Blogs from North America - page 7764

After stopping in Wisconsin to visit friends and play a few games of pool, we headed west toward Minnesota. Of course, on our way across Wisconsin we did stop to pickup some cheese (yum!). Our first stop in Minnesota was Minneapolis, where we swung by Mall of America just to check it out. The list of shops in the directory was dumbfounding, so we started walking around. In the center of the 100-acre mall is a mini amusement park, with roller coasters, rides, carnival games and ridiculous prizes. Looks like fun, but as we just spent a couple of days at Cedar Point, we moved on. We walked a full circle around the outside of this amusement area, which sounds simple but it was quite a hike! this outer area is where all the shops are. ... read more

070823 Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, Washington After leaving Seattle I drove about 45 minutes south to Sumner Washington where my friend and co-worker Bryan grew up. I crashed at his dad’s apartment which was empty at the moment. While there I waterproofed my tent because it wasn’t very waterproof when it rained in Yellowstone. We pretty much relaxed all day, watched movies, did some laundry (since both of us are nomads we wash laundry when we can), and did general upkeep on our gear, like waterproofing, sharpening knives, whatever. I was thinking about going to Mt Rainer for a day then going to Olympic National Park for a day. Bryan suggested I use both days for Olympic National Park and stressed how cool the Hoh Rainforest on the west side of the park was. I ... read more

Mercredi 22 août, Aujourd'hui, nous allons observer les baleines.... Mais nous avons encore le temps, c'est seulement cet après midi. Nous déjeunons tranquille et nous retournons à Grice Bay pour reprendre des photos, mais de jour cette fois. La mer est un peu plus agitée qu'hier soir, mais les paysages n'en sont pas moins beaux ! C'est vraiment un beau coin et nous restons là quelques instants pour admirer l'eau, les montagnes, les arbres, le soleil. Nous prenons la route pour Tofino, c'est à environ 25 minutes en voiture depuis le camping. Je m'arrête acheter des cartes postales.... ma dernière dizaine de cartes postales du voyage... J'ai trouvé une place où les cartes étaient vraiment belles et représentaient bien le coin. Nous nous posons dans un café pour que Youri puisse transférer ses photos sur son ... read more

The Niagara Falls are not far from Toronto, so it would be a crime not to go. We hired a car, which worked out a lot cheaper than a coach tour and also meant that we didn’t need to be ready at the crack of dawn. As we learned from Australia last year (see ), the information on these tours is fantastic, but it doesn't quite make up for the rounds of hotel pick-ups and waiting for all the pensioners to amble back in their own good time. We'd been warned that the Niagara Falls town was a bit of a tourist trap and should be avoided, but nothing could have prepared us for the tacky Blackpool meets Las Vegas nightmare that opened up before us. It had to be seen to be believed that such ... read more

Today was Amy's last day in New York City before she was catching a bus to Philadelphia to continue her travels. So today we decided to explore central park a bit better and visit anywhere else we wanted to go but hadn't been yet. Most of the day we just wondered 5th avenue taking photos of different buildings and architecture but we ended up in "F.A.O Schwarz" which is a massive multi storey toy store which is packed full of different toys. We went in a videoed a guy doing a rubix cube in under a minute which was very impressive, don't know how he did it. We then moved on to Central Park and went photo crazy exploring around Central Park. We didn't have too much time left so we did what we could then ... read more