The next blog will not be posted for another week due to us being in Vegas/Utah on 'vacation'.

Stay tuned!

PS. I forgot the funniest part in the last blog - when our hotel gave us the wrong key to our room twice, the third time they sent the Bell hop (who is from Timbuktu. Really!) up to check that our room was vacant. He knocked on the door with no answer, so opened the door only to see 2 men going for it (the gay pride parade was on that weekend). Lets just say he shut that door very quickly!

Utah

Monday morning we left Ian and Brian behind to battle their own way to the airport, while we headed for Utah. Whats in Utah??? Well, if you can imagine a rich red desert, with massive rock formations, spires and hoodoos (more rocks), with white water rafting rivers , then that is Utah. The scenery in this place is absolutely amazing. We had never seen anything like it ever!

Monday morning we collected our rental car (A Ford Focus - which was slightly better than the last car we hired) and drove 4.5 hours to Bryce Canyon. The canyon is famous for their rock formations and deep canyons. We will let the photos tell the story.

Ryno overlooking the canyon

Kristy @ Bryce Canyon

Us with rock formations at the canyon

This was a natural tunnel that had formed in the stone (Bryce Canyon)

We then drove another 4.5 hours to our destination of Moab, not before driving through more mountains and rock formations, which seemed like was leading us nowhere, because they seemed to stretch on forever. Every time you drove over another crest, the scenery seemed to change. There were also heaps of mountains with motorbike tracks all over them - you could have some serious fun if you had a moto out here!

Moto tracks on the side of a mountain

Tuesday

Today we drove to Arches National Park. This park is renowned for its natural arch formations in the rocks. The pictures below are larger so you can actually see us in the pictures - the rocks are that large it is hard to spot us!

Balanced rock - looks like only a matter of time til the rock falls

Delicate Arch - we could have done a 3 mile walk out to the arch, but it was just too hot. We took the 1/2 mile walk to the lookout instead (where we still managed to get burnt!)

Ryan overlooking one of the gorges - dont look down!

We also wanted to go rafting although we didn't have much time to spare, so we drove back to town and made a rafting trip with about 5 minutes to spare. They took us in a bus along the second most scenic road in the USA, where films like Thelma and Louise, City Slickers 2 and John Wayne movies had been filmed. They dropped us at the Colorado River, where we boarded our raft. We actually had someone doing the paddling for us! There were only a couple of sets of rapids (the biggest about a class III, most being I or II), one which we got to get out of the boat and float down ourselves! We also got to do a fair bit of swimming, which was refreshing because it was so hot!

After rafting we went back to Arches NP, where we contemplated a 3 mile sunset walk out to the Delicate Arch. It was still so hot, so we passed on that idea and instead walked out to the Windows formation, then we drove down to Pine and Tunnel Arch, which we also had to walk to. Ryan was taking some photos and was swooped by what sounded like a small jet plane, but was actually a large black bird that had a nest on top of one of the arches! It was so loud and quick!

Windows

Kristy in the North Window

Ryan at the South window - the cliff behind him is so steep, it is impossible to climb without equipment (or hurting yourself badly!)


Kristy at Pine Arch (this is where Ryan was swooped)

That night we had dinner back in Moab, then drove 1 hour to the Green River where we spent the night.

Wednesday - 4TH JULY!

Happy Independence Day!

We hit the road at about 9am. The main interstate roads are 75mph (120kph), which are the fastest we had ever seen. To reach our next destination, Salt Lake City, we had to drive on the interstate for a short while, before turning off on to another major highway. After turning off, Ryan resumed the speed of about 81mph. We then noticed that we were very quickly approaching what looked like a cop car! Sure enough, the car in front pulls over to the side of the road and turns on his lights, signalling for us to pull over. He asked for Ryan's license and insurance papers, as well as what we were up to, where we were going, etc. Kristy made some really good small talk with the officer about where the best fireworks would be in Salt Lake City (SLC) for the 4th of July celebrations. He then explained that we were doing 81mph in a 65mph zone (or 130kph in a 105kph zone). We explained that we assumed it was the same speed and it was an honest mistake (although he claimed we had passed 2 signs with the speed limit on it). He then went back to his car to process the ticket and returned with only a warning!! YAY! There was no fine, loss of points, etc. Small talk always helps out in situations like that! :)

The Great Salt Lake - you can see some of the salt in the foreground

After 3.5 hours on the road we reached SLC, but decided to drive another 100 miles to the famous Bonneville Salt Flats raceway! We drove past the Great Salt Lake along the way and just over an hour later, we reached the speedway, which is 44,000 acres of salt flats.

Ryan at Bonneville Salt Flat International Speedway

On the salt lake - there actually used to be a lake here a long time ago, however it dried up and left massive deposits of salt

The land speed record (the fastest speed achieved by any wheeled vehicle on land) was achieved here. It is standardized as the speed over a course of fixed length, averaged over two runs in opposite directions. The current absolute (or unlimited) record holder is ThrustSSC, a twin turbofan jet-powered car which has achieved a whopping 763 mph (slightly under 1228 km/h) over one mile, breaking the sound barrier.

We couldn't drive all the way out there without taking the rental car for a small thrashing. So we both had a turn of doing donuts and racing along the flats (we only reached speeds of about 75mph, which was definitely fast enough!).

The Focus on the Salt Lake - about to cop a hard time (we have it on vid cam!) If you look closely, you can see salt spraying out from the tyres

We dropped our car back to SLC airport and caught our hotel shuttle to our hotel and checked in. It was then time for us to celebrate Independence Day, which we didn't care about, but was more an excuse to drink! We went to the closest bar, but we had to pay a membership to get in (that's the rules in Utah, which has a strong Mormon population and the headquarters is based here too). The bar was empty and so was the city - we think everyone must have flocked to the beaches for the vacation period. We spent all night at the bar, then walked in to town where we were told we could get a good view of the fireworks. It couldn't have been a worse view, so we ran back to our hotel and watched them from our balcony. They were fairly lame. Can you believe that there was still snow on the mountain tops, despite the extremely hot weather? People told us they still snowboard in July!

Thursday - Phoenix, AZ

We had to get up early this morning to make our 710am flight. Our original flight was supposed to be SLC to Phoenix, Arizona to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Cleveland, Ohio where our car was. The lady checking us in at the airport found a quicker flight route - SLC to Phoenix to Cleveland, which she booked us on. Although we got home 1 hour quicker, and didn't have to stop start so many times, we did have a 4 hour delay in Phoenix, so we took the opportunity to explore the city for a few hours. We can tell you there is absolutely nothing to do in the city of Phoenix. We had a coffee and a bite to eat, walked around the city for a while, then back to the airport for our flight home.

About the only thing for us to do in Phoenix was take photos of us with cacti (which we had been hanging to do since we were in the desert!)

Vegas Ohh Yeah!

Friday afternoon we met Ian and Brian again at Cleveland airport for our flight to Vegas. Surprisingly they arrived with plenty of time to spare, but it didn't take long for an 'incident' to arise. We cleared customs and turned around to see how Ian and Brian were going getting through, only to see them both standing there with their bags wide open and the customs officials searching their bags. It turns out that they both had liquid in their carry on luggage which is banned. Brian had to throw out a few drinks and we had to post Ian's new cologne back to our house. We had a bite to eat and boarded the plane, not before Ian losing his boarding pass and searching his bag and pockets for 5 minutes trying to find it (apparently this wasn't the first time this had happened - he had to pull apart his entire bag on an earlier flight!)
We arrived in Vegas 10pm local time (the airport even has its own casino!) and somehow managed to jump an extremely long taxi queue, and checked into our luxurious hotel - The Venetian, which is modelled on Venice in Italy! It even has canals running around and through the hotel, as well as 2 pools, an exclusive beach club ($200 each just for entry), nightclub and 15 restaurants. Our room had a marble bathroom and a view of The Strip.

In our room having a drink

After dumping our gear in our room, we walked around the Strip for a short time. There are these men that line the streets and flick cards with pictures of naked girls on them that you can call for a good time, we got some and started our very own card collection. We went back to our hotel and looked around, then we went to bed about 2.30am (5.30 Pennsylvania time), leaving Ian and Brian wandering the Casino.

Cards from our collection that the men on the street hand out (and who Brian rang)

3am our bedroom phone rings, Ryan answers and the conversation goes like this:

'Hello Brian?'

'No, it's Ryan'

'Brian?'

'No, he isn't here, it's Ryan'

'Oh, well your entertainment has arrived. She is downstairs, just go down and get her'

'My what???'

'Entertainment. She is waiting downstairs now'

'I think you want Brian, he isn't here at the moment, he should be back soon'

'ok, bye'

10 minutes later, the phone rang again, and the exact same conversation took place. This happened another 2 times after this again! The phone rang again, and this time Ryan just hung up on them. Phone rings again, hang up, rings again, we hang up. 5 minutes later Brian comes up to the room and said he couldn't get past security without a room key and he rang 3 times to get our permission to come up! We had a bit of a laugh, but we were also very tired and sick of being woken up. Brian goes down stairs to get Ian (who had also rung to get permission to come up stairs). Finally we were all in bed and going to sleep. The phone rings again (Kristy let a few words fly):

'This is your wake up call!'

Ryan: 'Wake up call?'

'Is Brian there?'

'No, he is asleep'

(voice getting very cranky) 'Well, we are downstairs waiting!!'

Somehow Ryan manages to get them off the phone after a few more minutes of the same conversation and finally we get to sleep with no more phone calls!

Saturday

After lounging by the pool for only a short time because it was soooo hot (even the artificial grass was too hot to stand on bare foot!), we booked tickets to a show for the night and instead, Brian booked a helicopter flight for Sunday over the Grand Canyon. We were also supposedly added to the 'VIP' list for some nightclubs and handed some free entry to others too.

The gondola through the inside of our hotel

One of the towers in our hotel

We then walked the Northern end of The Strip up to Circus Circus and walking through other various casino's along the way to get drinks and get out of the heat (it was about 107F or 38C).

The heat made us VERY thirsty

We then caught a cab right down to the South end of The Strip to the Luxor (where we stayed last time) and walked through a few more casino's.

We then cabbed it back to our hotel (it is just too hot to walk and The Strip is quite long too), and made ourselves pretty for the night. The 3 of us went back down to the MGM Grand to watch 'Crazy Horse Paris' - a show based on the actual Crazy Horse night spot in Paris, with 12 gorgeous Parisian women topless dancing. It was a really good show, and very classy too. In the meantime, Brian rang another girl from the cards and was getting his own show back in the room. We were supposed to meet up with him at 10pm, but we got caught up looking through Casino's (including the MGM, which has a live lion enclosure. There is a glass tunnel you can walk through, taking you into the lions cage. One of the lions was running on top of us while the other one came face to face with us and was literally 2 inches from our faces - it was amazing!). We got back late and missed Brian. We went to make use of our VIP status at Treasure Island casino, but (surprise!) our names were not on the list. So we went home for the night.

Sunday

After brekkie, Brian left for his flight over the Grand Canyon, while we lounged around the pool for a while. We then walked The Strip, weaving in and out of casinos along the way.We caught up with Brian in our room later that afternoon, we tidied up and went over to the Belagio (a very nice 5 star casino that is used for Oceans 11) where we had dinner, and watched the infamous fountain show. We also went looking for an Armani shirt for Kurt at the Belagio. When the guy told us the shirt was $550, we knew we had the wrong store! We eventually found it for $25 at Caesars Palace.

Dinner at the Belagio and having a drink to celebrate Ian and Brian's last night in the USA

The fountain show out the front of the Belagio

We all got in a cab - we dropped Ian and Brian at one club while we proceeded to The Palms casino, which is made famous by the Girls Next Door reality TV show in the USA, based on the day to day lives of Hugh Hefner's 3 girlfriends (they visit the casino regularly). We started off at Moon on the 53rd floor. There wasn't a whole lot happening there, although we did have some drinks ($11 per drink!) and went to the open outdoor balcony which gave a very nice view over the entire city (we didn't have our camera, so don't have any photos). We then went down to the 52nd Floor, which was the newly opened Playboy club - the first one since the 1980's. We didn't have our camera, but really wanted a photo with a bunny (yep - all the girls there were the bunny costume). We asked another couple there who had a camera if they could take a photo of us and email it through, they were really nice and took the photo for us (although we haven't got it yet - i will put it up when we get it).

Play Ball

Wednesday night we went to a baseball game with Ryan's work to watch the Cleveland Indians play the Oakland Athletes. It is about a 2 hour bus trip to Cleveland and it was raining when we arrived (too much rain means the game is called off), but it stopped shortly.

We had dinner in the Club Lounge, which meant all you can eat hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers and pasta - we had never seen an all you can eat like it with those foods on the menu!

The game kicked off at 7pm. We had vendors walking around our section of the seating all night handing out free drinks (non-alcoholic of course), popcorn and peanuts, cotton candy (fairy floss) and hot dogs. Plus there was the free ice cream stand up the back! It was unbelievable. We tried not to make piggy's of ourselves!

At the Indians Stadium

Nice butt!

The wiener - there were 3 of them racing each other around the stadium

The game went for 4 hours, and had a break in the middle due to rain. The rain stopped, and the Indians got flogged. We arrived home about 1am.

The Big Apple Cont..

Sunday morning we walked down to the Empire State Building, and went for a small walk up Fifth Ave, but it was eventually blocked off for the Gay Pride parade that was about to take place. So we caught a cab to Madison Square Garden - the huge sporting and event complex in the centre of NYC.

Ian in front of Madison Square Garden

After a quick look around (and opting not to take the 1 hour $16 tour) we caught the cab to Central Park.

In Central Park

We walked through the park then on to Fifth Ave again to watch a bit of the Parade.

The Gay Pride Parade - nice undies!

We had some lunch, walked back to our car and drove home.

The Big Apple

Saturday morning we searched New York City for a laundromat because Ian had no clean clothes left. About an hour later we found one, dumped the washing and caught the subway to the bottom of town. We caught a (free) ferry that cruises past the Statue of Liberty. On the way back we had a few drinks at the ferry bar and met a man that reminded us of Crozy - his name was Pete! What a coincidence! After getting off the ferry Pete took us to the Bronze Bull, a life size bronze statue of a bull near Wall St. Apparently all the tourists grab the bull by the balls.

If you squint, you can see the Statue of Liberty in the background

Kristy - grab the bull by the balls, uh horns

From here we went to Wall St, Ground Zero, Chinatown and Little Italy, where we stopped for lunch (and had a cute waiter too!) Lunch was really yummy!

We then caught the subway back up town - Ian and Brian collected the laundry, while we lined up and bought tickets to a Broadway musical. We had a quick nap in our room, got dressed and headed up Broadway to see Tarzan. The show was really good. We had dinner at a little pizza place across the road, then we went for a stroll through Time Square, stopping off at the MM shop, then a bar, before calling it a night.

The 4 of us in Time Square

Ian and Brian in MM World

What a Bloody Adventure!

Well, this weekend was an adventure to say the least, more so for Ian and Brian. Its hard to know where to begin the story.

Tuesday morning Ian and Brian left Erie for Canada and were scheduled to return to Erie at 3pm Thursday afternoon to return the hire car and come with us to Washington DC. Ryan rang them at 8am to make sure they were on their way to meet us (as they had an 8hr drive ahead of them). Turns out Ryan had actually woken them up and were no where near ready to leave. So we changed the plans to meet them in Washington (and leave the rental car there), however this didn't work out either as the rental company wouldn't allow this. Turns out they had to hire the car for the entire weekend.

So we got that little debacle sorted and we headed to Washington. We rang Ian and Brian when we got there at about 10pm. We googled their location and worked out they were 3 hours away. So we headed off to a bar. We got back and went to bed at about 1am, just before Ian and Brian were due to arrive. At 4am we woke up panicking because they hadn't arrived as of yet, and we couldn't call them as their phone was flat. At 715am Ryan had to get ready for work (yes wasn't purely a vacation - there was work involved) when the phone rang. Ian and Brian had (finally) arrived at our hotel 16 hours later!! They got lost for 8 hours, driving around about a 2 hour radius of where we were - funny thing is they had a map in the car the entire time!

The plan was for Kristy to take Ian and Brian to Washington while Ryan was at work and meet up with Ryan after lunch to head to New York City. Instead, Ian and Brian slept, Ryan worked, and Kristy read the newspaper. When the 2 stooges (as Ryan has appropriately nick named them) awoke, we searched for a laundry, got some lunch and met up with Ryan.

We then distinctly told Ian and Brian to follow closely behind us as we drove to Washington for some sight seeing. They were doing well for a while and kept up with us through the traffic. Until we hit the city. They took some random turn (god knows why??) and were lost. So, we went to the pub waiting for them to call us, however the phone didn't ring. Instead, they got more lost, we rang them and found them. Finally we got to do some sight seeing in Washington DC!

Ryan, Brian and Ian with the Washington Monument in the background

Finally - there was water in the reflecting pool this time!

The boys in front of the White House

We didn't leave DC until 7pm and had a 5 hour drive ahead of us into NYC. And so the next adventure begun. After a shit dinner at a chain restaurant, we made it to our conveniently located, but basic hotel at about 115am. Check-in took over 20 minutes due to a whole stack of Vietnamese people checking in at the same time (they had a parade on in the city). Finally Kristy got served and handed her room key. The four of us made our way up to the 16Th floor and Kristy opened the door to the room. There was a young boy in there brushing his teeth and his mum was in the room somewhere. We all just stood there staring, not expecting or believing what had just happened, until Ryan suggested we shut the door. We all went back downstairs, Ryan explained the situation and received another key (with no apologies) to another room. We all go back up to the 14Th floor and this time it was Ryan's job to open the door. He stood there trying for about 30 seconds, when a lady came up and said 'excuse me - this is my room'! They had given us a key to someone else's room again! So back down we go again (still with no apology) and got another key to another room - 3rd time lucky! This time, the room was empty. HOWEVER... The light bulb in the bathroom had blown, which meant another trip downstairs, the room was dusty and dirty, there were stains on the linen and the shower curtain was mouldy and the drain still had a chunk of soap in it. If you closed you eyes while showering, it felt like you were in a Stephen King movie and you were just waiting to see something gruesome come out of the drain. Lucky we didn't spend much time in our room at all. To top it all off, 2 of the 3 elevators servicing 24 floors were out of service because the Vietnamese people were squashing up to 25 people in an elevator at a time. We all got to bed after 3am.

Ian in the shonky room

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

Sunday was the day of the big race - NASCAR Nextel Cup 400! Although the race was great and we enjoyed it, there were a few things that let the day down.

We arrived about midday and it was really really hot. The rednecks and hillbilly's were out in force! Before any major sporting event, the popular thing to do is set up a tent out in the car park, cook a BBQ (or grill as they call it here) and get pissed. In fact, some of the people doing this at the NASCAR went for this reason only and didn't even attend the race!

When we finally arrived at the entry gates (2 shuttle trips later), we were told we couldn't enter with a backpack. The man on the gate suggested we either took the bag back to our car or threw it out! We weren't prepared to do either, so we emptied the contents into a plastic bag, rolled up the backpack like a jacket and threw a shirt over it and walked through the gates!

The seating arrangements were a series of massive grandstands full of bench seats (no chairs). Over 100,000 people then had to squash onto the bench seats like sardines, with a lot of overweight people, in the heat with no shelter covering anyone. There was also no pre-race entertainment what so ever. That was the crap part of the day.

This is a shot of the grounds and our view for the day

There were just so many people there, and everyone was squashed and hot

The 4 of us packed in like sardines

And racing!

The race took about 3 hours, with the drivers completing 200 x 2 mile laps. There were drivers named Ward (he didn't place at all), Kurt (i think he won or came second), Dale Jnr (the crowd favourite), and Ryan (he didn't place either). There were a few crashes, 2 of which happened right in front of us.

The centre of the track was crammed with RV's, caravans and old school buses, where people camped out, then watched the race from the roof of their vehicle

Clean up's - after a crash

Overall, we had a great time. We stopped at a restaurant on the way home called Frickers, where they boys all enjoyed some 'big fricken beers' and 'big fricken burgers'.

City of Cars

An exciting rushed trip through Hollywood and a bomb scare later, Ian and Brian finally arrived in good old Erie, PA. They had a nap, then it was time to hit the street for our Michigan weekend, starting in downtown Detroit.

You know your in for an interesting night when the Lonely Planet book says 'quite frankly, Detroit looks like its had the shit kicked out of it!'

It took about 4 hours to get there, arriving at about 9pm. We checked in to our hotel, then hit the streets to find some dinner. We found a nice Mexican restaurant and ate there, before proceeding to Greek Town for some drinks in a bar. We had a window seat. There were some interesting characters walking past and some pimped out cars driving past.

Ryan, Bryan and Ian in Greek Town

A pimped out car

On the walk home there were 4 un-marked police cars pulled over on the side of the road. They had 4 guys in handcuffs sitting on the sidewalk. Of course the police were expressing their 'authoritire' as they all love to over here.

No, this isnt a cheap porn shot! The hotel room was very cozy, which meant Ian and Brian had to share a double bed!

The next morning, we headed for the Detroit riverfront (halfway across the river is Canada. Detroit is the only US city to look south on Canada). It was nice down there, and the boys got to check out all the boats cruising past. We went to the head office of General Motors, which is actually an awesome building, and housed a small GM museum (big big big mistake Kristy - taking the boys to a car museum!)

GM Head Office stands out in Detroit

The park near the waterfront - from this angle Detroit looks quite nice

Ryan and Kristy with an old GM vehicle


Ian and Brian with the latest Corvette from GM

The real Detroit - downtown buildings are vacant, boarded up and run down. I guess that's what makes the city so unique

After walking through a funky park, we jumped on the people mover, an elevated transport system. We done 1.5 laps and hopped off at a downtown bar, before walking to the home of the Detroit Tigers stadium (baseball) who were actually practising while we were there.

Kristy at the Tigers home ground

After a brief stroll through town, we went to the Walter P Chrysler Museum (much to Kristy's delight!), where we saw about 70 Chrysler cars, including the very first prototype ever made. There were some really nice cars there too (Tony - you would have loved it!)

Ryan with a Chrysler muscle car

Kristy taking one of the Chryslers for a spin!

On the way to our next hotel in Canton, we cruised down 8 mile made famous by Eminem. After dinner, we drove about 25 minutes to a small university town called Ann Arbor. It reminded us of Beaumont Street and had the best looking range of people we have seen to date in the USA. We stopped in for a few drinks and ice cream.