We're going to jackson

With the Great Salt Lake in the rear view mirror we had a nice little drive ahead to get to The Grand Tetons! The drive was extended by none other than our good friend... Mr Roadworks. We were slowed by an hour or so, but that didn't matter as we were stopped in a rather picturesque location, especially for a geologist; with the canyons showing off the many layers of rock and folds!

After hitting speed again we were back onto the windy mountainous highways on our way to Jackson, of course while listening to the Johnnie Cash classic (and then later learning that He was in fact singing about another jacson, classic usa for reusing city names..) With the food box and esky restocked we were straight to the information centre with the intention of making our way to Yellowstone.. 

The ranger managed to suss us out before we reached the counter and immediately suggested the best free camping spot in town (which sat uptop a grassy knoll and had a kick ass view of the sun setting over the mountain range). He also gave us a list of hikes to check out in the area and gave us some invaluable advice to spend more time exploring the snow capped mountains, lakes and canyons of the Grand Teton National Park rather than the more famous Yellowstone. His exact words being "once you've seen one smelly hole in the ground, you've seen them all..." 

The highlight of our stay was a hike around Jenny Lake and up to 'Inspiration Point' which provided a panoramic view of the lake and surrounding area! The area was home to some cheeky marmots and was the first place we had visited in a long while with active bears roaming around. Hiking in bear country wasnt my favourite experience, there are warning signs at the trailheads recommending hikers carry bear spray ( and know how to use it) and make noise throughout the hike to prevent sneaking up on the bear. Rhys and I didn't fancy forking out $80 for some pepper spray in the off chance that we found ourselves face to face with a grizzly so went the latter and made lots of noise..I think we're quickly running out of things to say to each other!

After a big day of hiking we headed back to our camp site (once again with a great view of the Tetons, this time reflected In a beautiful lake) , made ourselves a mean camp fire and experimented with the creation of s'mores. It's an art we didn't quite conquer on our first attempt but melted chocolate, sticky gooey marshmallows and cookies taste good no matter how bad they look! 

The great salt lake

We knew the song but we had no idea what we would find at the Great Salt Lake. The song had us intrigued though, and we found ourselves heading toward Salt Lake City eager to find out what the hype was about!

The drive from Vegas brought about a scenery change from desert landscape to wide open green farm land. We didn't realise we'd driven through a time change either until we woke the next morning and walked into a packed Walmart store, later realizing it was 8am..not 7.

We learnt Salt Lake City was home to a recent Olympics before reaching the 'National Park' section of the information centre in town and got a good laugh out of the mannequin showing off the park ranger uniforms! With some tips on the best places to embrace the Gat Salt Lake and close to the weight of a phone book in brochures, we were back on the road and headed toward Antelope Island located in the middle of the lake itself!

Antelope island is not just as it sounds, in fact we didn't see any antelope and rather it should be named Bison Land! If you have never previously seen or heard of a Bison as we had not, this was a rather spectacular moment... the first time. Pulling into our campground, we were suprised to see one standing and eating not far from out site! A Bison is similar to the more commonly known buffalo with the addition of a sheep like coat. Unfortunately for the rather impressive specimines on show, we had caught them at somewhat of a bad hair month as they shed their winter coat in preparation for summer, leaving them looking rather scraggly! The sightings continued throughout our stay and became more and more like cows grazing aside the road, sadly it never ceased to amaze the car/ cars in front of us which had stopped to capture their special moments.

Amidst the many Bison viewings, we managed to fit in a couple of good little hikes up to a few view points and even pulled out the frisbee as we trekked toward the water which must have receded almost a kilometre from its original location at the scrubby shoreline. Due to the high levels of salt in the lake, the only living organisms were a few species of krill; and as we made our way along the vast salt encrusted ground toward the water our noses sensed the presence of the unfortunate little guys who hadn't managed to escape as the water line receded and on display were the skeletons of a number of small birds from the area which didn't find the food they were looking for in the apparent oasis beneath them and had not yet adapted to live off salty krills.

Aside from all the apparent negativity, we did enjoy our stay at the lake away from civilisation and can agree with its title of Greatness!

You are a sunset, a mirage, a moment..

We were looking forward to our few days in Vegas - a little holiday from our holiday. The plan was to do not a lot, chill by the pool with cocktails, eat and do a little bit of exploring. Turns out, that's exactly what we did!

En route to Vegas, we drove along the famous route 66 and passed a lot of historic little towns still making money from the road that was. Then, there was the Hoover Dam and the recently constructed bypass bridge. A rather large engineering feat that we could not miss! Aside from all the tourists in the area snapping photos aimlessly and not having any appreciation of the intense design and construction complicities of the structure, it was definitely an impressive sight to see! We even had fun playing the car park game after our self guided interpretive walk.

Then it was onto Vegas, where we negotiated our way through town and down to our hotel, The Mirage. We thought it best to leave our bags in the car and check in first in order to avoid the usual stares at our unusual (and large amounts) of luggage! The check in line was very similar to that at an airport, as we were greeted by a hostess and channeled through to a maze where we waited about 45minutes with the other guests (most dragging their Louis Vuitton and Gucci luggage..) we finally checked in, mazed (again) through the casino floor and up to our room. We were greeted by the small luxuries we were starting to miss, a real bed with clean sheets and fluffy pillows, a bathroom (including towels and toilet) and of course, space. The view wasn't too bad either as it overlooked the volcano at the front of the hotel and down the infamous vegas strip! 

After unpacking, we quickly threw on our togs and hit the pool, of course with rediculously sized (and priced) frozen cocktails!! 

We had no intention at all on gambling so decided to spend our money instead on shows. So after a delicious seafood platter we were off to 'Love', a Beatles inspired Cirque de Soleil. The show was great, combining good music, a story we could follow and of course the amazing circus acts with the implementation of my favourites... roller skates!

The next day brought with it our first solo time of the trip. We had been on the road for over a month and the most time we had spent apart was probably going to the bathroom. Rhys went to drop jimmy off for a service and I decided to sweat it out at the gym instead! An hour and a half later we were reunited and both seemed to have survived the separation. 

We then filled our day wandering around the strip, going into a few of the other casinos and the shopping malls (and i bought a dress, finally felt like a woman again!) before heading to the David Copperfield show. On the way to the show we needed to grab a bite to eat and made our way to our first buffet. Not only did we have buffet lunch, we paid $50 for all we could eat buffet for 24hours... Which meant we could have dinner after the show and breakfast and lunch the next day! We were set :) ..although it was quite a dangerous investment with all the delicious temptations !

Anyway, after over stuffing ourselves, we were off to our first magic show, and magical it was. Within about 10 minutes of being seated and of course sipping on overly priced frozen cocktails, we were approached by a girl who worked for the show, and were asked if we would like to watch from the front row, how could we say no! From here we were able to see how a few of the tricks we'd performed (as our engineering inclined brains were just asking 'how' and probably not appreciating the magic as others were!). Our new front seats also gave me the opportunity to go on stage, not once, but twice!! The first time I was a key holder of a box that contained some numbers and a usb stick with a voice file that had been locked inside the box before the act started. A few audience members nominated some completely random numbers, including birthdays and days of abstenance, and these numbers of course alleared on the piece of paper inside the box, and of course on the file on the USB. They then appeared on the car licence plate of the car  that David made appear on stage!! From there, we watched a duck disappear, David slice himself in half, a butterfly appear, some hilarious (unscripted) dialogue with some non english speaking audience members (it started with trying to get the guys girlfriend to stand up and finished with another audience member translating, but with lots of laughs from the audience and lots of patience on davids behalf) and then it was time for the final act; the disappearing act. 

Volunteers for this act were randomly selected by catching frisbies. One was thrown in my direction and I totally missed it (because I'm not very good at catching!), luckily another one was magically directed my way and this time I was prepared! I didn't get to disappear but was the 'look out ' person for the act to prove David didn't cheat during the act! David led me to the back of the stage while asking my name and where I was from and I then stood to watch the act with one of the camera guys! I got to see the whole thing unravel from a completely different perspective! It was prett cool!!! After the group of people had disappeared off stage and reappeared at the back of the audience, we all went backstage and got to meet David and get autographed photos from him! Meanwhile, Rhys is sitting in the audience after the show has finished wondering where the hell I am!! I reappeared with a big smile on my face and my David autographed photo ! We walked back along the strip to our hotel, past all the lights and over the top things you see in Vegas! We had dinner with some flamingos, just missed the fountain show at the belagio (but we then watched it on YouTube from the comfort of a Starbucks in the middle of nowhere!) and saw the volcano explode outside our hotel! All in all, an eventful evening and quite a nice way to spend our last night in Vegas!

The final morning of our mini 'holiday' had just enough time fit in a quick gym session, dip in the pool and the last buffet of the 24hours (at what looked like a nearby casino but felt like it was on the other side of town after the walk there!) before getting back into a rejuvenated Jimmy and heading north!

Here comes the sun

Arriving at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in the dark of the night, we got slightly lost in the maze of loops and terrible signage but eventually 'Map Girl' and 'Driver Boy' (*Insert super hero soundtrack here*) found the campsite.

We had committed ourselves to viewing the sunrise in the morning and joined the bus loads of visitors with their multiple cameras and total lack of awareness of everybody else to see a great sunrise (Much improved on our attempt in Thailand). It seems we were not quite prepared for the amount of infrastructure located inside a National Park with lodges, bus services and plenty of shops available for the millions of visitors which visit each year! So not the quiet wilderness experience we were hoping for!

Like the majority of our trip, we began planning the stay in the park upon arrival. We had our hearts set on hiking down into the base of the Canyon and camping during our stay which involved getting a backcountry pass. Unfortunately this is quite a popular idea and with a limited number of available sites, (32 sites at the campground with a maximum of 120 people allowed per night..) we had to join a lottery of hopefuls to lock in our stay! This was drawn the day prior to travel, so there was plenty of time to fill with other Canyon related activities.

We explored the western end of the South Rim by bus and got to see a portion of the intense climb we would potentially be making as part of our backcountry adventure. Switchback after switchback straight up the side of the canyon wall looked intimidating to say the least!

Another early morning followed where we got confirmation of our overnight stay in the Canyon and then we went into an intense preparation mode. Our 'unusual' activities in the car park seemed to attract attention from the passers by and it got to the point where we felt a sign would be helpful to explain exactly what was going on. You will have to imagine us sitting in the picnic area cooking multiple meals, repacking our hiking bags in the carpark to include only what was needed for the hike and night trip (resulting in a giant mess of clothes filling the car and surrounding area; the car in which we still had to spend a night sleeping in!) and Emma overcoming her wilderness fears. 

Eventually we were finished, able to relax and enjoyed a sunset presentation by one of the park rangers who was totally in love with the wildlife in the area and hoped to one day see a cougar! He also warned us of the future "Elk and Bison traffic jams" of the Yellowstone National Park. The sunset itself was rather spectacular and we were lucky to spend it in one of the more picturesque spots in the region at the eastern end of the tourist area in Desert View. A tower stood near the edge of the rim to replicate some of the early settlers native architecture and provided a great viewpoint atop the Canyon!

Morning brought with it the beginning of our trek down into the Canyon. We again got up with the sun and jumped on one of the shuttle buses that took us out to the trail head. The bus was packed and with a very wide aray of people..from day hikers, newbies who had no idea what they were doing (made very obvious by their brand new backpacks and shiny hiking poles, inappropriate hiking clothing and interesting pre hike stretches) and a couple of super fit oldies who we thought were crazy. They had very minimal equipment, running shorts and shirts and small camel back sized backpacks, and after a quick chat we found out they were running rim to rim to rim (from the south rim of the canyon, down to the river and up to the north rim..and back)  All in all 46miles of fun, which they planned to complete in about 13 hours... Completely insane! We later found out this was a common goal for a lot of people in the area..hasnt quite made our list just yet though! 

After starting our descent We quickly found that Being inside the Canyon had a totally different perspective compared with the rim itself; from atop a haze is formed (mostly due to pollution from nearby cities) which ruins the view of the colours across the way, but these are much more vivid just because you get that much closer. Everything also looks a lot larger and impressive when you become apart of it, rather than just an onlooker from the top!

Not only is the Canyon itself impressive, but the weather is too. After hiking down the trail with the sun beating down on us for the entire 7 mile trek, we eventually reach the bottom and collapsed in the shade. Due to the 1.3km difference in altitude between the top and bottom, there is a difference in temperature from a comfortable 25degrees at the top and an uncomfortable 42 degrees at the bottom ( in the shade and over 50 degrees out in the sun, all the warning signs posted around the area about over exhaustion are obviously for a reason). Luckily there is a well placed cool running stream with some shady trees, a true oasis which runs right by the campsite so we were able to wash off our mild cases of sun stroke and try to return our body temperatures to comfortable!

The basic campsite we setup was much less elaborate than some of the other visitors. It did not take long to rollout our tarp and lay the sleeping mats atop for a nice sleep under the stars and it was great to escape the majority of tourists hordes roaming around at the rim. We were, however slumming it in comparison to others who were staying in the lodge around the corner with beds, food and mule assistance all provided for the small cost of $500per person! Kind of decreased the significance of our achievements and spoilt the experience a little but sleeping under the stars and hiking with our lives on our backs was exactly what we wanted to get out of it so we were more than happy campers ! 

Luckily night time introduced a cool change and we could get some sleep before the climb in the morning. We werent eaten by animals in the night so We began the hike before sunrise in an attempt to minimise our time in the sun. after a few much deserved stops we eventually reached the top 5.5 hours later having travelled over 9 miles all with an uphill incline! Every muscle we knew we had and more were just aching; there was no way we would have wanted to do that any further into Summer than we did. It was an amazing feeling to have a nice shower and some post hike treats before repacking the car (tourist signage was required again) ready for our trip to Vegas baby!

Needless to say, the Grand Canyon is so far our highlight of the trip.

On a dark desert highway

The drive east toward the Grand Canyon began a little late as we needed a sleep in following our hectic week in Southern California plus the repacking of the full contents of a house into a car is somewhat of a Tetris challenge.

Approaching Arizona, we passed over some mountainous areas and down into the desert where we watched the temperature jump up over 40 Celsius! There was some spectacular scenery with a bunch of boulders piled everywhere which looked completely out of place and we had trouble figuring out how they might have got there. Mountains turned into open plains and the boulders were transformed into sandy areas where we saw the first cactus of the trip. Not quite the same as one might expect from the movies, but a cactus none the less! 

The windy road made its way rather close to the Mexican border and the US Border patrol cars were everywhere. Thinking it was best not to hang around, we continued on toward Flagstaff; however our pal Jimmy had other plans. Unfortunately for Emma it always seems to be her driving when Jimmy gets into distress. The combination of intense heat and the slightly out of date radiator resulted in a rather hot cooling system and a short rest stop was required. Later inspection discovered a gasket had cracked which was replaced so we could get back onto the road. 

Instead of making it all the way to Flagstaff, we ended up limping into Phoenix and spent the night in the carpark of the local church following the advice of a fellow Walmart shopper! We looked up a car doctor for jimmy and headed across at first light in an attempt to keep our booking at the campsite in the Grand Canyon that night. While jimmy was under the microscope we spent the day at the quietest shopping mall in Phoenix! The place was like a ghost town, so we killed some time by seeing the great gatsby and then spent the rest of the day at starbucks piggy backing off their wifi ! Luckily, the car issue was a simple fix and our new friends Tom and Randy had some great suggestions on where to head next. As usual we walked away from the car service with a couple of extra items on the bill than previously expected but the main thing was Jimmy was back in action! 

Our ever reliant steed cruised off into the sunset with great excitement for what the Grand Canyon would have to offer.

Stay classy San Diego!

After an early morning jog around the block in the outskirts of Santa Monica, we coffee'd up and hit the road again, en route to San Diego. We drove through Newport beach, hoping to catch a glimpse of something recognisable from the OC! Sadly, I didn't run into Marissa or get swept off my feet by Seth Cohen and he sadly didn't show me the boat he had named after me, but we did enjoy wandering through the quaint little town and then the cruise down to the coastal road past all the huge houses of the Orange County!

We were then off to Legoland where we were bedazzled by some pretty amazing sculptures, from dragons to giraffes, scenes from each of the Star Wars films and a mini USA (whe we caught a first glimpse of our Vegas hotel!) We met Darth Vadar who took a liking to me and tried to take out Rhys and took a boat ride where we saw the Taj Mahal, Sydney opera house and the faces of Mout Rushmore! The highlight of the day would probably have to be our ride on the castle roller coaster. The ride was designed for 5 year olds as there was no height restrictions (and it was pretty tame) but it was the two Asian's riding in front of us that really made the day. As soon as the carts started moving they closed their eyes, tucked their heads between their knees and screamed like little girls! This went on for the whole ride and was perfectly captured on the 2 'scream shot' photos taken during the ride! We left Legoland once again feeling like little kids but also feeling that our nerdy engineering sides had been fulfilled for the day!

There were still a few hours left in the day so we headed down to the San Diego harbour for a harbour cruise! Neither of us realised that San Diego was such a navy town until we saw the size of the air craft carrier ship docked at the main jetty that had been turned into a museum. The cruise ship took us, while surrouded by an uncomfortable number of pushy 'tourists', down the river, under a pretty cool bridge and down to the naval base where all the navy ships were docked either to be fixed or to be restocked. The area was huge and it gave us an insight into life out at sea.. There was even a soldier standing at the bak of each ship with a big gun warding off any trespasser! 

We were then off to our hotel, outside downtown san diego to relax and search for some Mexican! Margaritas were to be on the menu so neither of we're keen to drive anywhere so we walked down the road and luckily one of the neighbouring hotels had a Mexican restaurant! Free corn chips turned out to be a easy way to get us to eat too much, but the fajitas were amazing and the frozen margaritas equally as good so we thought we'd done well!

The following day was a little more low key as we checked out a winery and went for a nice drive around the neighbouring wine regions. More Mexican was to be on the menu and this tie we went down to Old Town for some giant margaritas and more amazing Mexican food! We probably could've almost drowned in the glasses they were so big!! Another night of great food and drinks and a nice end to our full on south east Californian visit! 

In Santa Monica you get your coffee from the coolest places on thepromenade

Id been looking forward to the adrenalin rush of the roller coasters at magic mountain as The rides we'd been on so far hadn't quite got my heart pumping! Driving up to the theme park all we could see was twists, turns and  loop de loops of about 10 roller coasters!! Once again, we didn't know where to start but with no crowds on opening we ran between the first three within the first thirty minutes of walking in! Needless to say after that we needed to sit down for a bit with our feet planted on the floor and let the mega G's catch up to us! Rhys tried to order a 'regular sprite' which turned into an epic saga with the guy asking about 20 questions... "Do you want to upgrade to large for 50cents, for $16.99 you can get it in this refillable cup and get free refills all day, are you sure you don't want to upgrade to large?" After all the upselling the guy totally forgot the original order and 10 minutes later we had our drink! After our bodies had stopped shaking, we decided to slow down a bit and hit a few slower water rides before getting back to the coasters. Lets just say that when a sign on a ride says 'you may you get', you Will not only get wet, you will get soaked! Turns out we picked the right seats for the ride, we copped the first splash and them a little more but walked off a lot drier than the rowdy tween girls sitting opposite us, who walked off with not a dry spot on them and a "wet bag, I'm so suing if my phone is wet!"

We then hung from the batman ride and our first water roller coaster before meeting our final match, X2. I'd seen a documentary it, the worlds first 5D ride and it looked mean so there was no way I was leaving the park without going on it! We waited in line for a while but it was so worth every second! It wasn't a regular coaster, there were fire effects, the seats rotated independently of the cart so you were always spinning around and there were lots of twists and turns. It was essentially the wipeout at dreamworld (my favourite ride in Aus) crossed with a roller coaster so I absolutely loved it!! Teamed with a hot day and a lot of G's we were exhausted when we got home so treated ourselves to a nana nap before indulging in a night in with an old school Indiana jones movie! (Inspired of course by our visit to Disney land) 

After spending many days at theme parks we were glad to spend a day on our feet exploring Santa Monica pier and beach (but not to say we didn't go on any roller coasters). We hired bikes and rode up to  the lifeguard station where they filmed bay watch, along past muscle beach and down to Venice beach. It was a sunday after noon so the beach was packed and we made a few stops to watch some dancing roller bladers, some carni kids walking along slack lines and people swinging along the hanging rings. We took a tour of the houses of Malibu beach and learned that the iron pumping Arnie who made muscle beach famous owns half of Santa Monica! The tour itself was a bit dull and unfortunately in an open top bus so we were burned to cinders in the midday sun and our guide was less than impressed when we didn't partake in the traditional end of tour gratuity giving! We would've been more inclined to do so had he not told us the same thing about 12 times and continued to tell stories of all stars he'd seen on previous tours who "gave us a wave and came over for a chat". 

The day would not have been complete without a roller coaster ride at the pier! To ensure everyone got their monies worth, the roller coaster ran through twice which enabled us to take photos of the scenery on the second trip! We also took a ride on the Ferris wheel, which is fully solar powered, before ending the day with some delicious fish and chips (Emma and Rhys style of course so it was really grilled fish and vegetables...)