No place like home...Thank goodness !!!

Gallery: Arriving Back at Stansted - England

jamesanddan — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 22:38:00 GMT

Arriving Back at Stansted - England

The home of Bush

jamesanddan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:53:00 GMT

The District of Columbia - The Federal State

Washington DC is exactly as you'd expect it to be - large buildings, wide streets and a lot to see!

We weren't talking on the day we arrived (don't ask!), so walked up to Capitol Hill and along the Mall in silence! We went to see the White House, of course, wandered around Chinatown and saw 'Awake' at the cinema!

Today we are off to see the Pentagon (and the mall there!) and maybe be a little bit cultural and head to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution!

Tomorrow we head to New Jersey to drop off our car before getting to New York on Friday to meet Danny - can't wait for another New York Christmas, but we're going home soon, and its soooooooooooo sad! We do have our posh hotel to look forward to though, it comes with a stocked up Ipod/bose speakers/plasma tv etc. etc.!!!! wohoo!!

Pennsylvania

jamesanddan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:47:00 GMT

Pennsylvania - The Plantation State

Our first stop in Pennsylvania was Pittsburgh, a very industrial, grimy city - and to be honest we didn't really do much there except wander around in the freezing cold! We stayed outside the city so did get a bit of shopping in and an Olive Garden - yummy!

And then another days driving, on to washington DC!

Ohio

jamesanddan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:42:00 GMT

Ohio - The Buckeye State

Ohio was somewhat of a let down in a few ways to be honest. Firstly, I was looking forward to taking some nice snaps of Lake Erie, which was not at all accessable, and just basically a lake! Secondly, we drove out of our way to go to the Amish town of Bishop, which did have a few buggies running through it, but apart from that was just a normal Ohio town (including a Comfort Inn and a Burger King!) - Thirdly, Cleaveland was a very architectually beautiful city, but absolutely dead! We were not impressed, so will be going to the 'real deal' in Pennsylvania instead!

So, apart from those little pit stops, that was Ohio!

Illinois - Chicago

jamesanddan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:33:00 GMT

Illinois - The Land of Lincoln

The arrival in Chicago turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to be honest, we got stuck in rush hour traffic for about 2 hours, then couldn't find anywhere to stay...we eventually did, and found an Irish Pub right next door (hmmmm shepards pie and apple crumble, with no crumble!!).

Chicago actually turned into more of a 'hunt for my Great Uncle's Grave' than a siteseeing tour - he lived in Chicago and was killed in the Santa Fe train crash in 1956 and my poor grandmother has never seen his grave, so we set out to find it! The search involved trawling through libraries, contacting Polish cemeteries and using the Microform machines to go through the old Chicago papers (it was like being a real historian, so fun!) - unfortunately we couldn't find the grave, but there was mention of his name in the papers.

We did do a little bit of exploring in the city , saw the giant bean, did a bit of shopping, ate an original 'Chicago Town' pizza (very odd - more like a pie!), rode the 'L' etc. Chicago is a beautiful place actually, the Christmas decor and snow helped a lot I think!

Colorado to South Dakota (via an icy Wyoming!)

jamesanddan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:18:00 GMT

Wyoming - Equality State and South Dakota - The Mount Rushmore State (original!)

So, on our last day in Estes Park we got up early to go into the Rocky Mountains NP to find most of the roads closed due to snow - just our luck! We did, however, spot some Elk and Dear along the road, which was quite cool!

So it was 'on the road again' and we didn't pick a very good day for it! The winter was officially setting in, with snow and ice storms across Colorado and Wyoming - so poor, poor James had to drive so slowly the whole way up to South Dakota so we didn't go off the road (which many people did - we literally saw 10 cars/trucks that had flown off the road within the space of a few miles - scary). We drove up to a place called 'Rock Springs' and had a disgusting Chinese Takeaway - a cute little place though, with a geothermal river running right through the middle of it! Quite liking the thought of going into the hot spring waterfall at Cascade Falls whilst it was snowing, we drove 10 miles out of our way (recommendation of the Lonely Planet) to find a tepid stream, with no waterfall in sight...great!

The Mammoth Site was our next stop - where 27,000yrs ago a 'sink hole' was formed in the earth and as mammoths went to drink from it they fell in and drowned - created piles and piles of mammoth remains, which they found a few years ago! It was cool! We then hit the road again to go and see Mount Rushmore, via the Custer State Park (where we saw prarie dogs, bison, deer, burro etc etc. Mt Rushmore was quite boring, we didn't really stay too long as it was freeeeezing! Actually, we didn't even go into the park - $8 parking, you're having a joke!

We then had the absolutely massive drive to Chicago, via (apparently) the world's largest truck stop (i've definitely seen bigger, South Mimms for example!)...

Gallery: The Great Sand Dunes National Park

jamesanddan — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 08:16:00 GMT

Colorado

Cold Cold Colorado

jamesanddan — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 07:43:00 GMT

Colorado - The Centennial State

Driving from Arizona to Colorado in one day was quite a mixture of landscapes, as soon as we hit Colorado it changed from desolate desert to snowy, rocky mountains. We were aiming to get to the Great Sand Dune NP for sunset, but literally missed it by about half an hour, so ended up staying in a town called Alamosa and eating at my beloved 'Chilis' instead!

The next day we rose relatively early and headed for the Sand Dunes, which from the road looked rather umimpressive and I was quite disappointed. HOWEVER, once we got into the park itself, they were huge! 30 miles squared to be precise! We (well I), obviously wanted to get some good pictures, and see the whole of the expanse, so we started the 1.5mile trek up the dunes to High Dune (aptly named!). Let me tell you - walking on sand is not easy at all - I had a complete tantrum going up the first one as every step I took I fell down a step and was literally tredding sand! After getting into the swing of sand climbing and reaching the top we were both pretty proud of ourselves and the view was amazing! Check out the photos!

From the dunes we stopped off at the UFO watchtower north of Hooper, although being there during the day we weren't actually planning to spot anything! It was such a funy little place though, which has apparently had 44 sitings since it opened in 2000.

James then drove us all the way to Estes Park (the gateway to the Rocky Mountains) - he's a little darling isn't he?! We stopped for soup and chili at Fairplay (!) on the way and drove through Boulder, which we were planning to stay in, but couldn't find any motels!

Gallery: The Grand Canyon and Monument Valley

jamesanddan — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 07:20:00 GMT

Arizona

Gallery: Las Vegas and Nevada

jamesanddan — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 07:19:00 GMT

Nevada

Utah

jamesanddan — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 06:38:00 GMT

Didn't really do much in Utah except drive through the desert....pretty red there!!

Arizona, the state with the Canyon!

jamesanddan — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 06:31:00 GMT

Arizona - The Grand Canyon State (original!)

From Vegas we drove through the desert to The Grand Canyon via Hoover Dam (not that impressive - we were more impressed with the new road they were building!). We got to the Grand Canyon for sunset, took a few pics - very pretty, although James was very unimpressed (its 'just a canyon' apparently!), then the next day I got up at 6am to get down there for sunset and OMG it was freeeeeeezing!! Cool to see though (and to see that time of the morning, freaky!).

Our next stop was Kayenta, a town in the Navajo Indian Reservation, and oh my goodness could you tell; the lifestyle is so different to everywhere else we've been, and it actually felt like we were back in South America. We couldn't help feeling that the Indians are really hard done by...

That evening we sat in a Laundrette for about an hour, which was fun (an experience, as i've never really been in one! ha!), ate a burger (getting to be way too common nowadays) and watched CSI all night....what a life!

We then did the 17mile scenic drive around Monument Valley, which was really weird - there are 'buttes' jutting out of the valley, that are actually so pretty - we had a better time there than the Grand Canyon actually, especially as we got there early and were about the only people there. Well worth a visit to anyone going to Arizona, the little Indian shops are so sweet as well - we picked up a few momentos (but unfortunately not the bracelet on the front of the LP - they were trying to charge $200 for it!!!!!!!).

ps. sorry for the lack of pics on the blog - can't seem to find a proper internet cafe.

Nevada

jamesanddan — Sat, 1 Dec 2007 06:18:00 GMT

Nevada - The Silver State

Arriving in Las Vegas we were hit by the bright neon lights, crowds of people and comeplete tackiness of the place - it was so cool!!

The first night we were there we just chilled out in our Travelodge, preparing ourselves for the big day of shopping ahead, as we were planning to go out on Friday night (and for some reason, I felt that to go out in Vegas we had to look fab!!). We moved to our hotel - The Sahara, which (you guessed it!) was an Egyptian themed hotel (and, I have to say, Vegas' most scummy hotels - i've never seen such trash in one room in my life!). We wandered around the Shoppes at the Venetian (soooo cool, love it!) and put on our only bet there on the roulette (lost), saw Paris, Caesar's Palace, etc etc! I love the Belagio, can I live there??

Friday night we donned our fancy new clothes and headed to The Mirage, to Jet nightclub - we had a fun night (although the club wasn't up to much, and my feet were in agony from my new heels - to this day, a week later, i've got MASSIVE cuts on my feet from them, that's not right!!).

Our last day in Vegas was spent recovering from our hangovers and just generally doing sod all....on to Arizona.

Gallery: Yosemite and Death Valley National Parks- USA

jamesanddan — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:57:00 GMT

Driving down California

Gallery: The Big Sur and San Francisco - USA

jamesanddan — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:49:00 GMT

California and Hwy !

Gallery: La - USA

jamesanddan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:49:00 GMT

Gallery: Dallas - USA

jamesanddan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:02:00 GMT

The Lone star state...

Gallery: Teotihuacan Pyramids - Mexico

jamesanddan — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:09:00 GMT

Gallery: Acapulco - Mexico

jamesanddan — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:58:00 GMT

Going Loco down in Acapulco

California, knows how to party...

jamesanddan — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 09:19:00 GMT

California - The Golden State

Our hostel in LA was smack bang in the middle of Hollywood, but not up
to much unfortunately (bring back Hwy 808). As we only had a day we
took a magical bus ride (Danielle is actually obsessed, this was the
second time she'd done this particular one!) around Hollywood, Beverly Hills etc. Despite having the binoculars out on 'Beckham watch' we didn't
see him anywhere (probably because he was in the UK at time!). We hopped
off at The Farmers Market and a beautiful outdoor mall, all decorated
for Christmas - very odd 30 deg heat!

The day FINALLY (James was getting very very excited at this point)
arrived to pick up the RV - another eventful journey on LA's public
transport meant we were an hour late! The RV was in reasonable nick
considering it was 7yrs old, and James tells me it felt like driving a 40ft truck! It was also soooooo rattley we couldn't hear ourselves think! We immediately hit the road on highway one to santa barbara, which was
beautiful. Our first night was spent parked up at the pismo beach rv park, and was rather cold as there were no hook ups and our rv didn't have a generator! But was free as we left at 0730 in the morning (James woke early and decided to start driving!).

We drove up highway 1, through the Big Sur, stopping for a couple of
beautiful overnight parking locations such as Walmart in Marina and Park
and Ride in San Francisco! Haha! San Francisco is a beautiful city. We did some shopping for 'comfy RV clothing' at Abercrombie (namely Tracky bottoms and sweatshirts!), queued for ages and took the rather crammed tram to Fisherman's Wharf where we took a $10 boat ride around the Bay to Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge - which was HILARIOUS as it was so foggy that we were under the bridge and couldn't see it for toffees! Well worth it! It was fre-fre-freezing as well! Back in the RV we had a gourmet meal of half burnt half uncooked pizza!

From SF we drove to Yosemite National Park where we treated ourselves
to a full RV hook-up (getting to know thew lingo!) which meant we had
heating! We actually stayed just outside of the park in Groveland - went
for a run in the forest (are you proud of me mummy?!), did some sit ups
and looked out for bears! The following day we drove into the park
proper, stayed with 100s of other RVers in a campground and set out on the search for bears! It was really dry so no waterfalls to speak of, it
WAS beautiful, although not the most beautiful place we've been to. No
bears spotted either, but the Ansel Adams gallery made up for that (for
me anyway!). Luckily the Hwy 120 which is usually closed due to snow at this time of year, was open so we were able to drive the whole way through the park. Had slight smokey brake syndrome on the way down the mountains - we had to stop for a carrot break until they cooled down!
We stopped at the gorgeous Mono Lake, which I remember going to with my
rents a few years ago - a very odd place, reminded us of Bolivia
actually!

The small town of Bishop was our next, and last, RV stop as it decided
to conk out on us - the guy at the Ford dealership said it sounded like
the transmission had gone and would need replacing!!!! Typically it
was Thanksgiving the next day so it wouldn't have been fixed for a few
days - we could either wait around in sleepyville or pick up a car for
free in Las Vegas, we chose the latter and picked up a hire car to drive
ALL the way (5hrs through mountains and desert) to LV and then all the
way back as the car company wouldn't hire one way!! What a day that
was! Needless to say we were both knackered and very disappointed to have
to leave the RV that we had grown to love like a child!

Thanksgiving was spent packing up our little ford Focus (OMG we have already accumulated so much stuff!), driving 40miles to Mamouth to drop off the car and getting to Death Valley. DV was so beautiful, I had a major paddy (tears and all) because I couldn't capture it on camera and my tripods broken! The moutains were such a weird colour - red, yellow, blue! Incredible! Of course we didn't book a hotel so poor James had to drive to Vegas that night too...but that's another state, so you'll have to wait for the next installment for that story!