Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hi everyone, it has been a little while since I last did a blog entry and this is not due to laziness but mainly due to the lack of internet access we seem to have here. Also we have had quite the hectic past couple of weeks in between coachella and vegas as well as spending quite a bit of time on the road. So I'll get stuck into the update.
So taking off from the last blog we made our way from the californian coast inland into desert country nereby the californian and nevada border at a place called Coachella for the Coachella music festival. This went for three days beginning on friday and finishing sunday night. We decided to get there a couple of days early so to avoid the made rush of people and to set ourselves up for the three days ahead and try and suss out a place to park the RV. We didnt have much luck finding a place where we could park which began to worry us, so we decided to stay at the Walmart carpark for the night and try again the following day. The next day our luck changed immediately and we were ushered into a carparking lot just behind the festival gates where we stayed for the entire day in complete solitude, there was not another car insight. The next day the festival began and the following three days were really awesome. We saw some tops bands including. The gaslight anthem, the hold steady, peter bjorn and john, paul mccartney, the presets, band of horses, the killers and the yeah yeah yeahs, all of which we thoroughly enjoyed. Probably the only downside to the festival was having to pay $7USD for a single cup of beer! Daylight robbery I say! Nevertheless i managed to 'acquire' a few through the old 'Im waiting on two heineken' trick, which I initially discovered at a festival in Brisbane a little while back. Works everytime!
After Coachella we began to make our way out to Phoenix in Arizona with a plan to do a bit of loop and pick up a few national parks on the way before heading back to Las Vegas, Nevada for the weekend. We headed out to Phoenix and stayed at an RV park a little while out of town in the middle of desert counrty. We chilled here for one night and dumped our tanks and filled our water and the next morning we were off again. We headed directly north and made our way to the Grand Canyon. The drive to the Grand Canyon was awesome. At one moment your climbing upwards through desert dotted with cactus along canyons and hills and then you reach at plateau which last for some miles and the views are far and spectacular. One thing about the roads here in the states is that they send you right through where you want to be, they dont send you along a flat, straight boring stretch of road in the middle of no where, but through areas where the road winds along canyons and tunnels through cliff faces, and runs along rivers it is really is cool. We eventually made it to the Grand Canyon late in the afternoon but with enough daylight left to thoroughly enjoy and absorb one of the most amazing things i will see in my life. The sheer size of the canyon needs to be seen to truly appreciate it. Initailly my perception of the canyon was a reasonably large hole comprising of a desert red rock. This was far from the case the Canyon ranges in colours all of which represent a period of time over the billions of years in which it was created, and then at the bottom of the 2 mile plus gorges which continue on for hundreds of miles left and right flows the colorado river. We spent the remaining afternoon at the grand canyonn as well as the best part of the following day. Mostly just sitting out on a cliff face overlooking one of the most amazing sights the US and world has to offer. After the grand canyon we continued north and headed into Utah to go and see the Zion national park. This was another awesome place which we all thoroughly enjoyed. The best thing about Zion was that we entered the park at the top of a canyon and drove our way through and down the canyon before continuing on out the otherside. Another truly amazing drive and an amazing experience.
After Zion we began to make our way back to Las Vegas in Nevada for the weekend. We arrived there on Wednesday night and after driving up and down the strip a couple of times we decided to stay in on Wednesday night as the following days were to be very hectic! The next night Thursday we found an appropriate place to park to the RV, behing excaliber casino on the main strip and we started to kick off the festivities. After having a few drinks in our RV it was time to hit the strip and have a punt! The rigbys decided they would stay in for one more night so it was Black and Damon Vegas assault! We covered a fair bit of ground on the first night 'casino hopping' and having a punt here and there in each one we visited. We ended up at Caesers palace playing Black Jack and it was here my fortunes prospered! Things began to get out of hand when i began to bet all i won on each previous hand, much to the discretion of our attractive German dealer (i think she was looking out for me and didnt want me to lose) i continued on with this form for the following four or so hands before i had a healthy stack of chips. The remainder of the night went reasonably well which was obvious to all still around as on a frequent basis two australian squids would be lapping the casino floor and performing running high fives after any wins.
The following nights continued on in the same fashion there was slightly less gambling involved though as we decided just to hit the clubs and concentrate more on partying. However one upside to gambling (aside from winning of course) is that you get free drinks whilst playing. So each night we would start with some light betting whilst getting free drinks and if worse came to worse you would only lose the money you would have spent drinking otherwise. So fastforwarding through the details of friday and saturday night which can be gapped with your imaginations we woke up sunday in a somewhat terrible state, however we were keen to check out the Hard Rock Cafe rehab sunday session pool party so with that in mind it was a corona for breakfast and back on the Vegas train! Unfortunately when we arrived to the Hard Rock Cafe and waited in line to get into the rehab pool party the muppets at the door wanted 100USD cover charge just to get in! So we told them to get stuffed, had a few more beers and went back to the RV to sleep it off before embarking on some solid driving the following day.
The next day we began driving east out to Utah on the way to Colorado. We stayed at an RV park for the night at Utah before continuing on the next day. The next we drove to a place where the beer flows like wine and the women instinctively flock like the salmon of capirstrana, I'm talking about a little place called Aspen. (A dumb and dumber line for all those not in the know). Aspen was a bit smaller than I expected it is quite small little ski village full of rich people with awesome lodges. One thing we did notice was the amount of property for sale, obviously the economic crisis is hitting them hard in Aspen. Unfortunately the weather atm the moment doesnt make for the most breathtaking scenery in Aspen. It's no longer winter and it's nto quite summer so the snow is melting and turning icy and brown and anything that doenst have snow in it is dead and grey. nevertheless you can certainly imagine the beauty this place would have in winter. As we proceeded further north towards denver onto our next location, boulder we began to ascend a little higher and the scenery dispite the melting snow was awesome. Once again we drove some amazing roads running along the colorado river in between mountains and gorges passing through ski village along the way. We made it to boulder late wednesday night. The reason we came here was to visit some people we met in Cancun Mexico. Boulder is primarily a university town so a part from studying and attending class the only other thing to do particuarly when there is no snow left is to party. Unfortunately for us we have picked the worst weekend to arrive as everyone is in exam block and studying rather intensely. They are also probably not too impressed by four tourist coming into their quiet library and hogging the computers for the past 4 hours checking facebook, the currency exchange whilst shouting out across the room the CVN has jumped up to 44 cents. Thats where i will leave you today, its time for me to leave this library, it's starting to bring back memories of the long arduous hours i spent in such a place during my university years.
- comments