North America Road Trip... THE END

Second last cold night in the car brr. We were hoping to make it to Montana tonight and back in Calgary Sunday afternoon. With the end in sight we were both really keen to get back to a house with a bed, shower and kitchen! 

From Ely we started to head North, passing more desert and small towns. There really was not all that much in Nevada. When we hit the last town before the border the casinos popped up again! Once we hit Utah everything changed. Still very bare desert but there was salt everywhere and super crazy mirages in the distance. 

By lunchtime we had made it into Salt Lake City where we had decided to stop for lunch at our last DDD place Moochie’s, and it did not disappoint. Their specialty was sandwiches; we ordered one meatball and one chicken schnitzel sub and they were some of the best sandwiches we had ever had!

We spent a few hours in Salt Lake City before hitting the road again. Salt Lake City or S.L.U.T as my magnet called it; was a really beautiful city. We stopped off at the Famous Mormon church and wow the money they had to build such a huge building. It was interesting to read about the Mormon faith and I guess just like all religions it has its purpose. 

The drive up through Utah and into Montana was long but still really beautiful. We had now left the desert and were back in to mountains, rivers and farmland. Autumn was a really nice time to drive through and see all the trees changing. Eagar to get home we drove a bit into the night and stopped late Just outside of Helena Montana at a rest stop. It was really cool actually, as Helena was also were we spent our very first night in Hank 4 months ago! The night was cool but not as cold as the last 3 nights. I was really sad about our last night in Hank, Marc not so much. 

Last day on the road: Calgary was so close yet still so far away; we still had about 5 hours to drive. We were dirty, tiered and being so close made the time go pretty slow. We love Montana and it was a really nice drive but after the last 4 days in the car it just went on and on.

We reached the border just before lunch and said our final goodbye to the USA (for now) and hello again to Canada. We had to stop off and talk to border security for a little bit before we could continue on our way but nothing too bad.

Oh Canada, pretty good to be back we made it to Lethbridge and our first stop was lunch at Tim Horton’s mmm.  By mid afternoon we had made it back to Calgary at Jared and Ryan’s house where we were staying for the next 3 weeks.

The final reading on the odometer clicked us in at 27,000km in 16 weeks! An epic journey around an amazing continent, we have learnt so much about travelling, each other and have been changed by the amazing things we have seen, done and the people we have met along the way. Part 1 now over time to sell Hank, pack up our stuff in Calgary and make our way to Europe.

Big trees and big granate mountains = California

Marc slept the whole 4½ hours to our next destination Sequoia National Park, an easy drive and was great to get out of the LA traffic and back to where there was no smog. We found a campground about 20miles out of the park (lemon cove/Sequoia campground) and decided to call it a night, as it had been another pretty big day.

Sequoia National Park: We left the campground early morning and made our way into Sequoia National Park. The drive into the park was fun; first we drove through crazy windy roads in the foot hills. We were finding it hard to imagine any giant trees when all we could see were very dry small foot hills with shrubs being the tallest trees around.

We entered the National Park and were informed to be prepared for delays, as there was roadwork. One bridge we could only get through once an hour on the hour, as it was only one lane. We continued on hoping to get through at 11am.  

First stop at the visitor center to book a tour of the ‘Crystal Caves’. Tickets for the 1pm tour in hand, we then continued the steady climb up into the mountains and the roadwork. The roadwork delays were not too bad, only had to stop twice and both times the wait was only about 15mins. The roads were very windy and I felt a bit like a race car driver.

The road to the Crystal caves was just after all the roadwork, a half an hour drive into another valley (Hank was getting a great work out). We were a bit early for our tour, so we made up some lunch and put some warmer clothes on ready for the cold 10 degrees caves. To start the tour we made our way down the path to the cave entrance.
 

The tour was rad, the tour guide was a little nerdy but still got the information across. We walked into about 3 different rooms in the cave and got to see a bat flying around (which was apparently rare for these caves as they were so cold), loads of stalactites and stalagmites some bigger then others and Marc’s favorite the cave bacon.

After the tour we continued the drive back out of the valley and on towards the ‘Giant forest’ to see our first Giant Sequoia; on the way we got to see our first few and they were huge. We arrived at the forest and went for a walk the trees were huge. On the walk we read all about the trees and how they get so big. The really massive sequoias were about 1000 years old, for the trees to grow the conditions need to be just right, lots of sun, water and shallow soil over bed rock for the roots to grow. The sequoias also need fire to germinate the seeds. We found it all super interesting; my favorite part was the feel of the bark as it was super soft and full of water. On our walk we also got to see 2 marmots living in one of the sequoias. Our next stop after the giant forest was ‘General Sherman’ the largest tree in the world by volume, another huge old tree that was really cool to see.

We left Sequoia national park and made our way towards Yosemite national park for the night a 4-hour drive. We drove past a couple of campgrounds and stupidly kept driving closer to the park that meant we were at a higher altitude. The final place we stopped at was just outside the park and was really cold gain. Marc was really annoyed that we did not stop sooner as now we were in for another really cold night in the car below 0 brrr.

Yosemite National Park: Second really cold night sleeping in the car; not too bad but really happy we have each other to snuggle with. The drive into Yosemite was very scenic, great to see another amazing American National Park. 

Seeing the park in Autumn was not excellent timing as a lot of the walks had been closed so we could not hike up to half dome. Instead we decided to spend the day driving around the park. We drove into the village and visitor centre on the way stopping off to take some photos of the amazing granite mountains and falls that surrounded us. All the trees were changing colour so we got to see some amazing bright yellow, red and orange trees. 

 

The village was small and remote, but this is what made it so special (and expensive) after a quick bite to eat in the village we made our way to see the rest of the park.

The 2-hour drive from the village to the east entrance was beautiful. The Granite Mountains were amazing and the scenery kept changing as we got higher and higher. We drove through the alpine meadow that was hard to believe was so high up in the mountains. The highest point was Tioga Pass Elev 9945 Feet. On the other side of the park we had left California and were back in Nevada. The surroundings had changed again as we were back in the desert; a great drive across Nevada, especially when the sun was setting.

After a really big day of driving we decided to stop at Ely for the night at another campground (our second last night in Hank).

Medieval times, Disneyland and Hollywood

A 1½ hour drive to Anaheim (from San Diego); where we had booked a hotel for the next 2 nights. After sleeping in a tent for the last week in San Diego, we were really looking forward to a bed! The drive was really nice (even though I slept for half of it). We were both really surprised just how hilly the San Diego and LA area was, also how busy the roads were especially on a Saturday afternoon.

As we arrived near the hotel we saw a billboard for the theatre restaurant ‘Medieval times’. It was actually on our list of things to do in the states but this was the first time we had seen it advertised. After we checked in to the hotel, we booked some seats at the 6:00 show.

Medieval Times was so much fun. The show went for about 2 hours, was loud, messy and a little cheesy but I would definitely go again. To start you are given crowns when you walk in and assigned a team to cheer for. We were cheering for the red and yellow knight. The meal was super fun; we had soup, ½ a chicken, ribs, potato, apple pie and all of it we ate with our hands. There were beautiful horses, knight battles (even though our knight lost) and a king!

DISNEYLAND - Today I finally got to go to Disneyland, we were a little worried about going on a Sunday but there was not too much we could do about it. We arrived and found a car park in the Pumba lot and were then shuttled to the front gates. There were people everywhere, we lined up in our first line of the day and purchased our tickets. We decided just to see the original ‘Disneyland’, as we only had a day and did not want to rush around to try and see both parks.

Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth, the park was immaculate, and so much care and attention went into every detail. As soon as we entered the park the first purchase of the day was a mini mouse headband for me that I wore all day. We started the day in Adventure land and went on a jungle cruise it was a bit of a wait to go on the ride but well worth it and a great way to start the day. Everything was so magical; we explored all the different lands and felt like we were kids again. The lines were super long for most of the rides (minimum 30min wait!) but we used the flash pass were possible to come back later with less wait time (brilliant idea). We managed to see most of the park by late afternoon. Some of our favourite rides; Indiana Jones Adventure, The Hunted Mansion, Astro Blasters and Big thunder mountain railroad just to name a few. In the evening we watched Mickey's Soundsational Parade, ‘Remember… dreams come true’ Fireworks show and Fantasmic. All three shows were brilliant and we were smiling the whole way through. We didn’t leave the park until midnight as we were having so much fun, it was crazy to spend 14 hours there and still want more (even though at the end our feet were killing us and we were exhausted).

We love Disney and I hope one day to be able to bring my own kids back again.

 

Day 2: After a massive day at Disney we had a slow start before we drove into Hollywood. Only a short 1½-hour drive from Anaheim, the traffic was pretty good but the smog hanging over LA was a bit shocking. We arrived at our hostel around lunchtime; it was located just off Hollywood blvd so a great location.

The rest of the afternoon we explored the all the stars along Hollywood Blvd and had a tour of the world Famous Chinese Theatre one of the grandest cinemas I have ever seen. In front of the theatre were stars signatures, hand and foot prints in the cement. It was so cool to see it all including Marilyn Monroe’s that is the most visited. Marc had the same size hands as Matt Damon and I had the same size hands as Emma Watson, which is creepy as Aaron thinks I look a little bit like her.

That night we went on a limo tour of LA that was organised by the hostel. It was a little bit more like a pub-crawl but still loads of fun. We only went to two places but we arrived by stretch escalade to both. The first stop was a western bar where Marc rode the mechanical bull twice, the first time he went ok but the second time he rode blindfolded with no hands and fell off pretty quick, it was really funny. The next bar was really cool not that we remember that much as Marc was ordering double shot drinks and we were super drunk oops. We made it back to the hostel after some drunken shenanigans.. I passed out before 2am!

Day 3: Woke up to a missing bag and husband this morning, which was really scary. After a couple of worried hours I finally found Marc and the key to the locker where my bag was safely hiding. Marc was on the front terrace where he had apparently been all morning except for when I went down to look for him as he had gone to the liquor store. Feeling really average I still made it out today but left Marc behind.

I caught the bus out to Warner Brothers studios for a studio tour. It took a little bit for the bus to arrive but when it did was super easy to get to the studios. The 2½ hour tour was awesome I got to see so much cool stuff. It was fascinating to see how all the sets are made up to look real but are all made of lightweight materials so everything can be moved and changed with ease.
There were no movie sets only TV sets but it was still awesome. I got to see the set of the ‘Mentalist’, the ‘Friends’ Central Perk set and sat on the central perks couch!!! We also got to see some famous movie cars like, Batman car, Grand Torino (owned by Clint Eastwood), and Austin powers union jack car. Last stop of the tour was the WB museum where we could not take any photos the stuff in there was so rad, costumes from Batman, The Departed, The Town, Harry Potter, Casablanca and Where the wild things are just to name a few. At the end of the tour everyone got a souvenir photo to take home. It really was a fantastic tour.

Feeling a bit seedy for most of the afternoon I grabbed some dinner on the way back to the hostel and just chilled out for the rest of the evening… Marc was still in one piece, but not looking forward to the drive tomorrow with my little hangover husband.

Day 4: Up early this morning as we had a bit to go and see. Marc said that he felt like he had been run over by a truck about 10 times. We picked up Hank and checked out of the Hostel around 10am, unfortunately the sun was not out and it was a bit cloudy so we went to check out Beverly Hills and Rodeo drive first. We only drove past it as neither of us really wanted to go and see the high-end shops with all the cool things we could never afford to buy.

Beverly Hills might be a popular place to live but all the roads around the area were in really bad condition. After our drive by we stopped in at a Harley store for one of the last American pins of the trip, then we made our way to Venice beach.

Still overcast and really cold there were not too many people out and the beach was bare. We walked up and down the boardwalk checking out the stores and locals. There were so many people out begging or trying to sell anything to the tourists. There was even a guy who was selling bum signs. I found Venice beach really sad, maybe when the sun is out it’s a completely different vibe but mostly it shows how lost and desperate people can get. We stopped for some lunch at an ale house but as it was before 1pm and they were not serving beer… we did not really understand why but ordered lunch anyway. I got a grilled cheese sandwich that was actually really good and Marc got the scallops. After lunch we made our way back to the car and then off to take some photos of the Hollywood sign.

The drive back into Hollywood was not too bad and I think we were really lucky with the traffic, as we did not get stuck in any congestion. I did however get a little lost trying to find the view point to see the sign which was extremely frustrating but I finally did find it. By this stage I was happy to see that the clouds had lifted so you could actually see the sign even though it was still pretty far away. We took some photos and had a look around the observatory that was at the location of the viewpoint before hitting the road again.