Las Vegas

After Napa Valley, Yosemite and Death Valley, Las Vegas was a complete contrast. Absolutely mad place! Such a busy spot with so much happening, so many weird buildings and people.

Because they make so much from gambling, a lot of things are actually quite cheap. We stayed in the "castle" below on the Strip (the main street) and our room was just $40 a night in total. It was a massive room, with a King Size bed and a jacuzzi in the room (yes, not in the bathroom, but in the actual bedroom!) We also had a great view overlooking the Strip. Also, we were offered $125 in gambling/food/drink/spa vouchers just to go look at a new resort that the Casino was opening. We went along, picked up the vouchers and left without even looking at the resort :)

And when you're in Las Vegas, you must see a show. We wanted to see a comedy so the host suggested a particular show that was apparently the most popular with couples. We were very surprised when it started with 8 girls singing and dancing and then half-way through the first song, they whipped off their bras and left them off for the remainder of the act. There weren't many jokes (apart from the male host in between songs/dances). We think the joke was on us :o Conor didn't mind so much.

Johnny, we never knew you were in the gambling business!

Postcard Competition

And the winner is....Darin who correctly guessed that those coloured balls were M&M's. Yes there's a shop in Las Vegas where you can go in and buy any kind of M&M's that you want. So Darin will you email us your postal address and we'll send you your postcard - although of course you'd spot it as you've been to Las Vegas about 7 times! :)

No they're not jelly beans

But you're close.

A couple of interesting photos from Vegas (click to enlarge)

Thought you guys might be interested in this photo from a thrill ride in Las Vegas...

Ok....competition time. A postcard goes to whoever can best identify what it is in this photograph:

The Land Where The Ground Is On Fire

We spent the next two days driving through the Sierra Nevada mountains and Death Valley. Death Valley is basically just a mad big salty desert with almost nothing living in it. The highest temperature ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere occurred here : 57 degrees Celcius in the shade! (Apparently the World Record is 58 degrees).


Thankfully, being March, it was a good bit cooler...but still reached 25-30C (our first bit of real sunshine on this trip so far). It also has the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282ft (85m) below sea level. Some spectacular scenery along the way....including some "dry lakes" i.e. lakes which have now completely evaporated leaving only a residue of salt on the ground (like in the photo left).

The ground temperature is 50% hotter than the air temperature.

It gets so hot, you could fry an egg on the surface....or so they say.

Yosemite (pronounced Yo-Sem-It-Ee)

The reason we haven't updated our blog recently is because we were out in the wilderness of Yosemite National Park for the last few days with no internet (and no phone coverage) and we’re only catching up now.

Yosemite is amazing! We were really impressed with the place. For those who don't know, it is a massive forest in California with plenty of breathtaking views, wild animals (bears!) and other interesting stuff. We stayed in Yosemite Valley in the heart of the Park. The valley floor stretches for about 10 miles and is overlooked on the north and south sides by massive cliffs reaching 3,000-4,000 ft above it (this is quite high when you consider that the floor itself is at 4,000ft). Not only are the cliffs amazing, but they have numerous postcard quality waterfalls scattered throughout. Yosemite falls (pictured below) are the highest in North America.

Nearby is El Capital, apparently the World's Biggest Monolith (whatever that is) but it's a big chunk of cliff anyway. It's also infamous amongst base jumpers for non-geological reasons.

The most famous landmark of Yosemite is the Half Dome - another big cliff. (Did you know that the logo of outdoor clothing brand The North Face is actually meant to represent the North Face of Half Done).

Don't want to sound like an encyclopedia but there's just so much to talk about with Yosemite. Elsewhere in the park, there are the Giant Sequoia trees. These trees are the largest living things in the World and they live for over 3,000 years (they’re even older than Jim!) In one, they even cut a road through it – more to demonstrate its size as they could quite easily have gone around it! Only when you see one right in front of you can you appreciate just how massive they are. They are immune to bacteria and even fire. However, they are very unstable. Although they reach up to 300ft (100m), the roots only go down about 6-8ft and when they do die at the end of their long life, it’s usually because they just fall over.


Even though the park is well set up for tourists, it doesn’t even have a commercial touristy feel (well…maybe it’s just because it’s off season).

In our short time there, we saw summer and winter just days apart. When we entered the park, there was fantastic sunshine, but we had to cut our trip short a few days later when a big snow storm rolled in closing most of the trails. Our one gripe about the place was that we were not permitted to drive the 10 miles to get out of the park without buying snow-chains for the wheels (which are expensive for an RV!) There was a road block stopping you. (To make matters worse, we spent about 30 minutes struggling to get the chains on, only to realize that it was actually a rear-wheel drive, and we had put them on the front – doh!)

However, the roads were extremely well maintained and all the snow had pretty much been cleared. A bit ironic that the Park Service require snow chains when driving on the well maintained roads, when there are much more hazardous routes in the park (windy narrow cliff edge roads with no safety barrier which we had driven the night before….in heavy rain….and fog….in an RV) that are dangerous even without snow, and they let us drive them regardless. All in all, we had a great few days in Yosemite and would recommend it to anyone.

Before...

...and after...

The Wine Country

Our first stop in the RV was up to Napa Valley, where the wine comes from in California. The place is jam-packed with vineyards and most offer tours and wine-tasting (which we tried). It was actually our first bit of real sunshine on the trip and this made the beautiful countryside look even better. The whole valley was very impressive with green rolling hills, well-kept mansions and grounds, and picturesque small towns. The place was fairly quiet (and full of old people) but very nice for a day trip.

We did visit the "Old Faithful" geyser which spits up hot volcanic water to a height of about 10m or so every 10 minutes (normally it goes higher but less often). Quite impressive to watch.

We also visited a "petrified forrest" which contained "petrified" trees from 3 million years ago which were frozen in time (they were turned into stone cell by cell as a result of a volcanic eruption). Kadi thought this was interesting but Conor thought it was a bit dull. Kadi says you should read up on it on the internet.

Introducing....THE RV

We've now just taken possession of a home on wheels :) We'll be living in here for the next 2 weeks and venturing through the Wine Country, Yosemite National Park, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and San Diego.

We're surprised they even let us drive this big thing with our basic driving licences, although we signed a bunch of forms and in America you can do anything once you sign your rights away.

It's very nice and comfy but is very clunky to drive and everything rattles when you accelerate or turn.

Happy St Patrick's Day

Happy St Patrick's Day to all our listeners.

Everyone knows that about 50% of all Americans claim to have Irish heritage but we were quite surprised (and impressed) at the number of people wearing green on St Patrick's Day.

We met two mad San Franciscans on the tram coming home who had had a few too many Irish coffees! Hello to John and Megan if you're listening. Nice meeting you guys. Come to Dublin for St Patrick's Day 2011.

If you're gooooiiiiiing to Saaaan Fraaaancisco....be sure to weaaaar, some floooowers in youuuur hair

Or so the song goes.

Well, that's if you get to San Francisco...our journey from Minneapolis to San Francisco took 19 painful hours. That's an average speed of 84mph/134kph (air travel in this day and age eh?) thanks to the cancellation of our connecting flight in Denver and the resulting 9 hour delay. But you don't wanna hear about that so we'll skip on to San Francisco!

First off, we really enjoyed San Francisco. For a start, California is a good bit warmer than what we've experienced over the last week in Chicago and Minneapolis (there are no frozen lakes for example!) Aswell, the city seemed to have a good vibe and great character. The good weather and the tourists certainly made the place feel more lively.

There's a bunch of seals that hang out right on the bay beside one of the busiest piers, and they were very entertaining to watch. They mostly just lie there sun-bathing but there was the occasional one who'd climb over the others to get a better spot, and he'd inevitably piss off one or two of them as he went and then they'd snarl at each other to let the other know who was the boss. There were also a few random wrestling matches as one would wriggle his way into a spot and try to push the other out (and into the water). Very funny. Like Esso funny Ena. Well, you had to be there.

One day we took the boat out to Alcatraz Prison. The tour of the place was long but actually better than we were expecting. Hard to imagine life in one of those tiny cells. Afterwards, we rented bikes and cycled across the Golden Gate bridge. It was a lot of uphill in the beginning but great coming back. The view of the city was fantastic from the hill at the far side. We were very lucky that the fog over the bridge lifted just when we got there as it had been in the cloud for the whole day. A great afternoon :)

For our trip to San Francisco, Kadi made sure to wear some flowers in her hair. Conor, however, made sure he didn't....just in case he got confused for one of the locals. He did however help Kadi carry her handbag. "Man bags" are apparently ok in San Francisco.

We also took a tour inside an old WW2 submarine. Quite interesting (and smelly). Dunno how 80 guys could live inside that tin can.

The other notable attractions of San Francisco were the steep hills (there are 42 hills in total apparently) and the Cable Cars. A bit crazy how people are allowed to hang on outside them without any safety stuff. A big exciting when you're outside and another passes you by going the other way. You can even give high-fives to other cool passengers on the passing car.

A few days in Minneapolis

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. We haven’t been doing too much. Just hanging out in Minneapolis meeting some old friends of Kadi’s. We stayed in Darin’s place for two nights (thanks Darin – we appreciated it) and then moved into a very nice hostel (an old converted mansion) near downtown. We also met Daphne and the kids who Kadi used to nanny for a year. The kids have grown up so much...well, it has been 4 years.

So what’s special about Minneapolis? Well, not much (no offense!). We really just came here to visit Kadi’s friends. It does, however, have America’s largest shopping mall (Mall of America) with over 520 shops and restaurants, as well as cinemas, an amusement park in the middle and the largest underground aquarium.

Minneapolis also has a network of “skyways”. These are walkways above street level that connect all the buildings in the city centre. Very convenient when it is cold and snowing or raining outside. Dublin should have them! So on our first day here when it was raining, we saw the whole downtown without getting wet.

Another landmark of Minneapolis is the “Cherry and Spoon” sculpture – but unfortunately the cherry has been removed for renovation so here’s a picture of just a spoon.

There are a few Irish and English pubs here and we had hoped to watch the Ireland v Scotland rugby game here but they were all charging $20 admission! So we missed that - arrrgh!

So we’ve just been hanging out in Mall of America, book shops and coffee shops planning our trip to California next week. It’s been quite a relaxing and chilled out week.

Hello Minneapolis

We took an overnight greyhound bus from Chicago to Minneapolis last night - an 8 hour journey....probably the first of many long bus journeys.

The weather here is pretty much the way it is in Ireland, wet and dull....and it's set to get colder.






But that doesn't matter because Minneapolis has skywalks! More on that later.

By the way, we also hope to upload a bunch of photos in the next day or so, for anyone who's interested.

A few final pics of Chicago

We did finally get some good weather on our last day in Chicago. So we went ice-skating today, climbed up on a giant suitcase and had Martinis on the 96th floor of a really big building.

Got some pictures.

Sunset over Chicago...

Off to Minneapolis next.

Observations of Braille

One thing that I’ve been impressed with in America is how they have Braille translations everywhere - to assist the blind. However, I did come across one instance where I thought it was a bit overkill.

In the male restrooms of a restaurant, there was a baby-changing table that had some Braille instructions on it (there weren’t even any in written English). I find it hard to envisage any scenario where they may be useful....if a blind man is changing a baby in a public restaurant and is relying on the Braille for help, he really has bigger problems.

-Conor

The Windy City

We’ve spent the last number of days in Chicago. Interestingly, Chicago was never intended to be on our trip, but it was a place that Conor had never seen (and wanted to see), so since it was just 1 additional flight to see it, we decided to make it our first stop. It also allowed us to visit some of Kadi's friends in Minneapolis.

For the first few days, to ease us gently into the backpacker lifestyle, we decided to get a hotel - so we got a nice cheap one with a great view (on the 18th floor in the centre of the city overlooking the river).

Unfortunately, the weather has been very "Irish" since we got here....it's been constantly cloudy with heavy rain at times. The tops of the skyscrapers have been in cloud the whole time.

However, this has't dampened our spirits. We have been just strolling around the city, checking out the sights and trying to come to terms with the fact that we don't have to go back to work any time soon. This really is taking a lot to get used to!! We've also been "chillaxing" in coffee shops and using the free Wifi (that seems to be everywhere) to plan upcoming stages of our trip.

We went up the Sears Tower yesterday when it looked like it was getting better. When we got to the top (1400ft), we were just at the base of the clouds. We had a nice view for a few minutes and then the cloud started to come down and it was a total white-out. (By the way, the elevators take some getting used to...they go so fast and so high, that your ears even pop as you go up and down in them).

So anyway, we woke up this morning and it is blue skies outside! So now we have to go out and retake all those photos we took in the cloud! :o

The view from our hotel room!

Chicago in Chicago

We went to see "Chicago" the musical in Chicago the city.

It was very good!

More updates about Chicago (the city) to follow...

And We're Off !

Ok – this is our first blog entry and thanks for tuning in. As we write this, we are on the first leg of our trip (flying from Dublin to Chicago). We’ve just come over Canada and there’s nothing but a vast empty expanse of snow and mountains beneath us. The plane is actually less than half full for some reason so there’s plenty of space and good service from the air hostesses.

We’ll begin our blog by giving a brief outline of our intended route: As mentioned above, our first stop is Chicago. We had originally intended to meet up with Conor’s aunt Oli who lives there, but she screwed those plans up by flying to Dublin this morning! So we met up for breakfast instead before heading on our opposite paths.

After a few days in Chicago, we’re off to Minneapolis (where?) yes, Minneapolis – Kadi used to live there. And that’ll be the first week. And then off to California for 3 weeks (San Francisco / Yosemite / Las Vegas / Grand Canyon / LA and hopefully San Diego). We hope to rent an RV for this stage of the trip! :o

We won’t bore you with the full details of the whole trip but the country itinerary goes roughly as follows:

• USA
• Mexico
• Cuba
• Jamaica
• Peru (Machu Picchu & Amazon)
• Brazil
• Argentina
• New Zealand
• Thailand
• Vietnam
• Cambodia
• Laos
• China (incl Hong Kong)
• Japan
• South Korea
• Then AUSTRALIA

Some of the above stops are brief enough. In total, we’ll spend 6 months travelling (3 months in America, then 3 months in Asia). In all, we’ll be getting 16 separate flights.

By the way – thanks to Ena and Age who made a special trip out to the airport to see us off this morning....despite getting on the wrong bus, getting off at the wrong stop (in the middle of nowhere) and hitchhiking back to the airport just in time. Thanks guys! :)

Oh yeah, and thanks to all the friends that came out to our various going-away nights out over the last week. In particular, thanks to the guys (you know who you are!) that set Conor’s and Fearghal’s hair on fire!