The Grand Canyon and the start of a road trip!

After spending a rather chilled week with my parents (whom are currently holidaying here in America) in Las Vegas, it was time to move on. Our next destinations and planned trip I was really excited for, not only was I finally on the move again, I was now on track to see all these amazing places I had always wanted to see, as well as being able to do them with my parents.

Our first destination? The Grand Canyon!

There is a heap of options on how to see the Grand Canyon. The most extravagant of which was a bus ride to the rim, a quick helicopter ride from the rim down into the canyon itself, followed by a casual boat trip along the river that runs through it! Wow! Boating along inside the canyon sounds unreal!... yeah... it sounds great until you read that is it $300 each, and the entire day goes for 13 hours... ha! Not happening.

Instead we decided upon a 1 - hour plan flight tour over the canyon, a very awesome second choice I'd say. The result? Amazing!

Granted the flight was at 6am... which meant waking up at 4am... but the excitement for the day overruled any exhaustion! Plus it did allow for some really great views of the sun rising. Again, I will let the pictures do most of the talking here, however I fear that they in no way do the Grand Canyon the justice it earned.

"Erghhh... 5am wake up is tough..."

Waiting for our flight

And we are off to our plane! Check out the perfectly clear skies!

All strapped in!

And we're all ready...

And now we're off!

The Hoover Dam!

Time to land!

The pictures are a poor constitute, but I hope you can imagine the grandeur that it inspires when you are actually there. I would of really loved the boat ride along the river inside the canyon, but the plane ride was still awesome. I think whichever way you decide to see it the affect will be the same.

Upon landing we got dropped off to our hotel, then it was straight to the hire car place, and not long after (despite Dad's glacial pace when dealing with customer service people) we were on the road! Our first stop was to be a town called Bakersfield which is directly half way between Las Vegas and San Francisco, so we will spend the night there to break up the drive a little. Plus it provides a great launch pad to see Kings Canyon National Park the following day! The Kings Canyon National Park is the south-west part of the Yosemite National Park, so I am predicting great things ahead!

The planned route for the drive

3 hours later we arrived in Bakersfield! And what a dodgy town it is haha... the shadiest of people walking the streets even during the day, but we were only staying the night so it's not so bad. Our motel room is actually really epic too.

Mum and Dad insisted upon Italian food despite my lack of belief that a country town in the deserts of America would have too great of an idea of what Italian is meant to be like. It turned out pretty alright.

Then we got lost making our way back to the motel (I think a solid 70% of our time traveling together is spent looking at maps, signs, asking people for directions, U-turns, tantrums, and claims that 'this is definitely the right way!').

Tomorrow is going to be amazing I am so excited, the Kings Canyon looks incredible on Google searches.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas, a theme park for adults.

Cool so after finally getting out of Los Angeles to meet my parents here in Las Vegas, I honestly don't have too much to say about this place (which may sound surprising), it was cool, but nothing amazing. Well, not for a highly budget conscious backpacker in the company of his parents that is. I think to enjoy Las Vegas in the traditional sense (wild nights, gambling, drinking and crazyness) you need to have some great mates with you and not care about your budget or expenses what so ever.

In saying all that however I still had a really great time just chilling out with my parents, it had been 2 months since I had last seen them so that in itself was rewarding enough, but also just to have some nice, reliable company for a week. Not to mention them letting me stay in their hotel rooms!

Living out of hostels and a backpack is exhausting...

The main part of Las Vegas is on the Las Vegas Boulevard (aka The Strip), a large road that runs straight through the center of Las Vegas from one side to the other with all the big casinos along this one road. They are all absolutely huge, and way over the top, and have fierce competition in trying to attract you in to spend your money with them. The winner here is the tourist with so much to see and do!

I will let pictures do most of the talking.

No need to go to Paris now, I've already seen everything there is to see now!

Inside the Pairs casino, with the ceiling painted like that it made for a really cool atmosphere!

Excalibor Casino, pretty epic

New York New York Casino, amazing

Bumblebee beak dancing in the street

As I mentioned, all the casinos try their best to attract you in so a lot of them have these amazing free shows. The Ballagio Casino has this really impressive water show with jets of water shooting about perfect choreography in tune with a song. It was really well done.

It was so good in fact that my parents and I went back that night to catch it again. Oh and Travel Buddy joined us!

It's a big city for a small bear!

"Woah!"

We then went into the older part of town to a place called Fremont, where they have this huge 200m or so long LED screen which basically acts as a roof of an entire street. They put on a really great light and sound display show every hour, it was insane.

Then I found this place. I already have a continually diminishing respect and view of America, and a place like this just takes it to a whole new level. It is called the Heart Attack Grill where they have these massive burgers, and out the front they advertise that if you are 350 pounds or more you get to eat there for free. 350 pounds! Only in America...

Afterwards there was still so much to explore.

Mirage Casino

Luxor Casino... one of my favourites!

How impressive is that! It is hard to make out, but there is a gigantic black glassed pyramid that is the actual casino and hotel! With a huge Sphinx out the front for an entrance. This Casino was easily one of my favourite in terms of theme and the impressiveness of the engineering that went into designing and building it.

Inside the Luxor, very cool!

The next day my mum and I went out to explore a few more casinos we had yet to see.

Venetian Casino... can you guessed the theme?

 

Inside the Venetian, pretty impressive

Mum and I in the Venetian, they had a replica of the canals!

And that was just a small taste of how the last week has been like. But yes, in essence, nothing too crazy happened. Which is cool by me.

My best advice I can give about this town is how to get free drinks at the casinos. Simply sit and pretend to gamble, whether you are sitting at the slot machines, or at the craps table, and just do a bit of arm waving in 'frustration' that you didn't win and before long a waitress comes around asking if you'd like a drink! You could really do it all day if you wanted. There was one time I was sitting at a slot machine simply waiting for my parents, not even pretending to gamble or anything, heck I wasn't even facing the machine and a waitress came and offered me a drink haha!

Oh and another piece of advice is to chat to absolutely anyone, Las Vegas I would guess consists on more tourists then locals, with the spectrum of the type of people varying dramatically. For the first few days I was alone before my parents arrived and one night I went to grab some dinner at an outside burger bar, while there I got talking to this sitting next to me and before long 2 hours had gone by and I left noticeably more knowledgeable about Canada, it's people, the rules and potential excitement of the game billiards (pool table), and how much 'better' British Canadian citizens are so much cooler then the French ones haha! Great night.

And that, rather anti-climatically I admit, was Las Vegas... ha! Mostly consisting of walking around with my parents, checking out all the free attractions, and thoroughly enjoying having the privacy and space of a hotel room for a change. It really was a great week and I don't think I could of asked for it to be any better really.

 

With Las Vegas accomplished it is time to hit the road! And what a really amazing upcoming days we have planned! With my parents staying for another week in America, tomorrow morning we are touring the Grand Canyon! Followed by us picking up a hire car and driving to Kings Canyon National Park! Then slowly making our way to San Francisco! 

It is going to be legen - wait for it - dary!

Forth attempt to leave Los Angeles...

Thus far I have failed to leave Los Angeles three times. The first was due to hurting my ankle and not being able to move around much, therefore making traveling to a new location rather pointless until it had healed. The second, I tried to organize to drive myself to San Francisco... which didn't quite work. Sigh. The third attempt was just two days ago when my new friend Sandra and I had organized this awesome 2-week driving trip to Las Vegas... the fact that she is now in Mexico instead gives you a pretty good idea on how that worked out.

You know how the saying goes "If at first you don't succeed in traveling around a country for what is meant to be a once in a life time adventure in a foreign country... just, I don't know, try again I guess"

Or something like that.

Anyway so my parents are in America at the moment on a two week holiday, arriving in New York a few days ago and will be flying to Las Vegas in a few days time.

So I guess... Las Vegas it is!

This time there was to be no hire cars (I've learned my lesson) so I would be busing from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, a pretty easy 5 hour trip. Upon waking up I turned my phone on, 5 minutes later I receive a call. It's the bus company... what do they want?

"Hi Aaron, sorry to inform you but your 4pm bus booked with us has been cancelled"

Noooooo way! No no no no! This isn't happening, as if for the forth time the Universe is stopping me from leaving Los Angeles... this is just insane! After my lengthy brief moment of this-is-just-ridiculous-why-does-this-keep-happening freakout however the lady informs me that I am free to take a 1pm bus instead.

Ah, ok, I guess that's alright then.

So... for the forth time now... I say goodbye to all my friends and the staff (who I also now count to be really great friends) at my hostel in Los Angeles. This goodbye, despite my many failed attempts at leaving, actually felt more serious somehow. It was as if everyone (and even me) knew that this time would actually be the day I am leaving for good. The staff were so cool, giving me some really cool goodbyes and well wishes, oh and it just happened to be my birthday (sigh... 24 years old today... I don't want to talk about it...), so a lot of awesome 'happy birthdays' were thrown around the hostel also =)

Man I loved staying at this hostel so much, I made so many amazing friends who have come and gone (the worst part about traveling...); Manuel (Holland), Jon-Paul (America), Lewis (England), Vanessa (Venezuela), Julia (Germany) and Nathan (America), who were the very first friends I made here in America and some of whom I had one of my favourite highlights of my trip with climbing to the Hollywood sign. Mikael (Denmark) who introduced me to the LA Downtown Bookstore (which was amazing) and I spent a day with at the LA Museum of Natural History was just such a cool guy and I really hope to see again someday. Stefanie (Germany) who was just a really cool girl and I loved talking to. Sandra (Germany) and Lorenzo (Italy) I met just the other day who I had one of my most favourite days on my entire trip with. And it was only two days ago I met and became great friends with Adele (France), one of the coolest people I've met on the entire trip.

Just so many countless memories. After 7 weeks in Los Angeles however, it was time to leave.

Awesomely Adele accompanied me into Downtown (where I was to be getting the bus to Las Vegas) which made the trip much more enjoyable, and after a quick goodbye I was gone for good.

The drive was great! 5 hours absolutely flew by (besides the lady that could only speak Spanish wanting to sit next to me despite the plethora of vacant seats available...), and the views on the way were amazing!

I really wanted to get a great shot of seeing Las Vegas out in the distance all alone in the middle of the desert... but just before it came into sight I fell asleep, then woke up as the bus pulled up at our stop in the heart of the city... yay.

It was late in the afternoon by this stage so I went straight to my hostel... which was only $12 a night ha! Although you kind of get what you pay for, the place was good but was in no way great, it was basically like one of those country motels you see in the movies... except there is 8 other people in the same room as you. And I seen 3 cockroaches in the parking lot before I even reached the front door. And they closed the common room at 11pm. Seriously?

Across the road there is two Las Vegas wedding chapels... both of which were surprisingly rather busy! I don't really put much thought at all at how I'd like my wedding to be, I feel I'd be pretty easy going on where it is and what it is like, but even I would draw the line at 'Las Vegas chapel wedding'... ha!

One of the wedding chapels that was across the road. Ladies, get ready for the dream day!

I am really looking forward towards for my parents arrival (I have now been in the states for 7 weeks!), we have some awesome sights and trips planned, including a drive to Yosemite National Park (one of my must see places!) and then heading over to San Francisco. It will be great having some company, not to mention the... generosity of my parents letting me stay in their hotel rooms for a few nights =D

After 7 weeks of hostels, that will be a much welcomed relief!

Until then however I guess I will make some new friends and see what all the fuss of this town is all about. Thus far all I have gathered is that it is rather hot (even for Australian standards) and extremely dry, carrying around water with you is a must.

Let's see what happens shall we?