St Louis, Memphis, San Antonio and the Grand Canyon

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Days 13-24 (by Iain)

It's been extra long since my last post mainly due to the places we've been in having limited access or Ben wanting to stick up his super long report before I do mine.

So we left Chicago last Saturday morning and are currently just about to get the bus to Las Vegas. In between it all we have stopped at St. Louis, Memphis, San Antonio and Flagstaff (Grand Canyon). It's been several long bus journeys past countless corn fields and desert landscapes- which both get slightly less exciting by the hour.

After Chicago our first stop was St. Louis- a small wee city in Missouri known for it's music, the city itself wasn't to crazy but the suburb we stayed in was fantastic, everyone was friendly and had Scottish grandparents, there were countless pubs and a huge Budweiser brewery with free beer. We stayed there for a few days and went to the local Forest Park which had a zoo and art gallery amongst other things. St. Louis also has a giant arch which is very nice but it doesn't do a lot. Our hostel there was alos pretty good, very run down but it was run just like a big family home and the couple who owned it had an 18-month old harmonica playing kid. I also saw a glow-worm, which was nice.

Following St. Louis we headed South towards Memphis where we decided to stay in a hotel for two nights- seeing as the hostel was to far out of town. Memphis was great- we did our usual walking tour of the city on our first full day there and then at night came across Beale St. which had this neon-lit carnival atmosphere with live music on the street. You could buy a beer and just wander about the place watching folk dancing everywhere.

On from Memphis was San Antonio in Texas, a very hot and humid town that had frequent rain storms and the Alamo. It was sometimes just too hot to walk about so the fact that our hostel had a swimming pool was amazing- the owner also looked like Face from the A-Team. Whilst in San Antonio we also ate in the worlds first drive in restraunt and got lost in the worlds most annoying shopping centre.

And from there we took a 26 hour bus ride up to a tiny wee town called Flagstaff which we used as our base for our Grand Canyon trip. That was yesterday and was quite spectacular, we took a tour which stopped at various points through the day. Our guide was a bit crazy and kept leading us to ledges that had 600-foot drops but that made it all the better I guess.

And finally, we have just finished breakfast this morning- talking to some Danish guy about Thomas Gravesen and upside-down yoghurt pots. It's off to Las Vegas now.

(Ben shall back date this blog with longer commentary very soon)

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Comments

[Ben Robins]

Bloody 'ell Iain! "restraunt"?!? You'll never become a teacher with spelling like that!

[Ellie]

Hey Guys sounds like your having a fabulous time. Cant believe im stuck here in rainy dumfries! :( Cnt wait to be on holiday next week although il still be here with the torrential rain and flooding!! Oh and someone tried to drive through the front of glasgow airport with a bomb in their car! its all go here. See ya Soon Elliexx