US All In

Taken whilst on our tour of Alcatraz today. We’ve also thrown up a load of photos from the past few days to Flickr so don’t forget to check there. We’ll post choice ones here.

Yesterday I took on the my first driving leg of the trip. That may be suprising to some of you as we thought I wouldn’t be able to drive due to insurance but we got it sorted when we picked up the car. We got lunch in Wendys after driving out of LA and then headed north west to the coast road, Highway 1. It’s called the Pacific Coast Highway and is known as one of the most scenic roads in the world. It’s certainly that with the road weaving around the mountains. In places there’s very little to seperate you from the cliff if you get it wrong. Three hours later we arrived in Monterey Bay where Paddy switched in to take us into SF. This morning we’re chilling out before heading for a Segway Tour of SF along with a trip out to Alcatraz.

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Well it had to happen at some point. The other day as we were cruising down the highway, on our way out of L.A. we see the blinking blue & red lights behind us, of the CHIPS (California Highway Patrol) yep they were blinking at us, & yep he wanted us to pull over. After a bit of indecision as to which side to pull over on (there are hard shoulders in the middle of the road here in parts) we pulled over to the side of the road & waited for him to sidle up to the window. Ive read before the best way to behave is hands flat on your lap (or wheel if you’re the driver), don’t move until he tells you to, & even then tell him what your about to do before you do it. So that’s how we played it.

He told us we were doing 79 in a 65 zone, which we knew. No apologies, we knew we were caught. When we pulled out the Irish drivers licences he softened a bit, & a bit of banter later he sent us on our way, ticket free. Yay for Irishness!

Our first experience driving on American roads was a good one. We were out of Vegas in about 10 minutes & then onto the large roads (Ive no idea what denotes freeway or interstate so Im just calling them large roads :S) Once your on those its plain sailing (For anyone who hasn’t driven an automatic theres no gearstick or clutch to worry about, once the cars in drive, you just control acceleration & break) So anyway once your on the motorway, the inside lane is for trucks & slow moving vehicles, middle lane(s) for normal traffic, & outer lane for fast moving & overtaking. A lot of the way there was a hard shoulder on both sides too, & Darren reckons that’s for emergency vehicles, good idea. As we got closer to the city another mysterious lane appeared on the fast side, lined on both sides with continuous yellow. Took us a while to cop that this was the car pool lane , but once we did we took full advantage.

The first thing that hit us as we got closer to L.A. was the drop in temperature, & that was just fine with the 3 Irish boys. Desert climate doesn’t suit pasty white Irish skin too well. L.A. isn’t exactly cold either, but the weather we’ve had while we were here was akin to a really nice Irish day, so much more manageable.

So enough intro. What did we do in L.A. already? Well pretty much just universal studios. Yesterday morning we got up early & subway’d our way over there. Tony did a different universal in Orlando & him knowing the lay of the land was the only reason we got to see as much as we did. When the lads initially told me about universal I didn’t think it’d be my kind of thing at all, I’m not into rollercoaster’s & generally a big chicken when it comes to anything that tosses me about too much. I was pleasantly surprised that there were only 2 of them though, so most of the attractions were chicken friendly.

We saw 2 3D cinema type things (Shrek & Terminator), A couple behind the scenes exhibits (special effects & animals), backdraft & the famous studio tour & a couple more which escape me right now. Even being there at 10am, we barely fit in the last thing we wanted to see as the park was closing at 6pm. All in all I think we really enjoyed the day out, but it really took it out of us. Theres tonnes of cool pictures & videos but we haven’t had a chance to upload any so those will follow shortly.

As I type this its 8am the following morning & the other lads are still asleep. Im having trouble adjusting to the sleeping patterns & woke at 6 this morning :S. In a couple hours we’ll be on the road to San Fran & the next leg of the adventure! See you there

Sunday night we went to see the medievil show in the excalibur casino, tournament of kings. Anyone whos seen cable guy will know the kind of show it is. You get to sit around a small arena eating guinea fowl with your bare hands & swigging mead while a knights of the round kingdom themed combat/musical/acrobatical show goes on in the middle. Each section of the crowd represents a country so everyone has a knight to cheer. All in all the show is good fun, plenty of cheesy acting & the acrobats at the end are really talented. Nice quiet night out in vegas.

Afterwards we walked down the strip to see some of the casinos we hadn’t had a chance to see, the bellagio & the Venetian. These 2 are known to be pretty impressive & the only reason we had left them to this point was they were on the opposite end of the strip to the one we were staying on. Walking down the strip the heat just hits you in the face, theres nearly no breeze & when you do get some its hotter than none. When you wak down the strip a lot of the casinos are linked by walkways or trams, you find yourself going out of your way to go through casinos even if it’s a longer way, for the air-con. Im not comfortable in this climate at all.

So on to the casinos. First the fountains of the Bellagio. What can I say, wow! Probably the best single attraction in Vegas imo. Even in a city like vegas where literally everything is super impressive these blew us all away. The show maybe a minute long & plays every 15 minutes. We stayed for showings, the first set to Shania Twain or something similar, & the second set to some classical music which just made it more beautiful. Im not even going to try and describe the show, we recorded it & its below so see it for yourself.

Finally we popped over to the Venetian. As you might expect its done in the style of Venice. Outside its just as ornate as you’d expect, but the real centrepiece is inside where theres an artificial canal on the second floor, complete with gondola’s & the ceiling is painted & lit perfectly as if it were the sky. When you walk into the first room with this effect the change in lighting along with the perfect paint job really gives the effect of being outside. Very pretty & a lovely way to close out the Vegas weekend.

Literally just uploaded this to Youtube. This was taken on Paddy’s phone on Sunday night before we left Vegas:

Were all finished with Vegas, and I’m sitting on the bed in our room in LA. Items of note so far and my highlights in Vegas. We got 2 double beds in the rooms. We were expecting tripple rooms (3 single beds or a double and 2 singles). Its been fine so far though. Bed is only a place to lay our heads. The first night we were all wrecked, especailly me. I was buzzing when we got to the hotel and pushing to head out, but once we got out and were having a bite to eat it all hit me. A good nights sleep later and we were all set up for the first full day. Myself and Tony were pushing to see the Irish game as well as wanting to head on the helicopter tour.

Tony said there was an Irish bar at the golden nugget, so we checked at the front desk as to when and where we could do the chopper tour. There was one going later that day, so we set a pickup for the golden nugget. After just getting a taxi, Tony realised that the golden nugget was not the place where the Irish bar was, and when we got to the irish bar, we were told a German bar shows football, and then when we got to the German bar, they only showed the Hungary, Denmark game. We watched it anyway as there was nothing better to do till the chopper pickup. A text home at half time told us Ireland won and that the game was over.

The chopper ride over the canyon was amazing. Videos and pictures are available. Tony will get round to posting links to the videos. It was a real highlight of the holiday so far.

After the chopper ride, the first post applies, but we did head out on the night. It was some night that included me betting $100 on one game of roulette and winning. Then blowing it all

Next morning was hangover central for me, but a swim really woke me up. We headed to hooters for breakfast, a fine upstanding diner based on owls. I have to say that I was disappointed in the owls on display, but the girls were very pretty. The final evening in Vegas was spent, going to the Mandalay Bay hotel and the aquarium thats in the hotel. The hotel is that big it can hold a massive aquarium with shops etc. For dinner we headed to the Tournament of Kings show. We were sat in a section that cheered on the Irish king. He lost every game but got the best cheers. It was a fun night, especailly booing the French king. The whole section joined in. The actor even found it amusing. Then we headed down the strip to see the Balagio fountain show which was amazing, videos to follow, and finally into the Venitian, which was one of the most amazing hotels here. Once you got to their shopping area, it looked like daylight inside. They also had a river and gondala ride.

Hightlights:
The luxor is a sight to behold (especially the lighting at night)
The height we were up on our floor looking out over the floor
The entire grand canyon flight
Putting $100 down on one bet and winning
Doing a Matador and walking down the hotel corridor in an irish hat, sunglasses and my underwear
The Mandalay Bay hotel, the hotel is huge inside, and the aquarium is class too
The Balagio fountain show
The inside of the Venitian
The drive to LA.

Darren

As I write this we’re about half way between Las Vegas and LA. We picked up the rental car from the airport this morning after checking out of the Luxor. We thought we were going to have an issue with having myself on the insurance but apparently it’s grand. It’s much better having the option of a third driver anyway. We’re covering a hell of a lot of miles on this trip.

I suppose I should give my thoughts on Vegas overall. The undoubted highlight was the helicopter trip out to the Grand Canyon. That was phenomenal. You really don’t get a sense of scale by seeing it on the TV or in the cinema. Coming in to land in the basin by the Colorado River took my breath away. Proving that you can’t go anywhere Highly recommended.

Last night for dinner we booked tickets for the Tournament of Kings in Excalibur. At first I wasn’t too sure what to think of it to be honest. The seating around the arena is split into different countries and each country has a knight. We happened to be seated in Ireland. It was quite funny when our knight was “eliminated” from the tournament and we proceeded to berate his slayer, the evil knight from France, for the rest of the evening.

After dinner We took a walk up the Strip hoping to catch the Bellagio fountains and the Venetian. I’ll upload a video when Youtube fixes itself. Afterwards we headed up to the Venetian. It was about midnight by the time we reached there so the gondolas had finished up. The canals are actually on the second level above the casino suprisingly. It really is one of the most impressive hotels you can see in Vegas. We’re approaching LA now so I’m gonna finish this off. More updates soon.

Back dating this particular post so it fits chronologically. This was taken in the Grand Canyon when our helicopter trip stopped off for a picnic by the Colorado River.

Taken Friday night at the Luxor:

Out photos so far are here