July 2009 Archives

"It was a four and a half hour flight from Vancouver to Toronto. Pretty long to say we were travelling within the same country! Sarah's Auntie Valerie  was there to meet us at the airport. Sarah's family are big wine drinkers (not that i'm complaining!) so that evening consisted of drinking lots of white wine, while Sarah and I told her Auntie and Uncle all about our travels. As much as we love travelling, every new person we meet asks us where we have been so we find ourselves repeating ourselves on a daily basis!

"Our friend Lindsay was there to greet is when we landed at Vancouver airport. We met Lindsay in Byron Bay in Australia, and she had invited us to stay with her mum, brother and her when we visited Vancouver...... So there we were.

"Once we had checked into our room we couldn't wait to get out, so we went across the road to a bar called The Barn Owl, and had a couple of drinks with free cheese and biscuits.
It is quite difficult getting used to hostels again. There were 6 of us on our room, Sarah and I, and then 4 french people I think. Luckily, the two beds Sarah and I had were in a seperate section to the other beds, so we had a bit more space each than we would normally have in a hostel.

"After saying our goodbye's to Scarlett, Sarah and I headed on our way to San Luis Obispo. This is about a 3 hour drive from Hollywood and is part way between Hollywood and San Francisco. The drive also takes you on the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the main reasons Sarah and I wanted to hire a car for this leg of the trip. There are some stunning viewing points.

We arrived in Hollywood after a 10 hour drive from the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford the Beverly Wiltshire, so we had to settle for our first hostel in a few weeks! It was a big shock to the system after those nice hotels in the OC and Vegas! Luckily, Sarah and I were just in a shared room for one night, then we moved to a 3 bed private room the next morning as Scarlett was joining us.

After a fabulous, fun-packed week in Vegas we picked up a hire car and headed to the Grand Canyon.

Our original idea before we came away travelling was to hire a convertible for this little leg of the trip, but when it came down to it, we couldn't afford it. Instead we settled for a Ford Escape, which was really nice and spacious - lots of room for our huge suitcases so we were happy.

After a 40 minute flight we arrived in Vegas to possibly one of the coolest airports on the planet. The first thing staring us in the face when we stepped off the plane was a mini casino, and then we had to get a subway to where we picked up our luggage!

I cannot believe I am writing this with only two months left of my travels... The past six months have just been a whirlwind!

We arrived at LAX airport in Los Angeles after a 12 hour flight from New Zealand. Again, some child was screaming and keeping me awake all night so I was pretty shattered by the time we landed.