On the Wednesday, we took a drive to Fort Worth, which is about 40 miles west of Dallas. The strap line for Fort Worth is “Where Cowboys and Culture exist” and they are not wrong. We spent the afternoon looking at real life cowboys, riding on their horse fully equipped with huge Stetsons, chaps and spurs all speaking in the accent that you would expect them to. There are no hello’s or hiya’s here, just “Howdy y’all”

There are loads of shops where you can kit yourself out like a cowboy – not like Michael J Fox in Back to the Future III, but with all the proper gear. You can pay $1,000 for real leather cowboy boots that are custom made for you, saddles for your horse and totally authentic cowboy shirts. I was tempted to buy a shirt, but decided that it would only really come out for fancy dress parties.

We stayed for the cattle drive through the streets before heading back to Dallas.

Our last night in Dallas was a bit of a nightmare, as the whole of the state of Dallas was under a tornado threat. We did not get a very good night’s sleep as there was an almighty thunderstorm that lasted for 12 hours. Sheet and fork lightening with the loudest thunder you have ever heard. Car alarms were being set off, buildings were shaking and there was a huge amount of flooding. Biggest storm I have ever been in. We woke the next day to find that most of the routes in and out of Dallas were either flooded or blocked by jack-knifed 18 wheelers. Luckily our route to Houston was unaffected.

Would I go back to Dallas? No. It isn’t a place for tourists. Did I enjoy it? Very much so. If you do ever find yourself in Dallas, you will not be disappointed.

See you in Houston

Stuoobs

xxxx

The three week USA trip begins

2009-06-08T19:25:00.003+01:00

Howdy all,

I write this from the Philadelphia lounge of the very good people at US airways. This is the airline that compensated us for booting 7 of us off their flight from Manchester to San Francisco last year and putting us all on a better flight and upgraded us to first class flight. No wonder all the airlines are losing money. I have used these vouchers to fund a three week trip around the States. I have 4 hours to kill here, and due to the fact that I am picking a car up in 7 hours, I am unable to get smashed, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to do my first blog of the trip!

The past week has been fun. Cazzie, as a surprise early birthday present to me, bought tickets to see We Will Rock You, the musical based on the music from Queen, at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. I have always wanted to go and see this, but envisaged I would have to go to London or Vegas to do so. My parents saw the show in Vegas and said it was brilliant.

I really had no idea what it was about, but needless to say, it was fantastic. Great music, funny and a good, albeit bizarre storyline. I can highly recommend going to see it, but it has sadly come to the end of it's run in Manchester, so London or Vegas it will have to be!!! I think one of the surprise highlights of the show was the performance from Curly Watts!! The whole thing was excellent and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

So we await our transfer to Dallas or the Big D as it is commonly referred to. Only have 2 full days here as and we are trying to cram a lot of stuff in. We want to visit a ranch (perhaps Southfork from the hit US show Dallas), go see the 6th Floor Museum to find out about President John F. Kennedy's assassination that took place in Dallas on the 22nd November 1963, eat and drink at the Big D's numerous bars and head West towards Fort Worth, where the strap line is "Cowboys and Culture".

Before I finish I would just like to compare the meals Cazzie and I had on the plane. Guess which one I was served with??

See you in Dallas!!

Lots of Love

Stuoobs

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A very quick start

2009-05-31T12:00:00.001+01:00

Hello everybody.

Well, this is my first attempt at a blog. Not sure how it's going to pan out, whether I keep it up or if anyone will actually read it, but I guess it's meant to be a reminder of where I go and what I do from now on. I had Andy to do this for me for the past couple of years and I just hope that my memory is as good as Andy's and that it doesn't get affected by the alcohol so I can give an accurate description.

Cazzie and I have been back in the UK from Tignes for just over a month now and it's been fairly busy with weekends away, BBQ's, Girls Aloud and Engagement parties.

Here is our Tignes Compilation Video

It took about 2 weeks for Caroline to move all her stuff into mine. There were 1000's of shoes, clothes, beauty products and handbags. I was amazed when I asked Cazzie why she had so many handbags and she told me that she had Summer ones and Winter ones. I have no idea what the difference is. Does one keep you warmer?? Is one air conditioned? I guess only women will know why. As all you blokes out there will know, all you need is 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of shoes, 4 tops, one shirt and one bottle to take in the shower.

We have just over a week left in the UK before we heard out on our next little adventure. Thanks to the good people at US Airways who decided that they didn't have a large enough plane to fly us to the Foden's wedding last year, and having then managed to get us all on a larger plane flying first class with United Airways, they still found it in their hearts to give us all $400 worth of vouchers to fly with US anytime in the next 12 months. Cazzie and I have decided to take full advantage of this and we are embarking on a 6 city tour of the USA, starting at Dallas, moving onto Houston and Vegas, where Paulie and Karen will be joining us. We leave Vegas for Boston, Washington and Philadelphia. We will be away from a total of 21 days and the flights are costing us £200. Winner winner chicken dinner!

My intention is to update you after each of these cities, but we will see what happens.

I will no doubt be adding little gadgets and gizmos to this page showing pictures and videos of where I've been. The beauty of this is that I will have Andy to ask if I get stuck.

TTFN

Stuoobs

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