Los Angeles to Santa Cruz, CA

Venice Beach, Sunset

Los Angeles was quite enjoyable. We stayed at a property we found at Venice Beach and it was a wonderful location for seeing the coastal sights. We had access to two bikes and were able to ride to the famous Venice Beach boardwalk & Abbot Kinney Blvd in about 5 minutes. We spent our first day in Venice Beach and Santa Monica area. You could sit on Venice Beach Boardwalk and watch people all day. There are countless things to do and see there such as surfing, zip lining, there are volleyball nets at the beach, a tennis court, squash court, muscle beach, a pier, skate park, basketball court and I'm sure there is more.

A few blocks back you then have Abbot Kinney Blvd. It is a palm-lined mile of restaurants, yoga studies, art galleries and boutique stores. It's probably a little hipster if you needed to put a label on it. We rode our bikes from Venice Beach for about 10km. We headed through Santa Monica and if we kept on going we could have reached Malibu but it would have been about 26 miles all up I think, which we would have happily done if our bikes weren't so bad. Santa Monica pier is a happening place. It's the end of route 66 and is lined with restaurants and even a very mini theme park. Along our ride we saw dolphins just playing in the breakers about 30 meters from the shore. 

Venice Beach is a beautiful place to see the sunset. It was a little cloudy the day we went but it was beautiful. You can see 2 photos below and 1 above.

Venice Beach, Sunset 

Venice Beach & Santa Monica Pier, Sunset

The next day we boarded our buses and headed for Hollywood. For those of you who have not been to L.A it's awful without a car. We probably spent about 4-5 hours altogether trying to get to all the sights and even then, we did not make it to everything. Hollywood is crazy. We were wondering where all the people were and the traffic and, we eventually stumbled across it. We headed to Rodeo drive first and ended up walking the whole street (3.2km) and not just the famous shopping precinct as that is where our bus dropped us. It was a nice walk though, and quite peaceful. I like to think we passed lots of famous peoples houses, but we probably didn't. We then headed to Hollywood. It was very busy with lots of tourists. We saw the Hollywood sign and if you squint your eyes, and tilt your head, you can see it too! We spotted no celebrities but we did stand where they stood!

Hollywood Sign from Dolby Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Hollywood Walk of Fame.

After L.A we started our Highway 1 journey to San Francisco via San Luis Obispo & Santa Cruz. The windmill game (which is pretty much just yelling 'windmill' when you see one) turned into the Mustang game, although I think Michael was the only one playing (every 20th car was a Mustang). The first day didn't really involve much coastal driving to San Luis Obispo, but the town is cute. It's the birthplace of one very famous Zac Efron and every Thursday night it has a market in their main street with delicious local food and produce.

The second day we set out for Santa Cruz where we spent 2 nights. This was the part of highway 1 with the gorgeous coastal views. It's very similar to our great ocean road. The only issue with the drive is that there was this annoying cloud cover that ruined our views for the most part. We did get some beautiful sights when we cleared it, but you can see from the photo it was just cloud and we probably had about 200 meters visibility for the most part but either way, we couldn't see the ocean. We did see a squirrel though and some sea lions. There were so many! That's pretty much it. We are have just arrived in San Francisco where we will stay for 4 nights.

Squirrel

Sea lions

This is what we drove through. There is a beautiful scenic coast drive under there somewhere, I'm sure of it! 

Highway 1

Santa Cruz

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT

Forget everything you have read and appreciate this. Today was probably our biggest day so far and probably my favourite. We went to 2 National Parks and hiked about 15km all up.

Bryce Canyon National Park was our first stop. I don't know how to describe this place and photo's don't do it justice. At 8100ft, the canyon is formed by the natural force of water, ice and gravity that forms the 'hoodoos' of Bryce Canyon which makes it so unique. For 200 days each year, snow and ice will melt in the afternoon and freeze at night. When the water freezes, it expands and pushes  the rocks apart creating the different hoodoos and windows that can be found in the Bryce Canyon amphitheater. We hiked 4.6km throughout the amphitheater and then hiked further along the rim of the canyon. It was incredible, it topped the grand canyon by far! With every twist and turn came a new angel of the canyon. It was like a wonderland. It would be incredible to see it when there is snow scattered throughout the amphitheater.

Stomping Bryce...

We came from down the bottom...

View of Bryce Canyon

Bringing back the hurdling

Anyway, that is Bryce. If you ever plan a trip to the USA, include Bryce Canyon! Next stop, Zion National Park.

Lake Powell, AZ/UT

Our next stop was Lake Powell. It is situated between Utah and Arizona which made it a perfect stop between our final destination to Mt Carmel, UT. It is America's second largest artificial reservoir and is part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.  The lake was formed by Glen Canyon Dam which was completed in 1963 and rises 710 feet above the Colorado River. Lake Powell took 17 years to fill, reaching it's full capacity in 1980.

You'll have to excuse the quality of the photos below, but we got to Lake Powell with 2 flat phones and one very flat camera battery. Our only choice was to take photos on our tablet (we looked so lame).

There really isn't much to say about this place other than it's beautiful. We went on a 3hr boat tour along the river and cruised through the surrounding canyons. The main spots along the tour was the Glen Canyon Dam and Antelope Point.

Our photos really don't do this place justice. You should definitely check out the google image search of this place to see how beautiful it actually is.

Glen Canyon Dam

Antelope Point, Lake Powell

Michael, at Lake Powell

Lake Powell

Grand Canyon, AZ

We packed up our belongings and headed for Arizona, "the Grand Canyon State."

For those of you who have not been to the Grand Canyon, I will start with some 'fun facts' that may help you try and visualize the canyon:

• The Grand Canyon is 447km's in length
• At the widest point, it stretches 29km across; at the narrowest, only 6.4km
•  The Grand Canyon is approximately 1.8km's deep
• The rock found at the bottom of the canyon is about 2 million years old, compared to the rock on the upper rim which is said to be 230 millions years old.
• Despite the Grand Canyon not being the longest, widest not deepest canyon, it attracts 5 million tourists each year. 

We headed to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon which is where most tourists flock to. Since the Grand Canyon is so...'Grand,' shuttle buses service the south rim of the canyon which allows tourists to hop on and off at certain viewing points. You can also walk along the rim of the canyon between the viewing points which we mostly did. We decided to head down one of the hikes that takes you into the canyon and the views were amazing. I can't actually describe them, so here are a few photos. We were in the Canyon for sunset too. It was a little cloudy and photos didn't quite capture how beautiful it was, but enjoy these photos of us and the canyon. We also encountered some Elks and squirrels on our journey. They were adorable!

Spot the Strelan...

It was a hard walk up.

Colorado River through the Canyon

Las Vegas, NV (take two)

What happens in Vegas doesn't have to stay in Vegas. It's the town of neon lights, fake tans, hummers, limos, bleach blonde hair, nails that are too long to be remotely useful, girls that can hardly walk in their shoes and drunk men yelling out of taxi's saying, 'she's hot...you've done well!'

Fun Facts:

• There are approximately 200,000 slot machines in Las Vegas. They start as you disembark your plane and continue in various locations such as the grocery store.
• There are about 6,000 live gambling tables throughout the main strip.
• There are about 300 weddings per day
• At any major hotel, around 15,000 pillow cases can be washed per day

We arrived Las Vegas around 4pm. It is a desert oasis. Apart from the main downtown strip, there is nothing. You can see the mountains that surround the city from pretty much anywhere. As a result, it was ridiculously hot. Every day the weather has been anywhere from 32 degrees in the morning to about 40 degrees from about midday onwards, although it feels hotter than that due to the very dry heat. We are nearing the end of the summer season, and I would hate to think of what the temperature can reach out here in July. We did a tour of Hoover Dam and the tour guide said it can reach around 50 degrees in the summer out there!

Hoover Dam was massive. It was built in 1931-1935 and has enough concrete to path a 4 foot path around the earth's equator. We went on a tour of the power plant and that n itself was amazing. There are 17 generators throughout the dam and during peak electricity periods enough water to fill 15 average sized swimming pools can run through each one in 1 second (approx 75,700 litres).

Us at Hoover Dam

Generators in Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam

Las Vegas, New York New York

Las Vegas, Paris

Las Vegas, Bellagio Fountains

We hit up the casinos every night. I read somewhere that the average amount people spend in Vegas per night is about $500. We were not one of them. We were putting in $20 dollars hear and there and we always managed to come away with a profit. Our best feat was putting $1 into the pokies and cashing out with $30. We also went to a show which was pretty fun. Going into hotel lobbies with like entering a different world every time. There are rainforests, underwater oceans, things that look like they come from alice in wonderland, scenes that make you feel as though you are in Paris, New York, Rome, Disneyland. You name it, it's probably here. Seventeen of USA's 20 top hotels are situated on the main Las Vegas strip.

You can drink anywhere. You can buy a daiquiri from the endless amount of bars that have girls in their bikinis along the main strip and just keep on walking to the next club/casino. It's incredible. If you want it, you can have it, maybe that is why the have that famous Vegas saying.

That is pretty much it. We originally only came to Vegas as a half way point between the Grand Canyon and some National Parks we are heading to in the next few days, but I can honestly say I'm glad we came. It was so much fun, and again, I don't think there is any other place that quite resembles it.

Next Stop: 4 Days to do Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Zion National Park & Bryce National Park.

Las Vegas, NV

Sorry guys. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...

San Diego, CA

San Diego, described by the locals as 'American's finest city.'

San Diego is a beautiful town quite heavily influenced by their neighbouring Mexican amigos! There are Mexican restaurants everywhere, each claiming that they have the best tacos and margaritas in town. We tried two Mexican restaurants in our short stay here and both were somewhat disappointing. We went to the two recommended places but here in the USA they deep fry everything and then drench it with cheese and sauce. I couldn't eat most of the meal which is shown in the photo below, and after I ate my meal, I felt sick for hours. We ended up having to go back to the hotel so I could lie down. The second restaurant was much better cheese and sauce wise. It was more flavoursome and delicious, and the local specialty of fish tacos are pretty good (but not as good as Hawaii).

burrito...makes me sick just looking at it!

San Diego has a small downtown section which revolves around Gaslamp Quarter. It is a hub of restaurants, bars and boutiques. Then, there is Balboa Park. It's situated a little north of downtown and has lots of museums, gardens, performance spaces and a zoo.You can also sit and watch the planes fly in. They fly very low overhead as the airport isn't far from the park. 

Gaslamp Quarter

We went to most of the local downtown sites as we did't have a car and public transport is ridiculous here. It takes forever to get anywhere. You can walk across the trolley/tram tracks at any stop which is a little weird and you can get a 1 day pass for $5.00 which is super cheap. Here in California you can also take your pets anywhere. You can take your pet cat on the tram, or your pet husky on the bus. It's weird, yet SoCal! 

We didn't get to Mission Bay and Beach area which is their main surfing and beach drag. I would have liked to go but having only 2 days in San Diego, we had to miss out on something. They have a little old town section which feels as though you walked into a western movie. The road turns into gravel and there are shops and displays of how life used to be in the 1700/1800's, including blacksmithing and tortilla rolling demonstrations. It was pretty cool to see and there are not many places like this in major cities. 

old town

making tortillas

blacksmith

On Sunday we headed to Sea World. It was super hot and super busy as it's USA labor day weekend. We spent a big chunk of the day there, but I just wanted to see the killer whales. They are beautiful animals. I want to be a trainer and play with them, or the dolphins..either is fine! 

San Diego is starting to feel a lot more like USA - walking outside our hotel you see a massive super highway with Denny's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Macy's, Best Buy and of course Starbucks. Though it's still not quite as flashy as you can imaging New York to be.

That was pretty much our time in San Deigo...Next stop: Vegas baby!