USA - West Coast - Part 1

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U.S.A. - 7 Weeks

After a glorious year and a half in "the UK's Big Brother" we have saved up enough cash to do a big trip or two. We have started with a 7 week visit to the "Land of the Free" with the intention of spending some time with my dad, some time in the sun and some time re-exploring the West-side.

The first 2 weeks...

...have been all about settling in, contributing to my dads alcoholism and letting steam come out of our ears.



We arrived just before New Years eve and went for a nice meal in a posh french restaurant followed by a live band.

We had the use of my dads mini cooper so were able to cruise around but basically used it to go to Venice beach, it was hot enough to wear shorts and catch some rays - Venice beach hasn't really changed over the years except now you can obtain a medical card so that you can legally buy marajuana - an excellent example of power to the people as the US government are against it and continue their "War on Drugs" but they can't lock up half the country.

We went for a cycle along the canal, celebrated both Steph and my dads birthdays and most exciting of all we blocked and had to unblock the drains, an experience that most tourists dont get.

Road trip - 1 week

Day 1 - We left L.A mid morning and spent the day driving across California and half of Arizona to a town called Williams, about an hour West of Flagstaff, just before the turn off to the Grand Canyon. We stayed in a decent place with pool and a spa, a little treat after the days driving.

Day 2 - We visited the Grand Canyon, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World carved out by the Colorado river. We visited the South rim for a couple of hours before driving south to Sedona to meet with the famous abductee Kim Carlsberg to use her military grade night vision goggles and binoculars to search for UFOs. We got there in time to enjoy the beautiful rock formations over a cuppa, in a glorious afternoon, only

spoilt by the numerous chemtrails that were being sprayed. I was amazed by how many they were spraying and I had never seen chemtrails before so spent a few hours trying to photograph them and was amazed at how obvious the difference between normal flight trails and chemtrails was.

As soon as the sun set we met with Kim and drove out to a spot out of town to search for UFOs. We lost count of how many we saw, but i'd guess that over the course of an hour and a half we spotted between 20 - 25 UFOs and also observed some satellites, plenty of planes and the Andromeda galaxy. It was a brilliant tour in my opinion, I loved it and after freezing our botties off we went to an alien themed diner dedicated to Kim and her story.

For more info on the tour you can check out her website, or for her story she has written a couple of books.

http://www.sedonaufoskytours.com/

Day 3 - We left pretty early and had some breakfast in the forest before leaving the Sedona area and heading towards Moab in Utah.

We drove through the Arizona Desert and could see more chemtrails being sprayed. We were heading for Monument Valley but stopped briefly close to Tuba City as we came across some fossilized dinosaur footprints. Monument Valley is an impressive area with massive rock formations jutting out of the earth like massive fins on the Earths back.

We arrived in Moab late at night and checked in to a little motel..

Day 4 - We visited the Canyonlands National park, a beautiful park with a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons by the Colorado and Green Rivers. The park is multi-layered and from the "Island in the Sky" district that we visited you can see many canyons stretching out for miles and miles, sadly the photos don't really do it justice.

Day 5 - We spent a few hours in Arches National Park, this park is absolutely beautiful, amazing colours, shapes and rock formations e.g Balanced rock or the Fiery furnace and over 2000 natural sandstone arches.

After the park we had some lunch in Moab and then drove West in the direction of the Fishlake forest intending to turn south from there to reach the

Bryce Canyon. As the sun went down we got hit by heavy snow which felt much like a blizzard due to the speed and direction of the wind. We didnt make it to the Bryce area due to weather conditions and ended up staying the night in Richfield.

Day 6 - We woke up in a completely different scene, the ground was completely covered in snow and we felt like we were in a christmas card scene. The scenery was very pretty and the snow covered scenery continued as we headed south to Bryce Canyon. We reached the Bryce Canyon National park to find that only a portion of the park was open but luckily it was the area with the panoramic views over the area of the park with red monolithic spikes jutting out from the ground. The scenery was again beautiful with red rock spikes coming up out of the snow.

We spent an hour at the park and then continued on towards Las Vegas, winding our way down through the mountains and then across the desert to the city of sin.

We checked in to a cheap hotel and then did

what you do in Vegas, ate, drank alcohol and did a little gambling.

Day 7 - We were feeling quite hung over this morning so went for a breakfast buffet, had a lye down in the car and then walked around a few of the elaborate casinos. Las Vegas for me is like a giant playground for adults which typifies Americas self-centered culture - its all about greed and money and materialism - not the place for me.

We did end up leaving with extra money in our pockets, we gambled $4 and walked away with $11 so we can now travel an extra couple of years i'd say.

After another buffet we left and drove back to Los Angeles

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Photos

New Years Eve
Meet my father and Best mate

New Years Eve
We watched a really good band

Using Dads Car
Driving round in his mini cooper

Venice Beach
Hot enough for shorts in Mid-january -- Love it

Parking Ticket
Land of the Free my bottom

Unblocking the Drain
An experience most tourists don't get

Comments

[PAUL AND MARIA]

UNBLOCKING THE DRAIN
That picture -- a classic -- you with nice blue rubber gloves approaching Pete from behind--couldnt have been posed better--when he told me he had had his colonoscopy , I didnt realise you had done it !