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After 2 weeks of battling the snow, dust storms and of course sunshine and heat camping across national parks and in middle America it certainly made a change to arrive at the bright lights and scary heat of Vegas.
We stayed at Excalibur which is one of the big casino hotels on the strip - and we mean big - over 5,000 rooms and was apparetly the biggest hotel in the world in the early 90´s. The casino floor was massive and no clocks and no directions to the exit were part of the ploy to keep you from leaving - luckily we did and during the couple of days we were there we took in some of the main sights of the strip.
Each casino offered something different as they all try and out do each other to get people in to lose their money there. Our favourite was The Venetian, which recreates a mini Venice complete with its own canal and gondola rides which are built on the upper floors (pretty weird place). We went to see the comedian Carrot Top (apparently he is a long standing and pretty famous show over in Vegas) - we weren´t
sure what to expect, but he was hilarious. We also headed downtown to catch the Fremont Street experience which is a light show along the roof of a pedestrianised street and takes place on the biggest screen in the world.
After a hectic couple of days and late nights in Las Vegas it was time to hit another hectic city - LA. Rather then head straight into the city we decided to head to the beaches of Orange County and camped the night just outside Laguna Beach (didn´t see the MTV cameras there though!).
The next day it was time to hit the sprawl and smog of LA. First stop was Hollywood Boulevard and the walk of fame before heading off with a map of movie star homes to try and do some star spotting. We failed miserably given the size of some of the hedges and gates the houses are behind! (unfortunately for neil the biggest were around the playboy mansion).
The next day we went to Universal Studios, which was a great day out with some great rides - we rode the new Simpsons ride which is a simulator that actually makes it feel like
you're moving somewhere -even if it is on a runaway roller coaster controlled by Crusty the Clown through Springfield. Also did the studio tour and got to see some of the older and new sets from films including Desperate Housewives (which they were filming at). That night we headed south to the coast and stopped for dinner at the first curry house we had seen since arriving in the states (Neil can live without marmite, but was struggling when it came to curry). Then we started heading north up the Pacific coast towards our final destination of the first leg - San Francisco.
We stopped at lots of places along the way including Venice Beach and Santa Barbara and once outside the sprawl of LA there was just ocean on the left and mountains on the right so a pretty spectacular drive. The most spectacular part was the wiggly and windy Big Sur coast - 90 miles of almost undeveloped coastline that is known to be one of the most scenic drives in USA if not the world. It was not only the scenery that was amazing, we were lucky to stumble upon a place called Point Piedras Blanca
which is a beach where hundreds of elephant seals lay up on the beach for 4 weeks in the spring every year - very smelly, but great all the same! After spending a night camping in the aptly named Sunset Beach we made our final stop of the coastal cruise at Santa Cruz, a small resort just south of San Francisco which holds the 85 year old wooden Big Dipper that was used in the film The Lost Boys (Lou wasn't brave enough to go on that one!)
It was then time to take our now well broken in Mazda 3 on its last drive to the city of San Francisco. After going round in circles negotiating the one way streets we finally found somewhere to stay and set about exploring the great city. First stop was Fisherman's Wharf and a trip to see the Sea lions at pier 39 followed by a trip to Alcatraz - well worth it not only for the great insight into the prison, but also the views of the city skyline which must have teased the prisoners like crazy every day.
After making our escape we headed out for some drinks in
the North Beach district and hung out with some locals in a sports bar to watch the Basketball playoffs. Several games were being shown on different screens so there was always something to watch during the ad breaks every 3 minutes!
The next morning we were back in the pubs again - this time an English run place to watch a proper sport (football) and Lou gleefully watched Man U beat Arsenal. After a few lunchtime pints the afternoon was a bit of a right off, but we did manage to cover lots of other districts by foot.
That night we had tickets to the baseball - San Francisco Giants against LA Dodgers, which was a big game as they are massive rivals and this was the decider in a run of 3 matches being played that week. Suffice to say the Giants are more of the Liverpool than Luton of baseball and 38,000 packed into the stadium to catch the game and see them emphatically win (so Neil will have to wear his new Giants cap to football next season for luck). Really enjoyed the match and managed to just about understand it by the final inning thanks
to a couple of locals explaining it to us!
After checking out of our hotel we still had a whole day to kill before our flight so we ended up hiring a tandem and biked from the city across the Golden Gate Bridge (the first time Lou had been on a bike since her big fall on the canal, so was a bit nervous especially seeing as she was in the passenger seat and Neil had full control). Was great fun though and a cracking way to end the first leg of our trip.
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