Adam Turtle, Freelance Web Design in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Since1986
2000 miles later…
- 4th November, 2007
- filed under: Music, San Francisco, Travelling
- 2 comments
It’s been a week since I got back from my roadtrip, so I guess I should share some photos. In fact, I took so many that I had to open a Flickr account. Here’s a slideshow of some pictures:
Controls for the slideshow are at the top. Photo index is at the bottom. Click an image to see caption.
The whole trip was basically awesome. Far, far too much driving but worth it in the end. The first day was by far the worst with the running-out-of-gas incident, but the rest of the trip more than made up for it. So here goes, 3 states in 5 days…
Las Vegas
Probably the most surprising thing for me was how much fun Vegas was. I was expecting a really seedy place with a lot of gambling and extravagance, and that’s essentially what it is. But our group wasn’t there to gamble, we were only there to have a good time so I think in total I only put $50 in the slot machines. And it was a complimentary $50 from the casino for getting a free casino card. Also, 2 beers for $1 – can’t complain! The weather was perfect, it was around a pleasant 28ยบ so warm without being too warm. The place was crowded all over but it was cool to see all the different areas of the city. It’s much bigger than I thought it would be. Pretty much every business that exists in Vegas is related to entertainment, be it casinos, hotels, eating, drinking or shopping. In many ways it’s the epitome of consumerism but for the sheer amount of dazzling lights and ridiculously over-the-top fancy hotels it just has to be admired.
Our hostel in Vegas was superb. For $17/night I wasn’t expecting much but it had a swimming pool and a hot tub! I tried the hot tub first and it was warm and very relaxing. After a while it got too hot so I cannonballed into the swimming pool and never saw certain parts of my anatomy again. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a colder swimming pool in my life! It’s essentially water straight from a hose. I survived 10 agonizing minutes while trying to look like a hard man, but I’m no David Blaine so I was glad to see the hot tub again!
The free show we went out to see was the Sirens of Treasure Island. It was a bit crappy, but it sufficed for a nights entertainment.
Grand Canyon
Next day we got up bright and early and headed out to the Grand Canyon. It’s about 4.5 hours from Vegas to get to the South Rim and a fairly straight forward drive down the highway. About 30 miles down the highway you actually drive over Hoover Dam, which for me was just awesome but for everyone else was merely a waste of photos. They’re building a monster of a freeway over the top of the gorge that the dam is built in. The dam itself is 220ft from the bottom, and the gorge is at least double that height so the freeway is going to be huge! We actually didn’t realise that once you cross Hoover Dam, you enter Arizona and they’re on Mountain Time as opposed to Pacific Time, so we pretty much spent an entire day in the wrong time zone.
Grand Canyon is cool. You enter the park and drive to an area where there’s parking and a few tourists hanging out over a rail. When you go over to the rail, this is the first sight you see:
Obviously without me though. It’s just phenomenal. It’s over a mile down and over 250 miles in length. In fact, you can just barely see the Colorado River running through the valley floor. They recently opened the Skywalk at the Grand Canyon which allows you to walk on a glass-bottomed pathway out over the canyon. We planned to go there but then found out it’s like 4 hours east of where we were, and it’s like $80 to step onto it.
Shame we only got to spend about 6 hours at the Grand Canyon. I could easily spend 4-5 days there and I reckon I’ll go back and do the trail that takes you down to the canyon floor and kayak down the river. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to.
Worst part of the day was we got back quite late, went out for dinner and got back to the hostel to find they had no room left. There were 9 of us on the trip, 2 cars so two separate groups. Our group didn’t make advance reservations but we had been told that 2 nights wouldn’t be a problem so we got back a more than a little bummed out to hear that we were homeless for the night. A few desperate phone calls proved useless so in the end we prepared for a night sleeping in the car. Anthony, a French guy who’s in San Francisco for 3 weeks visiting his girlfriend, was super nice and helped us to sort something out. Basically, he gave up his bed and shared with his girlfriend and I shared with Valerie, so Sue got a bed for the night, as did I and the other two guys in our group slept in the car. Wasn’t ideal and I felt extremely bad and selfish all night for leaving the two guys in the car, but in the morning they were fine and managed to get to sleep ok. Just as a treat, we got washed in the morning at the Bellagio hotel – it’s probably the most luxurious hotel in Vegas.
Los Angeles
Next morning we got up early and drove to LA. We drove much faster than we probably should have and made it there in 4 hours despite it being 360 miles away. The other group went to Death Valley instead – we figured that’d be boring. Our first stop in LA was in Pasadena as we got off the freeway. It’s such a beautiful little place. It’s essentially what you’d expect from American suburbia. It’s got quaint houses, young families, we saw a kid’s birthday party, nice little neighbourhoods…just really, really nice.
Next stop was Six Flags Magic Mountain. Home of Superman The Escape – the huge rollercoaster that goes to 100mph in just a few seconds. I think it’s like 400 feet high as well. It was closed when we got there. Crap. We waited in line for all the rollercoasters and I got soaked on the first one so I walked around with soaking jeans all day. Some awesome coasters though, was fun.
We checked into our hostel in Santa Monica later on and went for a walk down the 3rd St Promenade. There was a group of hilarious guys doing a rather poorly produced show but was fun anyway.
Next day we hit Venice Beach and Hollywood. Venice Beach was beautiful, very Baywatch. I asked a lifeguard to borrow his orange float thing so we could shoot our own version of Baywatch but he got confused and I ended up getting my photo taken with him instead. The weather for October was surprisingly warm, but no good looking girls in bikinis unfortunately. Plus the water is actually warm enough to swim in without a wetsuit, unlike SF where the water is possible even more baltic than Portstewart strand.
In the afternoon we went out to Hollywood. I had done some research beforehand and was aware of the sad news that Angelina Jolie as yet doesn’t have a star on the Walk of Fame. Disgraceful that even Britney Spears has a star for crimes to music and parenting but genuine beauty and talent like Angelina is ignored. I rectified the situation somewhat:
Afterwards we headed to Universal Studios. It’s a rip-off $65 for a studio tour so we passed on that and just went to the free shopping area which was cool. After the shopping we had just enough time to get to Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre, where there was some movie premiere going on, and finally a quick stop before sunset at the Hollywood sign.
The drive back to LA was pretty tiring, it’s not long – only about 7 hours but we had issues getting gas at the gas station and we made a rather lengthy stop over for dinner so it was after 3am when we got back to San Francisco and got the car returned. I basically went to bed at 4am and started work at 6am. It was painful. Thus concludes my trip.
Nightwish
I’m very pissed off that I got stuck at work until 9pm on Friday night, thus missing Nightwish’s only SF show. They have their new singer now and I manged to score free tickets on Craigslist, but didn’t get left the office early enough. So unbelievably pissed off. But I do have tickets to see a Journey tribute band in a few weeks. Valerie is now a huge Journey fan and is learning all the lyrics for the show.
wow, Grand Canyon is breathtaking. Looks like you had a pretty good trip and it is just me or was that life guard William Barr? lol
I’m surprised you didn’t know AJ wasn’t on the walk of fame being her number one fan and all, disgraceful.
Northern Ireland is pretty dull at the minute, its dark at 5pm now and starting to get wet for the winter. You’ll be pleased (or not) to know that your 1st year IMD website is still being used as an example. Last years must have been aweful.
Im stuck living at home, sooo boring. Going to try and get a house in Belfast again next year.
I will send you hob nobs eventually.
Outstanding….your road trip looks simply class from the pictures. Really liked the look of Vegas. Me and Pam are thinking of booking a trip there some time next year. Keep up the good work. Will phone you over the weekend to catch up….