The Big Sur

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?

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

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

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

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!

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

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?

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

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

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