On Thursday morning Darren and I arrived into LA, The U S of A!!!!
We were greeted by two familiar smiley faces....my sister Sarah and Bro-in-law Chris. It was lovely to see them after 7 months of travel and after a few hours of talking and catching up, it felt lke we'd only seen them last week!
So over the last three weeks we have travelled more than 3500 miles and seen so many amazing cities and sights! Im going to cram as much into this blog as possible so i've caught up, as we fly home in only a few days time!!!!!!

Our first 4 days were spent in the crazy celeb land of LA and Hollywood. We camped in Malibu, a very exclusive address and even saw some amazing houses along the beach. We spotted Courtney Cox-Arquettes old beach front house and some other ones were huge! Its a beautiful beach with big waves, but not as amazing as I though. Maybe its because we've just come from the lagoon waters of Tahiti lol!!!!!
We did lots in our 3 days, we walked along Santa Monica Pier at sunset, got lost driving along Mullholland Drive and saw the sights of Hollywood (the sign, Sunset Bvd and The Hollywood walk of fame stars!) We went to muscle beach and watch some crazy people in the gym and plenty of basketball going on! We took a drive up Rodeo Drive and walked around Santa Monica. It was a great few days and we had warm days but colder evenings! Its a crazy place!!!!

Next stop....a road trip to Las Vegas!!!!! We stayed at the Hotel Tropicanna, right on the strip by the MGM and opposite New York New York, couldnt have been better placed and we got great rooms for a steal!!!!! We didnt quite know how to take the strip on the first night, its a CRAZY place, people who have been there may agree!!!! The neon lights of the strip need to be seen to be believed and its hilarious seeing so many people just walking around drunk and mad!!! I think you either love it or hate it!!! I think we loved it, but because we are at the end of our trip and low on funds we couldnt gamble too much! I lost $2 on the slot machines and Darren is very proud to say he won $1, whoop whoop!!!!
I dont think Sarah and Chris did much gambling either (yes all of us were silly ooops!) but we enjoyed the experience and the big casino's are amazing! We loved the Belagio waterworks show and the Mirage had a good volcano erruption! Its definately on its own as a place in the desert!!!!

We walked the strip alot and spent some time relaxing by our pool, Sarah and Chris even managed to fit in a 15000ft skydive over the city which was awesome, so we had lots of fun!

We took a drive to hoover Dam which was definately more impressive than I thought it would be and we also took the long drive to the Grand Canyon West, which was stunning and very dramatic. Its so hard to capture the vast creation of one of the seven wonders in a photo, but still it was an amazing place, shame the native indians are charging an arm and a leg to see it though.

So Las Vegas was eventful and very busy, we'd love to go back one day and do a little more gambling if we had the money, but we're so glad we got to Nevada and Arizona in our short time, even the drive was an incredible experience.

A week into our trip we were heading back to the Californian coast to travel north up the Big Sur (Great Ocean Highway1). The journey up the coast to San Fran was beautiful, your typical windy coastal roads with to die for views of the blue Pacific and big waves! We stopped at a beach and saw huge Elephant Seals which look very bizzare and also had a look at Hearst Castle from a distance. The journey took us through Carmel, a very posh area south of Santa Cruz where Clint Eastwood used to be a governor for!!

After a fair few hours driving we arrived into San Francisco (my favourite city in the world...I visited a few years ago!) We had a full weekend doing the famous sights and walking along the big hilly roads!!!! Our hotel was in an interesting part of town and on arrival in the evening we saw plenty of colourful people, homeless and ladyboys among them!
We got a lot done in San Fran, we walked through Union Square into North Beach where there was a festival going on, we sat and listened to music in the sun, it felt like being at home in the summer!
We went up the Coit Tower which gave brilliant panoramic views of the city and also walked to the zig zag street of Lombard! The next day we drove down it which was really fun! We did a lot of walking on day one and made it to Pier 39 at Fishermans Wharf and enjoyed watching the crazy sea lions on the old pontoons! They were very entertaining fighting eachother for sleeping space, we could of stayed there all afternoon watching their antics!!!!
I just love San Fran for its querky streets and famous sights of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Lombard Street and Pier 39. Theres just so much to see and do, its a fun, colourful city!
We got some great views of the Golden Gate Bridge on Day2 and took a drive to visit Mrs Doubtfires house on Steiner Street. We also went to Alamo Square and the Painted Lady houses which are some of the few remaining traditonal Victorian style houses in the city that havent been destroyed by earthquakes. The viewlooking over the city skyline is fab and its a nice park to have a relax!
We split up in the afteroon, Sarah and Chris did some shopping in Union Square while Darren and I took a stroll around The Castro (gay area of San Fran) and where Harvey Milk lived (if you've seen the film with Acadamy Award Winner Sean Penn, you'll know who he is!) He was the first openly gay elected governor of an area of San Fran and the USA and did so much for the gay movement and other things. He was tragically assinated in 1978 by a fellow governor. We walked past his camera shop where his campaign began and loved the fact that we were in the minority walking down the street (being a hetrosexula couple!) It was great fun!!!!
We also made it to Golden Gate Park for a little walk around and chill out in the afternoon sun. We walked passed the tennis courts where i played in 2006 for the GB University team against the University of San Fran, it was strange being back!!!
In the evening we went back to Alamo Square to get some photos of the Painted Ladies and city at dusk.....it was very picturesque.
After that we took a drive down to Fort Point and let off some sky lanterns into the harbour, it was a perfect end to an active city weekend!
On Monday Sarah and Chris took the tour over to Alcatraz, while Darren and I browsed around Fishermans Wharf, our final part of San Fran was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge (northbound) and enjoying the views from the vista point on the other side....the city has so much to offer, the steep streets of California or Finton, its just all crazy! We love it and if you havent been, its definately worth a stop if you're coming this way!!!
After San Fran we had a bit of a road trip for a few days up Vancouver.....in north California we enjoyed seeing the Giant Redwoods, the biggest trees in the world, in circumference and height, the size of some of these giants is just incredible, the photos are funny, even Darren looks like a dwarf compared to them!!!!!
We eventually made it into Oregon, a beautiful state. Very green with plenty of fern trees and crisp bluey green rivers following the roads. Oregon is quite geothermic and we managed to indulge in some hotsprings inland of Salem. A very interesting few hours in some natural hotsprings with plenty of other people....it was funny as the four us were kind of the only ones wearing any clothing, if you get my drift....you'll have to look closey at some of the photos if you want a good laugh!!!!!!
We had a morning in Portland which was a delightful, clean city (also a city where a friend we met in Thailand is from but whom is still travelling). By the afteroon we hit the Oregon coast and made our way to Cannon Beach and Astoria, pretty places along the coast and Colombia River. It is also a popular film location, films like The Goonies, Kindergarten Cop, The Ring and Short Circuit! We were most excited about The Goonies and we managed to find their house on the hill!!!! Haha it was brilliant!
The weather was a little gloomy so the views from the top of Astoria were pretty but a bit dull with the rain and cloud but its definately a lovely little place!!!!!!
The next day we made it into Washington State, we were supposed to go over to Mount St Helen, the most recently active volcano in the US (last errupted in 1980 killing 56 people). Unfortunately the cloud coverage was too low and it would of been pointless for us to drive 2 hours inland to not see the famous crater rim. We were quite dissapointed as we didnt get to see a volcano in NZ either, but not too worry im sure we will one day!!!!!!
We finally made it to Seattle after more than 3000 miles of driving (weldone Darren and Chirs and thankyou!) We walked around Seattle, the coffee capital of the states before our greyhound bus to Vancouver, Canada! A great city with lots of older buildings mixed in with the new. There is a big port in the harbour and we enjoyed walking around the Pike Street Markets.
It didnt take too long to get to Vancouver (4 hours with boarder crossing!). We said bye to Sarah and Chris for a few days (nice to have a little break!!) and they headed to their hotel in downtown VC. Darren and I caught the skytrain east toward to Langley as we were staying with my friend Helen from school who moved out here with her family 9 years ago. I always promised to visit and finally after 9 years I did it!!!!
The road trip has been fab but we're all looking forward to a few more relaxing days in Vancouver!
VC will be my last blog...so till next time!!!!!!