Washington DC

Next destination, Washington DC.A stars and stripes elephant in your front yard…why not?!Obama’s pad…
The Lincoln Memorial. Truly amazing.The CapitolMartin Luther King Jr Memorial. The quotes at this memorial are beautiful but upsetting at the same time as the many things King wished for still aren’t a reality today. A typical Washington DC street.Our host’s dog Hermosa. She would go and fetch her owners shoes on command and was like a big, gentle bear ❤
Our street for the week.Adam’s MorganWe had a wonderful day at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. It is by far the best zoo I’ve ever visited. The environments the animals are kept in are really well designed and maintained. And the animals didn’t look depressed like in most zoos!Watching the world go by…A presidential mural.Air & Space Museum……where the Wright Brother’s plane is kept.Georgetown, a sweet leafy neighbourhood just outside the “serious” part of Washington.

Aug 16

Chicago

Chicago was amazing! Maybe it was because we weren’t expecting it to be as amazing as it was but it was really fantastic.

The train station that greeted us when we arrived gave good first impressions.

We had spectacular weather and really enjoyed walking all around the city for the first few days. The gardens are all beautifully maintained, Lake Michigan is gorgeous and the Chicago cityscape is wonderfully unique.

The Bean!

The underside of ‘The Bean’ is even cooler!A lot of The Dark Knight rises was filmed in Chicago so given the number of times we’ve watched that film, we recognised many parts of Chicago.
They’re totally serious about this too…ask for ketchup and they’ll just say “This is Chicago.”We had a wonderful evening watching the sun set from the John Hancock Centre. We went up to the cafe and ordered an overpriced drink each and stayed for as long as we possibly could. Watching the lights come on was really magical and a definite highlight of the trip so far. Mmm…banana & nutella crepes – nice healthy treat 😉We paid a visit to the very educational Adler Planetarium……and also learned that we need to start wearing something other than Havaianas!Our Air B’n’B host gave us free admission to the Art Institute of Chicago which was really good.Van Gogh is a particular favourite of ours. This is his self portrait and a gallery full of Monet’s work.There was a wonderful photography exhibition too which really inspired me. The guy can make a brown paper bag look good! That’s talent!The Chicago Cultural Centre with the amazing Tiffany dome.We also visited the Lincoln Park Zoo which is free and really quite good. How good is this guy’s tongue!Our last night in Chicago happened to coincide with the 30th annual Chicago Blues Festival which nicely capped off a jam packed and really enjoyable 5 days in Chicago.

Aug 10

New Orleans

What a wonderfully crazy place! We spent a week in New Orleans and it was just fantastic. It’s all about two things – food and music…nothing else matters. And they do it well – REALLY well 🙂Our home for the week. New Orleans Accommodation The legendary Kermit Ruffins!

Aug 10

San Diego to San Francisco – Highway 1

Monterey

Orange County

Gorgeous Santa Cruz was a real highlight of the trip!

The oldest wooden roller-coaster in the USA.

This was too impressive not to share. The guy standing in the middle of the three was holding the ball and the dude took a short run up, leaped over the top of the guys, grabbed the ball and slam dunked it. Crazy! Some fun San Francisco and Santa Cruz street art that we loved.

Aug 9

San Diego

I loved San Diego. It was so amazing to get back to the beach after our time in the desert.

Everyone had told us how much warmer the water was in San Diego than up further on the west coast but it was still freezing for us spoilt Queenslanders.

Love this guy’s solution to getting around quickly with a broken leg!The place we stayed in San Diego was amazing. Great location where we could walk everywhere and a very animated Air B’n’B host and his dog Cinnamon.

The view of San Diego city as the sun was setting from our private deck.The dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant in Little Italy is one of the best meals we’ve ever eaten! If you’re ever in San Diego, do yourself a favour and get down to Filippi’s. There’s the added fun of decorating the ceiling with your old wine bottles. Looks fantastic!The biggest pancake EVER! Not sure if you can quite gauge the size from the photo but just trust me when I say the strawberries sitting on it were big…We explored beautiful Balboa Park for hours. Other than the beaches this is the most fantastic part of San Diego.La Jolla beach and surrounds.There’s a huge sea lion colony there and they’re so funny.

Every time a wave comes they prop themselves up like they don’t want to get wet.

San Diego is gifted with some truly gorgeous coastline…

Aug 5

Grand Canyon

Next on the journey was the Grand Canyon. It was amazing to see it in person.

The photos never do it justice but here are my attempts.

Our campground…

…and another camp stove masterpiece by Andrew 😉

A stunning sunset.

And an equally amazing sunrise.

Aug 5

Zion Part Two

Our second day in Zion National Park was amazing…
We did the Angel’s Landing hike which is quite a strenuous hike but so worth it. For the last part of the hike you have to hang on to chains to keep you balanced.

A nice little chipmunk we saw at the end of the hike who had become quite crafty at snatching food from unsuspecting hikers.

We made it to the top…

…and the view was definitely worth it! (click for a larger version of this one)

Then it was time to hit the open road again. The sky seems so big in the desert.

This was our camp spot for the night. Andrew can really work wonders on a camp stove! No-one in sight and deers walking by which was amazing but it was freezing cold at 7000 ft.

Jul 12

Zion Part One

Next on the road trip was Zion National Park.

It is so stunning and unlike anywhere I’ve seen before. We did a 3 hour hike the first afternoon we arrived. The sun came out just as we reached the peak which was wonderful as the colours were all so much more vibrant. We had a lovely campground for the night right next to a stream…and an RV with a labrador 🙂

Jul 12

Las Vegas

After several hours and many miles of driving we arrived at our next destination – LAS VEGAS! What a crazy place this is. Having come from the amazing natural beauty and chilly temperatures of Yosemite, it was quite a shock arriving in the desert to a place that is so man-made and commercial. To be completely honest, it’s not really our scene but it was cool to see Vegas simply for the spectacle of it all.