Yellowstone National Park - Sioux City, Iowa.

Well safe to say we've done a lot of driving since the last blog!! We got up early on sunday and drove from Pocatello up to Yellowstone, briefly entering Montana & then into Wyoming, which took us up to 24 states visited!! Yellowstone was absolutely awesome - without doubt the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life!! Shame I couldn't be arsed to upload any pictures really!! Ha, anyway we did everything we wanted to do, namely checking out 'Old Faithful' - the famous geyser and getting close to some Bison!! At one point we had to stop on the road to let a Bison cross literally right in front of us...awesome creatures!!

We left Yellowstone about 4pm and then headed East once again, driving quite a way through Wyoming & eventually crashing at a place called Gillette - there was some awesome driving to be had after leaving Yellowstone though, with one part having non-stop hairpins for about half an hour!! Monday arrived with yet another early morning, this time as we continued East to Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. It was pretty cool I guess, although a little smaller than you'd expect & safe to say neither of us were blown away!! Anyhow after that we decided we had to try chalk up as many states as possible, so we went South before going East, just so that we could tick off Nebraska!!

There was very little in Nebraska as you'd expect, although we did manage to stumble upon another town called Valentine!!!!!!!!!!! Absolutely awesome place which I couldn't recommend enough!! We didn't get to our hotel here in Sioux City, Iowa until about 11pm last night, although that was mainly due to losing an hour as we crossed back into the Central time zone, an unexpected road closure & an unbelieveable storm - rain, lightening & thunder, which was still going great guns when we went to sleep!!

Anyway that means we're up to 27 states now, and have also driven OVER 9000 miles!!!!!!! Pretty crazy really, although we only have a week left on the road now - which today will involve driving up to Minneapolis in Minnesota, before heading East to stay in Wisconsin for the night....

Salt Lake City, Utah - Idaho

Salt Lake City, the venue of the 2002 winter Olympics, is definitely one of our favourite places so far!

We got up late on Friday because we had two nights at the hotel and didn't need to worry about checking out. I guess it was about lunch time we took a wander downtown to check out the sights. By this time it was rocking 100 degrees so we managed to top up the tan on the way. Its quite strange to think that in the winter its a booming ski resort! The city seems to be dominated by the Mormon church grounds and the usual large bank buildings, but its a beautiful place and well laid out so its easy to get around. There is also a lot of construction work and renovation going on despite the downturn. By mid afternoon we found ourselves in the shopping district but managed to refrain from any purchases. We just got a cinema ticket for 'Inglorious Basterds' which started that night. Turns out it was a great shout as we both agree its one of the best movies we have ever seen.. so whenever it reaches the UK you should definitely go and see it!

As we didn't get to bed til late we slept in again...! But it was only a short drive today to Idaho and the stop over town of Pocatello where we spent most of the afternoon playing 'soccer' aka football on a 'football' aka American football field! Early start tomorrow folks as we're heading to Yellowstone National Park to see some dodgy geezers...

Yosemite National Park, California - Utah

We left San Fran Wednesday morning for the 4-hour drive East to Yosemite National Park....where we had a really good look around the park, which to be fair...was awesome!!!! We weren't originally meant to be going there, but we realised we'd made up a day whilst in California; in our haste to avoid a night in the LA area!! So it was definitely a bit of a bonus day - park was absolutely beautiful, and the pic above is one of about 20 I could have picked from!!

It took us a bit of time to get clear of Yosemite with its winding roads with steep climbs & drops - which obviously made for some excellent driving!!! We were out of there for about 8pm though, and then headed to a place North East of there called Fallon, which returned us to the state of Nevada.

There was pretty much nothing there, but we only used it as a place to crash so didn't mind one bit! We were then back on the road this morning (Thursday) - through the Nevada desert, lets just say upstate Nevada is certainly no Las Vegas!! But anyway, we drove the 450 miles or so to Salt Lake City, Utah, with no dramas - just a very open road Eastward-bound with a 75mph speed limit!! We're in Salt Lake for a couple of nights now so looking forward to checking it out tomorrow, the only other thing to report really is that we are now back in the Mountain Time Zone - so just the 7 hours behind the UK once again.

San Francisco, California

Well its a bit chilly in San Francisco!

Our hotel was pretty central (on Market Street) so we were close to all the action. We headed out on the first night for a quick look around and planned on going to the cinema in the big METREON complex. Its fair to say our hotel wasn't located in the nicest of areas....when we walked out we were confronted by half the cities homeless population! Anyway we waded through, got our bearings and had a bite to eat. We realised that we had no idea what any of the films were about so gave it a miss and headed back to the hotel.

Next morning we were up and ready for a tram trip and bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge. The tram was cool and we got to see a few areas of the city we haven't been to before. Had a bit of a disaster with the bikes though as they were demanding a $500 deposit just to rent one for a day, considering the rental was less than $30 each we told them where to go! Instead we wandered around the pier area, did a bit of shopping and walked back through town. We decided to do some film research and head back to the cinema, choosing the latest movie from Peter Jackson called District 9. The plot basically involved an alien invasion of South Africa by prawn like creatures....sounded like an absolute winner.....!

All in all we didn't really achieve much here, but as we have already been here and done the best things we weren't to disheartened. It was nice to recharge the batteries on out last day on the West Coast.

Los Angeles & San Diego, California

We weren't in any rush to get to LA on Saturday, so left Vegas around mid-day and headed West towards LA...where we've both been before, and of which neither of us are fans!! But this time we weren't actually going to downtown LA itself, just Carson, which is south of downtown and where the LA Galaxy play!! Their game against the 'Seattle Sounders' didn't kick off until 8pm so we got there in plenty of time - about 5ish I think!! So we just had a good kick about in the car park for an hour or so before going in!! The game itself was the usual poor standard I've come to expect from the MLS...it was good to see Beckham (23) though...

...However the 'seeing him' didn't last too long, as he got sent off after SEVENTEEN minutes!! Haha, shouldnt have been a red, but the ref sent a couple more players off too later in the game & Seattle ended up winning 2-0. We had a good laugh though and some of the banter was pretty funny, some Seattle guy was near us with a sign saying 'We drove 1100 miles to boooo Beckham', so some LA Galaxy fan went off and made his own sign saying 'Seattle fucking blows'....Imaginative hey!! Anyway we got out of the game and headed south towards San Diego to find a hotel for 2 nights...which ended up being a bit of a nightmare with it being a Saturday but after we'd been driving around for a good hour or so trying to find one, we found one in Oceanside, about 30 minutes North of San Diego itself. We spent Sunday at the San Diego Zoo which was pretty awesome...I don't really know what else to say about it to be honest, there were lots of animals...

After leaving the Zoo we headed into the centre for a look around & ate at the local Hard Rock Cafe!! Then we had a nice early start today (Monday!!) for our drive up the California coastline...just the 450 miles or so North to San Francisco!! Its not been too bad though - we drove through a few cool places like Laguna Beach, Newport Beach & Malibu, plus we've ended up getting here and checked into our hotel for just after 5pm, so cant complain!! We're in San Fran for 2 nights now, before we head East for the first time this trip on Wednesday!! When we'll be off to Yosemite National Park...

Las Vegas, Nevada

Welcome to Las Vegas..!

We found our way to Circus Circus Casino Hotel by late afternoon on Thursday. We decided to book this online about a week ago because it was dirt cheap, about £16 per night each! The bags were dumped and we headed straight out...to Starbucks obviously.

We decided to go to the MGM Grand Thursday night as this is where we both won mountains of cash on our last visit. Mr Valentine manged to pocket himself a few hundred bucks to keep his run going but I was less fortunate... We cruised the strip and took in the sights before heading back to the Hotel.

Friday we decided to have a deserved lie in and casual shopping day. We both made wise purchases in Abercrombie... a pair of winter warm pants! It was 107 degrees outside but we were thinking ahead! In the evening we went to Caesars Palace for a build your own salad. Unfortunately Alan from the hangover wasn't around so we decided to gamble somewhere else. It was my turn to win a bit of cash in Treasure Island then we headed back to the hotel.....unfortunately you have to pass through the casino to get to your room and it was obvious we would never make it. Roulette came calling again..we battled bravely and were about to walk away with a few extra dollars when..... Valentine THROWS down $100....I told him to put it all on 6 black for a return of $3600....but he stuck with just black....unbelievably 6 came out! $200 instead of $3600...and we were let wondering what might have been.

All in all a pretty successful 2 days as we left even if not slightly up and with a pair of warm pants for horrible LA...

Grand Canyon, VALENTINE, AZ & Hoover Dam

We got up early on Thursday and headed North from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, which took us about an hour and a half. Its a bit weird trying to describe actually going there and seeing it all to be honest - safe to say words, and even pictures, don't do the place justice!! We stayed there for about 2 hours in total, and then hit the road once again, awestruck at what we'd just seen!!


We then headed to what was without doubt the best place either of us have ever been - EVER!! Yeah thats right, we cruised along part of route 66 and were lucky enough to drive right through the town of Valentine, Arizona. Obviously it was complete coincidence that our route took us through this wonderful town, and had nothing to do with me altering our course, not one bit!!

Ha...and then we carried on our proper-course to Las Vegas, stopping off briefly for a few photos at the Hoover Dam, on the Arizona-Nevada state border - Safe to say it was rather impressive, although I guess it paled in significance to the wonders we'd already seen during the day, the Grand Canyon and of course Valentine....!!!!!!

Colorado - Utah - Monument Valley - Arizona

Good evening from Flagstaff, Arizona!!! We're both shattered tonight after what was a 3rd hardcore day of driving in a row - Monday's 740 miles & yesterdays 560 miles were joined by another 550 miles today, taking us to 1850 miles in 72 hours!!!!!!!! Crazy hey...our total milage driven for the trip is now around 5100 miles too!! But anyway, we got up early and left Eagle, Colorado this morning and had a pretty ace drive down through the Rockies all the way West to Utah, well almost...

Just before the Utah border, we had our second run-in with local law enforcement!!! Haha, this time it was my turn to be pulled over on the Highway, although unlike Michael I wasn't really speeding - I was doing 76 in a 75 and saw the car ages before it flashed for us to stop - the main reason for which was undoubtedly as we have New Jersey licence plates on our rental car, and thats a long way from Colorado!! Anyway, after having to "step out of the vehicle" and answering a lot of questions about the trip, to a Sheriff who ended up being a Federal Immigration Officer, we were back on the road!! We got into Utah and headed south down to Monument Valley, which as you can see from the photo above, was quite something!!!

We had an awesome time looking around there before heading to Flagstaff, Arizona to stay for the night. We were originally going to try go to the Grand Canyon this afternoon, but figured we might as well just do it in the morning, en route to VEGAS!!!!! Nevada will also be our 20th state of the trip after Colorado, Utah and Arizona!! So you might not be hearing from us again folks, who knows what we'll be getting up to this time tomorrow....

Santa Fe, New Mexico and Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado

Alright Folks!

Its been another eventful day on the road for us. We started out in Santa Fe, New Mexico first thing and had a good look around. Its a really cool place, very much like a Spanish or Mexican town would look...what a surprise! We left the downtown plaza area about 10 am and headed North towards Colorado. The views were spectacular and we caught our first real glimpse of the desert/scrub land that the area is famous for. Unfortunately we didn't have any Alien encounters but we get enough of them on the Isle of Man so we weren't too disappointed!

We made it to Colorado in the afternoon and headed for a town called Colorado Springs. Its recommended as a great place to see the rock formations and mountains. We weren't let down, the views were amazing and we took plenty of pics! The pic at the top is from a formation known as 'Garden of the Gods'. We paid a flying visit to Denver, just to check out the big city. It seemed nice enough but we couldn't stay long so we just had a bite to eat at 'The Cheesecake Factory' after it was recommended by a certain Geo Dassoulas, we wouldn't suggest ever taking his advise but for once it turned out ok!

We decided to drive for another 2 hours to get away from Denver and closer to Grand Junction for tomorrows big drive trough Monument Valley... We shall keep you posted :)

Dallas - Oklahoma City, OK - Santa Fe, New Mexico

Hey Hey - Just to let you know we've managed to make it to our 16th state, New Mexico!!!!!! We've driven about 760 miles today, which is a bit crazy really but we've done well, and managed to arrive in Santa Fe before midnight - We're in the Mountain time zone now though, so we're 7 hours behind you guys in the UK as oppose to the 6 we were yesterday!!

But yeah, Dallas was cool yesterday, especially as I randomly got to see one my friends from Uni last night who is living there doing some 'Soccer' coaching for the company I used to work for. As for today; We drove up to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma from Dallas & had a quick look around, mainly at the memorial for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, before embarking upon the mammoth drive West to here!! We were literally on the '40 West' for about 500 miles of the hike!! Had some absolutely unbelieveable storms tonight too from about 7pm as we crossed from upstate Texas into New Mexico, had to just stop the car at the side of the road with the hazard lights on at one point it was that bad - you've never seen rain or lightening like it!!!!!!! Obviously we found it awesome though!!

Luckily we don't have as far to drive tomorrow, just the 350-400 or so miles up to Denver, Colorado. Then we're going to stay somewhere West of there, ahead of getting up early on Wednesday to drive down Monument Valley & get to the Grand Canyon!!!!!!! So exciting times ahead...especially as we'll be heading to Vegas for Thursday and Friday night!! :-)

Dallas, Texas

Evenin/Mornin to all our followers ;)

We made it to Dallas today at a pretty decent time for us, it would have been around 3-30pm. We checked into the faithful Econo Lodge and headed straight to downtown Dallas, TX. The city seems a lot easier to navigate than Houston, and there are some impressive buildings around here too.

This morning was quite relaxed, we looked around Houston some, went to a park and took a few photos. The driving today was easy too, which is probably a good thing as tomorrow we have a 180 mile drive to Oklahoma City, OK followed by a further 550 miles to Albuquerque, NM. I think you can forgive us if we dont update the blog tomorrow then as we may be rather tired! Its all worth it though as we close in on the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas..!

Tomorrow is an early start, we will probably be on the road for over 10 hours plus a few stops for gas and a quick look round Oklahoma City for a fridge magnet! Should be a rather hot one too as we head off to the Wild West and finally get to see a bit of the desert :)

Houston, Texas

Hello from the biggest state in America, Texas!!!!! We're also in the 4th biggest city in the country, Houston. We didn't get here until about 8pm though, so we just grabbed a quick bite to eat and are going to have a good look around in the morning! We left the amazing New Orleans about 11.30 this morning and finally decided to get our trip to a launderette out of the way, we stopped by some place in Lafayette, Luoisiana and had a rather uneventful hour or so getting that out of the way!!

Today's drive was pretty straight forward though, we were pretty much on the same road West the whole way! We reckon we're up to just over 2900 miles driven in total now with a LOT still to go, especially over the next couple of days as we head towards the Grand Canyon & Vegas. Tomorrow sees us drive North to Dallas, which is only about 240 miles away, so compared to the 350 we drove today we're hoping to get there at a more respectable hour and hit the odd bar or three :-)

FL - Alabama - Mississippi - New Orleans, Louisiana

Well we eventually got ourselves out of the state of Florida on thursday morning, and into our 11th state, Alabama. We made a quick stop off in the city of Mobile, before quickly heading onto state 12 of the trip, Mississippi. I think it's fair to say this is definitely our least favourite state of the trip so far!! We weren't in Mississippi long, but based on 1st impressions I'd describe it as a weird mix of Jurby and Foxdale, with a bit of Peel sprinkled in for good measure!! Anyway we were into state 13, Louisiana before we knew it, although we got caught in yet another storm beforehand(another reason not to like Mississippi!!)...luckily for me it was during Alderman's driving shift!! :-)

Anyhow by about 4pm we had arrived in New Orleans and checked into our hotel!! So driving that bit extra the day before definitely paid off...!! We had a good walk around New Orleans - and quickly realised what an awesome place it is!! Just really chilled out with loads going on, we had some food and a few drinks at the Hard Rock cafe on the waterfront, before embarking on a walk through Bourbon Street, which lets just say was an experience!! Ha.

Today didn't really go to plan...after having our first lie in of the trip, we went for a good old run along the Mississippi River as you do in the blazing heat!! Anyway about 10 minutes after the run Alderman had a bit of a funny turn...felt dizzy and nauseous, before pretty much collapsing to the floor unable to move or speak!! So I had to go for help...and just pushed my way through a massive queue into some Aquarium which was nearby and got them to get a 1st aider and call an ambulance!! Don't worry though folks, he's healthy again...ambulance came & shipped him off to a local hospital, where he was pumped with plenty of liquids for being severely dehydrated!! He is fine now though...scared the shit out of me for a bit though!! So we've been here 2 weeks, and he's been in an ambulance and almost carted off in a police car, so he only needs a run in with a fire truck now and he'll have a full set!! I personally am glad to have had a contrastingly 'low key' fortnight...

Then tonight we've been to the Green Day gig, which we got our tickets to ages ago once we had a rough plan of our route in schedule!! It was absolutely awesome!!!!!!!!!!! It was at the New Orleans Arena, which was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel....Green Day in New Orleans is pretty special anyway, as after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans 'Superdrome' had to get done up again & relaunched, at which Green Day performed their song 'Saints Are Coming' live, as New Orleans American Football team are called the Saints!! So needless to say this song went down well live as they hadn't played it anywhere since that night!! They really were so good live, we're both fans of their older stuff really and haven't bought the new album but still really enjoyed it, especially the older stuff obviously;

...Like I said, they were awesome!!!!! Anyhow we leave New Orleans in the morning and will be heading on West to Houston, Texas - our 14 state...and the biggest one in the whole country!! So safe to say we have a few hardcore driving days ahead...bring them on :-)

Fort Walton Beach, FL

Evenin all, blogging to you from our new time zone (central) so for those back home its about 4am and were only at 10pm!

We had a pretty monster drive today, from St Petersburg to Fort Walton Beach. The original plan was to stop at Panama City, but we made good time so we came a bit further to lessen the distance we have to go tomorrow as we try and reach New Orleans.. Florida seems to go on forever....! We decided we wouldn't stop and do the laundry because, well.... who cares if we smell?? Only kiddin, we're definitely doing it tomorrow!

We sacked off the Sat Nav again today and pretty much made our own way here, with a tiny bit of help from the Clark's road atlas! (thanks guys) We decided to head off road a little, despite the warnings from the locals that 'that car will never make it down that track'..... She proved them all wrong, although when we pulled up at the hotel we noticed a lot of mud and dust marks....nothing a good old storm wont clean away tonight :) But mainly we stayed on the same road, following the coast, so the views were quite good. Tomorrow we continue west and aim for New Orleans ahead of the Green Day gig on Friday night!

Tampa Devil Rays v Boston Red Sox @ Tropicana Field, St.Petersburg, FL

After having such an awesome time @ Seaworld the drive to Tampa wasn't too bad traffic-wise, especially not after we got past Tampa & headed to St.Petersburg, where the Baseball stadium is!! We'd found some hotel nearby on the internet but it looked like the Jurby Hotel when we rolled up, so we quickly sped away without stopping & found another one nearby, which was a tad expensive but we managed to drop them down from $140 a night for a twin room to $99 with our charm, result!!

Anyway the game was due to start @ 7.08pm, so we got a free shuttle to the ground from just around the corner to our hotel, and headed to Tropicana Field to watch my beloved Red Sox...!! And Alderman's now I may add!! Game was awesome - pretty low scoring; 2-2 after the 9 innings but because there are no ties in Baseball, it ended up going to extra innings, before the Rays won 4-2 in the 13th :-( It was still awesome though, had some good banter with a few of the Tampa fans, there were loads of Red Sox fans there though as you'd expect, and we had really good seats. The game lasted 4 hours 58 minutes too...so we definitely got our moneys worth!!

Anyway we got back to the hotel about 12.30am and have a bit of a driving day ahead now, we're about to leave St.Petersburg and head North, and then West, to Panama City FL...which we're hoping will be a pretty ace drive!!

SeaWorld, Orlando FL

Well yesterday we visited our 3rd Park in Orlando, SeaWorld. We got up early and bought a ticket from the hotel, $77 which isn't too bad really (£45 in real money)! We decided to drive instead of shuttle bus becuase we had to take all our stuff with us as it was our last night in the hotel. We arrived just before opening and got a pretty good space right next to the entrance. With no real queue we went straight in and sraight on the best ride, The Manta! It was awesome, u fly around a roller coaster in a horizontal position pretty much skimming over the water. The wait said 90 minutes but it was more like 20 becuase it was so early. We then headed over to one of the stadiums to watch a killer whale show. The timing was perfect as the stand place was just opening. We had to endure a 45 minute wait in the blazing sun with no sun cream (as you do in 36 oC heat) but we got perfect seats right near the front so it was worth it. It was a really impressive show with plenty of splashing. The rest of the place was as you would expect from a SeaWorld I guess, plenty of penguins, sharks, aligators etc and an arctic helicopter simulator which was actually pretty cool (no pun intended)..

Becuase we had timed everything so well for a change we were all done by about 1pm, but it would have been rude not to ride The Manta again...! It was busiest time of the day but we still didn't have to wait long, this is why we loved SeaWorld so much! At Universal and Disney its the norm to queue for up to 2.5 hours..

Anyway, we hit the road by about 2pm and headed off to Tampa for the Baseball....

Orlando, FL

Evening from state number 10, Florida!! We've been in Orlando since friday night, and safe to say 3 nights later time has absolutely flown by!! We got up really early on saturday to head to Universal Studios, tickets were $99 each, which is a bit steep for a day but it let us go between the two parks, the original Universal Studios & then Islands of Adventure too. Both of which were absolutely awesome!! The queues weren't fantastic at times, we had to line up 2 hours to ride "The Hulk" but was well worth it!! We also managed to cure Alderman's 'fear' or rollercoasters too, so was definitely worthwhile!! We were both shattered after that though so just chilled out a bit yesterday & got a bit of Mall action on the go!! Then today was spent at Disney's Magic Kingdom...hmmm, I think we're both glad to say we went there but safe to say we wouldn't go back in a hurry!! Ha, should have gone to Epcot instead me thinks....but oh well!!

Anyway, tonight is our last night in Orlando - we've just got in from doing a "Geo & Cory" AKA going to the cinema - we watched 'The taking of Pelham 1 2 3' with Denzel & Travolta, awesome film!! Sorry enough of the reviews, we're up early in the morning to go to SeaWorld, which should be awesome, and then driving West to Tampa mid-afternoon to watch the RED SOX!!!!!!! They just so happen to be playing the Devil Rays @ Tropicana Field when we're in town...I can't wait!!!!!!!!!! :-) Plus St.Petersburg (In Tampa) is only about 70 miles away, so shouldn't take long to get there after SeaWorld'ing....