travelprayloveblog-blog - Tumblr blog

travelprayloveblog-blog · 7 years

Text

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” Myself and my best friend, Kaela embarked on the most evocative and enthralling of adventures, The Great American Road Trip.

Tinseltown

First stop – Los Angeles (or to give it it’s full title, “La Ciudad de la Reina de los Angeles”, which translates as “The City of the Queen of the Angels”). The supposed glitz and glamour of Hollywood was actually pretty disappointing, although an afternoon’s guided tour spent peering into the houses of the rich and famous in Beverly Hills was good fun.

Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier (the Western start/end point of Route 66) are also well worth a day’s visit. After a few days in LA, we hit the road on a Greyhound bus for the day’s drive up to San Francisco.

San Fran

San Francisco is surely one of the most beautiful cities in the US. The perfect antidote to the vast urban jungle of LA, San Francisco is far more welcoming and more accessible for visitors; it’s a city with soul and character. No trip there is complete without a walk around the San Francisco piers, ‘The Crookedest Street in the World’ and a visit to Alcatraz!

Kaela and I thought it would be a good idea to ride on the famous tram system up into the heart of San Fran. However, we didn’t quite realise we brought a one-way and jumping off quickly before the walk back got any longer. We then hit the road again on a Greyhound bus for the day’s drive across to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas

Next up was a two night stint in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a very surreal place and I felt that two or three nights spent there would be enough, unless you have serious money to burn. As is true of most American cities, people drive everywhere so even the main strip of Vegas (where all the billion-dollar casinos such as the Bellagio are) has relatively few pedestrians on it during the day and even fewer at night. The further away from the Strip you go, the less salubrious it gets. Not that you’d really want to leave the strip at night, as this is where all the best shows, restaurants and casinos are, but there are some parts of Vegas it’s best not to go after dark. We found ourselves getting lost in several hotels after wandering in!

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon was our penultimate stop and had a lot to live up to. The Grand Canyon is a phenomenon and nothing can prepare you for its sheer size and length. It also offers a unique window into the past, as the rock strata reveal deposition of sediment, changing environmental conditions and the fossils of animals deposited over hundreds of millions of years. Nothing can quite prepare you for the heat – with lunch included we looked forward to something refreshing until we were faced with a Chicken roast dinner to eat with the sun beating down!

After a shorter journey on the Greyhound Bus, we arrived back in LA, staying on Hollywood Boulevard this time instead of Santa Monica. The first night we watched LA Dodgers vs Arizona Diamondbacks which was great fun.Then we shopped till we dropped and saw the premieres of both ‘Inside Out’ and ‘Jurassic World’. We also took a very traditional trip to Disney Land in Anaheim using public transport costing a grand total of $1.25 each !!

Below are some of our holiday snaps, enjoy! Would love to here if you’ve done something similar or plan to. Leave your comments below:

San Fran Tram Ride

Dodgers vs Diamond Backs

Beverly Hills

Disney Land California

Las Vegas Water Shows

Grand Canyon

Las Vegas Fremont Street

Grand Canyon

Johns Tree Forest

Venice Beach

Santa Monica Pier

Venice Beach

Pier 39 – San Fran – Fishermans Wharf

The West of the US: Road Trip "Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road." Myself and my best friend, Kaela embarked on the

0 notes