Hey I'm walking here...............(that's the only greeting I could think of now I'm in the US of A)
I know I know, it's been bloomin' ages since I last updated my blog but I 'literally' only had chance to upload a set of photos the last time I was on the tinternet.
Anyhow enough excuses I have loads to fill you in on so here goes......
LA - what a place!! I loved it...I wouldn't want to walk on the streets on my own at night but the same goes when I'm in Whittlesey to so......I only had a few days to kill in LA so the first full day a few of us went to the Universal Studios. This place is great. The Simpsons ride was awesome and you like, 'literally' feel like your in an episode. The Waterworld show was also pretty spectacular as you may have seen from the photos. The next day I put my name down to do an LA tour and was pretty pleased that it wasn't all that commercialised at all. We went up the hills to take pictures of the Hollywood sign, and went down the walk of fame and checked out the Chinese Theatre. We had a bite to eat at The Fig located down Venice Beach and Sawyer from Lost was there to. One of the girls had her picture taken with him but I couldn't bring myself to do it. We also visited the stars homes had a glimpse of the Fresh Prince house. All in all a pretty cool day. The next day I had to myself and unfortunately the weather was a bit pants so ended up going to a Farmers Market and checking out a movie at the local cinema.
So.........at the time of booking the Amtrak train from LA to Seattle it seemed like a really cool decision. Admittedly the train journey was great and the scenery across California is so stunning and vast it really was worth it. I arrived at Seattle 36 hours and dragged my greasy haired and sticky ass over to the hotel and pick up point for the Canadian Road Trip tour. I had a free day in Seattle so myself and my new room mate (and tent buddy) Owen took a bus into the city and checked out Seattle. It's a great place and I could've easily spent several days there. We bombed up the skytower there and checked out a music and sci-fi museum. The music museum was my favourite. Loads of Hendrix memorobillia there and lots about the grunge scene that emerged from Seattle.
The next day the Canadian Road Trip started. After meeting everyone (all 8 of them) and before leaving Seattle we did a coffee run and went to the very first Starbucks. So we headed from Seattle across the border into Canada and our first stop in Vancouver. After setting up our tents (yes this bad boy tour was camping for 3 weeks) we went in to the city to check it out and make decisions about how we'd spend our free day there. We also briefly checked out Stanley Park and the totem poles there and the went back to campsite to get to know everyone a little better.
The majority of the group had decided that the free day they'd spend half of it biking around Stanley Park so we all set out on a relaxed cycle ride and took loads of pics of the Vancouver skyline. In the afternoon I fancied a game of pitch and putt so took myself down to the golf course. Whilst I was there I joined up with a local guy and we ended up having a few beers after the golf and I ended up getting a little drunk ( 3 pints of Caffreys - what a loser).
The following day we packed up the tents and made our way to Wells Gray. We had our first glimpse of how beautiful Canada is en route to Wells Gray when we stopped off at a lake for some lunch. With the mountains in the background it really did feel like I was back in New Zealand again. Wells Gray was also our first official 'Bear Aware' campsite!!!!!!!
Our next day we started out early and drove to Jasper National Park. On our way we made a couple of stops at Helmcken Falls and also at Mt Robson for some lunch. Both of these stops were pretty impressive espeicially Mt Robson. It really did look like someone had super-imposed that mountain into the background. When we arrived at Jasper we set up camp and then made our way into town and had a few beers and chilled out.
The next day the whole group went out on an all day bike ride through parts of Jasper National Park. There was some pretty stunning scenery along the way and lakes that were so crystal clear.It was a prettu exhausting day to say the least but well worth it for sure.
San Francisco to Los Angeles PACKAGE (flight + 3 nights) - From: $175
Los Angeles to Miami PACKAGE (flight + 3 nights) - From: $375
Okay so I'm only up to day five of a twenty-four day tour but I'm running out of credit on this machine so will have to come back another time to fill you in on how the rest of the tour went.
Hope everyone back home is well..........one more week to go arhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Loads of love,
Dan
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