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...) 

Welcome to the Hotel California

Such a lovely place, such a lovely face!

Driving into LA was kind of surreal as we started to see signs for Hollywood, sunset boulevard, rodeo drive and Beverley hills. We were on a mission though and as soon as we arrived at our hotel (unknowingly situated in the heart of 'Korea town') it was laundry time! 

After we were feeling clean again we were off to our first ball game! The LA Dodgers v the Washington Nationals. The game was somewhat one sided and not in the favour of our newly adopted team! It was still fun to be at and the atmosphere was very exciting, especially when the med crew came to the aid of a poor gentlemen who didn't quite catch the rouge foul ball that made its way up into the stadium!

Hollywood was next. We wandered Hollywood Boulevard for a while, checking out the stars on the pavement and the hand and footprints of the stars in the concrete (..these places do have real names but can't remember them!)   we then took a bus tour of the stars homes and saw the house from ironman, jack nickelson's suspended tennis court, and a bunch of other mansions all packed into the 'it' area where all the stars like to live! We spotted the iconic hollywood sign a few times, took a drive down rodeo drive and past the hotel clifornia , where the eagles actually wrote the song!! We ended the day strolling through Madame tussads, hanging out with the stars and then spent the evening watching the stars roll up to the red carpet at the Star Trek premier! 

From then, everything just seems like a blur as the days were spent trying to fit in all the theme parks LA has to offer! please remain seated and keep your arms and legs inside at all times until we come to a complete stop.

First on the list was Universal Studios where we were taken on an interactive tour of the studio, home of a few classics like war of the worlds, jaws, King Kong, desperate housewives and the worlds largest outdoor green screen! Attempting to fit as much as possible into our day we went on the Jurassic park ride, the mummy roller coaster, transformers and the Simpsons ride (so not worth the 45minute wait!) we learned about special effects in films and saw the shrek 4d show and of course, the world famous water world show! 

 We then Rushed over to Warner Bros studio for our VIP tour! The tour was a little more personalised then the universal tour as we were taken around the sets as a small group and told a few secrets, tricks of the trade and of course a few movie and TV sets and props! The highlights on this tour being our visit to the set of the Big Bang theory and the car garage which was home to all the bat mobiles (including those from the dark knight films), the mystery machine, a car from Austin powers and Harry potter and much to my excitement, the nerd herd car from chuck! Other highlights of the tour were the costume museum, where we were sorted with the sorting hat from Harry potter ( I into Griffindor and Rhys into Slytherin), the props museum (home of a pair of $2M chandeliers) and the central perk cafe from the set of friends ! It was a huge movie filled day and we both went home feeling like we should watch more movies.. If only there were more hours in the day!

The next day was the day I had been looking forward to since I was a little girl...Disneyland! We were pretty overwhelmed after walking into the theme park and sat down with the park map and a coffee to plan our day! We walked out with 'first time' badges and the knowledge that it was unlikely we would be able to see everything but we were going to try and make a dent in it as best we could! The whole park was done so well and they even had stories and films playing while you were waiting in line to get you ready for each of the rides! We definitely would've enjoyed it a whole lot more if we were a few years younger, but we had a ball and it made us feel like kids again! 

Highlights included, meeting Mickey Mouse (!!), space mountain ride, shooting laser guns with buzz light year, riding jeeps through the Indiana jones ride, the classic rides oike the dumbo planes and the teacups, and of course the night time parade. We hadn't timed our visit on the right day to see the fire works over the castle but the parade was well worth it! It was another huge day and after 11 hours at Disneyland we drove through to Santa Monica and wished upon the stars knowing that with the magic of Disney "anything your heart desires will come to you!"

California dreamin...

After our photo course at Yosemite we were back on the road en route to Los Angeles! Instead of taking the direct route along the major highways from Yosemite to Los Angeles, we stuck to the coast and cruised down the famous the route 1. Our first stop was Santa Cruz where we checked out the worlds first beach side theme park and tried to work out how they had constructed it and kept it maintained when it was so close to the ocean and salty air! We then drove through a thick sea of fog to our next destination, Monterey. It was super creepy coming into town because it was night when we arrived and the lights just made everything look eery! 

Luckily the fog had cleared by morning and ready for our drive down Big Sur and the coast line route 1. The drive down was pretty chilled and had some impressive scenery!! We were driving along the windy road on a beautiful sunday afternoon so it was pretty busy and i entertained myself by counting the Chevy and mustang sports cars which are apparently really cheap to buy or rent as there was plenty of them!

We drove past a beach literally covered in elephant seals, which smelt like they hadn't had a shower a while and  as the viewing point and car park were downwind we didn't stick around there for long! 

We stopped in a little town off the highway, Pismo Beach and spent a few hours by the water playing frisby and went for our first swim in the chilly west coast waters! 

It was then straight onto Los Angeles! The warmer weather had us craving cool drinks so we stopped for a juice and were a impressed with our selections! Rhys's juice had 22 strawberries, and 1.5 bananas and mine had 13 carrots and a bunch of other veggies... Probably should've had them before lunch ! We'll know next time

Don't Go Chasin' Waterfalls

Checking the weather prior to our departure from San Francisco didnt have us looking forward to this part of the trip but it worked out in our favour when the Park Ranger told us the only reason there were spaces in the campground was because of the terrible weather on the way!

Regardless of what the weatherman had in his forecast, we had planned to visit Yosemite for its hiking, trekking and picturesque landscape and that is exactly what we did during our stay.

A quick tally at the end of our stay indicated just how much hiking we managed to do during our stay at Yosemite National Park. Between our three active days we had managed to walk/hike up and down approximately 40km with a total combined climb of 2100 m.

Sensing a break in the weather our first hike was to the top of the world renowned Yosemite Falls which took us past the famous Camp 4 (the base for the serious rock climbs taking place in the area including El Capitan). The falls are in total almost 1km tall split between three smaller drops and are visible throughout the Yosemite Valley. Reaching the top of the falls we found ourselves surrounded in a dense fog which stopped us from a potentially amazing view, but provided a different eerie feel!

In an attempt to keep out of the rain, we cracked out the tarp for its first use which meant testing out some knot tying skills and utilising some of our engineering expertise to survey and determine the best location, best tree to tie to and how to shade as many windows! Emma got her Girl Guide cap out and can now tie a handy knot or two =) (with the help of the rabbits)

Day two had our map reading skills in full swing as we made our way from the parking lot toward Mirror Lake and found ourselves climbing unexpectedly to the top of Vernal Falls. We managed to complete both of the walks during the day in time to check out the information centre in the afternoon including a short film on the history of the Yosemite area and how it had become the national park that it is today. The timing was perfect as we managed to find ourselves indoors for what was the most intense thunderstorm either of us had seen in a number of years; thunder, green clouds and hail filled the valley over a 45 minute period and left everyone in crisis mode. Luckily the clouds parted and remained that way for the remainder of our stay.

The final day of hiking was another well-known trail by the name of Four Mile (which is somewhat deceiving as it is actually a 5 mile hike to the summit) which winds its way up the mountain to Glacier Point; a wonderful viewpoint for the Yosemite Valley and Half Dome. We took our time on the way up stopping to take lots of photos and rest our somewhat tired legs!! The view from the top was amazing but there was also a car assessable road to the top which meant we enjoyed the view with a lot of tourists who hadn't climbed the gruelling hill!!

Before we headed west toward the coast, on the final morning we managed to fit in a photo walk with one of the local professionals who has spent over 3 years in Yosemite. It was not so much a how to use your camera course, but more about how to select a suitable photograph arrangement and explained how photographers did their post photography editing back in the day! We both found it really useful as we start to use the camera more and more to try and create some print worthy photos. Hopefully one day I will get a chance to play with Photoshop and do some post photo editing to see what I can come up with =)