U.S.A. Road Trip!!

The last month or so has been jam packed with good times, alongside my travel buddies for this portion of the trip, Don and Trav. This blog probably should've been split into two or three but time has just flown by. While spending a week or two checking out L.A., we managed to get everything sorted for our road trip east. And what better way to travel across this country than in a big V8 van! Let me introduce you to Dodgey (complete with four captains chairs and a back bench that folds into a double bed) and the adventures of Team NZ...

Fast Times in Tahoe (and the other cities we've visited)

After the initial down time in L.A., most of our time has been spent outside of cities, but here's a quick rundown of the ones we have visited and what we got up to...

During our time in L.A., we visited the usual suspects, like Hollywood, Rodeo Drive and the famous beaches. It's all pretty much what you'd expect, except perhaps even more of the filthy rich and just plain filthy. In between our days in L.A., we also spent some time in Ojai (Spanish styles, so the 'j' sounds like an 'h', unlike our pronunciation when we asked a local for directions! Damn tourists.) catching up with an old mate from home. Cheers for the good times Shearer! Ojai is a nice little town away from the Big Smoke, so we kept ourselves entertained with bike rides and running in the picturesque hills.

Next up was San Francisco for a couple of days. This was quite a nice city, with it's steep streets, great restaurants and seaside vistas. Unfortunately tours to Alcatraz were booked for several days in advance so we didn't get the chance to go out there. Managed to do everything else that we wanted to though.

The last city we visited in California was Tahoe, to see a friend of a friend. We went from singlet/shorts weather, to a dusting of snow the night we were there, all in a day's drive. Nice ski village at Squaw and cool to be amongst the mountains. Dodgey especially loved it because it meant donuts in the snow.

Then it was off to Vegas baby!! We got a good deal on a nice room at the Palms, which ended up costing us about the same as a hostel. Vegas is all about the money, as I'm sure you're well aware. Everywhere you go just screams money... often at the expense of taste. Great city to spend a few nights in though, with plenty to do. We went to Mysteré by Cirque de Soleil, gambled a bit and plowed our way through our fair share of booze.

Into the Wild

Over this side of the States a lot of the best sights on offer are miles from any city. Indeed some of the best sights I've seen anywhere in the world can be found in the treasure chest that is the National Park system. So here's what we've seen so far outside the American metropolises...

In California we visited Yosemite, with it's towering Giant Sequoias, beautiful rivers and huge rock faces (we climbed as far as weather would allow up Half Dome). The barren salt flats, desert and sand dunes of Death Valley (where we stood at the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at -85.5m) were certainly a stark contrast to the lush and differing landscapes of Yosemite.

On our way into Utah, we stopped off to see the Hoover Dam. Disappointingly, the only way to get a really good view of it is to take a tour, which we were too late for. Still, it is an impressive sight and is absolutely massive. The National Parks that Utah has to offer are the cream of the crop. To come to this part of the world and only see the Grand Canyon would be a real shame, as the likes of Zion and Bryce National Parks are the best we've come across. Unreal landscapes packed full of natural beauty. Finished off the magic of Utah with a drive through Monument Valley.

We've only touched the corner of Colorado and New Mexico at this stage. Literally the corner of New Mexico actually, at Four Corners, where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona meet. In Colorado we visited Mesa Verde National Park, right in the southwest corner of the state. It contains several ancient Indian abandoned villages. The coolest part is that the villages are actually built into the walls of the surrounding cliffs and caves.

Arizona is also full of great parks to visit, not least the mighty Grand Canyon. Petrified Forest National Park offers a very different landscape, as it is covered with masses of petrified wood. They range in size from chips to whole trees and are incredible to experience first hand. The colours and the weight of the wood that has turned to rock is amazing. We also visited Meteor Crater, the site of the best preserved large crater. And, at 1.2km across and 170m deep, it sure is large! Last but certainly not least, we (well 2/3 of us anyway!) climbed Humphrey's Peak. The views at 3,852m (for all you Kiwis out there, you can compare with Mt. cook at 3,754m) are incredible to say the least. Unfortunately, the wind at the summit was also some of the most incredible I've ever experienced and was trying it's hardest to fling us off the mountain!

That's all for now folks, we've covered about 5,000kms already but there's plenty more to come...