Saturday 21 August 2010: This morning we headed to the Empire State building.We got there super early again to avoid the queues and once again the plan worked and we could go straight up.The observation deck is on the 86th floor and it offers excellent views of Manhattan, the Hudson River and its surrounds.Central park looks quite small from the observation deck.It surely didn't feel that way when you walk through it.I got an audio guide which corresponded to nu...

Wednesday 18 August 2010: We travelled to New York today.Eventually got through all the queues at LAX to board the flight to Denver and then to New York LaGuardia airport.Total travelling time was about 8 hours but that's excluding the taxi ride to the apartment.The apartment is on West 54th street and is tiny but comfortable.It has everything we need.A double bed and a pull out couch, a small kitchen and our own loo and shower.Gary, who owns the apartment, met ...

Monday 16 August 2010: Today has been a pretty chilled out day driving down the coast to Carpentaria.We left misty San Fran at 8am and had our first stop in Monterey to explore Cannery Row.Apparently Monterey has the best Aquarium in all of the US but unfortunately we were on Contiki time and didn't get enough time to experience it.Cannery Row, so called because they once canned stuff here, had a few boutique type shops and a few souvenir shops.Monterey was a bi...

Friday 13 August 2010: We entered the misty city of San Francisco by crossing the impressive Bay Bridge. The Bay Bridge has one of the longest spans in the world. The middle column consists of enough concrete to build a freeway from San Francisco to New York! That's a lot of concrete! As we excited off the bridge we passed the baseball stadium, home to the San Francisco Giants. We also passed the old Ferry building with the clock at the top.The clock stopped at...

Wednesday 11 August 2010: Start of Contiki Shortly after we left Las Vegas, Nevada we passed through a security check point into the sunshine state, California!! While road tripping we passed a town called Baker. Baker has the world's largest thermometer. It read 87 degrees Fahrenheit, about 31 degrees Celsius as we passed. Just after Baker, California we passed along the edge of Death Valley. The name suggests it all, pure sand dune desert. We stopped for...