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Well it was a pretty busy first week covering a lot of miles. I managed to find somewhere in LA to store my bag since the airport doesn't have that facility any more. The hotel where I was staying offered a service that was going to cost a couple of hundred dollars but the hotel next door did it for free even though I wasn't even staying there! On the Saturday I did a tour of LA and visited all of the usual places like Venice Beach, Hollywood and Rodeo Drive. Venice Beach has a series of canals in the back streets to replicate Venice but they are pretty shallow. We also went past Arnies cigar shop and Clint Eastwoods restaurant. Didn't see any stars though.
Sat night I went down to Santa Monica which is really nice, lots of people out in the mall. Sunday morning we met for the tour. It didn't look too good to start with since my name wasn't on the list but there was a spare space on the bus so maybe it was saved for me. It was the tour leads first tour and so he was a bit unorganised but he
got us together and we had some get to know each other questions before we all piled into the 13 seater and headed off for another tour of LA. The group consisted of young girls from Holland, Slovakia and German, a German couple, a Polish guy, a guy from Singapore and a couple from Brisbane.
On the road and heading west we passed masses of wind generators and first stop was Joshua Tree national park. They are weird shaped cactus trees that the Mormons named. After that we drove into the dark and didn't even reach our first camp site but nonetheless found a nice site by the Colorado river with green grass and hot showers. The next day we headed off to the Canyon where I took a helicopter flight over it. Unfortunately they are not allowed to travel into the canyon but the views were still excellent. We then drove to the edge and wandered around for a couple of hours before capturing the sunset.
On Tuesday we headed east again for Las Vegas which was awesome. One big playground for adults and that's defined as somebody over 21 over hear although we did managed to
get some of the younger girls a drink at the Karaoke bar. We started the night in a party bus with the music pumped up to a 150 decibels then visited a few of the Casinos and also took a ride up the replica Eiffel Tower. At about 2 we called it quits as things started to quieten down a bit in town. There were plenty of places we missed.
The next day it was off to Death Valley which has a record temperature of 56 degrees. Fortunately it wasn't that hot when we were there but there certainly wasn't much sign of life. Yosemite made up for that though with its lush valleys and plenty of waterfalls. We even got to see some brown bears grazing near the road on the way in. We hiked up and around Nevada falls which took about 3 hours and then continued heading east. Again we missed our camp-site and stopped at a park offering barren rocky sites but it did the job and we got to see a skunk scurrying around.
Friday we arrived in San Fran for a tour of the bridge and city areas including the steep streets.
That evening we took a cruise on a large catamaran out around Alcatraz and under the bridge which was very pleasant, especially when the engines were cut and we traveled by sail. I couldn't believe how cold it was in San Fran. Apparently a famous authour once made a comment about his coldest winter being a summer in San Fran. They get a moist fog for most of the day in summer and combined with a stiff breeze makes it pretty cool.
Saturday was a free day for us although the tour lead continued the tour for those areas that weren't squeezed in on the Friday. Saturday night a few of us went out to Chinatown for dinner at a well regarded restaurant but unfortunately the line out the front stretched for at least 30 minutes so we went to the place next door. The food was served a very quickly and some of the meat was a little spongy and I think that was the cause of some pretty bad food poisoning that took me the next two days to get over. I don't think I will be having Chinese for a while!
So that was the
first week. Good bunch of people on the trip and lots of beautiful sites. Hope you enjoy the photos.
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Burtyboy
non-member comment
Hi Ya
Hi Dave, Looks good. Wish I was travl'n with ya all. he he he. I was about to book a tour of Europe for AUgust but average age was in their mid to late 50s..yuk. You visiting lots of things there I would like to see. Chat when you get home so you can fill me in on what is good and what not. Seems like you enjoying! Just got back from a w'end at Wilson's Prom here in Vicco. Spectacular. Regards Tony