San Francisco

We arrived in San Francisco late in the afternoon. At an attempt to save some money we tried to find a campsite North of the City, although we found a couple they were fully booked so we were resigned to staying in a motel for the night at a cost of $85, what a rip!

The next day we headed into the City across the Golden Gate Bridge from the North and parked up near San Francisco Bay. We went to a shop to buy some food and ate lunch near the palace of Fine Arts. Afterwards we made our way along the pier at Fisherman's Wharf stopping to take pictures of Alcatraz. We tried to get on a tour to the island but they were fully booked so instead headed for Coit Tower located in North Beach which gave some great views of the City. We then made our way over to the Financial District and a Starbucks to get the internet and book some accommodation. We found a reasonably priced place South of the City near San Francisco Airport. By this point we were all hungry so we headed over to a nice Italian restaurant near Market Street. After filling our tummies with wine, pizza and garlic prawns we headed onto Market Street and caught one of the trams down to Fisherman's Wharf and walked from there back to the van. We then headed to our motel for a good night's sleep.

The next morning we headed back into San Francisco, this time from the South and opting to park a bit closer to Market Street, though still in San Francisco Bay. We ate lunch in Maritime National Historic Park and then headed for Market Street and Union Square. We had a browse through some of the shops and bought a couple of surf type items and chilled out in Union Square. Originally we had planned to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge but the weather wasn't too good that day so we decided to check out Lombard Street, which is an iconic zigzag road in North Beach. We had to park up and take some photos as our poor old van couldn't handle the steep slopes of San Francisco. We then headed for our penultimate location, Yosemite National Park, located to the East of San Francisco. We made it within 50 miles of the park before crashing for the night.

Knowing that Yosemite was going to be heaving due to Memorial Weekend we headed there early and had some great luck, a spot had opened up at a campsite about a 15 minute drive from the entrance to the park due to a family not turning up. Although it cost us just under $40 a night it was much cheaper than staying in a motel in the area. We pitched up our tent and headed into the park around 3 pm to try and find somewhere to swim, in hindsight this was a huge mistake as the park was ridiculously busy at this time. We spent over an hour getting into the park, followed by at least an hour trying to find a lake without success and then finally we spent about 3 hours getting food and exiting the park. We spent the evening having a BBQ and a couple of beers before hitting the air-bed.

The next morning we spent a couple of hours deciding what to do, which turned out to be hiking to the top of Half Dome, which I thought was a 3 mile round-trip, but that was just the base, the top of the mountain was actually a 15 mile round-trip. It took us 7 hours to climb the 4,800 ft mountain but it was definitely worth it, we saw some spectacular views and got some great pictures but as we had set off late we didn't have much time to spend at the top. It took us only 3 hours to get back down and that was a pretty fast pace, though we had to be quick as the sun set only 2 hours after we left from the top. We made it back to the campsite exhausted but satisfied for some well earned sleep.

We awoke feeling stiff from the day before and slowly organised ourselves for another day in the park. We headed to Tuolomne Grove to see some Giant Sequoia trees, on route we saw a wild brown bear and her 2 cubs. At Tuolomne we met some guys from Ireland doing a piece of filming and had a good chat with them. Afterwards we headed to a place called Tunnel View which gave a great view of the valley and mountains. Next we headed to Mirror Lake, a perfectly still lake that acted as a huge mirror providing an awesome view of the mountains. Finally finding a place to swim we stripped down to our shorts and got ready to take the plunge. Paggy and I walked in to find it so cold that it hurt our legs so got back out. Oskar and Paggy then decided to go in fully and were (to mine and Kev's amusement) clearly feeling the cold. Kev and I realised the best way to approach this was just to run as fast as we can so as to minimise the pain, though it didn't make much difference, it was still freezing cold! Once we'd heated up we got some food and had another BBQ and a few games of cards round a fire before going to bed.

The next morning we got up very early (6 am!) as Kev and I wanted to watch the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona in Sacramento. We made there around 11.30, 30 minutes before kick-off but the Sat-Nav took us the wrong way and we spent the next hour looking for the place, arriving 30 minutes in with the score at 1-0 to Barcelona. We had lunch, a couple of beers and enjoyed the 2nd half. The final score ended up 2-0 to Barcelona. We had a couple of games of pool and then hit the road. We spent the night in a motel about 120 miles from Seattle.

Death? Valley yeah right

So our last night in Vegas wasn't all that eventful, we'd decided to have a nap after Joe cooked us a meal, I know what your thinking, we didn't think he could cook either, it was surprisingly good. so the plan was to go out at 12 after our nap. 12:30 arrives, still in bed, me and oskar get up no sign of the other too, so we knock on their door still no answer, finally after ringing them they get up and eventually we're off. We did the usual, lost money, won money, got scammed by a taxi driver, you know how it is. We got some decent pictures of all the decent places and at 5:00am that was the end of our night, so we headed back and got an hours kip before setting off to Death Valley.

Tuesday morning, we sadly left our gorgeous hotel on the strip and headed to Death Valley, first stop was Wal Mart to invest in a fan for the van and some water. On the way, surprise surprise we get ambushed by three cops on motorbikes. So the usual situation paned out, 'since when have Georgia hand written their temporary license plates', oh funny guy. Then the usual rigmarole of giving them our details and the usual lectures and we were on our way, one of the cops however came out with, 'oh man I've got to get a picture of this its hilarious', dickhead.

So we're on our way to Death Valley anticipating a hot day. It didn't disappoint, although it wasn't as bad as we thought, we could breathe when we got out of the car. We visited a couple of the sites on our way through, tried to stop at a campsite and camp there, we thought the better of when we got ambushed by thousands of flies so we headed off to LA, but not as far as we would've hoped.

So Death Valley as you know is hot, well turns out so is our car, it over heated and wouldn't run, this was in the middle of nowhere, bugger. So Joe was shitting it a bit at this point, I however was as calm as cucumber, confident our baby would not lets us down, I was right, 10 minutes later we were on our way again, with a couple of stops to let the van cool down.

We spent the night in a little town called Lone Pine it was a nice town, we went out for something to eat then hit one of the bars and played pool. Oskar made a friend with a guy who's dad was from Sweden, he bought us all a drink and for some reason invited us to stay with him in Seattle, a bit weird.

LA. We'd decided to check out Hollywood and then Beverly Hills. The walk of fame was a little disappointing, well Hollywood in general, if the stars weren't there what else is there? After a couple of pictures we went to Beverly Hills, didn't see much sadly, all the houses were set far back behind lots of trees, we saw a few though. Next stop, Hwy 1 and venice beach.

God the Pacific's cold so we didn't stay long, we played some frisbee then back on the road. The night was spent a hour up the round in a tiny motel with one double bed and a single, cosy, I was on the air bed.

Next, San Francisco.

Gambling in Vegas Pictures!

Las Vegas, we're here!

Yesterday, we set off from Flagstaff and about 10am with Las Vegas plugged into the sat nav as our next destination. For the most part the drive was quite boring, however there were a couple highlights, the first of which was crossing the Hoover Dam, which is an impressive 220m in height and was built in the early 1930’s. We stopped for a spot of lunch here under a shaded canopy which was necessary as the temperature was 39 degrees Celsius! With only 30 miles from the Hoover Dam to Las Vegas we thought it would be plain sailing . . .

So 5 minutes after crossing the dam we were pulled over for by the cops for the 3^rd time on the road trip, as the copper approached he asked ‘since when did Georgia start writing there temporary licenses on paper?’ Joe told him the story of why we don’t have a proper tag plate and to our amazement he never asked for proof of ownership, drivers license or insurance and sent us on our way, I guess he must have spotted a doughnut store in the corner of his eye.

About 40 minutes later we arrived at our hotel in Vegas which is by far and away the best place we have stayed so far. I should explain at this point that Paggy’s parents are part of a holiday club and very kindly donated some of their points to us to get 4 star accommodation in a place called Polo Towers. Somewhat far removed from our usual tent/motel we have 2 bedrooms, 2 en-suites 3 LCD televisions a full kitchen and a shared hot tub and heated pool on the roof.

After a hot drive (due to lack of functional air conditioning) we decided to go for a swim on the roof to freshen up. After which we prised ourselves from the hotel room sofas and headed out for dinner. Our restaurant was Hooters, a place we have been meaning to go for a while! The food was average, but on the plus the waitresses were very friendly.

Time for some gambling then, we made our way to Bellagio; on our way in, we stopped to checkout the famous fountain choreography put on by the Bellagio which was really a tremendous display. On the inside the 1^st thing I did was put a $20 bet on red as my brother requested I do, black came up, thanks Craig! Not wanting to lose more money, the for of us found some 2 cent betting machines, I lost another dollar, Paggy lost 3 and Oskar had some luck on his side and made a profit of $2. Pretty tired after a very long day we went back to the hotel and got some sleep.

Myself Paggy and Oskar were up at around 10am preparing for the day and needing a little more beauty sleep, Joe arose just after midday. We took advantage of having a kitchen and made a tomato/pasta/tuna/cheese dish for lunch which was delicious, good idea Oskar, and got on our way. We walked round most of the South of The Strip and made several small bets in The MGM Grand, New York New York, Excalibur and Hooters. I lost another $3 or there abouts, Paggy something similar and Oskar’s luck continued winning another couple bucks. Joe is also about 30 cents or some small denomination.

Right now I am waiting in the hotel for Oskar and Joe to hurry the eff up and get the food so we can cook it and then go out! The plan for tonight is to see some of the older part of Vegas including the famous Golden Nugget, it could be a late one. . .

Tomorrow we will be heading to Death Valley which according to my guidebook is the hottest place on Earth; I can believe this as it is presently 49 degrees Celsius there, that will be fun with no air conditioning.

More phots

Denver, Moab and Grand Canyon

So we haven't been writing here for quite a while, therefore it's about time now.

We arrived at Kev's aunt Ruth's house on monday afternoon hoping to get a bit of rest. However there was no rest for the wicked and we ended up fitting a storm door, which was quite fun, "three-dimensional work" as my dad usually says. The night ended with a nice campfire.

Day two at Ruth's consisted of golfing on a short 9-hole golf course, on the early part of the day. I've never played golf on a course before and only a few times on driving ranges, but it was still a lot of fun. We played the course twice, Paggy and Kev won one round each and ended up on the same score for the rounds altogether.

The late afternoon and evening consisted of an excellent BBQ at Tom and Kathy's, the food was definitely excellent.

Ruth has two dogs Tess and Angus, one big one smaller, and a horse called Razz. Both the dogs are really nice and playful. The third day we went to visit Razz, and we guys did some hard labour. It wasn't too bad at least that was what Kev, Paggy and I thought. Joe wasn't too happy cleaning in Razz' pen and filling it out with more gravel under the mats Razz stands on. Later that night we played a few games of a pool and darts, a lot of fun.

The next morning it was sadly time to leave Ruth, Tess, Angus and Razz and continued on our road trip.

On drive from Denver to the Grand Canyon we decided, after tips from two independent sources, thank you Sebastian, to stop at a small town called Moab. This is a small town with a population of 8,000 people, however from april-nov it grows to 80,000 such is the popularity of mountain biking and off road driving in the area, indeed Moab is often referred to as 'mountain bikers paradise'. We stayed at an excellent campground at the edge of the town, complete with swimming pool and jacuzzi.

The second day, waking up early as always in the tent we went on a bike rental hunt and eventually found a few medium sized bikes and a large sized bike for us all. To get the bikes to the trail the back seat of the car was removed, and used as a sofa for the rest of the night. The trail we went down is called the Slickrock trail. Paggy turned out to be a god of mountain biking compared to the rest of us. I've never done mountain biking before but managed quite well after a few tips, Kev was alright as well as he had done some before, Joe on the other hand had several comedy falls and one quite bad one resulting in a loss of confidence and ended up walking the down hills in the end. After all I think we all really enjoyed it. Another episode worth mentioning is the barbeque the first night which we had trouble getting lit up, only one solution; more lighter fluid. I wasn't quick enough removing my head from the grill and my hair smelled a little bit bad afterwards.

Exactly 2 weeks into the trip now and we've just arrived at Luxury Inn in Flagstaff, although I'm wondering why it's called Luxury Inn as it seems just like an ordinary Inn with unreliable internet. On our way to the inn Kev managed to follow up in Paggy's foot steps and went through a red light.

Earlier today we visited the awe-inspiring Grand Canyon and it really does look amazing! The views are simply stupendous and as everyone suggests it isn't possible to capture the canyon with any photograph or video. We took several stops along the road and got some great photos. We managed to get a brilliant photo of us jumping, take 2, with a little help from a Kiwi guy, which turned out excellent.

Yellowstone National Park

We arrived in Yellowstone quite late through the South entrance. Realizing that it would get dark soon we decided to get to the camp site as soon as possible. There were two available this time of year so we headed for Mammoth, which was in the northern part of the park. Unfortunately when we arrived we found that half the camp site was closed and the other half was fully booked. Furthermore the stores had closed and so we had to go to a dining hall to get some food. After our expensive dinner we found out that Madison (the other camp site) had plenty of room so we headed there. On route we spotted a couple of Bison and a wolf before arriving at the camp site approximately 10.30. We pitched our tent in the freezing cold and crashed to a very cold and uncomfortable night’s sleep.

In the morning we got up early and made our way to Old Faithful where the predictable geyser erupted roughly every 78 minutes. On route we found some smaller geysers and fantastic sulphur pools. We arrived at Old Faithful around 11.30, 20 minutes before it was due to blow. Not wanting to waste time we had a look around the area just making it back in time for the eruption. While it was great to see we all felt somewhat disappointed after the expectation and so decided to finish off looking around the area. On our way back to the van we were very lucky to see the Bee Hive erupt, this happens every 10 hours to 5 days and so we were very fortunate to be there when it went off, as it was much more spectacular than Old Faithful. That afternoon we went to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and found a couple of waterfalls which included one that was over 300 feet. By this time it was early evening so we headed north of Mammoth Springs to get some burgers and sausages for a BBQ, however on the way we were flagged down by a park ranger for having a home made tag plate. Once he realized we were exchange students and the car wasn’t stolen he let us go. After picking up the food we had our burgers, a few Buds and created a bonfire to keep us warm for the night.

The next morning we got up early after another cold and uncomfortable night (the bonfire didn’t help) and headed for Mammoth Hot Springs where we found some thermal pools that flowed into the river where we could bathe, which was absolute bliss after two nights in the freezing cold and no showers! By the time we left the thermal pools it was 20-25 oC and blue skies. We picked up some food and headed for the Yellowstone Lake where we got some stunning photos of the mountains while we had lunch. After lunch we exited the park through the South Entrance and made our way through Grand Teton, which also gave some fantastic views of the mountains and lakes. At one point a park ranger started following us and it was only a matter of time before we got pulled over, which we did. The park ranger approached the vehicle with a hand on his pistol as might be expected when approaching a van in the state of ours. Kev turned to speak to the officer who then instructed him to face the front and put his hands on the dash. Kev later blamed the cold for his uncontrollable shaking but we all knew the real reason he was shaking. As soon as the ranger confirmed the van wasn’t stolen and checked our documents he sent us on our way. The next couple of hundred miles we encountered about three short bends, 50 cars and towns with populations as low as 100 people. We reached a milestone of 200,000 miles on the van though we think it may have been clocked so it could have been much higher. We eventually arrived in a town and crashed for the night in a motel, which felt like a 5 star considering we had a bed and hot water.

Unfortunately there are no photos on this post either, we'll probably upload some in the next couple of days.

- Joe

Final Day in Chicago and Mount Rushmore

So its been two days since we updated this and my god has a lot happened since then. We stayed in Chicago one more to take in the sights of the Art Museum. It was rather interesting, there was actually quite a few artists we'd heard of before and some famous paintings like Monet's Water lilies, Suerat's Lake picture thing, the big one with lots of dots, and Van Gogh's self portrait. We then headed to a bar to watch the football, oh joy (for me and Oskar), we had lunch there and me and Oskar had a few games of pool, I won, 3-2. It was a nice Blues bar on the corner of Wabash and Eighth Street, you should check it out, we went back later for a few more games of pool and a couple of drinks. We met up with Julie and Soyoung again and had a wonder round the Navy Pier, there wasn't much to do really, a couple of games, a ferris wheel and a fair few boat tours. After that we parted our ways and that was the end of the Chicago Saga.

Wednesday morning, 6:30 am, we decide to make our way to Mount Rushmore, a late addition to our road trip. Kev's at the wheel of the bus and me and Joe are asleep in the back, me in the fantastic cocoon we created with the rear bench seat. First stop and it Joe's turn to take over, its at this point that we get an instruction from the Sat Nav not many people will ever get, "Continue 622 miles"!!!!!! Oh... My.... God... It was the straightest, longest and quietest road I have ever been on, I bet we saw about fifty cars in the 622 miles on Highway 90, it was unreal. The van loved it making great progress at some astonishing speeds, thanks to Kev. So you may be thinking that this part was boring, o'contraire, we had Tuna draining out of the window, Kev made friends with, I'm guessing, the owner of a very desolate gas station. Kev hit a bird, so we had shit and guts on the windscreen for God knows how many miles until we stopped again. I managed to run a red light again, bugger, and we drove a total of 973 miles in one day, thats further than the length of Great Britain! So we actually made it to Mount Rushmore in one day, well done us. We stayed the night in Keystone, and the next day headed to see those faces in the rocks. A bit over commercialised if you ask us, however the rest of the National Park was fantastic. We decided to walk along one of the trials, a red route which ran to the top of the highest peak in the National Park, Hearney Peak. It was a lovely trail, and the views at the top were well worth the hike, they were some of the best views we have ever seen, utterly amazing. We decided to checkout an other attraction in the Black Hills area, Crazy Horse, oh my god, what a rip, $27 to see something that isn't even finished. So we didn't bother and decided to head off to Yellowstone and cover as much distance as possible. The best thing ever happened in this part of the trip. We made the best discovery ever. I had always been very curious about this button on the indicator stalk, so I finally succumbed to the pressure and had a play, next think I know the accelerator pedal is moving under my foot, we have cruise control!!!!!! What a van. What else happened, oh yeah, we went down a dirt track to turn round when did we couldn't see a bloody think for the Sun, so Kev being Kev decided to open the passengers door and lean out to dictate to me where to go, after this we were on our way to Yellowstone on our favorite highway I90.

Downtown Chicago

Yesterday we decided to check out what Chicago had to offer so we headed for Downtown. Not being the only former i-housers in the area we called up Julie, Soyoung, Sophie and Claire to see if they wanted to meet up for a picnic in Chicago's Millennium Park, we arranged a time of 11am. This gave us about an hour to wonder around so we walked towards Grant park where we captured a fantastic view of the Chicago skyline.

Grant Park however is far overshadowed by the new $500 million Millennium Park so we headed over there to have a look at Cloud Gate (more commonly known as 'The Bean'). This was a really impressive sculpture and made for some fun poses. This is were we met up with Soyoung and Julie, however the Irish girls never made it on time because of some temporarily lost passport kerfuffle'!! The 6 of us found a 7/11 and bought some food to take to eat in the park before playing some frisbee and what can only be described as the most ridiculously hard round of mini golf ever! Half way round the mini golf, we did manage to meet Sophie and Claire for about 5 minutes before they had to get on a train for Lake Michigan.

After this we decided to head for some food, the guys via a camera shop to buy a tripod and the girls via a clothes shop. The restaurant we found was a Mexican place in Sears Tower which was well priced and server delicious Fajitas. After this we each payed $15 and headed up Americas tallest building. The views from the top were spectacular an allowed us to compare Chicago to New York, that is Chicago's Skyscrapers are more densely packed and the city is quite low rise 2 miles outside the CBD, the views are stunning none the less.

Getting tired, we decided to do only one more thing for the evening, that was walk to Grant park and get a look at the impressive lit up fountain and see the night skyline. This allowed us to take some artistic photos. Then we headed back to Motel near O'Hare and get some well earned sleep. Tuesday awaits . . .

Travel to Chicago

We just arrived in Chicago after two days on the road and a total distance of almost 800 miles. We've now covered, about 15% of the total driving.

The car is fully loaded and I'm wondering how we ever would have been able to fit more than four of us in the van.

Just checked into a motel and we are about to go get some cheap food.

The traveling went smooth except for a few events worth mentioning.

Paggy managed to skid through a red light, but the breaks are excellent...

While buying some food at Wal-Mart yesterday in Indianapolis, me, kev, and paggy ran into three girls that were on a scavenger hunt. They had to find a guy, ask for his number and get a picture with him. They found by far the three most interesting guys in the store. A swede a scotsman and an englishman. Unfortunately they were a bit too young...

Last motel was a little bit dodgy as there were quite a few cops outside, so something must have 'gone down'. But we managed to sleep there after asking for pillows, borrowing a microwave from the staff to eat some "Swedish meatballs" microwave food from Wal-Mart.

On the way to Chicago we stopped by the Indianapolis Speedway with some great posing on top of the van, and some inspection of the race track.

While driving on the interstate from Indianapolis, Paggy almost asleep in the back of the van joked:

"What's on fire?"

Shortly after Joe and Kev scream from the front:

"Ahhh, Smoke!!"

There was smoke coming up through the vents, this resulted in stopping at the shoulder of the highway and inspecting the car. The problem was the motor for the air-conditioning that had gone on fire. Now we're out of air-conditioning, that is we'll be sitting in swimming-gear in California.

We're off

So, now we're leaving I-House and Chicago is next stop!!!

-Oskar

Preparations

This is the route of our road trip. Hopefully we'll make it all the way to Seattle!

- Oskar