I've not updated this blog for a LONG time so seeing as I'm on the road again having another adventure,I thought why not!
The initial plan when we decided to do this trip last year was to just do a few days in Vegas for my 30th but then we decided to do a road trip up the west coast.
First stop...Vegas! Now I've never been so I was expecting big things and also hoping to win big to fund the rest of our trip...we didn't win big but we did win a little-which helped.
Unfortunately it looked like we'd brought the trusty British weather with us, so our first official day was spent wandering around trying to keep out of the rain. We thought this would be a good opportunity to check out downtown Las Vegas so we hopped in a cab at Ceasars Palace and off we went. Our cab driver was so friendly and enthusiastic - he spoke to us about football and Lisa, if you're reading this he asked if Leicester would win the league (not something Ben wanted to hear being a Spurs fan) I guess he didn't have to wait long to find out! We asked for any food recommendations and he recommended a place to eat, Lotus of Siam which we tried on our last night and weren't disappointed.
We roamed around Downtown for a while whilst people zip lined above our heads and other people took part in some kind of crab eating festival (it stunk!)
When it was time to leave downtown we jumped into a cab and received a torrent of abuse from the driver. After asking us where we were from we gradually got the feeling he didn't like the Brits after telling us "British people are no good" he then turned his radio up to full throttle and tried to blast our ear drums. Not surprisingly we didn't tip him!
Saturday night was our lucky night on the roulette table. There were a few lively characters on it and 17 and 20 were coming in for them so we thought,let's try our luck on those too! With a little singing of "don't stop believing" by Journey and a bit of clapping we were soon onto a winning streak too! Eventually it was time to call it a night and off we went to eat, good thing about Vegas is everything's open late so if you fancy chicken wings at 3am, you can have chicken wings at 3am!
Celebrating my birthday in Vegas was pretty amazing. I had champagne delivered to my room from my family back home and then was treated to the Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson One show at Mandalay Bay. If you've not seen it, it's an absolute must when you visit Vegas. We were completely in awe to say the least! We then went for dinner at SW at the Wynn, and a little birdy told them it was my birthday so we got the best seats in the house-out on the terrace in perfect view for the water feature shows, we even got serenaded by a giant singing frog!
VERY early on Tuesday morning we took a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon and it was rather Grand! It was both our first time flying in a helicopter and the views were spectacular. We were the fortunate two out of our group as we got to sit up front with the pilot, who shared an uncanny resemblance to Todd in Breaking Bad or Landry in Friday Night Lights for anyone who may have seen those! We flew over the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead and at 7 in the morning the sun was already out in full force allowing us fantastic views across the land. Before we knew it we were approaching one of the natural wonders of the world-The Grand Canyon. To fly over it was a great experience and we also got to land in it for a quick champagne brunch, unfortunately the time went quickly but I managed to snap a few pics of some Cactus growing in the gorge.
Much of our time in Vegas was spent trying our luck in the casinos,making the most of the free drinks,catching some rays by the pool and doubling our body weight eating the huge portions of food which are served! I had a fantastic time there and was sad to leave but our journey had only just started, next stop Santa Barbara!
So we picked up our Mustang convertible in Vegas and hit the freeway! When you're driving a convertible, you want the roof down-don't you!? Little did we know by the time we reached halfway the temperature had peaked to 100 degrees and we were feeling the heat! We did begin to wonder why no other convertible drivers had their roofs down...rookie mistake by us! After passing through copious amounts of tumbleweed towns (which I was always amazed people lived in!) we finally arrived in Santa Barbara!
A quaint town with a picturesque harbour,this was to be our abode for the next three nights.
Our first morning was mainly spent getting lost (well,I knew where to go-Ben just chose to ignore my directions) we finally found the breakfast place we'd been in search of,Scarlett Begonia! We were told by a passer by when Ben asked for directions to try the biscuits and wow, what a recommendation! They're basically the American version of scones but they were delicious-these were our starter before our breakfast. A starter before breakfast!
Later that day we took a stroll down to the beach, we needed to walk the food off! If you head along the harbour you get a fantastic view of the town with the mountains as a backdrop. The rest of the afternoon was spent by the hotel roof terrace pool willing the sun to make an appearance, sadly it didn't but that didn't stop me from getting in the pool!
The food in Santa Barbara was amazing and we ate in two very good restaurants for dinner. Toma- it's an Italian restaurant with very hearty dishes and a waiter who is a Will Ferrell look a like and the other was Barbareño, which unfortunately doesn't have any famous look a likes but they do a brilliant smoked beef!.
So that was Vegas and Santa Barbara. The second leg of our journey will see us heading further up the West Coast :)
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