Day seven

had breakfast in our motel in texas with a really happy woman who worked at the motel. When I checked out she pointed at me and exclaimed "have a nice day" in her Texan accent.
We drove to Amarillo and stopped to get to a bank. At this time john and I were feeling the mexican food again. At the bank there were racks of drive thru ATMs. Lazyness to the max.
Got some travellers checks changed.
Went to the big texas steak house for.... Steak. Finished off by supersized desserts.
Got driving on to oaklohoma city: 270 miles of very straight road.
Turned up at bricktown which is the best pace for a night out.
Checked into a motel a little way away. The cheapest motel yet!
Called a taxi to get into bricktown. John asked the taxi driver if there were any areas of the city to avoid. We were told that where our motel was is a bad place "almost every night there's a driveby". The reason the motel was cheap became apparrant.
Got dropped off at a bar.
Drank beer and jackdaniels. Ate cheeseburgers and watched the live country music. One guy got up on stage and proposed to his wife. A whole new brand of redneck class.
Crashed out at midnight.
Drove about 450 miles wu

Day Six

Left Georgetown and travelled towards Dallas. Decided that we weren't that fussed about visiting Dallas after checking the rough guide.
Started to drive down towards Texas and decided to stop off at pikes peak. Drove up a winding road from 7500 to 14000 feet. Impressive views, scary cliff edge driving.

Got to the top with pretty amazing views but more importantly SNOW! First holiday I've had with deserts and snow.
Drove back down the mountain. Slowly.
Drove on to Texas via new Mexico.
Stopped in new mexico for food - bad idea. Very dodgy food that I regretted eating and the next day regretted again on the toilet.
Drove into Texas then stopped there for the night.
Miles travelled 600ish

Day five

Woke up on a Colorado vineyard to find a massive sheer cliff face out the window which we didn't know was there as we got there in the dark.
Had breakfast and then filled out the blog for days 3+4 on the computers there.
Went outside for a walk and met some people whose battery had gone flat. Jump started their car.
Drove towards Denver but decided to make a detour to steamboat springs to see a natural spa.
Was a bit of a struggle to find it but we made it in the end.
Swimming in a natural spa on a mountain with trees all around and the sun beaming down is good times.
When we were getting into the car after the spa john was asked to take a picture of two people. We got talking to them and they thought we were from California!?
We drove from there to Georgetown where we booked into the super8 motel.
It was impossible to find food in sleepy georgetown after 9pm as everything seems to stop then.
Ended up having to drive 10 mins to burger king - exactly the same as the UK but more choice.
Went to bed at 11pm
Did around 400 miles.

Day Four

Woke up and checked out of Vegas. Didn't stay the whole day as we were worried we wouldn't have any money left.
Drove north through Nevada and through the corner of Arizona - Desert.
Then through Utah - Stopped at Wendy's in St George for lunch.
Got back to driving and saw a sign for a national park. Decided to take a look.
Phenomenal Scenery. Amazing views. Something completely different from anything else we have seen.
We drove on from there and stopped for 'Gas' and food at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere (Intersection between I-15 and I-70 for anyone interested). Still getting the hang of this paying for fuel before you fill up thing.
In the petrol station there were heads of Deer and Elk on the walls - not the kind of place I would expect to see them.
Ate subways and had some strange looks because of our accents.
Drove on to Colorado.
Arrived in Grand Junction in Colorado to not be able to find anywhere to stay.
Finally found the "Wine Country Inn" so ended up staying on a Vineyard for the night.
Drove about 580 miles in one day.

Day Three

Went to Paris casino. Attempted to get a beer but unfortunately the barman didn't accept our UK driving licence as ID..... Damn Europeans.
Never fear, however, to the next casino! Ballys did accept our ID and gave us our drinks for free as long as we gambled. Result! Shame I gambled away $15 drinking my $3 beer. - Beer by 9:30.
We moved on to Caesars Palace where we both preceeded to lose $50 on roulette.
Had a go at the slots as well and John managed to win $60 from $3. I had no such luck.
Mum: I managed to get a picture of the statue from Caesars Palace that you looked at last time.
We then went and had the Bellagio buffet which was good but didn't quite match up to the previous night's dinner.
Back to Caesars Palace for the Atlantis show and then popped into the Apple store where the Day 1+2 blog postinges were completed.
Walked all the way to stratosphere in the Desert heat (Thankyou factor 50), stopping at Treasure Island for a drink.
Went up the Stratosphere tower and saw Vegas from above.
Taxi back to our hotel, changed and then went to see the Blue Man Group.
Blue Man Group were Amazing. Everyone needs to go and see them.
Cocktails in the Venetian.
Walked to Treasure Island and saw to pirate show on the strip. I seemed to remember it invloved lots of pirate fighting when I saw it 5 years ago. This time it was complete filth with ladies of the night calling up a storm on pirates. Not an entirely bad experience.
Walked back towards our hotel and watched the Belagio fountains.
Got back to the hotel and went for food in the Hawaiian Tropic Zone. All waitresses in Bikinis - Good Times!
That was it for that day - Went to bed.
Walked about 10 - 12 miles.

Day Two

Woke up and had breakfast on huntingdon beach, overlooking the Pacific.

Breakfast was rather high calorie: Deapfried french toast with ham and swiss cheese. covered in sugar, served with syrup. Oh and orange juice as that makes it healthy.

Took the orange juice bottle and filled it with Pacific.

Checked out of the hotel and got in the car.

Went to hollywood and drove past the stars in the pavement and the Chinese Theatre.

Saw the Hollywood sign.

Drove to Beverly Hills and saw the big houses.

Spotted someone selling homemade lemonade on the street. Stopped and has some 50cents a cup :) - I didn't think that ever really happened!

Drove to Vegas, stopping at in and out burger.

Checked into the Planet Hollywood hotel  - nice room again - Thanks Andrew.

Went to another Casino and ate michelin starred food. With a rather impressive light, projection show thing every half hour. Amazing food and surroundings

Crashed out.

Miles travelled so far =~ 420

Day One!

Arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5, checked in pretty quickly but then had to go to the "quick drop bag" queue which was a rather ironic 15 mins long.

John looked pretty shifty in the security queue so he got searched. I, of course, as an upstanding citizen was not searched.

Went to Wagamama for breakfast - Didn't know you could do noodles with egg an bacon but it works pretty well.

Went to get on the plane.... and then I got searched.

Flight left 30 mins late and lasted or 10 hours and 15 mins.

Pretty uneventful flight except for when john managed to put a crack down the side of a full glass of red wine. That got pretty messy rather quickly.

Watched In Bruges which was a damn good film.

Got passed immigration and customs.... Which was no problem. I'd been told it would be pretty taxing but that's not my experience. Feel a bit like a criminal having my fingerprints taken tho.

Met a very nice guy at the airport who showed us where to go and then told us he was from a charity and tried to extract money from us.

Got our convertable and proceeded to drive it 50 miles in the wrong direction.

Asked for directions.

Drove 100 miles the other way.

Checked into to our very nice beachfront hotel (Thanks Andrew)

Went to bed at 9pm LA time (something like 5am UK time)

 

First Post

Welcome to my first ever blog! This blog thing has generally passed me by but I think finally I may have something that is interesting enough to read: John and I are doing USA coast to coast in a convertable. No attempt has been made to keep this blog pretty - I set it up in wetherspoons terminal 2 heathrow on my phone - no comlaining about the aesthitics allowed. So sit tight and read on to find out what we got up to.

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