http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Joey-and-Jennifer/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Joey and Jennifer en-us Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:47:59 +0000 Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:47:59 +0000 Today we went from southern Oregon to northern Oregon. We arrived in Wheeler around 5pm. Wheeler is a tiny town and we mean tiny. There are hardly any shops in town and pretty much everything closes up at 5pm so there was nothing for us to do. We had to drive to another town to find dinner. At least our hotel was nice. It was a remodeled 1920s building and had antique decor. The lady http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Tillamook/blog-441894.html Today we drove from California into Oregon. We decided to take the scenic route on Highway 101. It was so nice to see the ocean. It was definitely the best view we had on our trip so far. We didn't stop to do anything besides eat lunch because we wanted to make it to our hotel in time so we could see sunset on the beach. We made it in time and had plenty of time to walk along the beach and http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Gold-Beach/blog-441883.html Today we continued our trek north through California. We decided to take a slight detour to Fairfield to check out the Jelly Belly Factory. We went on a free tour they offer to see how jelly beans are made. We couldn't take pictures during the tour though because you could actually see the machines they use to make the jelly beans. However we did get free samples during the tour. We got a http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Redding/blog-441149.html Today we left Las Vegas. We took our time leaving though. We waited until almost the last minute to check out of our hotel room then sat in the food court eating amaretto gelato yum trying to figure out where we were going to go next. We finally decided on Fresno because that's how far we felt like driving. So after one last glance at our hotel we started the home leg of our journey. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Fresno/blog-440902.html This morning we had a very unhealthy breakfast a Nutella crepe with cappuccino gelato on the side. It was really good. We went to the European pastry shop in our hotel. They have the worldrsquos largest chocolate fountain there. It was not the type of fountain I was expecting but still really cool. It had 3 different types of chocolate in it. After breakfast we drove just down the stre http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Las-Vegas/blog-440807.html While we waited to check into our hotel we walked along the Strip for a little bit. Our first stop was MM World. It was fun to look at all the different MM items they had for sale. There was even a free 3D MM's movie to watch in a theater there. After we had lunch we continued our walk along the strip. It was pretty hot so we walked through some buildings which were airconditioned i http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Las-Vegas/blog-440509.html Our main event today was visiting Hoover Dam. It turned out that we came on a good day which was surprising since it was a Saturday because we were able to park really easily and we didn't have to wait that long for our tour to start. Our tour guide told us that on other days in the summer it could be a 2 hour wait just to park. We decided to do the full blown Dam Tour. There is also a Power http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Boulder-Dam/blog-440313.html We left Grand Canyon today and decided to take a detour to visit the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City AZ. It was the furthest south that we will go on our trip. The bridge is the actual London Bridge and was disassembled and brought here when it was purchased by a man who probably thought he was getting the Tower Bridge. They created a Little London right by the bridge. There is an Engli http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Henderson/blog-439926.html Today we spent pretty much all day at Grand Canyon National Park. We rode one of the shuttles to an area where cars aren't allowed to drive to and hiked a little bit on the rim and took some pictures. It was a little bit warmer today than yesterday and the sky was nice and clear. It was a beautiful day but not so good for picture taking. Plus after awhile no matter what angle you look at http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Grand-Canyon-National-Park/blog-439667.html We arrived at the Grand Canyon today. We actually had to drive through part of the national park before getting to our hotel. We arrived at our hotel at around 2 or 3pm. It was a little confusing to figure out what time it is. It says that we're in Mountain Time but we have the same time as California and Nevada which is Pacific Time. One thing that was unexpected was how cool it was there. http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Grand-Canyon-National-Park/blog-439273.html Today we made our way to Zion National Park. We arrived at our hotel in Hurricane before 2pm so we spent the afternoon and evening at Zion National Park. They have this great service at Zion where there is a free shuttle that takes you into the park and to all the different stops in the park and it leaves roughly every 7 minutes. One of the stops was called Weeping Rock. This is a place wher http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Utah/Zion-National-Park/blog-438970.html Our first stop today was at Shoshone Falls. The water level was low but at least there was something. It didn't look as good as it would have in the spring but it was still pretty. There was also a really nice view of the canyon and the river from the lookout where we were. It was just nice to finally have something to take a picture of.We arrived in Midvale which is just south of Salt Lake http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Utah/Salt-Lake-City/blog-438652.html Today is the first day of our 2week road trip. Our first stop is Boise Idaho. It took about 8 hours to get here. However that was 8 hours of travelling through a bunch of hilly brown landscape. It was a bit of a boring drive but we played the State License Plate Game and the Number Sign Game which occupied our time for most of the trip. We were pleasantly surprised with how many state l http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Idaho/Boise/blog-438360.html Today the Davis' picked up me and Joey to take us to Lavenham. This town is known as the crooked city because most of the buildings look crooked. It's very weird to see. Some buildings are leaning forward and look like they're going to fall over. The reason why they're crooked is that the timbers they used to build the houses were crooked. They never seemed to care whether they were straigh http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Suffolk/blog-326262.html We got to visit Andrew at Oxford today It was so great having him show us around. We even got to go into some colleges that we'd normally not get to go in. And we got to go in a couple colleges for free because we were with him. That is definitely the best way to tour the university.He explained the college system to us and it's very different from what we're used to. The first difference i http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Oxfordshire/Oxford/blog-325942.html Today we went to London. I wanted to do some sightseeing before we went shopping. First we walked across the Millenium Bridge. This is a pedestrian only bridge and it was built for the new millenium. When they first opened it to the public the bridge shook a lot when people walked across it so they closed it for a few months to modify it to make it safer. Then since mom kept referring to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-325933.html This morning we met Mr. Davis on base for the flight tower tour. Mark the person you gave us the tour was running late from his meeting so we weren't up in the tower when the first 2 planes took off. Those were F15E's and they took off at the same time. We were still able to see it from the ground and it was pretty cool. They had the afterburners on so it was really loud. You could feel http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Cambridgeshire/Cambridge/blog-325547.html This morning we left really early to make the long journey to Stonehenge. We arrived at Salisbury at about 1040am but it took us a while to figure out which bus to take and where to catch it. By the time we figured it out we had just missed a bus so we decided to visit Salisbury Cathedral first. This cathedral is so beautiful. It only took 38 years to build and most medieval cathedrals t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Wiltshire/Stonehenge/blog-325503.html Our day started our kind of late. We decided to go to Capel Manor Gardens. It was a little further away but Joey offered to drive. It took us a lot longer to get there than it was to return because our GPS was set to pedestrian so it avoided the highways. Whoops The main reason why we wanted to go to this garden was because it had a maze which is something Joey and I really wanted to do. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Hertfordshire/blog-325404.html We left our apartment this morning. We were running a little late so hopefully we didn't leave anything behind. One nice thing about some of the trains here is that they have free wifi. We made a mistake. We weren't paying attention when we jumped on our last train and it ended up being an express train that zoomed right past our stop. It ended up taking us 2 extra hours to get home. I'm http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/Scotland/Edinburgh/blog-325397.html