This content shows Simple View
United States of America…again (well times three and four at least). Upon returning from Iceland we landed into Seattle. The initial plan was to drive around for a while and explore, but that was before times one and two. We decided that the country was too big and since we were doing some driving in Canada and then the United States later (time four), that we should just have a sneaky break in Iceland for a week and relax in Seattle and Portland – which, obviously, we did. Continue reading
We are on a boat, well actually a cruise ship – so a really BIG boat! It is the luxury experience that we have looked forward to since leaving New Zealand. It is also the start of the end: the next time we enter a country it will be for work purposes. Continue reading
We headed to Vancouver by from Portland Oregon, via Seattle. It was a very long bus ride, although the border crossing was extremely easy – for us. The bus did leave a couple of people behind as the visa process was going to take a bit too long. This in our minds did not bode well for out next trip over the border, the one where we must convince the officials to issue our working visas without being left behind ourselves.
United States of America…the new Donald Trump world domination. This is much the same as the place that we visited last year, except that the people are more vocal about their political affiliations and their desire to distance themselves from him. Especially in Washington DC, once again, we cannot find a Trump supporter (or someone that will admit it) in this country. But putting Trump aside, we explored the political capital. Continue reading
The Lone Star State…
Hmmm…what to say about Texas…the state is primarily filled with patriotic people whom, on a fundamental level, I disagree with, however, I don’t seem to have met any of them. To this point, I have only met warm, friendly, like-minded people with whom I have found it a pleasure spending time with on each stop of our journey. Continue reading
We made our flight from Los Angeles to Dallas, which was so overbooked the airline staff were offering people cash to take a later flight. We would have considered this, however we wanted to get the show on the road. We were ready to leave California. After arriving at the ‘hotel’ at 12:30 am, we slept fitfully and briefly before making the 8 and a bit hour drive to New Orleans.
Arriving in New Orleans was interesting. We had booked a room for the night on our lunch stop at Subway. Turns out, it was an old asylum and was more like a hostel than a hotel. Either way, we took food recommendations and ate ‘Poboys’ for dinner. The Blind Pelican turned out to be an exceptional recommendation and we ate far too much (as usual). Continue reading
California Dreamin!
I have to say that the amount of driving between cities and through states definitely is not a dream. It is not until you actually start to travel through, explore, and then move on that you feel the vast distance of America. Until this point, it the sheer size of the country has eluded me. Laurence on the other hand, being the main driver, has felt it from the start. Continue reading
I think that we stayed in one of the worst places we could in Flagstaff. It was about $40 a night for a small Motel unit. There were people drinking and smoking for a lot of the night and I didn’t sleep much. Laurence slept marginally better than I did, but I think his discomfort was from the bed and pillows rather than the noises outside the room. This was our first stop after Las Vegas and I think we were both trying to be cautious with the amount we spent there and trying to tighten the belt a little. In hindsight, $10-15 more per night is not too much to pay for comfort. The sole benefit of the Motel was that it had a cute Diner across the road which we ate at on five occasions over the three nights that we stayed there. Continue reading
The flight from Sydney to Los Angeles was a long one – we had gotten up at around 5:00 am to avoid the Sydney traffic and get to the airport for our flight leaving later that morning. After 13 hours of flying with only an hour or so of snoozing on the plane for each of us we landed in Los Angeles – it was sill 6:00am on the same day! This, and Maree’s inability to stay awake any longer (can anyone say Zombie!!!), made the 5 hour drive to Las Vegas a painful one. We were both ready for some sleep when we arrived at the hotel at about 2:00 pm. After a quick nap we went for an explore, had some food, and turned in early for the night. Long flights suck. Continue reading