http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Tim and Tom/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Tim and Tom en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:46:52 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:46:52 BST Tim End of the trip is finally here. We are now just sunning ourselves on Miami Beach for a few days hard life I know I may see if I can get a Jet Ski for an hour or two one of these next few days. Miami is hot but cool compared to the heat of Las Vegas where it hit 46.1 deg Cel at one point See you all in a few days London people. See you in a few weeks Somerset family and Tom says that he wi http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Florida/Miami-Beach/blog-290958.html Tim Grand Canyon deserves its name I cannot sum up in words how vast this place is. Some say it took 5 million years to form and some say 17 millions years. It is one of those things that I just cannot get my head around. The Canyon is 1.6 miles deep in places. We looked around the area from 2 points Grand Canyon Lodge and Point Imperial. We staged in St George Utah in order to get thier nice http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Grand-Canyon-National-Park/blog-290955.html Tom We're in Vegas baby god we love this place it's so over the top. Slot machines at the airport at the 711 at the hostel in every bar slot machines everywhere. It's silly hot aswell 42C during the day and dropping to a 'chilly' 30C or so overnight. Thank God for air conditioning and beer.Wisely we both left our cashcards etc in the hostel and we hit the Strip with 100 each to lose a http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Nevada/Las-Vegas/blog-289062.html Tom The day actually got worse about 1 hour after we went to bed some bloke tapped Tim on the shoulder and said excuse me i think you are in my bed so at sillyoclock in the morning we made one last move to another bedroom and finally got some sleep. However more fun and games were brewing as we finally slept. Tims mobile woke us both up at 7am thursday morning and it was his letting agen http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/San-Francisco/Alcatraz/blog-287432.html What an arse of a day Well in the grand scheme of things worse has happened at sea but.. Started the day at 8am with a 7 hour drive from LA to San Fran...ok ok not too bad. Get to Hostel to find out that Hostel has recieved booking but due to clerical error Mr Bage and Mr Callow have no beds for the evening They did book us into thier sister hostel in downtown..which is actually quite nice but http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/San-Francisco/blog-286393.html Tim The drive into LA was mad with traffic dodging and weaving accross 6 lanes of traffic. So we arrived in LA after a 6 hour drive from San Fran. Tom guided us to the hostel like a lazer guided warhead. I am now driving a Crysler 300C which is very nice to drive big engine and looks a bit like a Bently. At the hostel We met some other English lads one of whom lives just down the road from me http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Los-Angeles/Venice-Beach/blog-284881.html Tim and Tom I was going to break this down into a number of posts but I won't. Basically we have made our way from Coos Bay on the West Coast to San Fransisco in the convertable. It has taken a few days and we have stopped off a few places along the way. We got to San Fran a few days ago we travelled on the coastal road along Routes 101 and 1. Often these roads were small and challenging to driv http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/San-Francisco/blog-283893.html Tim and Tom We have made our way down so far as Medford via Crater Lake National Park. We stayed in a motel last night with a gym and an indoor poolspa so that has kind of set the standard for our last few days on our way down to San Fransisco yes we have become motel snobs The ability to work out and also swim and lounge around in the spa has been a god send. It is just the luxury that we hav http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Medford/blog-282013.html Tom Just a quickie here as we're currently motel'ing it down the west coast. All is good apart from the distinct lack of sunshine hopefully the sun will be less shy as we travel south as we have a few sunbatheing days planned for San Fran. The views are awesome Mount Saint Helens was simply breathtaking and the roads are smooth and navigating is about as easy as it can be apart from the centre http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Oregon/Coos-Bay/blog-281613.html Tim We arrived in Vancouver on Monday we set off to find the hostel and managed to take in part of the tramp and vagabond filled lower east side. We found the hostel in a sligtly nicer part of town but with still a tramp every 10 metres or so. I only have so much spare change Over the last few days we have seen alot of Vancouver and it has gone up in my estimation. Day 1 we strolled around th http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/British-Columbia/Vancouver/West-Vancouver/blog-279163.html Tim and Tom Arrived safely in Vancouver. More to follow shortly http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/British-Columbia/Vancouver/North-Vancouver/blog-278163.html Tim Everything is sweeter when you are relaxed you taste the air you breathe you hear the words clearly of the music you are listening too and conversations are easier to hold. Well that is how I feel today. We have been here for 3 nights and spent 3 days here in Seattle. I have not gone crazy on you so dont worry This place is just amazing yeah tall buildings are all very well and nice enoug http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Seattle/U-District/blog-277612.html Tom Seattle is home to some of the most popular coffee chains in the US so it seemed only right to start the day with some local fare and boy were we glad we did. Seattles Best Coffee certainly didn't disappoint. So fueled up we set off to sort out our car hire for our drive down the west coast seeing as it's going to be 1000 miles we've decided to treat ourselves .That settled we grabbed http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Seattle/U-District/blog-277127.html Tim We awoke today at 7am for our 14 hour trip from Chicago to Seattle. We booked with US Airways now we could have paid lots of money for a 4 hour direct flight but your talking 800 each we paid 400 for both of us to get here so thats 100 quid each to cover many thousand miles. The first flight was slightly spoiled by a drunken redneck idiot who was sat in the row behind us he had opinions http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Seattle/U-District/blog-276799.html Tim I was feeling much better today. We set off out early into town full of hope and optimism We found our way into Chicago and headed so we thought towards Navy Pier...we actually went away from it and skillfully managed to ignore signs pointing us in the right direction in our defence they were on the other side of the road and we were walkng away from them. We ended up there eventually http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Illinois/Chicago/blog-276003.html Tom Okies back to the US and A and Chicago. We check into our hostel after a good flight and a very bad metro ride due to maintainance to the whole Chicago subway system called the EL system as much of the track is elevated above street level and we find we've made a small balls up here. Skillfully we've managed to find a dry Alcohol is Prohibited hostel which brought a tear to our eyes t http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Illinois/Chicago/blog-275214.html Tim Today has been a good day. We took a metro down to the Biodome and went over to the Giles Villneave circuit the home of Canadian Formula 1. Later in the day we have bonded a little bit more with the people in the hostel and we are outside with them playing a French drinking game called DIXIT. Now whilst writing this blog I should account for any gramatical or spelling errors by pointing out http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Quebec/Montreal/South-Shore/blog-274329.html Tom Overlooking Montreal there is a large 3 peaked hill called Mount Royal which the clever people in wikiland inform us gave the city it's name. So having been promised a postcard view we headed for the hills. Much sweat and even more grunts later we'd climbed to 2 of the 3 summits and the views were amazing with panoramic views across Montreal and the surrounding countryside. After a pau http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Quebec/Montreal/Saint-Laurent/blog-274005.html Tim Fully rested washed and recovered from the beer last night we set out to discover some of what Montreal has to offer. Montreal has a lovely old town which could put you in the middle of a small quaint French town that was worth the walk. Coming out from the old town we mooched on down to the river side to have a look around. Nice place but alot of construction work is taking place at the mo http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Quebec/Montreal/Saint-Laurent/blog-273620.html Tim We are now in Montreal. We took the train from Toronto to Montreal it took us 5 hours on the train. It is all French here We might as well be in France Found the hostel really easily and it is very nice. You know it is going to be good when the first things someone says to you is Hi we are going off to find a bar would you like to come Facilities are really great here and the people r http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Quebec/Montreal/South-Shore/blog-273346.html