Vegas and our return to California

We were really glad to get to Vegas as we had a hotel room for 4 nights at the Gold Coast casino. Its not on the strip but close enough for easy access. We checked out different casinos each night. Starting with Caesars Palace where I walked away $140 dollars down within the first hour! My luck didn't get any better the next few days either..but Geo had more luck and ended up leaving Vegas with an extra $100 or so.

As well as the gambling we visited the 'Bodies' exhibition which was in the Luxor. We couldn't take pictures, but its the same as the original Body Worlds with human bodies preserved in various different ways.

The day we left Vegas was the day of our next gig which was Blink 182 again, in Irvine near LA. We hit some pretty bad traffic so the journey wasn't great. It was good to be back in southern California though! The gig was outdoors again but unlike last time the weather was perfect.

They had Weezer supporting this time who were good to see and Blink played great again, including an amazing drum solo from Travis on a flying drum kit.

The next day we had another gig, this time The Killers! They were brilliant as well, and we had a really good view as it wasn't such a huge venue. This was at an arena on the San Diego Uni campus. We were staying a few miles away from there. San Diego has been one of my favourite places. We spent 4 or 5 days there to make the most of our last week. We visited the zoo on the day we arrived which was a lot better than LA zoo was.

The next day we went on a day trip to Mexico which we booked a while ago. This was because we couldn't really drive in because we didn't pay a deposit on the van which would have been about $10,000! It was a typical tourist coach tour. the journey wasn't that long as we were only going to Tijuana. Once we got there we just had hundreds of tourist shops to look around. It was good to have been to see it. Things were a lot different just over the border. We tried some tequila and that's all we bought. The journey back was worse as the queue going into America is 4 times as many lanes and a lot longer.

The next day we went to a football game. (American football). It was the San Diego chargers vs Baltimore Ravens. It was the first game of the season and the stadium was full. It was a pretty good experience and the game was good being fairly tight right to the end. San Diego lost in the end though.

Then one of our worst experiences of the trip...we had parked in a mall near the stadium after having trouble finding a park or even a taxi to take us there. We had been towed away during the game!! Along with quite a few other people who's cars had gone... Apparently they had been watching to see who had parked there for the game. We had to get a taxi over and hand over the fine to get the van back.

We left San Diego today and are now in Oceanside, half way up the coast to LA. We played disc golf again, and then cleaned the van. We now have one day left so have to make sure its in decent condition at least when we drop it off. Tomorrow we're just buying a couple of last things we want to take back and then packing our cases as much as possible. Then on Thursday we drop the RV off at about 10am and then off the LAX for our flight at about 4pm.

We can't believe its gone so quickly. We haven't really told everyone about our change of plans that we had half way. I think most people who read do know, but basically we ran into 'money problems' as we were spending more than we budgeted for at the start. We realised we couldn't really afford all 6 months here so shortened it to 5. We abandoned the 48 states initially, which we're kind of annoyed about now as it wouldn't have cost us much more to do. But we have still ended with a final total of 41 states. We only missed New England and North Dakota, so all but one of the larger states we visited. We have done about 15000 miles.

Monument Valley & Grand Canyon

We had our last long drive to get to Monument Valley on Thursday, and it definitely was worth it! We first had to detour off the quickest route to visit the Four Corners Monument. This is the only place in the country where 4 states meet. There is a small monument on the ground showing where the borders are. Its also on Navajo land so you have to pay a small fee to get in to see it. There isn't much else to see but it was worth a stop!

The detour we made for the 4 corners turned out to be the best route for the scenery. It meant that we headed into Monument Valley from the North. This has some of the more famous views which we stopped along the way to take pictures of. We also saw the 'Mexican Hat Rock' from the road which is a 60ft wide sombrero shaped outcrop.

The campground was a few miles across from the visitors centre. It was in a fantastic setting between tall red rock mesas. We had a good spot as we were at the end of a row and could see out the end of the gorge to the mesas and buttes on the skyline. The next morning I managed to get up for the sunrise which was an unforgettable sight.

We left fairly early for the Grand Canyon, but went for a quick look at the view from the visitors centre at Monument Valley. Again this was Navajo land so we had to pay $5 each to get in. I'd say its worth it though even for the 5 minutes we were there. It was similar to Yosemite in that the view was that good it didn't seem real.

We had a couple of hours drive before we got to the Grand Canyon. It wasn't too busy on the roads until we got to the main visitors centre. They had just started work on the road system so that parking was awful. We had to park a mile away and get the free shuttle bus in. I had been before, but the view was still phenomenal. With more time you could do loads there, but we just had a wander around near the centre and also where we parked before heading off to our campground an hour away in Williams, AZ.

We left Williams this morning and are now in Kingman, AZ. Only 2 hours away from Vegas which is where we will be this time tomorrow!

Missouri to Texas

We left Missouri the day after our brewery tour with a few days driving ahead of us. The first day was a few hours to a park just outside Kansas City. The drive was pretty similar the next day, about 4 hours. We had to detour a bit north to go through the corner of Iowa and Nebraska before heading south again to a place near Kansas City. This time we were west of the city in the actual state of Kansas.

We stayed in Kansas again the next day, a bit further south where it was surprisingly a lot warmer than it had been. This campground was one of the best we have stayed at. It had its own fishing lakes which I enjoyed. I spent a few hours with a bit of luck...good and bad.

Our next stop was in Oklahoma another 4 hours away. We were staying at another good campground which had its own par 3 golf course which I had a go on.

We only had one more drive before our 3 night stay in Amarillo, Texas. We were really looking forward to this partly because we had been doing a lot of driving and not much else for a few days. But also because we had found some good things to do. We had read about a famous steak restaurant on route 66 called the 'Big Texan'. http://www.bigtexan.com

They do a 72 ounce steak which is free if you finish it (and all the side dishes) within a hour. We didn't try it but I had a 24 ounce which was pretty chunky but it tasted amazing. We saw some people taking on the challenge though...

Something else we had wanted to do for a while is play disc golf. Basically like regular golf but with specialised frisbees and instead of holes they have baskets. We found a course in Amarillo so we got some discs and headed there. It was really fun as its pretty relaxed and wasn't busy at all when we played. It can be pretty tricky..I definitely need some practise anyway! Though Geo did lose a disc in the creek which I had to fish out with my fishing rod! We will be going again if we can find a course though.

We left Amarillo this morning with a 5 hour drive ahead of us to our stop just past Albuquerque. We were on the same road for nearly 300 miles and most of it was the historic route 66. So we are now in New Mexico, our 37th state, and in Mountain Time zone. 7 hours behind the UK.

Tomorrow is one of our longest drives but will be well worth it. We are heading to Monument Valley on the Utah/Arizona border. We'll be going via the four corners monument which is the point where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona meet.

Florida to St Louis! via New Orleans and Memphis!

We left Florida and headed west towards New Orleans. The drive was non-eventful but quite long, in fact, our longest drive of the whole trip! We spent just over 7 hours on the road, something that I wouldn't like to do again!

As soon as we arrived in New Orleans, you could tell you were below sea level; water was everywhere. For the first 2 nights we stayed about 4 miles outside the French Quarter but we didn't have to drive in as the park provided free shuttle drop off and pick up. We spent the first day checking out the city and going to the National World War 2 Museum situated in the centre (I almost spelt that "center"...oh dear) of New Orleans. Cory and I both agreed that it was one of the best museums we've ever been to - probably due to the fact it had a lot of information on the D-Day landings in Normandy. Obviously it focused mainly on America's contribution to the war but was still really informative. The museum had a small cinema where we watched 2 documentaries on the Second World War - one of them was made by Senor Spielbergo, which was brilliant.

The next we moved to a park 1 block away from the French Quarter. This walkable distance allowed us to go out and experience the night life that NO had to offer... We both woke up with killer hangovers the next day as we got absolutely gatted the previous night -



We had to drive to Memphis the day after we got sozzled, needless to say, this was an unpleasant experience.

The main reason for us traveling to Memphis was to visit Graceland, home of "The King" The King being Elvis Presley (Not Eric Cantona, as I was led to believe).

It was amazing, truly exceptional. Neither of us are big Elvis fans but we were still blown away by everything he'd accomplished in his life.



After Graceland we started the drive towards St Louis, we stopped about halfway between Memphis and St Louis to spend a couple of nights relaxing!! Our main reason for going to St Louis was to watch Blink 182 but due to unforeseen circumstances, they rescheduled the show to the 29 Sept, which is useless to us as we'll be back in the UK by then. This was really annoying but could have been worse had we not already got tickets to see them in LA the week before we leave.

We still went to St Louis as we had tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery scheduled for today. The tour itself was called the Beermasters Tour. The tour lasted about 2 hours and covered most of the brewery, we went behind the scenes of the bottling plant and the brewing house. The tour guide took us through the history of the plant and showed us how the beer is made, packaged and distributed across the globe. See the bottling line was especially interesting, it was just like you see them in the movies. We also got a lot of free samples which was awesome and also a couple of souvenirs, like a free Bud glass and various other things.

After the brewery we drove west out of St Louis before settling in a RV Park in Bowling Green, MO. Tomorrow we head to Kansas City! We've only got 3 weeks to go but as those 3 weeks include a trip to Vegas, we can't be too downhearted!

Carrabelle Beach, Florida

View Larger Map

We went to Busch Gardens on Friday. The weather was supposed to be better in the morning so we got up early and were in the park not long after it opened. We wanted to go on all the main roller coasters. The best of which was called 'Sheikra'. It was the first dive coaster built in North America. It took you up 200ft and held you facing down a vertical drop for a few seconds before releasing. There were two of these drops and a couple of loops. Probably the shortest ride but definitely the best! ...

There were 4 or 5 main rides plus a few water based ones for us to cool down - it was roasting hot! The park was definitely the better than the ones we went to in LA. The queues were short, the layout was perfect, and the rides were better!

We were done a lot earlier than we thought, so we headed back to the RV park to go in the pool before we went for some Chinese food at P.F Changs (Which is really good by the way). Followed by the cinema.

We were supposed to be going to the beach the next day but the weather was awful. We took it easy and planned our next few days.

Today we had a 6 hour drive up the west coast of Florida to Carrabelle. We found a really nice rv campground right by the beach. The pool was deserted so we had it all to ourselves. The weather was great so we just spent most of the afternoon in/by the pool!

We have a place booked for the rv in New Orleans on Tuesday so we're going to stay here again tomorrow and have a longer drive to get there. But its worth it because its so perfect here!

The Sunshine State!

Big news on this update - we've made it to 10 thousand miles!!!

We left Washington and headed to West Virginia, we stayed at a place just outside Charleston - there weren't many RV parks but we eventually found one that suited our needs. We then had a couple of days of hardcore driving down to Florida, we drove across to Ohio then down through Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.

We stopped in Georgia to go to another outlet mall - these places are awesome - they're big brand stores (Nike, A+F, GUESS etc) but with ridiculously low prices, we did some more shopping here, probably spent a bit much but I managed to get a fair few presents for the folks back home.

I think it was a total of 1100 milles, we arrived in Florida yesterday. We stayed in a town called White Springs before driving down to Tampa today. "The Sunshine State" is certainly living up to it's nickname, the weather has been perfect from the moment we crossed the border.

The drive to Tampa was uneventful and about 3 hours in length. We've staying in a place called Dunedin, about 5 mins from the beach. The resort is quality; it's quiet, no kids and the amenities are clean and modern. The first thing we did was take a dip in the pool! It was good fun and we'll definitely be going in again! Tomorrow we're heading to Busch Gardens for the day, after which we'll go out for some food and a couple of beers, then go to see the new Tarantino movie.

On Saturday we'll be heading to Caladesi Island, home of the best beach in the USA! (according to numerous polls) From the pictures it looks like a tropical island that belongs in the Bahamas. You can't drive to it so you have to get a ferry, luckily we're 5 mins from the ferry pickup point.

After Florida we'll be heading to New Orleans ( Home of Southern Comfort :-D) for a couple of days.

We've also managed to get tickets to 2 more Blink 182 gigs. We've got pit tickets for the gig in St Louis and seated tickets for the gig in Irvine, CA. It's going to be mental! The first one we saw was amazing and we can't wait to see them again!

All in all, we've got a shedload to look forward to in our last month in the US!

Washington DC

View Larger Map

We only had one day to check out the capital, so had to leave the park early to get the metro in to the Mall where all the monuments and museums are. It was really easy to get around..we ended up doing quite a lot of walking but was definitely better than taking a tour bus.

We walked along the mall to the Lincoln Memorial which was at the opposite end to the Capitol. On the way we passed the Washington Memorial and the WWII Memorial.

From there we headed back via the White House. You could get a decent view from the fence, but it was a fair distance away.

We planned to visit two or three museums. The first one we went to was the holocaust memorial museum. It was really busy and we had to wait a while before we could go into the main exhibit. It was really interesting..though it did leave us feeling a bit depressed afterwards!.. but I'm really glad we went in. We had some more light-hearted visits planned for the afternoon anyway!

We went on to the Air & Space Museum next. We didn't spend as much time here as it was pretty crowded..so we just had a look at all the aircraft..making sure we saw all the famous ones!

We then went to get some food and check out a few shops before going to the cinema

We left there yesterday. We're basically driving for a few days now until we get to Florida. We were about 6 hours on the road yesterday, passing through Virginia and we then stayed in West Virginia last night.

Today we had another 6 hour drive to Tennessee. We passed through Ohio and Kentucky on the way to our park near Bristol. Only a 3 hour drive tomorrow to North Carolina! Should be in Florida in 4 days or so.

Blink 182 and on through Delaware

Well we we're getting pretty bored of hanging around RV parks in our attempt to save money and waiting for this Blink gig...so we we're specially excited yesterday when we left to go and set up at the Hershey Park campground. The gig was at the stadium by the theme park at Hershey..(which is where the chocolate is from). There was a free shuttle bus which took us right to the stadium, which meant we could both have a few beers for a change!

It was absolutely boiling when we left, we hadn't checked the forecast so didn't take any waterproofs with us. This turned out to be a massive mistake! About 45 minutes after we got to our seats it started to pour with rain as a thunderstorm moved over. There was hardly anywhere to shelter, but eventually we ended up standing in a couple of portable toilets for half an hour hoping the rain would move on. It eased off by the time the first band started, but just before blink we're going on it got pretty heavy again. The stage was soaked so it took ages to get the band set up.

Eventually they came on and it was well woth the wait! The rain gave it a pretty amazing atmosphere, especially as they had none of their usual special effects and such on stage..just basic spotlights. They played pretty much all our favourite songs and some more. It didn't stop raining the whole time but it was great. As you can see, we were drenched:

We really want to try and see them again while we're here...hopefully we can get some tickets for a gig they're doing in California!

Today we left Hershey early as we had a fairly long drive to Washington DC via Delaware to do some tax free shopping! We weren't at the mall for long but picked up some bargains! After there we headed into Maryland toward DC. We're staying about 10 miles from the centre so will be going in on the metro tomorrow to see the sights and check out a few museums.

Philly, PA and Liverpool, PA

Not much to report in this update - We're just laying low till the Blink gig on 12/08/09 in Hershey, PA. On our way down from New York, we passed through Philadelphia. We went to see the steps Rocky runs up and the statue of him that is now there. We didn't stop in Philly, just coasted through it till we hit some insane traffic (See previous blog entry).

We stayed at an RV park just outside of Lancaster, PA. The park was pretty good - it had good Wi-Fi and a Ping Pong table! It's safe to say that Cory and I are, now, absolute pros at this gentlemen's sport.

On our second night there, we went to sleep at about 1am but were woken up around 2 by some noise outside the van...at first we thought it could have been a raccoon or even a bear! As you can imagine, neither of us really wanted to go outside to check... so we just poked our heads through the window to take a look - somewhat surprisingly it turned out to be...



A massive Skunk!! It was a good job we didn't go outside!

Anyway, to my disgust, we're staying in a place called Liverpool, I can only hope, unlike it's namesake in the UK, it isn't full of bin dippers.

We'll be staying here till friday before moving down the river to a cheap campground for the weekend.

Smell ya later.

New York City: Part 2

We had two days left in New York. The first of the them had the best weather. It was roasting! We definitely picked the best day to go up the Empire State building as we had really clear views once we finally got to the top! We had to queue for about 2 hours starting outside the main entrance, then through a series of rooms and a couple of different lifts. It really was worth it though. The view from there is perfect. We took a few pictures and checked out the view from each angle before heading back down. Thankfully a lot less queueing on the way down!!


We went straight to the Hard Rock Cafe on Times Square for lunch. Food was great and not as expensive as we expected. The memorabilia was pretty interesting too..they even had The Beatles' suits and some of their instruments.

After our lunch we went for a walk to check out some other famous landmarks. First we went to Grand Central which was really impressive, and right next to that is The Chrysler building. We then walked up Madison Avenue to Central Park. After checking out a few shops we got the Subway back to our train for New Jersey.

Our last day was another wet one. It wasn't too bad when we left but we were visiting the Museum of Natural History anyway! There was a lot to see so we picked out the most interesting sounding exhibits...The dinosaurs which were brilliant, and also the mammals which was pretty good too. We wanted to see Central Park in the day so we walked though there after the museum. By then it was raining pretty heavily and luckily we had packed waterproofs..

...unlike the first day when we got soaked! We only had a short walk through and then wandered back toward Times Square, stopping for some food in a pretty expensive place called Lindy's..the same place we went for a beer the first night actually. The food was good enough anyway. We had a last walk through Times Square back to the station on 33rd.

Yesterday we left the hotel at about mid day...this is where we had been parked all 4 days.. The traffic was insane. We had to pass through a few tolls, but it was a Saturday and the weather was good, so I guess a lot of people travel south of the City for the weekend. We went to the cinema and for some food at the cheesecake factory (a restaurant chain). We only stayed one night at the RV park, just east of Philadelphia.

Today we left early to go to our next park, via Philadelphia. It was lucky we left early because the traffic was even worse near the city because of a massive storm which we got caught in. I think there must have been a lot of flash floods as loads of roads were closed off with chunks of pavement and tree branches all over the place. We sat in a queue for a couple of hours before deciding to exit and find a new route. We have no idea if this was quicker...but it was better than sitting in a queue!! We got some supplies and found our park which is pretty nice. We'll probably stay for 3 nights or so.

We've got a few days to fill in before our next gig which is Blink 182 in Hershey on the 12th, not far from here. We'll not do much as we spent quite a lot on the New York visit!

New York City

The night before we drove to New York we went to see Coldplay in Saratoga. They were brilliant! The venue was half outdoors with a lawn section behind the indoor seated sections. We were sat here but the weather was great and the view was still really good. The show included sections where the band left the main stage to play a few songs in other really small stages. One was to the side of the seats but still a long way off. But the other stage was just a hundred yards from where we were stood! They left the stage and walked all the way outside through the crowd and into the lawn area to play an acoustic section. It was an awesome night!

We found out earlier that day that our RV park in Jersey City was fully booked. This meant our only option was to find a hotel cheap enough, in the right area, and with somewhere to park the rv. Not an easy task, but we managed to find a Ramada in central Jersey City with a good rate and access to trains for Manhattan. We weren't sure about the parking but we took a gamble and booked the hotel.

We got up at 7.30 and arrived at the hotel at around 1pm. We had a nightmare with parking! They sent us to a car park but it was height restricted. We then asked if we could use one of their spaces at the back, but we wouldn't fit in the ones offered. Then they told us to try a few blocks away...we walked over to check it out, offered the bloke double the cost of a normal day but he wouldn't take it. We pretty much ran out of options in the end so we went back to the hotel and luckily the manager was there who kindly let us put it in one of the employee spaces. Its basically squeezed into a corner of the parking lot behind the hotel. its perfect though, because its free and also really safe.

With the parking sorted we got checked into the room and relaxed for a bit before heading over to the city. The train only takes 20 minutes and takes us right within a few blocks of Times Square. We had a wander about and had a really expensive beer in a bar before heading back to the hotel. We were shattered after a long day but glad to have it all sorted and looking forward to a few days in New York!

Today we visited the Statue of Liberty. We got off the train at the World Trade Center stop. As you might guess, its fairly obvious where the World Trade Center site was. Its all being built on now but the massive space between the other buildings is quite clear. It was only a short walk to the dock but the queue was massive for the ferry. We eventually got on and 10 minutes later we were at Liberty Island. I was hoping that it wouldn't be smaller than expected like Mount Rushmore. I wasn't disappointed as it was a really impressive sight! The weather started to turn as we were finished on the Island. A big thunderstorm had moved in and it started to pour with rain as we got back on the ferry. When we got off we were soaked and there were massive puddles everywhere, so we just headed back to the hotel and ordered in some pizzas.

We're going up the Empire State building tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get some better weather the next couple of days!

New York

So it looks like we've got some competition on the blog front! (http://alderman-valentineusa.blogspot.com/) I'm sure theirs will also include some depravity and a whole lot of mischief :-)

Niagara Falls was breathtaking. We decided against going on the Maid of the Mist Boats and instead opted for going behind the waterfall. Everyone was given a waterproof poncho (Yes, I did look like Clint Eastwood) as it was going to get wet!



Anyhow, from Niagara Falls, we coasted down to New York State. We crossed the border with consummate ease ( I'm sure our visas helped). We stayed just south of Buffalo, the RV park was nice enough, if a little basic - We're budgeting at the moment so gone are the days where we can spend 40 dollars a night on a park. After that, we drove east towards Saratoga, however before we got there, we stopped over in Utica.

Utica was tolerable, definitely not nicest city we've been to. The main reason we stopped here was to get the van serviced - we've been looking forward to this for ages... (That was sarcasm for those who don't own a sarcasm detector) We spent 400 dollars on getting 2 new tyres or "tires" as they say over here and the actual service. Weirdly, whilst we were chatting to one of the mechanics, we discovered he actually knew where the Isle of Man was! It turns out he was watching a TT Special on American TV not 2 days before we met him! This has been a rare occurrence on our trip (We usually just say "The UK" when someone asks us where we're from) as the IOM isn't that well known outside fans of Motor-sports.

The reason for us visiting Saratoga is we have a gig to get to! Coldplay are playing at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, otherwise known as "The SPAC"... seriously :-D They're playing tomorrow night (Mon 27th) which means today we've got a day off from driving, so we're going to plan our visit to NYC.

As both of us have never been there, we want to hit all the tourist traps - The Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty etc. Unfortunately, the only RV park in the city costs 60 dollars a night... We've looked into it and there's no way around it so we have to stay there. On the plus side, it is in a prime location (Just across the river from Manhattan) so we've got superb access to the city. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to seeing New York!

Ontario, Canada

View Larger Map

We've had a pretty good week so far. Starting with the Green Day gig in Chicago on Monday. It was in the United Centre which is massive. It holds about 25,000 for concerts. We were about half way down the side seats right near the top. The view was still really good though. The sound was perfect too. They were definitely one of the best bands I have seen live.

During the day we wanted to go to the Fields Natural history museum in the city. Unfortunately we had a nightmare finding places to park. The museum was on the shore of the lake so we expected there to be a lot more space for parking there, but it was all multi-story. We searched for a few different car parks and ended up driving right through the centre of the city, so at least we got to see quite a bit of Chicago even though it was from the van. We gave up on the museum idea and headed away from the centre to get some shopping at a walmart. After this we still had a lot of time to fill before the gig, so we decided to try the cinema. We found a couple but the first one had nowhere to park and the second one wasn'y showing anything we wanted to see! It was actually pretty late by now as we had to take long routes due to loads of low bridges that we couldn't get under. We just headed for the United Centre for the gig and got some food on the way. I would definitely like to visit Chicago again to get a proper look around. Once the gig was over we had to drive for an hour and a half to an rv park we had found. We arrived at about 1am so just found a free spot to park.

The next day we left the park, passing through Indiana and into southern Michigan where we camped a couple of nights. I had read that this area of the country had a lot of Amish living there. There were a lot of signs warning about horse drawn vehicles, and we did actually see some Amish people with a horse and cart going along one of the roads we were on.

We had decided to go to a shooting range at some point and found one in the outskirts of Detroit which was on our route. (http://www.firinglineguns.com/) It was at a gun shop where we literally walked in, filled out a form, then picked from a cabinet of guns which ones we would like to hire for $10 an hour. We were shown how to fill the magazines and talked through the safety rules then were left to shoot on the range until the ammo we bought had ran out. It was a lot of fun and will probably go again during the trip.

We left the range and headed north past Detroit towards the Canadian border. We paid a toll to go over the bridge and then had to sit in a queue for the actual border where we showed our passports. They asked us a few questions and needed to see the lease agreement for the van which I thought would do, but then they told us to pull into the search area by the immigration offices. We had to stand away from the rv while 4 people searched inside and outside. They then decided they would have the sniffer dog check inside too. They used two dogs infact! I realised whilst they were doing this that we had left on the table; two massive paper targets with loads of bullet holes in them..! They didn't even ask us about that though. They were just interested in why we wanted to go into Canada and how long we would be in the country. Eventually they stamped the passports and we were on our way. We had to navigate without the sat nav for the first time as it doesn't have Canadian maps. We were fine though, and made it to the campsite after about an hour.

Today we drove about 3 hours and are now just south of Niagara falls which we will be visiting tomorrow!

Rockford, Illinois

View Larger Map

We haven't done that much since we left Rapid City which explains the lack of blog updates. We also didn't have internet access for over a week.

So we moved on to Minnesota where we stayed a night just outside Minneapolis. The next day we headed to the city where we were visiting a huge mall called "Mall of America" http://www.mallofamerica.com/
This wasn't just a shopping mall, it had roller coasters and other rides in the centre as well as indoor mini golf which we had a go on. We had a look around and bought a few things and finally got a haircut too. We stayed an hour north of the city in a town called Princeton. There was a park with hook-ups for the van which was on $7 per night. We needed to save some money after spending quite a bit in the mall so we stayed here for 5 nights.

We were at this park during 4th of July but there wasn't that much going on apart from fireworks. We just took it pretty easy here so we didn't spend much at all. We then moved on south aiming for Chicago stopping for a few nights near a place called Baraboo. The park itself was in the middle of nowhere though so again didn't do much. We will be spending quite a bit in the next few weeks though, so it's doing us some good.

We're now pretty close to Chicago and have a few days to fill in before we want to go into the city as we have tickets for a Green Day gig on the 13th. We will just move around the rv parks where we can get discount until then

Rapid City, South Dakota

We visited Wind Cave National Park two days ago while we were still near Custer. This is the fourth longest cave in the world and they say that it could only be 5% explored. It also is one of the only places to have certain type of formation called boxwork which looks like honeycomb. It was a really hot day so was nice to go into the cave. It gets its name because the natural entrances are so small that when there is a difference in air pressure on the surface, a wind will blow in or out of the entrances. We went on an hour long tour which showed the main points of interest.

We are now 20 or so miles north in Rapid City. It was really hot again yesterday and this morning, but then the weather changed and we had quite a long thunderstorm. The wind really shook the van about. It eventually cleared up and we went to play mini golf at a place we spotted yesterday. Hopefully going to have a BBQ if the weather stays as it is. Moving on tomorrow across the state, to a place called Mitchell. Probably only for one night on our way to Minneapolis.

Custer, SD

View Larger Map

After Coeur D'Alene we moved on into Montana. We spent one night in Missoula before heading down to Yellowstone. We stayed just outside Yellowstone and the next day we drove through the park to visit the main attractions. We could have spent a lot more time there but the weather was bad and forecast to be bad all week, so we decided to see what we could in one day and move on.

The drive provided some good sights along the way including elk and bison right next to the road. We stopped for an hour or two at Old Faithful where there was a short walk around all the different geysers. The weather was ok at this point but as we got back to Old Faithful it started to rain and gradually get heavier. The geyser erupts regularly and the times are predicted. We had to wait about half an hour but the predicted time was fairly accurate. it wasn't as impressive as I had expected, but the more impressive ones only erupt every 11 hours or more. On the path near the geyser there was a large herd of bison which we could get remarkably close to. They seemed pretty calm animals.

We stayed just outside the East entrance of Yellowstone at an RV park that was also part of a motel. There was a creepy old house on the hill behind the motel which looked like a scene from Psycho.

From here we headed right across Wyoming to Sundance, the town where the Sundance Kid got his name after being jailed there. We stayed two nights and checked out the town. There wasn't too much to see but there was a small museum in the basement of the police station which had original documents from the Sundance Kid's arrest and imprisonment.

We left Sundance today for Custer in South Dakota. Along the way we visited Mount Rushmore which was impressive, but not as much as we had expected it to be. It was a lot higher and further away from the viewing platform than I imagined so it didn't seem as big.

We're here for a couple more nights now. Going to visit Wind Cave National Park tomorrow, then watching the new Transformers the day after..

Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

View Larger Map

We've done quite a bit since the last blog. We visited the Hoh Rain Forest from Forks. We did a short trail which was called 'Hall of Mosses' - everything was covered in moss and things like fallen trees had new trees and plants growing on top of them.

We left Forks and headed off the Olympic peninsula by ferry to the group of islands North of Seattle.

We stayed the night near a town called Anacortes where we went to another brewery for some dinner. The food was probably the best meal we have had. The beer was good too, so I bought half a gallon of it and they gave us 2 free drinks too!

Next day we drove to a place called Concrete which was a random personal goal of ours to visit this place. We took some pictures and drove down to the North outskirts of Seattle where we stayed one night.

We only spent one day actually in Seattle but managed to fit quite a bit in. We went to the Space Needle which had amazing views of the city. This took up quite a bit of time due to the parking being quite tough to find for a 25ft RV.

After the Space Needle we headed toward our next park where we checked in, then headed out straight away to play mini golf and get some food. Once we finished eating we went to a drive-in movie theatre, just to experience it basically. We had to be at the back but the view was still pretty good.

Since Seattle we have driven to Idaho with one stop half way at Moses Lake:

We are now at Coeur D'Alene for 3 nights. The weather is hot and dry mostly here. We went to play golf today but ended up just on the driving range - I think some more practise is needed! We're going to check out the town tomorrow as its within walking distance, then will be heading into Montana and onto Yellowstone.

Forks, Washington

View Larger Map

After Silverton we headed for the coast again to a place called Tillamook. There was an air museum here which was inside a massive hangar that was used for WW2 airships. Supposedly one of the largest wooden buildings in the world. It was a pretty impressive sight and was really good inside with loads of aircraft from WW2 to modern jets. http://www.tillamookair.com/ We stayed one night at a park in Tillamook.

Before we left Tillamook we took the RV to a garage to get the oil topped up, tyres and transmission fluid checked etc. Then we headed north out of Oregon and into Washington state. We were aiming to stay at the RV park owned by the guy who leased us the RV. This was at a place called Grayland, halfway up the Washington coast. The weather finally changed and we have sunny clear skies rather than endless clouds like our whole time in Oregon.

Today we left Grayland, stopped off in Aberdeen to get some lunch, use the wifi and see the Hangover again (yep, its that good!). After this we were back on the road to Forks. This is a town on the west side of the Olympic national park which we will visit tomorrow. The park is quite big so we can only visit a few highlights. Tomorrow will be the Hoh Rain forest which is one of the few temperate rain forests in the world. We'll be moving to the North side of the park in a couple of days and then on to Seattle.

Silverton, Oregon.

So we're in Silverton. It's just outside Salem in northern Oregon.

We went to see The Hangover at the cinema yesterday, it was brilliant. Hilariously funny and outrageously insane. It has the funniest ending credits I've ever seen.

Today is William Cory's birthday! 23 years old. Congratulations to him! Think we're heading to some mall to do some shopping and get some food.

Not much else to report, RV park is good, weather is so-so. Driving up to Portland tomorrow. Oh yeah! We got tickets to see Greenday and Coldplay in July! Closely followed by Blink 182 in August. Going to be a crazy few weeks!

Go watch The Hangover!

Crater Lake - Sutherlin

View Larger Map

After Eureka we stayed at an RV park a little further north, near redwood national park. It was on the bank of a river at a town called Klamath. The nightly rate was cheap so we stayed for 3 nights, making use of the pool table in their rec room....

We left Klamath and headed north towards our next state which is Oregon. We couldnt make the drive to Crater Lake in one day so we stayed a couple of hours away. This is where we headed today. Its been warm all day but there has always been rain on the horizon.

There was still a lot of snow either side of the road up to the lake, and at the visitor centre it was really deep. The views were fantastic even though the weather wasnt great. We took some pictures and then headed out the north side of the park.

The drive was another couple of hours to our next stop at a town called Sutherlin. The storm caught up with us for this drive and we had heavy rain for the majority of the journey. It had stopped by the time we arrived so we got set up and had a bbq. The RV park has a big prjection screen in the corner like a drive-in movie, you just tune your car radio to get the audio. Most of the rv sites have a view on the screen too. It would be interesting to see it in action but they arent showing anything until saturday.

We'll stay here a couple of nights and then were heading up to Salem.

Alcatraz/Eureka

View Larger Map

We didnt get to see Alcatraz on our first day because it was fully booked. So we just checked out some places around the city like the cable cars, chinatown, and fishermans wharf. There were loads of street entertainers here doing the usual stuff, but the best one was simple; a guy just holding a bush to hide behind and making people jump as they walked by..including me. He had loads of spectators on the opposite pavement too.

We had Alacatraz booked for our last day. It was foggy over the bay as it had been every other day, and on the island it was really windy. A free audio tour was included which had former guards and inmates telling stories to guide you through which was very interesting. It was a surprise to see how small the cells were and how narrow the corridors are. The audio tour didnt point out all the specific cells that people like Al Capone occupied which I thought it would, but it definitely wasnt a disappointment. Heres a picture of Geo in "The hole", one of the isolation cells.

Yesterday we left San Francisco and headed for Eureka which was a 5 hour 250 mile drive. Its a town on the coast not far from the Northern border of California with Oregon. The weather was sunny all the way until we got to the town where we have more fog. Its pretty cold out so were hoping it will improve again as we head inland. Were visiting a brewery for lunch today and going to the cinema, then going to an rv park near redwood national park.

San Francisco

Not really much to report on this update. We travelled up to Saratoga, which is just outside San Francisco. We had a few days there just to recharge the batteries after Yosemite. Saratoga was a lovely little town, pretty much the first place we've come across where we thought "Yeah, it would be awesome to live here" It's very picturesque. We watched Terminator Salvation here; meh. Definitely not as good as T2.



We're in a RV Park in San Francisco at the moment, we're heading to Alcatraz tomorrow and into SF proper.

Wednesday is Champions League Final day! Cory is almost as excited as me!! We're watching it in a sports bar at about 11AM US time! We may partake in a few ales - Remember, don't pace yourself.

Yosemite

View Larger Map

We arrived at the rv park just outside yosemite on Sunday. We havn't been able to access any wifi until now which explains why the blog hasn't been updated for a while. We also have no phone signal at all in the area.. On monday we drove down to the valley for the first time. We stopped along the way through to take in the sights and took a short walk to Bridalveil Falls which were in full flow. We could feel the spray from far off, but when we got closer, the path was like a small river and the spray was more like a heavy rainstorm. We had no campsite reserved so had to go on a waiting list. Luckily there were 12 spaces available and we were 11th in the list. Just as we were parking up at the site we had a pretty heavy hailstorm which we got on video. Eventually it cleared up and we had another BBQ.

The next day we hiked to Mirror Lake which was a couple of miles from our site. After lunch we visited Yosemite Falls, which are the tallest in North America and in the top 10 or so in the world. We didnt get as close as the other falls but they looked the most impressive due to the incredible height. We had no campsite booked for that day either, so we decided we would head back to our previous park outside Yosemite to make use of the electric hookups, laundry, showers etc.

Yesterday we got up early for a change to use the coin-op laundry in the village near our rv park, Greeley Hill. While we waited we went for breakfast in a small cafe. It was a really local place with stuffed deer heads and such on the walls, but the food was very good.

With the laundry finished we headed back into the valley. We had two nights reserved here so just parked up and got the bikes out then headed to the yosemite village to check out the Ansel Adams gallery and Yosemite Lodge.

Today we drove to Mariposa grove where we saw some more big trees. Some have tunnels cut in them or are completely hollow so you can see right out of the top. There were even some deer right next to the path which didn't seem at all scared of all the people taking pictures.

Afterwards we took the drive to Glacier point which has a perfect panoramic view of the valley.

We have a 4 hour drive tomorrow to San Francisco but before we go we are going to the waterfall again to get a soaking.

Sequoia National Park

View Larger Map

We drove from Morro Bay to Sequoia which took 3 or 4 hours. The road into the park was incredible. It climbed 5000 feet from the park entrance to our campsite in the centre. We could only drive 15-20mph as the roads were constantly twisting with a hairpin every half a mile. As we got higher the scenery changed and we were amongst the giant sequoias, having to drive through gaps in the trees where the road has to split into two levels.

The drive was a challenge but I actually really enjoyed it.

Eventually we got to the campsite only to find that all the RV spaces were closed. After asking other people parked in RVs, we found out that we could park in the main car park for free. The campsite was in a great setting with mountains and rivers surrounding it. There was even some snow/ice still on the ground around the trees. There were warnings of bears in the area. We didnt see any, but we did see a deer close to where we parked the RV.

Next morning we packed up and went to see the General Sherman tree. It was more impressive than I imagined. Photos dont really do it justice.

We got back to the RV and made our way back down the twisty road and out of the park to an RV park near Tulare.