Well what a night. The NBA game (game 2 final between Golden
State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers) was everything I expected and
more. The only disappointments were the
cheering (so boring and tame compared to the EPL), and the blowout score at the
end, but there was no way I was leaving early.
The place was electric, and I was amazed to discover that the couple seated
beside us were locals and she hadn’t been to an NBA game, while he had only
been to one NBA game. We had
accommodation about 1.5kms from the arena, so walked there and back saving
parking fees of $40 (ouch!!). We also
saved time sitting in traffic at the end of the game. My issue was with
sitting in the traffic it was everywhere! And if you ask Peter, he received a bit of a
fright, when he had all these ramps and freeways to get on various roads. Mind boggling!
The referees did OK, but with a few dodgy
calls that didn’t impact on the result. Always the Referee!
I was trying to work out why people were
using the term the Dubs, so asked a person instead of Dr Google. It is short for W. Sound it out Double U – Dubs. I on the other hand
had two young lads from Ireland, they told me what it meant! They were hilarious and told me things crowd
wise!
On the way back to our accommodation at a
set of traffic lights, a policeman stopped the traffic for us and escorted us
across. The only problem was one driver
didn’t see him and the policeman yelled at him to stop twice before he
stopped. When we made it across safely,
I handed the policeman a game poster we had picked up. This definitely made him happy again.
Our meal at a nearby pub after the game
reminded me of Kiribati. I had a lump of
rice and some green stuff beside my (dry) salmon, while Denise got her beer in a
plastic cup. When Denise said “what no
glass” the response was they had run out of clean glasses. The place was nowhere near full, and in fact
only about 15-20% full. The thing that
really annoyed me was having to leave a tip. Tight!
Before the game we drove from San Francisco
to Oakland via many of the steep streets.
We followed the cable car route, and then looked up the steepest street
in the city before going to see the home where “Mrs Doubtfire” worked. On the way over the San Francisco - Oakland
Bay Bridge we stopped in at Treasure Island just to see what was there. We should have just checked Dr Google.
The next day it was off to Yosemite National
Park. What a stunning and amazing
place. This place is compact so you can
see it all quickly (not really, just humour him), but
to see it properly you need weeks. We
were staying about an hour away, so the following day we set off early. Denise did the lower falls of Yosemite, while
I decided to challenge the top of the Upper Falls. It was a tough walk, graded as Strenuous
(steep and long).. At 11.6 km round-trip; 6 to 8 hours; 1,000m elevation gain,
the challenge had been accepted, and after 4 hours I returned totally
spent. Amazingly, I didn’t have any
pains the next day. Must have been the ice
cream cone I had as my reward.
On our way to Yosemite, Denise made a great
choice of coffee places. Check out the
website for Bottoms Up Coffee. It is a
drive through and when I check it out I was pleasantly surprised. Great choice Denise. We can go back there any time. This is one of those
choices that will Haunt me for the rest of my Life. I was surprised his eyes didn’t fall out of
his head. Very close to a biff in the
ear!!!
Drivers here don’t know, or don’t care if
they are holding up traffic, particularly on steep windy roads. When you have signs to say to allow faster
traffic to pass and places to pull in to allow this, many just ignore them.
The roads we have driven on create some
amazing road noises. Some sound like you
have a mechanical issue or a flat, and one even felt like a theme park ride
with all the undulating bumps in it.
We are now on to our second car on this part
of the trip after two warning lights came on.
After reporting this to Budget we were going to drive to Las Vegas to
replace it, but as we were going through Death Valley in summer, I erred on the
side of caution after reading the extreme heat warning. We took a 200km detour to replace the car
(another upgrade from a Passat to a new Chev SUV), and in the process we missed
out on the remainder of Yosemite and Mammoth Mountain (ski area).
On our travels we have passed groves of
Eucalypt trees. According to Dr Google,
they were introduced during the Gold Rush days.
We have discovered that in the US, Apple
Maps is better than Google Maps, but we still use both as we travel to confirm
and validate where we are going. I am
surprised at the number of places that have no mobile phone reception, and even
more surprised when we do get reception in some out of the way places. One of the problems with this is as we use
our phone for navigation, if we don’t have the full journey, it sometime proves
impossible to get the next set of directions.
We haven’t got too lost yet.
I was surprised I didn’t hear from any of
you about the Blues win. I did wake up
at 3am (accidentally), but didn’t realise the game was on. That will have to be a
first! (Him not saying anything)
Well I think summer has arrived. Since the beginning of this week I haven’t
touched my long pants, and in fact packed them away in the pile of things I don’t
believe I no longer require on this trip (includes ski clothing). Our first day in Yosemite saw the car
displayed the outside air temperature reading at 38c (100f). With the replacement car it took me until the
second day to discover the outside temperature reading. At one point I put sunscreen on my ear as it
was hot and I thought it was in the sun, only to realise that it was the heat
from the window.
Death Valley is another amazing place. I expected flat wasteland, and instead
encountered some beautiful colourful scenery.
I think I have said before, that you can have your cities and old
buildings, I want to see the sights, and scenery. The temperature in Death Valley reached 103F
(40C) according to the car, but one of the visitors centres was showing 109F. The drive to Las Vegas was still through some
nice country.
The only reason for us going to Las Vegas
was to see the Grand Canyon. Las Vegas
is all I thought it would be and more - very tacky. We had booked an all day trip to the Grand
Canyon that departed from our hotel at 05:50, only to have it cancelled the
evening before we were due to depart. Not
having too many options we agreed to do a sunset trip, which meant we couldn’t
do any shows. Although disappointed with
missing out on our preferred tour, this still proved worthwhile. We were picked up in a Mercedes limo/bus, and
on the way home got the driver to drop us off at the water fountain display
(Fountains of Bellagio), which was very underwhelming for what I expected. It is nothing
compared to Dubai but what is the problem!
The flight was great, going over Lake Las
Vegas (home to many stars), Lake Mead and Hoover Dam, and finally a small part
of the Grand Canyon. The canyon is over
400km in length so we were never going to see it all. Our pilot said we saw about 5%. We actually landed in the canyon and had
about 40mins to wander round before heading back to Vegas, via a fuel stop in
the middle of the desert. Apparently we
wouldn’t have made it back without that stop.
Flying back in to Vegas was at sunset so we had a great view of the
lights. If it
had been just a little bit darker the colours of all the hotels would have been
on display.
The thing that got me most about Vegas was
the smoking and drinking. You couldn’t
go anywhere without the smell of cigarette smoke (with the exception of the
chopper flight), and even when I went out for a walk at 8am, there were many
people still drinking in the street, but very little litter on the ground, so
they must have a great cleanup crew.
If you hadn’t already guessed, I was glad to
get out of Vegas. The next part of our
trip was to see Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks in Utah. The trip up held another surprise when the
highway went through Virgin River Gorge in the NW corner of Arizona. Another place with spectacular scenery. The trip up also gave us our fastest speed
limit yet at 80MPH which makes getting to places so much quicker. I suppose it was at the expense of fuel economy,
but I enjoyed the drive.
On arrival at our accommodation we decided
to check out Bryce Canyon before sunset and discovered Red Canyon on the way. Once in Bryce we went to the end of the road
and called into the places on the way back.
Bryce Canyon is another amazing park. He is hoping not to
have to go back again tomorrow but I have a little surprise for him. Hehehehehe
We are now into our final week and are
starting to think about our own house and bed, and no more travelling, but that
won’t last too long.
So, it is goodbye from him and
tooroo from me
Big hugs and kisses
Denise and the Boy
xxxxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment