Homeward Bound

After 2 months, 13 hotels, 13 plane trips, countless dollars, euros and green backs, we are finally Australia bound! By the time you are reading this we will be well on our way to Canberra via LA and Sydney, arriving in Canberra @ 9am Tuesday.

Although we have immensely enjoyed our travels it will be great to get home and see family, friends and our beloved doggies! Thanks to all who have read our blog, sent emails and posted messages - it definitely kept the homesickness at bay. A huge thanks also to Dee and Steve who have shared their home with us for a month and also played a big part in organising our travel within the US.

Cold Canberra here we come!!!

Swap one swamp tour for one night on Bourbon St, New Orleans

We finally arrived at our hotel in New Orleans and made a beeline for the airboat swamp tour! With less than a day to spend in the city we wanted to make the most of every minute

We were really excited to be seeing the swamp tour and jumped in the boat, filled with anticipation! The tour is on the Mississippi River, not far from the gulf. Our boat captain was a young southerner, Felix, we were gonna have some fun! Alas, we were no more than 5 minutes up the river, with the 357 Chev engine growling in our ears, when it became apparent we were going to be stuck, with a huge storm blowing in from nowhere! The skies turned to a monsoon blue-grey and Felix checked the radar again, the prognosis was terrible and Felix wasn’t prepared to take the risk. We got a full refund, which paid for our big night out, and Scotty amused himself by wrestling some ‘gators on land, Steve Irwin style, while we waited for our lift back.

OK onto Bourbon Street! We cruised the main strip and being a Monday night we expected it to not fully go off, which suited us. We listened to some great Jazz, found a top selection of drinks, caught some beads off balconies and bought some beads of our own to throw off the balconies! We enjoyed Huge Ass beers, margaritas, daiquiris, hurricanes, all of which contained copious amounts of alcohol. Needless to say, we were feeling a little second-hand this morning!

It was an awesome night; the highlight for Scotty was meeting such a variety of people in the bars while Fi loved throwing beads at people who weren’t expecting them. For those who don’t know about beads…in New Orleans, particularly Bourbon Street, there is a tradition of guys throwing bead necklaces off balconies for girls they like the look of! Scotty got some too : )

Unplanned sojourn in Atlanta Crown Plaza airport view

Ready and raring to go at 4:15 this morning (Vegas time), we returned our sportsmobile and eventually hopped onto our flight to New Orleans via Atlanta. Flying AirTran, which is like buses for the air, and crappy ones at that, we made it as far as Atlanta, Georgia, when delay after delay caused the cancellation of ours and about 100 other flights.

Instead of getting uppity and stressed about the situation we played Euchre, had a laugh at the many thousands of Americans feeding their faces with fries and fake cheese, and calmly accepted the option of a 4 star overnight stay at a discounted rate! Right now we're putting our feet up and watching a reply of Stage 9 of le Tour and sipping hot drinks. Hopefully, bright and early tomorrow we'll be on our way to Bourbon Street, New Orleans!

Negative split @ the Grand Canyon

Yes that's right! 3:10 to descend the 6.2 mile hike with 1000 m of altitude drop, and only 2:45 to ascend in reverse. For non-sportos, that is a negative split!

The weather was highly favourable for us. Starting our hike at 11am, the weather was a balmy 77 degrees (23 celsius) and it only peaked briefly, in the sunny afternoon, at around 90 (30 celsius).

It was pretty easy on the way down apart from dodging tourists doing the shorter hike, and mule convoys (see Video: Mulus Interruptus). The path was quite lumpy with rocks, sand in places, and large steps made from logs. The descent took its toll on our quads too!

We used our lunch date at Plateau Point to refuel and recharge, before tackling the ascent. See Video: Wouldn't be dead for quids.

It was actually easier to ascend the trail and we both felt quite weary by the time we reached the top. But it's an experience that we're very happy to have had!

Food stats for the hike:

• 9 litres of water
  
• 4 pieces of leftover pizza
  
• 2 stolen (from the breakfast buffet) and 2 bought bananas
• 2 stolen apples
• 2 stolen oranges
• 2 powerbars
  

Tomorrow it's back to Vegas for one night before heading to New Orleans.

Motoring the Mohave

We fired up all four cylinders in our Pontiac Grand Prix and hit the searing hot pave of Nevada this morning! Waving a teary goodbye to Hooters Hotel & Casino we traversed the Hoover Dam wall and witnessed the spectacle of the Mohave Desert trailer park communities, which dot the horizon all the way to Williams, Arizona.

Thankfully a cool change has come through and 115 degrees of Vegas has given way to a mere 75 degrees. Maybe we will be able to do some hiking in the Grand Canyon after all.

Tonight we are heading out to the Arizona summertime cowboy shoot out!

Vegas Extravaganza

45 degrees!!! Yes, that is how hot it is today in Vegas. It is going to be such a shock to go back to Canberra winter in 2 weeks.

We are loving Las Vegas though. It is such a colourful, extravagant city and nowhere near as crowded/dirty as New York and Paris.

We have had a few rounds of Black Jack in various casinos and have so far made an investment into our future Black Jack playing! Last night saw us having dinner with our new Aussie friends, Liz and Garry, at a funky Mexican restaurant. Liz had nachos which could have fed 4 people! We also did a night time walk down part of the strip, taking in a musical fountain outside the Bellagio hotel...check out the video below.

Today we escaped from the heat by driving out to a huge outlet mall. We 'air-con-hopped' between the shops of the outdoor mall and got releif from some water sprayers scattered throughout the shops.

Tomorrow we're driving to Williams, near the Grand Canyon. We had planned on doing a hike of the Grand Canyon on Friday but have since reconsidered due to the extreme heat!

4th of July Celebrations

Yesterday was Independence Day, the 4th of July, a pretty big deal for Americans, but far more importantly, it also marked the eve of the first stage in the 2008 Tour de France! This morning Scotty and Fi put the coffee on at 8am, ready to watch the live tour telecast commencing at 8:30am. Oh what a pleasure it was to watch le Tour at a reasonable hour! We all put our tips in for the CCC tipping comp last night and so far Steve is in the lead (out of our contingent).

Tonight we set off our bag of crackers (postponed due to rain last night) and were lucky to come away with all fingers in tact after trying some creative ways of setting off multiple fireworks at the same time! We are now settled in with our martinis to watch the replay of Stage 1.

New York, New York!

With New York only a 5 hour bus ride away, we took the opportunity to visit the city that never sleeps, for 2 days.

Staying right in the thick of things in Times Square was quite the experience! There is always something to look at, or something going on. People, people, people…everywhere! It seemed at times that we were traveling at half pace (I think we were).

New York caters to tourists very well, there’s a hop on-hop off tour bus system that we took advantage of. It covers all of the main attractions and features of New York city which can be viewed from the top of a double-decker open-topped bus.

Some of the highlights from our trip to New York are:

• Sunset cruise taking in the Statue of Liberty, Long Island & Ellis Island, and the NYC 'waterfalls'
• Our tour guide giving an excellent rendition of ‘New York, New York’ on the twilight tour of the city, sung like a pro
• The Bodies exhibition – just fascinating
• Pancakes for breakfast at the ‘local’ Mexican-run Italian café
• The bright lights of Times Square (they have to be on 24 hrs/day by law)
• Finally getting home (it took an hour to go the 3km out of NYC on the bus)
  

We both agree that New York city has to be seen once!

Inald v Inald Segway racing in Washington DC

Well, sort of! We weren't racing each other but there were some fun times had on our Segway tour of DC. For those of you who don't know, Segways are 2 wheeled, electric, people movers that are controlled by shifting your body weight forward or backward. Check out the Video: Fi learning the Segway

The Sparkellys and the Inalds embarked on a 3 hour tour of DC's sights, with plenty of space to unleash the fury of the Segways which had a top speed of 12 1/2 miles per hour! This is definitely the way to see DC.

By the end of the tour we were quite the experts. Check out Video: Fi's Flying and Video: Dee & Steve

We're off to throw a few essentials in a backpack for our trip to NYC tomorrow!

Falls Church City Crime Report

Reading the local paper at a cafe this morning we came across these very disturbing incidences of local crime:

LARCENY: 900 blk. Parker Ave., June 17, 6:34pm, unknown person(s) stole 45-gallon trash container.

LARCENY FROM VEHICLE: 200 blk. S Virginia Ave., between June 9, 8:00pm and June 10, 8:00am, unknown person(s) entered an unsecured vehicle and stole approximately $6.00 in quarters.

LARCENY, SHOPLIFTING: 7Eleven 804 S Washington St., June 19, 2:20pm, unknown person(s) entered the establishment and stole (2) burritos, chicken quesadilla and potato skins from the establishment.