Thursday 22 - Monday 26 May 2008 To set the scene for New York, we spent our first night in the Big Apple (though nobody calls it this anymore) watching the Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. We bought our tickets at the last minute counter in Times Square and couldn’t believe how many shows there were to choose from (my second choice would’ve been Legally Blonde and I think Sean would’ve gone for Frankenstein). Times Square was great, although always so, so crowded. In fact, there was a queue for just about everything we wanted to [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 20 - Thursday 22 May 2008 Looking back, our arrival into Washington DC seems pretty funny, however, at the time it was anything but. We were pretty tired after an overnight 17 hour bus journey from Toronto, it was cold, raining and our backpacks were getting heavier and heavier by the minute (mine has gained 5kg since departure from Sydney). We decided to head to our hotel to drop off our bags and managed to find the closest train station. After finding the metro (we had to ask for directions even once we were inside the building) and buying tickets [View Full Entry]

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Friday 16 - Monday 19 May 2008 Our first stop on our short 10 day visit to the East Coast was Toronto in Canada. The main reason for the visit was to see Sean’s Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Mary, who Sean hadn’t seen for seven years. After our busy West Coast trip, we were looking forward to spending the first three days in the one place; our longest, unbroken stop yet. Again our timing worked out rather well. Canada was refreshingly green after coming from California, with new foliage on all the trees. It was also much cooler and our jackets [View Full Entry]

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Saturday 10 - Monday 12 May 2008 Early Saturday morning we decided to take a detour to visit Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Park is home to the Sequoia trees, which are only found here (between 5000-7000ft) and are the largest trees in the world (not the tallest or widest, but overall largest volume). This is also the time we entered bear territory. There were lots of photos of cars with doors ripped open by hungry bears, so Sean and I started getting a little concerned for the safety of our blue Prius at this point. The [View Full Entry]

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Monday 12 - Friday 16 May 2008 San Francisco is a great city, probably because it doesn’t really feel like a city at all, and both Sean and I wanted to stay longer than two nights. On Tuesday we caught a bus to Fisherman’s Wharf and instantly fell in love with the place. We were walking along the wharf and could hear lots of barking. We looked over and the pier was covered in Sealions. Apparently, they first made their home at Pier 39 after the 1989 San Francisco earthquake and have remained ever since because of the safe waters. We [View Full Entry]

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Wed 7 May - Fri 9 May 2008 After the 5 hour drive from the Grand Canyon, we arrived in Las Vegas Wednesday afternoon rather tired and very sore. We checked into the Hilton with only two minor hiccups; I misplaced the passports (Sean found them in our first aid kit) and then left my handbag in the car (it was a long walk from our room to the carpark). The Hilton was one block back from the main Strip, which meant we had to get a monorail whenever we wanted to head out. The room wasn’t too bad (except for [View Full Entry]

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Mon 5 - Wed 7 May So our trip to the Grand Canyon was easily one of the highlights of the trip. We seriously lucked in by obtaining ‘backcountry permits’ from the National Parks office, which meant we were allowed to camp inside the canyon. It is too far to hike to the canyon floor and back in one day, so you have to do it over a couple of days. The backcountry permits are apparently fairly hard to come by though, as there are only two authorised campsites and one lodge available inside the canyon. The lodge and Bright Angel [View Full Entry]

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Sun 4 - Mon 5 May Getting to the Grand Canyon was an adventure in itself. In San Diego we bought road maps of California, Arizona and Nevada and googled the best routes to take. By major freeways the journey would have taken us about 8-9 hours. But we found one guy’s description indicating a far more interesting route that took about the same time. Well, he got the interesting part right, but the journey all up took us 17 hours (dramas included) and we arrived at the Canyon a whole day late. So the first drama started when we went [View Full Entry]

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Mon 28 - Wed 30 April, Fri 2 - Sun 4 May Kellie picked us up in her typically American (read large) car on Monday from Anaheim and drove us the 90 or so mins south to her sweet apartment in Downtown San Diego. Our first outing was to the supermarket for lunch which, to Kel’s amusement, proved fascinating for me. Can you believe Redken shampoo and conditioner sells for $12? Or that you can buy alcohol in any aisle (our tequila was $10)? I could have even bought 200 paracetamol tablets for $5. Anyway, Kellie did also take us out [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday 30 April - Friday 2 May 2008 We really couldn’t come so close to the border (15mins drive from Downtown San Diego) without crossing it, so we decided to spend a couple of days relaxing at a resort in Ensenada, Mexico. found the Estero Beach Resort on the internet and dropped us at the border. The crossing is fairly indiscreet; in fact a man told us to follow him because we were looking so lost (and standing out). We had our passports at the ready, but no one seemed to care at all, so we passed through a turnstile [View Full Entry]

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