Aussies beat the heat and escape to a Winter Wonderland! 01/06 COMPLETE!

[Lulu83]

Welcome!
After the lovely words of encouragement from some of my fellow Aussies on the board I’m going to officially start my first TR; a recap of my US/Canada trip from December 2010/January 2011. I know that I find it easiest to read TRs with a contents page so I’ll try to remember to keep this first thread updated with links as I go to return the favour!

Background
Itinerary
Departure and Day One: Los Angeles to San Diego
Day Two – San Diego to Phoenix
Day Three – Phoenix to the Grand Canyon
Day Four - Sedona to Vegas
Day Five - Vegas
Day Six – Vegas to LA
Day`Seven and Eight – LA to San Francisco via the Pacific Coast Highway
Day Nine – San Francisco
Days Ten, Eleven and Twelve – Seattle - Part One
Days Ten, Eleven and Twelve – Seattle - Part Two
Days Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen – Vancouver
Days Sixteen and Seventeen - Montreal
Day Eighteen – Toronto
Day Nineteen - Niagara Falls
Day Twenty - Niagara Falls to New York
Days Twenty One to Twenty Five - New York - Part One
Days Twenty One to Twenty Five - New York - Part Two
Day Twenty Six - Washington DC - Part One
Day Twenty Seven - Washington DC - Part Two
Day Twenty Eight & Twenty Nine - Boston via NYC
Day Thirty - Disneyland Part One
Day Thirty - Disneyland Part Two
Day Thirty One - LA
Thank you!


Okay so first to kick things off next up I’ll give a bit of a background..

 

[Lulu83]

The main characters in this TR:
On the trip were myself and DF (although we weren’t actually engaged at that stage so he was my plain old DBF at the time!)

I’m a 27 year old Occupational Therapist. I am a very wordy writer (as you’re all about to find out ) and love organising and planning things! I spent a lot of time researching our trip. All of our accommodation, except for one night, was booked before we left, and I lived on Trip Advisor while I was booking it. I also researched transport and booked rental cars, Amtrak and VIA Rail tickets in advance; and the Lonely Planet USA Guide spent many months on my bedside table. Oddly one of the things I didn’t plan in advance was our time at Disneyland. I don’t think I could even name more than a few rides before our visit! Of course I have since been converted to a diehard Disney freak, am planning a Disney wedding and have spent hours on these boards, but more about that later..

DF is 31, also works in health, and is incredibly easy going, happy to let me do all the planning, not fazed by anything (such as things not going to plan followed by me having a mini-breakdown as a result of this) and the perfect travelling companion! We’ve been together just under 2 years and live in sunny Perth with our two lovely “boys” (dog and budgie) and became engaged in April. We love travelling and planning our next holiday is what gets us through the long work days!

How this trip came about:
We had done a few small trips together before, mainly weekend trips to the Margaret River region but also Singapore and a cruise on the Superstar Virgo in early 2010. We had also travelled separately before we met each other; I’d never been to the USA before but DF had a short trip to the west coast for a conference several years ago and had wanted to go back ever since. Initially we were going to spend a fortnight in Japan in late 2010 to watch the Formula One Grand Prix (we’re both huge fans) but I knew how badly DF wanted to go back to the States and we both had quite a bit of annual leave up our sleeves so we decided to change our original plans and go on a bigger adventure.

Disclaimer: We really wanted to experience as much of the US and Canada as we possibly could so our trip focussed more on seeing as many places as possible, then fully exploring each place and because of this I’m sure I won’t be doing the cities justice and telling you about everything they have to offer. I know a lot of travel books warn about spending too much precious holiday time travelling around, but by carefully planning this in advance (e.g. so we usually arrived at a new place in the evening or morning to avoid spending the best part of the day travelling) we felt we maximised our time well and never became overwhelmed or over-tired. We both love road trips so we didn’t consider the self-driving as being “in transit” but as part of the experience. We always intended to go back and have a more leisurely holiday after we knew where our favourite places were, so we were reassured by that thought whenever we were sad to leave somewhere behind. We found constantly staying in a new place exciting rather than irritating and luckily weren’t affected by jet lag after our first day. Thankfully DF is pretty fit and strong and was happy to lug our suitcases around from place to place; if I was on my own this definitely would have been a problem, especially after taking advantage of the strong Aussie dollar and buying 26kg worth of shopping

Why winter?
I think it’s really important to explain the timing of this trip since we copped a fair bit of negativity about it before we left! We wanted to go in winter because it’s our favourite season (maybe it’s all the snuggling?) and we loved the thought of missing a sweltering Perth summer! Just about everybody we told about our trip in the planning stages commented on how much we’d hate the cold blah blah etc. I’m so glad we didn’t listen to them because it was one of the best decisions we made. We’re planning our next trip for late autumn/early winter and don’t think we’d consider visiting in the warmer months now! I did spend a lot of time researching the kind of clothing we’d need before we left (for the east coast and Canada) and you can read my advice on this here

Because I’m such a huge advocate of winter travelling I’ve even done up a pros and cons list to try and convert you all..

Pros
• Getting to experience something different. We get enough warm weather here! Plus the scenery is so different in winter so a lot of the sights we saw were very different (and sometimes more beautiful) to what we’d seen in our friends travel photos etc.
• Travelling off-peak means things are often cheaper (e.g. accommodation) and a LOT less crowded which is a MASSIVE advantage for me! We had a 5-10 minute wait to catch the boat to Liberty Island, walked straight up the Empire State Building, got passes to go up the Washington Monument immediately etc.
• It’s easier to plan at short notice as things aren’t booked out. We booked a Broadway show (Wicked) on the same day, saw a Cirque Du Soleil show in Vegas with one day notice and were able to book flights and accommodation only about 6 months out.
• You get to experience the festive season if you go at the right time (white Christmas anyone?). We had an awesome New Years Eve in Vegas and loved seeing the Christmas decorations that were still up.

[Cons
• Obviously it’s cold. We both thought this was actually a pro, but I guess for those who don’t like cooler weather or would be bothered by the extra clothing it could be a disadvantage? There were only a few places I felt were too cold for us to fully enjoy (Montreal and Boston) and although we had a great time, we were mainly indoors (or freezing our butts off!)
• Some things shut down for the winter (e.g. the maid of the mist boat ride at Niagara Falls) or have shorter opening hours (e.g. Disneyland)
• There is a risk of being snowed in. This fortunately only happened to us twice – our plane was delayed once (internal flight from Buffalo to NYC), and another time we were snowed in by road and missed seeing the Grand Canyon as a result after diverting to Sedona for the night

Well think I’ve bored everybody enough with the details, well done if you’re still with me!

Next up - Our itinerary

 

[Lulu83]

Our 5 week itinerary in a nutshell - Warning: not for the faint hearted!

1. Flight from Perth to Los Angeles (26th December 2010)
2. Drive from Los Angeles to San Diego
3. Drive from San Diego to Phoenix
4. Drive from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon (which ended up changing to Sedona due to snow – yup we got snowed in in the desert!)
5. Drive from Grand Canyon (or more accurately Sedona) to Vegas
6. A few nights in Vegas including New Years Eve!
7. Drive from Vegas back to Los Angeles
8. Driving the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway from LA to San Francisco (with a one night stopover along the way) for a few days
9. Flight from San Fran to Seattle for a few days
10. Train from Seattle to Vancouver for a few days
11. Flight from Vancouver to Montreal for a few days
12. Train from Montreal to Toronto then to Niagara Falls Ontario for a few days
13. Train from Niagara to Buffalo, then flight from Buffalo to New York for our longest stay in a single place!
14. Train from New York to Washington DC for a few days
15. Train back to New York for one last night in the Big Apple
16. Train to Boston for a night
17. Flight back to Los Angeles, then two nights in Anaheim (Disneyland ) to finish up
18. Arrived back in Perth (28th of January 2011) but not without promising to return as soon as we can!

Next up - Day One: our adventure begins!

 

[Lulu83]

Departure and Day One: Los Angeles to San Diego

The international travel was definitely my least favourite part of the holiday. We travelled with Qantas for all our international flights. Unfortunately we had three flights on the way there – Perth to Melbourne, Melbourne to Auckland, then Auckland to LAX. I think we were in transit for something like 42 hours before I got to lie down in a real bed! I’m a terrible sleeper on planes and a bit of an anxious flyer so aside from a blissful 3 hour nap on DF’s lap in Auckland airport I didn’t’ get a lot of quality rest and wasn’t the most cheerful traveller when we arrived at LAX at 9am US time. (Although in hindsight it was probably good to arrive at the start of the day because we knew if we stayed awake until a reasonable hour we would hopefully adjust to the time difference after a solid night’s sleep)

Unfortunately due to a miscalculation with our travel agent about time/date differences we actually had one less night at the start of our trip than we thought. We were initially going to spend our first night in LA then travel to San Diego the next day, but had to drive straight to San Diego after we arrived instead. This sucked and I wouldn’t recommend it, a night to acclimatise would have been much nicer.

Once we arrived in LA we caught the shuttle to pick up our rental car (through Dollar). We were both impressed that we got to choose our own car, rather than being assigned one, and picked a white Nissan Versa (which was such a gutsy little thing we dubbed it “the little car that could”) We chose that one because we don’t get them over here and wanted something unfamiliar so we’d really feel like we were in another country!

Just in case we didn’t get to overload on junk food later on in our trip we started our trip on a with a stopover for breakfast at Burger King, which although I don’t eat it often over here, was familiar yet different (I found the menu in Spanish and apple fries particularly exotic.. although I also find “Burger King” itself exotic because it’s called Hungry Jacks in WA) We then drove straight to Venice Beach before beginning the trek to San Diego because DF was convinced it would make me feel like I was “really in the US”. Unfortunately I was tired and cranky and just wanted to stop travelling so it was probably wasted on me!

Baywatch anyone?

Walking back to our car from the beach we realised that it didn’t have a front number plate (as you can see on the photo above). Initially I thought perhaps this was a US thing, but then I noticed all the other cars around DID have them both font and back. So; convinced it had gone missing, we drove back to the rental place. Holding back their fits of laughter the Dollar folks told us that California was the only state that required front number plates and since our car was licensed in Nevada ours didn’t require one. More than a little embarrassed we high-tailed it out of there and finally we were on our way to San Diego!

It’s approximately a 2 hour drive from LA to San Diego and it was the only time that I felt really unsafe on the roads. DF was very brave in doing all the driving on the right (or in our case wrong!) side of the road, and pretty much only required this first trip to adjust. But we did have a few white knuckle moments at intersections and drifting into other lanes! The multi-lane freeways were particularly scary, especially as everybody seems to kind of ignore the speed limit..

Luckily we made it to San Diego in one piece. Our hotel (Best Western Island Palms) was beautiful and on a marina.

The view from our room the following morning

I was so sad our room wasn’t ready when we arrived because all I wanted to do was lie on a bed! But like a trooper (why was DF still so chipper, is it a boy thing?) I toughened up and we drove into the city centre to explore. We only had this one afternoon in San Diego before setting off for Phoenix the next day so we tried to make the most of our time. We had lunch at a shopping complex that I can’t remember the name of and ate at Panda Express, which at the time I thought was a quaint little Chinese place and didn’t realise was a huge chain! We then had a browse around the shops and explored a bit more of the central city including the baseball stadium. It was huge! And educational; I knew pretty much nothing about baseball and had no idea the action went only one way and seating wasn’t all the way around the stadium.

Next, with no particular plans in mind, we drove to the foreshore where we saw this:

It’s the USS Midway, a former US aircraft carrier, now retired from active service and converted to a museum. There was also various military memorials around the parkland underneath which were really lovely, as well as a real aircraft carrier across the bay at what I believe is a military facility? DF is a big plane buff and loves the movie Top Gun so he was super excited to see the planes on top of the Midway and we decided to check it out and go in. It was really interesting and fun to explore the ship. It’s hard to show how massive it is in photos. The ship is set up really well and it was so interesting to learn more about life onboard an aircraft carrier. I particularly liked the mannequins and the plastic food set out in the living quarters, and DF really liked seeing the planes up close.

After we finished on the Midway it was about 4pm and we knew our hotel room would be ready. It was so lovely to have a shower and get clean after so long in transit, possibly one of the most enjoyable showers I’ve ever had! After showering we decided we couldn’t stay awake a minute longer, so we decided to skip dinner and went straight to bed at 5:30pm. We slept straight through until about 8am the next morning and from that moment on didn’t experience any difficulties with the time difference or jet lag which was great!

San Diego sunset from outside our hotel – looking back at the city from the marina

The happiest I’ve ever been to see a bed!

Next up - Day Two: San Diego to Phoenix

 

[PrincessInOz]

Subbing In!!

Great looking itinerary and I love that you made it to Sedona! I Love Sedona!

...And how funny about the number plates.

 

[WAMUMOF4]

I am still giggling about the number plates

Lovin to see other people with crazy itinerary's like ours

I am hearing you about the flight out of Perth but i think we only get 22 hours travel this trip

 

[Anne_Aus]

Hahahaha great story about the number plates - it really is something I would do.

Loving the pictures and trip report so far can't wait for the next installment

 

[skiingfast]

Just to clear up a few things. Some US states require license plates on the front and back some do not. Nevada is not the only one to allow 1, and California is not the only state to require two.

In San Diego Harbor across from the city is a Naval Air Base. In your nice sunset shot of the city you can see the cuvred roofs of the hangers. During peace time there is always an aircraft carrier there. But there are two stationed from that base and they switch out. During certain special events both will be at port in the same time.

It's kind of a bummer that so far all you have done is fast food. I think the Panda Express if it was downtown was in Horton Plaza. Funny thing I have a Hungry Jacks in my town. Though it's a general store, canoes to carrots. I hope your dining diversifies as the TR progresses.


Too bad you didn't notice jets taking off over your heads as you drove to SD. Just north of the city is Mirimar where Top Gun takes place, well at least in movie lore, it's not a real event. But they do fly out of there all day practicing.


How did you get to walk into Petco Park the baseball stadium? I haven't been there though I lived in SD just before it was built.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

I am love love loving your TR so far. I am adoring all the detail (keep that coming) and the photos. Would love to know more as you go along about why you chose to "fly/drive/train" each leg (whether financial decision, quickest, easiest, etc). Also would love to hear about how cold things were once you get to the colder cities.

I think we are all hanging on every word...more please!!!

 

[Lulu83]

Subbing In!!

Great looking itinerary and I love that you made it to Sedona! I Love Sedona!

...And how funny about the number plates.

Yup we still blush about the number plates! We loved Sedona too, it was definitely the silver lining in having to miss the Grand Canyon!

I am still giggling about the number plates

Lovin to see other people with crazy itinerary's like ours

I am hearing you about the flight out of Perth but i think we only get 22 hours travel this trip

22 hours?! That sounds so much better than what we did.. who are you flying with and where is your stopover/s if you don't mind me asking?

Hahahaha great story about the number plates - it really is something I would do.

Loving the pictures and trip report so far can't wait for the next installment

Thank you! I'll probably write the next installment at work over the next few days (I'm a fast worker!)

Just to clear up a few things. Some US states require license plates on the front and back some do not. Nevada is not the only one to allow 1, and California is not the only state to require two.

In San Diego Harbor across from the city is a Naval Air Base. In your nice sunset shot of the city you can see the cuvred roofs of the hangers. During peace time there is always an aircraft carrier there. But there are two stationed from that base and they switch out. During certain special events both will be at port in the same time.

It's kind of a bummer that so far all you have done is fast food. I think the Panda Express if it was downtown was in Horton Plaza. Funny thing I have a Hungry Jacks in my town. Though it's a general store, canoes to carrots. I hope your dining diversifies as the TR progresses.


Too bad you didn't notice jets taking off over your heads as you drove to SD. Just north of the city is Mirimar where Top Gun takes place, well at least in movie lore, it's not a real event. But they do fly out of there all day practicing.


How did you get to walk into Petco Park the baseball stadium? I haven't been there though I lived in SD just before it was built.

Thanks for the info about the number plates! Our dining definitely diversifies as the TR progresses, I think on our first day we were just in too much of a jet lagged haze to care and were also anxious at the prospect of tipping, which neither of us had done before, and wanted to wait until we had clearer heads to tackle it (now we're old hands at it!) And it was definitely Horton Plaza we ate at too, I'd forgotten the name.

We DID notice jets flying over us as we were driving into SD! Those things are pretty amazing, we almost pulled over so DF could enjoy watching them too.

Petco Park was opened especially for a few hours in the afternoon so people could enjoy the gardens; we noticed a few signs up advertising it and decided to check it out. The grounds are lovely and it was very relaxing (I'm sure it's not when a game is on!)

I am love love loving your TR so far. I am adoring all the detail (keep that coming) and the photos. Would love to know more as you go along about why you chose to "fly/drive/train" each leg (whether financial decision, quickest, easiest, etc). Also would love to hear about how cold things were once you get to the colder cities.

I think we are all hanging on every word...more please!!!

Aww thank you! Detail won't be a problem, I'm just worried I'm going to bore everyone (at uni I was one of those people who had to delete big chunks of my assignments because I would always go OVER the word limit, whereas everybody struggled to reach the word limit..)

I will definitely try to give an overview of our transport choices and the weather as I know those things will be helpful for other people planning trips (we did make a few bad choices as well on the East Coast so hopefully people can learn from our mistakes there!)

We decided to hire a car for the west coast because we loved the idea of the "great American road trip", particularly the Pacific Coast Hwy, and really wanted to see the countryside and off the beaten track (e.g. the desert in Arizona). DF had driven on the west coast before and found it manageable but if he hadn't I would have been worried about adjusting to driving on the right hand side.. I'm not sure how we would have gotten around if we hadn't hired a car actually? The distances are pretty big so local public transport wouldn't have been an option, but it would have been expensive to fly.. The rental car was very affordable too, and petrol is sooo cheap!

 

[WAMUMOF4]

22 hours?! That sounds so much better than what we did.. who are you flying with and where is your stopover/s if you don't mind me asking?

We are flying Qantas the new Dallas route we leave Perth 5:45am, 1:35 min stop over Sydney and then on to Dallas it actually only works out to 21 hour and 5 mins
On the way back we have a 3 hour 20 min stop over in Brisbane which might be a good thing in case we have to do a fuel stop
The way back works out to 25 hours not looking forward to that
Last year we flew the red eye to Sydney the night before never again we were so jet lagged even with a night stop over in Sydney, on the way home we had a night in Fiji was bliss no jet lag at all

 

[Lulu83]

Day Two – San Diego to Phoenix

One of the main reasons we decided to visit San Diego was that we are both huge animal lovers and San Diego has lots of great animal attractions including Sea World (home of Shamu!), one of the reportedly best zoos in America and a safari park. Due to time constraints we only had time to visit one, and chose the safari park. Mainly because I have always wanted to see an African elephant in real life (I’d only seen Asian elephants previously) and as we have both always dreamed of visiting Africa and going on a real safari.

So after a good night’s sleep we had breakfast in our hotel’s restaurant. It was great to taste some fresh Californian fruit and also to have my first coffee experience as I really need a caffeine hit to get me up and going in the morning! I think the waitress thought I was a little weird when I asked for milk with my coffee and asked me if I meant half and half or cream. I’d never heard of half and half before (and she couldn’t explain to me what it was when I asked) and couldn’t understand why anybody would want to put cream in their coffee? Eventually they gave me some plain milk but by the end of the trip I learnt to adjust to half and half (still not 100% sure what it is by the way!)

We then set off to the Safari Park, which is actually a decent drive out of the city (about 50km I think). We had such an awesome time here! The park is massive, really well themed and there is so much to do and see.

I love flamingos so this is an early warning that they will be making several appearances throughout my TR..

It’s kind of what I imagine Animal Kingdom will be like when I eventually make it there (minus the rollercoasters). There’s even a hot air balloon ride.

The first thing we did was go on the safari, which is basically riding on a tram through parts of the park that aren’t accessible by foot with a commentary from one of the zoo keepers. It was great to see these amazing animals in such beautiful settings with plenty of room to roam around.

Black rhino

We saw this guy taking a nap while we were waiting in the queue

After the safari we explored the walking paths and checked out the animals accessible by foot. I was so excited to finally see an African elephant, especially the newly born calf who was only one day old and incredibly cute!

Proud Mum and baby elephant born only the day before our visit!

This guy was magnificent

Another gratuitous flamingo shot

The park run different shows and displays throughout the day, but we only managed to catch one; the hyena keepers.

The weather was interesting.. it was sunny yet cool, kind of like a sunny Perth winters day. I'm extremely pale and sunburn just thinking about the sun, my eyes are also very sensitive to glare so I live in my sunglasses when I'm outdoors. So my outfit this day was quite amusing.. a combination of sun protection and dressing for warmth (I'm sure I'll have the last laugh in 30 years time when my skin is sun damage free!)

This is a REGULAR Coke?

I would definitely recommend a visit to this park to anyone; you could easily spend a full day here. I would advise getting there as early as possible though. We arrived right on opening time at 9am and already had a decent walk from the car park to the entry. We waited about 20 minutes for the safari but by the time we finished the line was back to the 3 hour wait mark and people were being ferried by buses from the overflow car parking.

After leaving the park we stopped at a nearby town called Escondido to pick up some supplies for lunch. They had a great organic supermarket called Jimbos. I have a few food allergies so I was super excited to find things I could eat that are normally taboo. They also had a great fresh food selection so we stocked up on fruit.

We then began the long (5 hour plus) drive to Phoenix and the rest of the day was pretty uneventful! I have to say most of our driving passed pretty quickly, definitely faster than it does at home, probably because we enjoyed seeing the different countryside. We also bought a CD wallet filled with music from home which helped pass the time too. We loaded our GPS with a map of the USA before we left which was a great idea, we never got lost once and it saved having to pay to hire one with our rental car. It probably also saved a lot of arguments because I’m a terrible navigator and would have really struggled to direct DF with a map!

We passed a lot of wind turbines, I’ll never understand why we don’t harness wind power more in Australia..

The view for most of the trip!

We stopped at a town called Blythe on the border of California and Arizona for dinner (can’t remember where we ate but I know we had steaks and salad) and unfortunately got stuck in a traffic jam due to road works pretty much as soon as we entered Arizona which delayed us by about an hour. Eventually we arrived at our hotel in Phoenix about 9-10pm. It was a lovely independent hotel called the Clarendon. They have a snack bar in the evening where you can get drinks/snacks/candy from reception which was nice after our long drive! We showered and then went straight to bed after our first full day on holiday!

Next up - Phoneix to the Grand Canyon (well that was the plan anyway..) the next day.

 

[Lulu83]

Day Three – Phoenix to the Grand Canyon (or so we thought..)

We planned for about a 4 hour drive from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon and were aiming for an evening arrival to give us the morning to explore a bit of Phoenix first. We woke to cloudy skies and a forecast of rain which the hotel receptionist told us is uncommon and gladly welcomed there.

View from our hotel window

I wish I could say we immersed ourselves in some culture and visited the science centre or museum (I promise the TR does get more interesting and we did do those things later on!) but instead we went to Walmart! DF was dying for me to see one because he’d been blown away by the size and range of things they stocked when he visited. I was equally impressed, I couldn’t believe the size of the place (Bunnings Warehouses will never look as big again..) and it really is a one stop shop! It was also the first time we realised just how strong the Aussie dollar is and we bought a few little things including make-up (it was half price compared to what I pay here!). We also needed to buy an umbrella because it had started raining outside, and this is one of the things we forgot to pack.

The chocolate selection in Walmart

Our next stop was downtown Phoenix. By this stage it was raining pretty heavily and we were surprised that the city centre was pretty deserted, maybe due to the rain? We didn’t get many photos here because we were worried about our camera in the rain, but the city had a nice feel to it and we enjoyed wandering around. There were plenty of nice restaurants/bars as well as some cool galleries and studios that you can take a tour of once a month on the “first Friday art walk”. We parked near the home of the Phoenix Suns (the US Airways Centre?).

We ate lunch in a bar/restaurant that I can’t remember the name of (I had no idea at the time that these things would ever be interesting to anybody and I’d be writing a trip report!). DF was adventurous and ordered buffalo and I had chicken fajitas. We both enjoyed our meals and I realised how much better Mexican food is compared to here. It was so fresh and tasty and not just drowning in melted cheese; I really developed a taste for Mexican by the end of our trip. We had a lovely waitress (or should I say “server”) who was happy to teach us about the ins and outs of tipping (we were shocked that she only made $4.25 an hour!) After lunch the skies were looking even darker and it was time to begin the drive to the Grand Canyon. Our waitress did warn us that “when it’s raining in Phoenix it’s snowing in the high country” but we kind of laughed that off, I mean it’s the desert, how snowy could it be right?

I really enjoyed driving out of Phoenix and into the desert; it was just like something out of a movie with all the cacti and red dirt. As we got further away and higher above sea level the weather continued to worsen.

We stopped a truck stop for a rest break at one stage, about 4000 feet above sea level, and were shocked at how cold it was when we got out of the car.

Freezing my butt off but still trying to maintain the illusion of a chic carefree traveller

Eventually it started to snow, and it got increasingly heavier to the point that we were having difficulty driving through it with very poor visibility and traction.

Finally we reached a road block and were told that it was too dangerous to let anybody through and that there’d been multiple accidents ahead.

We asked one of the highway patrolmen at the road block for his advice on what to do as we were still hopeful of making it to Flagstaff and then the Grand Canyon at this stage. His advice was “we’ll have this cleared in 2 hours no worries” and that we sit out the wait in Sedona, which was the nearest town. He also told us there was a back way to Flagstaff through a town called Prescott, but that it was a mountainous and minor road and we would “be on our own” out there.

This sounded ominous so we drove into Sedona and not long after that discovered that all roads in and out of Flagstaff (including the alternative Prescott route we were considering taking) would be closed at least overnight and that the storm was expected to worsen. By then it was pretty obvious we wouldn’t make it to the Grand Canyon (sadly we had already paid for our accommodation, and had to forfeit the cost) and getting to Vegas became our next priority. Our accommodation was already paid for there too and we were looking forward to a big New Years Eve, so the thought of being stranded for more than the one night was pretty depressing.

Sedona is a really beautiful place that I’d barely heard of before and I’m glad things turned out the way they did as I know I’ll get to the Grand Canyon on another trip, but probably would have never seen Sedona otherwise. There is a big New Age/spiritual industry here due to the beautiful red rock sandstone formations and vortexes. I don’t have a great understanding about these, but the vortexes are natural concentration of electromagnetic energy that are visited for healing, meditation and relaxation. The red rocks themselves are also meant to have some kind of spiritual effect. I have to admit I did feel very relaxed and “spiritual” while we were there, probably just a placebo effect but you never know! It was pretty cold in Sedona, I think it was the first time I broke out my duck down jacket.

We ate dinner at a local diner on the recommendation of a helpful lady working at the petrol station. It was great to eat at a real authentic American diner and I have to say it was one of the best burgers I’ve ever eaten. Apparently there a lot of great and more upmarket restaurants around town too, but we wanted to go where the locals were. This really paid off as we met a lovely man who helped us plan our route to Vegas the next day and avoid roads which would be closed due to snow. After dinner we had a bit of a random drive around to get a feel for the place, the houses were really interesting and obviously built for the dessert heat. The red rock formations are a bit eerie at night (don’t worry I do have daytime pictures to come!).

The own downside of Sedona was that our accommodation was pretty awful; I think the increase in demand for stranded travellers meant that rooms were at a premium, and unlike everywhere else we stayed I didn’t get a chance to research TripAdvisor before booking. We both slept pretty badly because of the thin walls, uncomfortable bed with non-existent pillows and nagging worries that we weren’t going to make it to Vegas. The motel we stayed at has since changed owners and apparently improved since we were there.

The motel room from hell. Looks so innocent doesn’t it?

Up Next – Will be make it to Vegas?

 

[jacs1234]

I'll comment as I go, having 4 children I won't be able to read this all at once. I've read Background and really enjoyed it. I can't believe people gave you flak about going in Winter. How rude. Kinda like people having an opinion on what we name our babies. I love winter too and it's on my bucket list to see a white Christmas. I would LOVE that. I've never seen snow falling, also bucket list but I should be able to cross of the white christmas and snow falling at the same time

Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

 

[jacs1234]

1. Flight from Perth to Los Angeles (26th December 2010)
2. Drive from Los Angeles to San Diego
3. Drive from San Diego to Phoenix
4. Drive from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon (which ended up changing to Sedona due to snow – yup we got snowed in in the desert!)
5. Drive from Grand Canyon (or more accurately Sedona) to Vegas
6. A few nights in Vegas including New Years Eve!
7. Drive from Vegas back to Los Angeles
8. Driving the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway from LA to San Francisco (with a one night stopover along the way) for a few days
9. Flight from San Fran to Seattle for a few days
10. Train from Seattle to Vancouver for a few days
11. Flight from Vancouver to Montreal for a few days
12. Train from Montreal to Toronto then to Niagara Falls Ontario for a few days
13. Train from Niagara to Buffalo, then flight from Buffalo to New York for our longest stay in a single place!
14. Train from New York to Washington DC for a few days
15. Train back to New York for one last night in the Big Apple
16. Train to Boston for a night
17. Flight back to Los Angeles, then two nights in Anaheim (Disneyland ) to finish up
18. Arrived back in Perth (28th of January 2011) but not without promising to return as soon as we can!

Sounds like perfection. I've always wanted to go to San Diego Zoo (well, since I was 19 and sold multimedia stuff for computers and we had a san Diego Zoo disc(Way back when multimedia was new and exciting)). I hope you went so I can read about it. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

There is lots of stuff on your intinerary that I plan to do myself, so this should be an exciting read.

 

[jacs1234]

Yay! for San Diego Zoo. Great pics. Yay! for an authentic American Diner. What fun. I'm glad I've gotten through it all and am looking forward to more.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

Another great update. I'm like Jacs, keep the trip report coming. I'm loving that it's cold, can't wait to see your down jacket come out and hear more more more.

No pressure

 

[skiingfast]

I have an odd question. As you talk about the landscape it makes me wonder how much you have traveled within Oz?

Having not been there it's hard for me know exactly what it's like. But doesn't it also have diversity. It goes from Rain Forest to desert. Very close to the equator to close to a pole. Snow to wamr ocean water.

Is it unlike the US and Australians don't traverse there country to take in the variety?

 

[Lulu83]

I'll comment as I go, having 4 children I won't be able to read this all at once. I've read Background and really enjoyed it. I can't believe people gave you flak about going in Winter. How rude. Kinda like people having an opinion on what we name our babies. I love winter too and it's on my bucket list to see a white Christmas. I would LOVE that. I've never seen snow falling, also bucket list but I should be able to cross of the white christmas and snow falling at the same time

Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

Thank you for agreeing with me about the winter thing! I would never tell somebody their holiday was a bad idea, even if I secretly thought it.. A bit of cold weather is nothing compared to the excitement of seeing real snow!

Glad you enjoyed the zoo pictures too!

Another great update. I'm like Jacs, keep the trip report coming. I'm loving that it's cold, can't wait to see your down jacket come out and hear more more more.

No pressure

Just a warning that the down jacket sadly isn't very flattering.. But as the Kathmandu sales girl said "Trust me when you're over there you'll rather be warm than ugly. And everybody else will be ugly and wearing the same thing too so nobody will notice".

I have an odd question. As you talk about the landscape it makes me wonder how much you have traveled within Oz?

Having not been there it's hard for me know exactly what it's like. But doesn't it also have diversity. It goes from Rain Forest to desert. Very close to the equator to close to a pole. Snow to wamr ocean water.

Is it unlike the US and Australians don't traverse there country to take in the variety?

I have travelled pretty extensively throughout Australia, and New Zealand (where I was born) and you are right that there is a huge amount of diversity, particularly in Western Australia where I live - I can be at the beach in 30 minutes, in a Karri forest in about 3 hours, in the wheatbelt (farming region) in about 2 hours, and in the desert not long after that! And the amount of unique plants and wildlife we have here is pretty amazing.

I think I'm just somebody who really enjoys getting an overall "feel" for a place and not just visiting the tourist attractions. So I always like to see what what the landscape is like, or what a "typical residential street" might look like and I like to try and meet some the locals wherever I go. A lot of the scenery in the US was unlike anything I'd seen before (e.g. the redwood forest in the Pacific Northwest, the cacti in Arizoa, the really dark sand on some of the beaches) and also because I grew up watching a lot of American TV and movies it was cool to see these places/scenes that were so vaguely familiar in real life. Although sometimes I was surprised how familiar things looked too! (e.g. driving into Nevada reminded me a lot of the Canterbury region of NZ).

Maybe I'll have to monitor how often I say "the scenery here was awesome" because I pretty much thought that everywhere we went and it could get a bit repetitive

 

[PrincessInOz]

You went to the WAP instead of the Zoo! Not many people choose to do that. My aunt lives near Escondido; so we tend to shop around that part of the world when we visit her. We love the WAP and the drive out there.

Waiting to read more of your impressions of Sedona and your pictures. Which motel did you stay in? There are some dives in Sedona and before we had our son, we tended to stay at B&Bs at Sedona.