Elvis isn’t dead I saw him 5 times today!

Sorry about the delay in blogging, we've put up an extra long one to compensate!

After our flight from Hawaii we stayed in la-la land (LA) for 2 days before heading up the coast on the famous “Route 1”. After a brisk walk up Sunset Boulevard we made it to Hollywood Blvd, where the famous stars are set into the pavement. These are less credible than previously thought as the “celebritites” have to request their star to be set, at a price tag of $10,000! On this street the Oscars are filmed (in the Kodak Theatre) and you can see Mann’s Chinese theatre with hand and foot prints of the stars. These are the ones you realty want to see, as these people have indeed been asked to be there!

While in Hollywood we took a tour of houses of the rich and famous. We saw Britney house and Justin’s old property across the road from when they were dating. Jennifer Aniston’s house was amazing and Courtney Cox lived opposite her. The Osborne’s house is pretty iconic from their TV show and you can even see the tennis court next door where in one episode they threw raw turkeys over the fence into.

Michael Jackson’s LA house is there and there are always hundred of roses posted on the gate. The playboy mansion is visible over the tree tops and we saw a couple of bunnies go in through the front gate! The nicest house by far was Dr Phil’s and the biggest house in USA is in LA, with 300-some bedrooms and a square footage bigger than the White House!

After a quick stop off at the Hollywood sign we checked out the celeb hangouts on Rodeo Drive and around Beverly Hills.

After a few days in LA we were ready to venture into the real world and so began our Californian road trip;

After picking up our new transformer campervan decorated with Optimus Prime and his associates (possibly the best vehicle on the face of the earth) we headed out on our tour of California. A few things we learnt very quickly after entering our first 14 lane freeway;

• All lanes are just queues of traffic, if your lane is travelling faster than my lane I want in! Therefore;
• There are no problems with undertaking.
• It is perfectly acceptable to drive within a metre of the car in front, even when travelling at 80 miles/hour.
• Never, under any circumstances, change lanes to help out a car in a merging line of traffic.
• The brake light on the back of a car is also the indicator so try not to get confused between stopping and turning…?!
• Turning right on red is a-ok, (though even we liked that rule.)
  

Our hire van; Optimus Prime was the same layout of its Kiwi cousin we hired in New Zealand, with a bed/lounge/dining area and a kitchen in the back. Though Optimus Prime had pure American grit included. Rather than being a transit van transformed (excuse the pun) into a campervan it was a luxury people carrier so had the added extras of electric windows and seats, headphone jack in the back, carpets etc. It was a lot wider than the previous edition so three of us sleeping in there would’ve been a breeze. One main benefit was that instead of 300 km to the tank we got in NZ, we got 600km and with petrol being $3/gallon (which is around 4 litres) we were getting about 50p per litre of petrol. To fill up this beast of a car was only $50 so we were winning on that front too!

One major problem we encountered was that in the state of California it is prohibited to sleep in your vehicle, (even if that vehicle is a campervan), unless in a designated zone, i.e. a campsite (which cost precious money at this stage in the trip!) So one night in Santa Cruz in a quiet residential street, we woke to flashing lights and someone knocking on our door. The Po-Po (the police, if you’re not a gangster rapper) had arrived. The very nice gentleman explained that the neighbours had rung and were worried about hippy riff-raff sleeping on their doorstep. As he saw we were polite English girls not causing any trouble, (we had been asleep since 9pm – it gets dark early!) He did explain it was illegal to sleep in our van but he wasn’t going to tell us to go, just to lock our doors, be safe and sleep tight.

So after that experience we decided it was better to stay in campsites which with the ones run by the national parks being around $15/night. Also the general public generally view you has a homeless person when you brush your teeth in a public toilet in a morning. That was the only one up NZ had over the US, parking anywhere was safe and not prohibited. Every man and his dog washed his teeth, hair and plates in the sinks in public toilets.

NZ was more geared up to campervans as every 3 vehicle you saw on the roads was a caravan of sorts. The day we left Wicked Campers in Christchurch there were 18 vans out by 11am, in LA when we enquired there were only 13 of their vans on the road in the entire country!

On our way up Route 1 up to San Francisco or Frisco as the locals call it we came across the largest colony of elephant sea lions in America, literally thousands were basking in the sun trying to heat up against the chilly sea air.

We drove straight North for a day to reach Frisco and our temperature gauge in the van (yes it was a pimped out ride) slowly decreased every hour we drove. We started off with blazing sunshine in LA, 28°C and by the time we hit San Fran it was around 8°C, not what we were anticipating with our view to follow summer around the world.

Completely unprepared even with our king-size double all seasons duvet we had been carrying since NZ, (getting some funny looks in Fiji), we did suffer some chilly nights in the van. After buying some trainers, donning socks for the first time in 7 months and our matching North Face jackets we were prepared for a normal spring day in the city.

Our first sightseeing mission was to the golden gate bridge, an amazing feat of engineering. We also went over to Alcatraz, a state penitentiary where high profile criminals were sent.

‘Break the rules and you go to prison. Break prison rules and you go to Alcatraz.’

The fortress was built on an island only a mile from the city of San Francisco but with unpredictable currents and freezing water it made the coast unreachable if anyone attempted to swim across.

The prison ran for many years with one possibly successful breakout (the prisoners were never found but were taking Spanish lessons before there escape, so best guesses are they went to Mexico.)

The prison eventually closed because of the costs of getting electricity and fresh water to the island made the overheads enormous and so to have a prisoner there cost more than putting them up in the Ritz.

We took an audio tour around the cells, the rec room, the yard, officer quarters, it was very interesting and they had actually prisoners and guards commenting. There were mock ups of the fake heads made of wax which the prisoners used to con the guards into believing they were still in their beds. The Clint Eastwood film is a fairly close enactment of their escape.

The lines of cells, showers, rows of uniform really gave a feel to how scary it would have been to be sent there. Prisoners weren’t people they were a number.

The cells were tiny, with a small cot bed, a toilet and a fold down table. A man could lie on the floor and touch both walls with his feet and hands, by spreading your arms our wide you could touch the walls widthways. ‘The Shoe’ (solitary confinement) was even worse with no bars or windows making a completely pitch black room. The main wing had a hundred cells in a row, with three levels, and there were around 4 corridors of these cells within the main cell block.

After San Fran our first choice was to visit both Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks but after looking at the weather forecast of Yosemite it got to -10°C at night and with us having no heating in the van we both agreed we wouldn’t enjoy the experience.

Unfortunately by passing up on the park we missed our main chance to see a bear in the wild. We were told in our van we would be perfectly safe as bears (without their opposable thumbs) cannot get in. We weren’t allowed to cook in our van as it was really dangerous with the gas canister could set the rest of the van on fire. We asked if this had happen before, one woman was cooking in the back and a bear came along and she ran off screaming leaving the van burning to the ground.

Our journey to Death Valley began at 9am in Napa Valley north of San Fran at 8°C we got to Death Valley that evening with a scorching heat of 27°C, more like our kind of place! The camp sites were really cheap, with rustic amenities but the scenery was spectacular.

Badwater basin is the lowest point in USA at nearly 300 feet below sea level; this is why the temperatures reach such high levels, to do with warm air currents generated in the low terrain. There are salt flats at the lowest point in the park and because everywhere is so white we made some funny pictures using a Vitamin Water bottle.

We returned the van to LA as our only other option was Vancouver, but that was slightly too far to cover in 10 days. We spent a day on the beaches around the city before returning our van as LA is not a pedestrian friendly city. We went to Santa Monica and the famous Venice Beach. With Hollywood being in LA there are alw

ays films being made and on that day we interrupted the set of the latest Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anson movie, (though unfortunately we didn’t see them.)

We hired a couple of cruiser bikes and cycled down the beach seeing all the crazy sights. Muscle beach is where all the body builders of the area work out in the open, getting adoring/strange looks off the public.

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The next day we flew onto Sin City; Las Vegas! All in one city you can see;

• 1/3 size Eiffel Tower
• Dolphins
• White tigers
• Lions
• Gondolas
• Rollercoaster
• Sharks
• The Collusseum
• Medieval Jousting
• A Pirate Ship attack
• The Statue of Liberty
• 300m long fountains that shoot 70m into the air (all to music)
• A Pyramid including a sphinx
• The largest Tv screen in the world (spanning 1,500 feet in length the size of five football fields)
• A drive in chapel with your vows done by Elvis
• The world’s highest thrill ride at 1000 feet in the air (the Big Shot)
• Circus Acts
• 30 full scale shows including comedians, magicians, singers including not 1 but 6 Cirque du Soleil acts!

The 4 mile strip is made up of many of the largest hotels and casinos in the world; nineteen of the world's 25 largest hotels are on the Strip, with a total of over 67,000 rooms. These billion dollar properties put a lot of effort into bringing you into their casinos to take your hard earned cash and make it very difficult to get out again. Either by entertaining you by their shows/rides and décors or by hiding the exit signs, blocking out all natural light so you don’t know what time of day it is, so what time is it? Gambling time!

We were joined by Cara’s sister Lucy, Mum and Auntie and we were spoiled for a whole week. We stayed in the Venetian, an Italian themed hotel and casino with a 400m long Grand Canal like in the real Venice, complete with gondolas and operatic singing… ‘Just one Cornetto, give it to meeee…’

Now all the party was over 21, gambling was on the cards…literally! Each hotel has massive areas of slot machines which are very hard to pass by without a quick spin. Sophie’s idea of fun was ‘all on black’ which only occasionally worked on roulette (as the odds suggest).

After a tearful goodbye to the family and both realising we are just about ready to come home we headed off to Arizona in a hire car in search of one of the seven wonders of the world; the grand canyon!

We got the smallest cheapest car we could find, a beautiful white Toyota Yaris and with a full tank cost $23 it was a total bargain in terms of fuel economy. Sophie was much more happy driving a “Mickey” sized vehicle than the campervan giant! Though being white it didn’t do too well in the desert and with road kill; we ended up looking like a Dalmatian.

We stopped briefly at the Hoover dam which was completed in 1935, the main freeway actually travels over the top of the dam leading to miles and miles of traffic jams. At the moment they are in the middle of completing a bridge over the dam which should give a magnificent bird’s eye view of the site.

We got our kicks on route 66 for a short while, one of the only sections left of this infamous road is in Arizona, it was one of the first interstates built in the country which connected Chicago to California.

We journeyed to Flagstaff, the biggest town closest to the Grand Canyons South Rim. Here we planned to do an overnight stop in the base of the canyon, but because of the popularity this trek the ranch is booked out a year in advance. Conveniently this gives us an excellent excuse to re-visit this amazing area!

Guide books and visitors centre’s told us that to trek down to the base and back in one day is unachievable. So one day we did an 8 mile hike along the South rim which gave spectacular views of the mile deep canyon. It would’ve been nice to get down to the bottom to get a real feel for the height of it but alas we will save that for next time.

One thing we immediately noticed about Flagstaff was the amount of snow still around on the ground, even in April. Flagstaff is situated on higher ground than the canyon and its highest mountain reached over 11,000ft in elevation. This mountain by complete coincidence had a ski resort on it called ‘The Snowbowl’ and was having its last weekend of skiing the few days we were there.

Sophie of course couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hit the slopes and having played the poverty card, the kind staff gave her a lift pass and equipment hire for a mere $25 dollars who was I to stop her. Europe definitely needs to take some tips from the US on this front! The Snowbowl had 25 different runs but the beginner slopes were not open so unfortunately I didn’t give it a go. But because of the friendliness of the town Sophie was never alone on her runs and made some good friends who we sat and had a beer with afterwards.

I of course was enjoying the off-piste action without ever setting foot on the piste. The camaraderie on the slopes was great, with less of the snobbery found in some European resorts. As it was the last weekend everyone was having a fun time, it was more like a stag/hen party on the slopes with fancy dress/nudity being the norm.

Flagstaff was our first time to take part in a new experience; couch surfing. The couch surfing network is made up of millions worldwide; you can participate by offering your own couch/sofa bed/spare room to those travelling in the area to stay on. In return when you travel the theory is that the favour is repayed allowing cheap holidays for all and of course the chance to meet great people and get some insider knowledge.

In face value it gave us a free place to stay though in return you have to be able to connect with your hosts, swap stories and share experiences. For the three nights we stayed in Flagstaff with stayed in peoples houses found on the Couch Surfing (CS) website. All profiles on CS are verified and checked; also everyone who has stayed with the host leaves feedback so it eliminates any risk. We met an English couple, Holly and Richie in Fiji who told us about Couch Surfing, they had travelled 9 weeks in US and only paid for 4 night’s accommodation. Though the strict rule about CS is not to spread it around too much as everyone will want to do it!

Night one was spent with a university student called John who had recently moved from Las Vegas to Flagstaff. Unfortunately hadn’t updated his profile so instead of sharing a house with 2 others and having a free sofa bed he had now moved into a motor home. We only found this out late at night and so decided to still stay with him, he was a really nice intelligent guy, who’d travelled far and wide. But there was only one fold down bed so Cara slept on the floor. He took us to the observatory, which is a real locals’ secret, one of the advantages with staying with a local. Flagstaff is an international ‘dark city’ which means that street lights etc have to be dimmer than usual and so from the observatory we could see the stars very clearly. Flagstaff’s claim to fame is that this is the observatory that discovered pluto.

The next night we moved up in the world and stayed with the very sociable Daniel, who at the time had two surfers with him already. Luckily he had lots of sofa beds and puppies (!), so we were very happy. The puppies in the picture are Red and Love who decided it was great fun to chew on Cara’s toes in the early morning and eat Sophie’s hair while she was asleep (even if she didn’t notice), but with faces that cute you can’t get mad for very long.

Daniel gave us a good Yank inspired feeding! The best strawberry, banana, chocolate and pecan filled pancakes, enough popcorn to feed and army and set us up with all the skiing gear for our day at the Snowbowl. Sophie declared if flights were cheap enough to Arizona it would be cheaper to ski there than in the south of France and Daniel would not bat an eyelid to put us up for a week!

Moving further up in the Couch Surfing ladder our last night was spent with Isaac (minus his wife Marguerite), who are widely known as one of the CS master’s of Flagstaff. We had our own room in their fabulous house with the best shower ever known to man. The only reason we got in stayed the CS master was from a personal reference from Holly and Richie our friends in Fiji as they rarely let young people stay in their luxury abode. These couch surfers now have to be highly selective as they have people staying approximately 5 days a week, and even have their own house manual as would a hotel!

At the moment it would appear we are just taking from the Couch Surfing organisation, but we gave another Couch Surfer a lift to the Grand Canyon and so have given a little back and hope to host when we are back in the UK.

So three nights in three strangers’ houses, including 8 dogs, one floor, one sofa bed, one double bed, a few hiked miles, a few skied miles and we headed back to Sin City to catch our onward flight onto Orlando.

This return journey however was not as straightforward as it perhaps could have been. We had allowed plenty of time for the 250mile trip, ready to arrive back in Vegas around noon. Surely this would be a breeze in a car that did 400 miles to a $23 tank. In fact, as we learned in the middle of the Arizona desert, the petrol consumption at the latter end of the tank is less impressive. We were on a dual carriageway, plenty of cars around, and had enough petrol for about 100 miles. Not a problem we thought, there will definitely be a petrol station before then. Oh how wrong we were! 30 miles from civilisation, pedal still to the floor, the speedometer began rapidly decreasing. Sophie quickly pulled over to the hard shoulder; a few profanities were expressed by both parties and then plan B was put into action!

We locked away our valuables, armed ourselves with water and money and stuck our thumbs out on the side of the highway anxiously ready to dodge any traffic that might veer towards us. It was a matter of minutes before a truck the size of England pulled up and we tentatively approached the cab window. We were met by a lovely Fijian, Singh, who advised us that he always carries a spare 100 Gallons when he’s on a long trip (if only we had thought of that in our little Yaris)! Part one complete, we reached the petrol station after half an hour and $40 later with two canisters of petrol we set about trying to get back to our little car (hoping that someone wouldn’t run it off the hard shoulder as it wouldn’t even start to move it further off the road). This time we were picked up by Eric, who was driving back to Tennessee (40 hours) and we think was pleased to have some company for a small portion of the journey. Eric drove us all the way back to the car and made sure we got on our way for which we were very grateful. Needless to say, plenty of excess petrol was bought that day in fear of a repeat performance, I’m sure the rental company was pleased that the car was returned half full rather than empty as was specified!

The moral of this story is, never; ever assume there will be petrol stations in America at regular intervals. It is huge hence the sporadicity of such facilities. Secondly, if you are going to run out of petrol, do it in the daytime, with a friend, in spring. Oh and always have plenty of rations with you just in case!

We had a couple of days in Las Vegas and so found a very cheap hotel on the strip called the Excalibur and on lastminute.com it was only £20/night, a bargain! The Excalibur is a castle themed hotel complete with turrets and damsels in distress. It’s based at the south end of the strip so it was nice to be at a different end than before. But because we are back on the travelling budget (no taxis allowed) it was about a 2 hour round trip to the Venetian where we stayed before (and where our complementary breakfasts, left over from the previous trip were!)

With pretty much every casino/hotel/free show covered in the previous week we decided to take advantage of the discount tickets and we saw ‘Defending the Caveman’ a comedic monologue from Broadway which discussed the differences between the sexes and the awesome ‘The Price is Right.’

The Price is Right was set up exactly like the TV show; everyone registers their name and then at random invited to ‘COME ON DOWN!’ It would’ve been nice to win $2000 or a holiday to Mexico but we got really scared when the presenter actually said ‘Carla, come on down.’ It wasn’t a spelling mistake the real Carla was there.

There was little gambling done as it wasn’t as fun when we were losing our own money; ‘all on black’ is not a very clever tactic. So now onwards and upwards, well really just eastward to Orlando and exploring the East Coast. Hopefully the Iceland volcano won’t hold back an Acarnley reunion; Sophie has already shed a few nervous tears. Fingers (and arms and legs and toes) crossed! Izzy Acarnley needs to meet her favourite Disney Character….Sophie Acarnley!

We are in Orlando for 2 weeks before heading to Washington DC for no doubt some patriotic overload and culture. Thanks again to the Magoos for an amazing week in Vegas; Sophie is well and truly aboard the fan club bandwagon! 6 weeks until our return-eek!

Cara and Sophie xxx

p.s. Be prepared we now have puppy fever and may need to indulge when we get home!