Automotive

Good evening folks, from an internet cafe across the road from the Wilshire Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California. I'm in the internet cafe adjacent to a Carl's Jr. hamburger restaurant, looking at the Wilshire Plaza Hotel, our resting place for this evening, out the window. Our road trip has come to an end, folks, as we have come full circle in our journey, and are back in Los Angeles for our final sleep before departing the United States of America.

But first, a recap. We left you last night reasonably early, with the birthday girl's maiden blog entry rounding out the night for you. Not so for us though. After Sarah had finished her part of the blog and I posted it, she quickly went onto Google to search for session times for the movie "The Proposal", a chick flick featuring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Not my first movie preference, I would like to add, but given that yesterday was Sarah's day, I begrudingly accepted her request!! As luck would have it, the AMC movie theatre was only a block down the road from our hotel in San Francisco, so we took the nice walk, hoping to catch the 9:00pm session so that we could have dinner (at a Denny's that we passed on the way) beforehand. Unfortunately (or was it fortunately??) the 9:00pm showing had already sold out, so we settled on the 8:00pm showing - given that we arrived at the theatre at about 7:25pm, it put dinner on the back-burner.

Going to the movies in America is very similar to doing the same in Australia - the only real difference is that Americans can, and do, bring hot food into the theatre, with the concession stand (or snack bar, Aussies) selling hot dogs, pizza, pretzels and all sorts of other no-good-for-you treats. We skipped the food part of it and settled in to watch the movie - a typical chick flick that I actually somewhat enjoyed, until the final credits started rolling and there was the now-obligatory after-movie action - although I didn't see it thanks to a young lady who started to leave when the credits started rolling, but stopped to watch the after-movie stuff - WHILST STANDING UP. A few people motioned to her to sit down, but she was having none of it, and stood all the way through the final action, ruining the experience for me a little bit. This was exacerbated when we walked out of the theatre and crossed the road at the traffic lights, with the "walk" indicator smiling brightly at us when we stepped off the sidewalk. It soon changed to a flashing red hand, with a countdown in seconds of how long you have to finish your crossing. We were about half-way through, with ten seconds left to cross, so we picked up the pace a little, only to have a bus start tooting at the car at the intersection waiting for us to cross, and gesticulating at us as if we were doing the wrong thing. This is what annoys me about this country - the United States is a wonderful place to visit, and the people in the majority are courteous and accommodating, but there's an element of the American society that are rude, pushy and downright ignorant. I suppose it's the same anywhere in the world, but it seems here as if it is almost done on purpose, as if the person in question feels it's their right to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and it can grate on the nerves, I tell you.

In the end, we gave dinner a miss last night, as neither of us were really hungry - the Eating Machine had blown a gasket for the night, and instead we returned to the Pickwick Hotel and went to bed, knowing that our final big driving day was ahead of us.

The alarm went off at 6:00am this morning, and anyone who knows Sarah knows of her abhorrence at waking before 9:00am on days when she doesn't have to work, so the alarm on my phone, playing "This Ain't A Scene" by Fallout Boy, was met with various moans and groans, and when I was still trying to wake her twenty minutes later, a fearful version of "The Look" was unleashed that had me scurrying to the shower!! I eventually raised Sarah - although she wasn't anywhere near fully awake, and her eating of eggs and bacon at breakfast looked very much like it was done on auto-pilot. We were finished with breakfast, packed up and checked out of the Pickwick Hotel just after 7:00am, with the GPS set to take us to Los Angeles via Highway 1 and the famed coastal route - a predicted nine hour journey, as opposed to a five-hour trip down I-5!!

But the drive was worth it - from five minutes after leaving downtown San Francisco when we turned onto Highway 1, until just after 2:00pm when Highway 1 merged with US Highway 101 and morphed into a freeway, I was completely at home on the road, with the Pacific Ocean as my companion. Having grown up with the ocean literally a stone's throw away, it makes me feel at ease when I can see the water, and we ran right alongside the Pacific today - in some stages feeling that a slight steering adjustment to the right would send us careering into the greenish-blue waters. On the other side, for the most part, were mountains - windy, bendy, challenging stretches of road not dissimilar to our trek through the Yosemite National Park and Sierra Nevada mountain range when driving to San Francisco on Monday, and the reason that the trip took longer than the run down the interstate. Sarah was snapping away happily with her camera for the journey down, and although I haven't seen the actual photos yet, if the scenery she was photographing was any indication, we should have another set of outstanding photos to show everyone on our return to Australia on the weekend.

By 3:00pm, we had finished with our coastal run, and were making our way towards the metropolis of Los Angeles, with the fact that we still had shopping bags full of stuff in the boot of our car with no big bag to bring them back to Australia. I had the bright idea of, rather than trawling around Los Angeles - where trends had indicated that the downtown shopping areas of large cities tend to be more of a department store scene - for instance, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's and Bloomingdale's as the majors (think Myer and David Jones, Aussies), whereas the suburban areas tended to feature Wal-Mart's and Target's - cheaper department stores - to stop at one of these suburban shopping malls to pick up a cheap suitcase to bring everything home in. My prayers were answered as we entered the city limits of Cammarillo, about 50 miles out of Los Angeles, and we passed a mall with a Target, right next to a freeway exit. We nicked into Target and picked out a duffle bag - there were suitcases in our price range, but they were sets of three, and I didn't want a family of suitcases invading our trip - and went and emptied out the car, packing everything as close as possible into the bags they will be travelling back to Australia in. It was a tight squeeze, even with the extra bag, and whilst there's still a little shuffling that has to be done, most everything is packed, and the car is clean (anyone who has seen my car back in Australia knows that it tends to maintain a "lived-in" look almost year-round, and the Nissan Altima wasn't all that different!!). We then drove the 50 miles into Los Angeles without too much complaint, although we entered after 5pm, therefore copping peak-hour traffic, but the pilot was much more confident in driving through Los Angeles this time around, and we made it to the Wilshire Plaza Hotel perfectly safe and sound.

The Wilshire Plaza Hotel is at 3515 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles - remarkably, almost the identical address at which we emerged from the LA Metro system, having come from Los Angeles Airport on the FlyAway bus, back on Sunday May 31st in our first hours on American soil - the entrance to the subway station is right over the road from the hotel (in fact, it's right next to the internet cafe I am writing this from), and the Budget Rent-A-Car office that the Nissan Altima calls home is just two blocks away. All I have to do is find a petrol station, which I saw not far away as we drove in, and fill 'er up, and drop it at Budget in the morning. The road trip is officially over folks - our round-trip journey to LA has seen us cross almost 8000 miles of American roads, and has given us a lifetime of happy memories that we have enjoyed sharing with you on the way. It's almost ironic that the hotel we will stay in for our last sleep in America is right opposite the point where we first started to experience our American Dream - I'm normally not into symbolism, but I feel that this is still a pretty powerful symbol of our trip coming to an end.

But, it hasn't quite ended yet. We still have tomorrow, Thursday 25th June, in which to explore Los Angeles before boarding one of Qantas's finest for the trip back to Melbourne, with a five-and-a-half hour stop-over in Auckland, New Zealand. The plane doesn't leave LA tomorrow night until 11:45pm, which had the potential to leave us with a dilemma - check-out at the Wilshire Plaza is at 12:00pm, and we didn't fancy either being at LAX eleven hours before our flight, or dragging our suitcases with us as we checked out Hollywood. Luckily, the Wilshire Plaza offers a baggage storage facility, where we can leave our bags at the hotel after check-out, to be picked up later in the day. Which will be perfect - we plan on leaving our luggage at the hotel, checking out Hollywood for the day, returning to the hotel at around 6:00pm and making our way to LAX, most likely by taxi (costly, but more convenient than lugging our luggage through the LA nightly commute).

I'll try and post a quick something from LAX tomorrow night to let everyone know that we are at the airport awaiting our flight, which is scheduled to land at Melbourne Airport at 3:30pm on Saturday, June 27th (yep, after the 38 hour day for our first day in America, we skip completely over Friday June 26th on the way home).

And the question that you are undoubtedly asking yourself - why is he in an internet cafe instead of the hotel?? Simple, really, it comes down to economics!! The Wilshire Plaza wanted 49 cents a minute for internet access (which makes San Francisco's five bucks for twenty minutes look like a bargain), whereas I got a three-hour access card here at the internet cafe for ten bucks - the equivalent of twenty minutes of hotel time!! Whilst I won't get through three hours (although over an hour has gone already - we checked out some stuff here before dinner, including seeing the Red Sox win again, this time 6-4 over the Washington Nationals, with Big Papi hitting another home run. He had one on the season when I arrived in America - I go home with Papi having gone deep seven times in the last month - if he goes into another slump, then the Red Sox fans that read this blog need to get the organisation to fly me back over here - I'm Ortiz's lucky charm!!!), it still makes for a cost-effective session.

And so ends what will be our last on-the-road blog of the trip - as mentioned, I'll try and post from the airport tomorrow night, and will wrap things up when we are back on Australian soil (and for the non-Aussies, I'll post some of the pictures from the last couple of days so you don't miss out). It's time for me to cross the road and get some shut-eye - methinks sleep could come at a premium following tomorrow!!! Good night all, and to all a good night!!

Good evening all, from the business centre of The Pickwick Hotel in downtown San Francisco. Given that the laptop is still on the fritz, and a bunch of late-night text messages from my brother Daniel determined that the best course of action would be to leave it lying catatonic until our return to Melbourne on the weekend, I'm sitting here in the darkened business centre (until I find a light switch - ah, there it is!!) paying five bucks for twenty minutes of Internet time so I can keep you up-to-date with what's going on!!!

Going to be a relatively short blog tonight for two reasons - a). today was primarily a driving day, and b). five bucks for twenty minutes - we're in a bloomin' recession here, folks!! We left you last night in Las Vegas, moaning about the lack of go in my laptop and theorising that it could be the end of this humble little blog - which, thankfully, it isn't!! The night ended in rather tame fashion - we were going to catch up with a childhood friend of mine, Allan Barrett and his family who are also holidaying in the US right now (and happened to be in Vegas over the weekend), but Sarah came down with a bit of a tummy upset - which thankfully was cleared up by this morning, a nice long bath helped!! Thought it might have been the BLT with no T (tomato) that was devoured by the Eating Machine last night that could have been spiked, but it was bereft of mayo. butter and all things harmful. By the way - Johnny Rocket's - right up there with In-N-Out Burger as the best burger I've had in the States (and now that we are back in California, look out In-N-Out Burger!!). We also planned today's trip to San Francisco, and enquired about a couple of sightseeing adventures for tomorrow, Sarah's birthday, which we hoped to hear back on.

In inputting the destination address into Google Maps, to get a rough idea of directions and travel times, it came up with two different routes to San Francisco. The shortest was back down I-15, the same way we first came to Vegas all those many weeks ago from San Diego, over the Californian border then off I-15 at Bakersfield to transfer onto I-5, which was projected to take a touch over eight hours. The other way was through northern Nevada towards Reno, then turning off and travelling via Yosemite National Park to San Francisco, which was projected to take eleven hours. Much to my surprise, Sarah chose the longer option, wanting to see Yosemite National Park as driving scenery instead of the billboards, chain motels and fast-food restaurants that dot the usual landscape.

So we were up early this morning, checking out of the Venetian with a lot more bags than we arrived with, thanks to our expedition to the Las Vegas Premium Outlets yesterday, got the car from the valet, found out that valet parking at the Venetian was free, and we left Las Vegas, not having seen a single penny of our money leave our possession by way of gambling, which I'm pretty proud of!!

We set out for San Francisco via Yosemite, hoping that the GPS would show us the right way (I had some written directions scribbled down just in case), but when I added Yosemite as a way point, it lead us a merry dance, via the exact route set out by Google Maps last night. The drive through Nevada was pretty boring, given that we were looking at nothing but desert the entire way through, until just before a little town named Tonopah, when I saw probably the first other car on the road for about half an hour, and it had red and blue flashing lights that started once I passed it, and followed me up the road. Startled, I looked down to see my speedo reading a few miles over the posted speed limit, and thought I could be in trouble. Never fear though!! Once the officer sauntered up to my window, demanding to see my license and car registration, I unloaded with the most polite Ocker I could - and he fell for it!!! We got to talking about footy, and the differences between Australian Rules, gridiron and soccer (I was out of the car by this stage, as he wanted to see my passport in conjunction with my Victorian drivers license, and the passport was in a bag in the boot of the car). It ended with the officer apologising for being an inconvenience, wished us well for our trip, and shook my hand!!! Off scott-free!! Mind you, I did keep a close eye on my speedo from then onwards.

The trip through Nevada went without any more hassle, and we crossed into California at about midday, headed for Yosemite.

Entering Yosemite is much like entering the Grand Canyon - you have to pay a fee per car to enter the park, which in this case was $20. Yosemite, though, is more set-up for hiking and camping rather than sightseeing, although Sarah did get some pretty good photos - I didn't think I'd see snow-covered mountain peaks in a Californian summer!! Where the drive was made longer, though, was not just by the diminished speeds through the eighty-odd miles of road in Yosemite (distance-wise, the Yosemite route and the I-15/1-5 routes to San Fran were almost identical distance-wise), but by the winding hills and valleys after you get out of Yosemite's park limits, then having to deal with the RV's and caravans that are doing nil miles per hour in front of you when you get into the flats! Still, we manuevered all of them successfully, and navigated our way back onto the freeways surrounding San Francisco, then over the Bay Bridge and into the Hotel Pickwick, our home for tonight and tomorrow night!!

That pretty much sums up today - and this time I really have to duck off and get my beauty sleep, as it is a certain young lady's birthday tomorrow - she's claiming a 41-hour birthday, though, as at 7:00am here this morning, it ticked past 12:00am on Tuesday 23rd June in Australia, so it's multiple birthdays for Sarah this year. Being the dutiful boyfriend, I've allowed her control of the itinerary tomorrow (which she has been planning for a couple of weeks now) and have said I will do whatever she wants tomorrow as well. There's also the gifts, which, thanks to prudent bargain hunting, haven't left as big a hole in the pocket as they could have, but I'm hoping will still bring a smile to Sarah's face - I'll let you know tomorrow night!! Until then, though, I bid you adieu, as my five bucks has quickly turned into twelve, so I need to save some money for tomorrow night's blog. See you tomorrow night!!

I won't start today's entry with a number - 591 isn't as impressive as 907 is it!!! I will say welcome, though, from Flagstaff, Arizona, and from Route 66, the infamous American "mother road". Another driving day is in the bag, and very soon we'll have a rest from all of these driving shennanigans, but there's a little something called the Grand Canyon to get to before that!!

Thankfully for the sanity of all concerned, it was a later start to the day than usual today. Bed was arisen from at 8:00am, and the road wasn't properly hit until 9:30am, as we had nature helping us out with our timings today. It still figured to be a reasonably long drive today - after all, 591 miles is the best part of 1000 kilometres, to help those with a more metric bent to their reasoning - but we were set to cross two time-zones today, as mentioned over the past couple of days, to give us a chop-out on the time side of things.

I slept surprisingly well last night, considering the venom that spewed out onto this page about hotel over-charges last night. Normally when something like that happens, I find myself thinking about it in bed all night, and it normally annoys me to the point where I wake up and can't get back to sleep thinking about it. No such worries last night thankfully, but the first thing I did was make the call when I woke up this morning to the Courtyard Marriott in Florida. It seems that the over-charge was actually a credit hold set by the hotel, as they do to everyone to ensure they check out at the right times and don't nick off with any of their stuff. The adjustment had been made by them yesterday, and when I again looked at the Travel Card statement on-line tonight, all was well!!

The drive today headed out over three states - Texas, where we started, New Mexico, which took the brunt of today's drive, and Arizona, where we are now. We did just over 60 miles in Texas, and a bit over 100 miles in Arizona today, which means that, yep, we saw a lot of New Mexico!!! The drive today also took in a lot of the old Route 66 - in between towns mostly, as Interstate 40 has superceded it in those areas. Texas and the eastern areas of New Mexico advertised their share of Route 66 museums, which I wouldn't have minded stopping and taking a look at, however I don't know if Sarah would have been all that interested, so we pushed on. Sarah's not really all that fond of our long, driving days - whilst she appreciates my passion for wanting to drive across this country, with nothing to really catch her attention, she finds herself a touch bored from time to time. Taking photos of the various "Welcome" signs has taken her attention - the New Mexico "Welcome" sign will be up tomorrow, as the camera is in a state of charge at the moment, preparing itself for an onslaught tomorrow, and the Arizona sign was taken on our original long driving day from Las Vegas to Denver when we flirted with Arizona - check out the entry titled "From Sin City to the Mile High City" for more details.

New Mexico was an interesting state to drive through, and you can really break it off into two segments - the horizontal points of the compass either side of the state's biggest city, Albuquerque (I made myself proud today by doing something that Bugs Bunny couldn't do!! How many of you watched Bugs Bunny cartoons as a kid, and always wondered why he always "forgot to take a left at Alburquerque"?? Well, Bugs's words were ringing in my ears as I-40 approached Alburquerque, and I took the left fork of a freeway junction to head towards Alburquerque, thinking "take that Bugs, I turned left at Alburquerque OK!!". To the east of 'Querque (spelling the whole word is doing my head in!!), the road was flat and pretty much lifeless for the best part of 200 miles. Once we got through 'Querque, though, New Mexico suddenly came to life!! The scenery changed - the Continental Divide made for some fantastic looking contours (which unfortunately the camera-woman was asleep to capture), random casino's started appearing in the middle of what looked to be desert, complete with tumbleweeds (they weren't blowing though - there was no wind and they were too far away from the 75mph legal limit on I-40). Route 66 snaked off here, there and everywhere, and some good-looking desert oases made their way into our viewing site. We allowed ourselves a stop at a place in New Mexico called Grants, about 60 miles west of 'Querque, for a meal at Denny's, a look around Wal-Mart (which again cost me money - I knew it was bad news when we stepped out of the car and Sarah said "Wal-Mart, here we come!!" - for more stuff for Sarah's birthday next week), and then soon made our way out of New Mexico, to drive the 120-odd miles required to reach Flagstaff.

When we crossed the Arizona border, I told Sarah to grab the camera and have it ready, given that Arizona had given us such a spectacularly scenic show when we briefly visited it the first time around. Unfortunately, nothing photogenic reared it's head - there were a couple of Indian reservations that we passed, with billboards galore advertising that they flog off hand-made Indian artefcats (we're talking American Indians here, not the Indians that, back home, come into me every single day with a resume asking if we have a job for them, thinking that we are a cleaning company - resume's that get thrown straight in the bin for reasons I would prefer to explain in person), fireworks and petrol a good 15 cents dearer than servo's in the main towns!! The 120 miles went fairly quickly, and soon enough we were rolling into Flagstaff, and turning off I-40 for our first drive down the real, designated Route 66 - which lasted all of about half a mile before we arrived at the Howard Johnson Motel (HoJo's, yeah!!) and ended the day's driving at about 4:45pm local time - meaning that if you take our stop in Grants out, which went over an hour, our cosmetic travel time was only about six hours (with the time-zone shifts in effect)!! Still, that's not too bad - sure, I'm tired now as my body clock is telling me it's almost midnight when the red LED display next to me says 9:44pm, but that will reset itself overnight - and besides, this is the time zone we will be in for the rest of our trip now - 17 hours behind Melbourne time (which should give me a chance to check out the Eastern Football League's video streaming of our Match of the Day tomorrow between Balwyn and Noble Park - check it out at http://www.efl.org.au from 2:10pm Saturday Melbourne time) for all taking note.

Dinner tonight was very nice as well - the HoJo's has an adjacent restaurant called the "Grand Railroad Cafe", which is made up in the style of an old American diner, with Route 66 and the train line right outside the window. As I tried (and failed) to work my way through a typically American version of a chicken parma (cheese slices on top of a crumbed breast fillet) sitting on a mountain of spaghetti and marinara sauce (tip for the uninitiated - marinara sauce here in America is simply just plain old tomato pasta sauce - marinara pasta sauce in Australia is a seafood-based sauce normally swimming with all varities of crustacea), it was pleasing to sit back and watch the cars go by on the Mother Road, thinking that the same thing was an American institution as little as twenty-five years ago.

We have to start thinking about returning to the rat race soon too - Sarah's Mum, Trish, who has been a frequent and appreciated "commenter" on the blog during our trip, as has my darling Mum Christine, left a message to say that she's right to pick us up from Melbourne Airport Saturday week, so that's one hurdle crossed!!!

Whatever you do, bookmark this blog and set your alarm for about this time tomorrow - maybe check it out after the Balwyn/Noble game - as we will have pictures from our day at the Grand Canyon, which both of us are really looking forward too. The phrases "breathtaking", "awe-inspiring" and "great place for a wedding proposal" have been thrown up by various people who have already seen the Grand Canyon, so I will confirm all of those tomorrow - except maybe the last one, I've been warned against that for the time being!!! Then, after we've done the Canyon in it's entirety, it's again time to Viva Las Vegas - and this time, no expense has been spared, as we've booked a Deluxe King Suite at the Venetian Hotel and Casino, right on the Las Vegas Strip, for the three nights we will be in Sin City - it's sort of a "thank-you" to my darling for persisting with all of the driving that we have done. Mind you, there's still two "driving days" to go for the trip (tomorrow doesn't really count, as it's only about four-ish hours from the Grand Canyon's South Rim to Vegas), and both of them are Sarah-approved drives - from Vegas to San Francisco on Monday so we're in Frisco for her birthday on Tuesday, then the trip from Frisco back to Los Angeles on Wednesday down Highway 1 - the US version of the Great Ocean Road. Which means that I need to get my beauty sleep (off-topic for a minute, I slipped that into conversation not too long ago - can't remember with who, but I'm tipping it would have been football-related - and my correspondant, who for the life of me I can't remember their identity, told me if I needed a beauty sleep, I'd have to sleep for a month!!) so that I can report in tomorrow night in decent fettle. So it's good night from Arizona then folks, and we'll be back bright and cheery tomorrow, with photos aplenty, and stories to tell. Open wide, come inside...it's Shaun and Sarah's American Adventures, in it's last week of receiving top billing in these parts!!

907. That’s your magic number for the day. Keep that in mind, as I do the usual meet-and-greet below!!

Good evening folks, from rootin’, tootin’ Amarillo, Texas, in the Texas Panhandle. We report in from the La Quinta Inn just off Interstate 40 in Amarillo, as road trip leg number three starts to get numerical!!

I’ll get back to the magic number in a minute, as I have numbers floating through my head at the moment. I just checked our Travel Card balance and statement, so we know how much money we have left for the last week of our trip, and when I was looking through the charges that were on the card, I found that the Courtyard Marriott have over-charged me by about $50 for our recent stay in Orlando. As mentioned yesterday, the folio was slipped under our door before we left there yesterday morning, and it had the correct charge on it. I did the video check-out from our room before we left, and it had the correct amount on it. Now, though, an extra amount has been charged, which I think was for the food court dinners, which were supposed to be credited from the account. Nevertheless, a phone call will be made first thing tomorrow morning to sort it out and have the over-charge refunded back to our Travel Card, else it will be taken higher (and I already have the forms to do so).

Sorry, just wanted to get that off my chest – I hate getting over-charged at the best of times, let alone when it seems to be a clerical error that could, and should, have easily been avoided (and, in fact, given that I have the adjustment ON MY BILL, IN BLACK AND WHITE IN FRONT OF ME). There’s my rant for the day – and I’ll hold off on my final recommendation of the Courtyard Marriott in Orlando until after I’ve spoken to them in the morning.

Now, back to the magic number, 907. Why is that so special?? That’s the number of miles it is from the Super 8 Motel in Jasper, Alabama to the La Quinta Inn here in Amarillo, Texas, and hence this is the number that flashed up at me from the trip metre when I pressed the button to silence the ignition at 8:20pm today, after 13 hours of driving. Why so long, you ask?? We want to be at the Grand Canyon on Friday morning, so that the last week of our trip falls into place nicely. It was always going to take three full days of driving to get from Orlando to Flagstaff, Arizona (the closest point on Interstate 40 to the Grand Canyon, and the town we will be using as the launching pad to the Canyon), and we did our ten hours yesterday to get to Jasper, then we were going to do 10 hours today to get us to about Sayre, Oklahoma, then another ten hours tomorrow to get us to Flagstaff, knowing that we gain two hours on the drive tomorrow by passing from the Central to the Mountain time zones, and by Arizona not being on Daylight Savings time, and as such being on Pacific time. Instead, though, when we were going through the map last night, Sarah mentioned about how she had her heart set on spending a night in Texas on our journey, and so Amarillo it had to be!! Thankfully, it was pretty straight driving all the way, and hence was done easier (physically) than I thought it would be. To put it into perspective, for the Aussies reading, try driving from my hometown of Portland, an hour from the South Australian border in south-western Victoria, to Sarah’s hometown of Orbost, an hour from the New South Wales border in south-eastern Victoria, then back again in the same day. (Keep in mind though, that speed limits here make it easier time-wise than it would back home).

As a result, we passed through six different states today to get to Amarillo. The first was (obviously) Alabama, and I’ll post the “Welcome” photo here as it didn’t get a run yesterday

We drove for about 50 miles through Alabama along Highway 78, which now bypassed most towns it saw due to being earmarked as a future Interstate freeway – I-22, before we reached the border to Mississipi, in which we drove past Tupelo, the birthplace of one Elvis Presley!!

Whilst we didn’t spend a great deal of time in Mississipi, we spent even less in Tennessee – a good thing too, as Sarah missed the Welcome photo as we came in. Basically, we skirted Memphis – whilst on the Elvis topic, the home of Graceland, which we very nearly came into a close encounter with (in fact we would have if not for the LOOOOONG drive scheduled), as you will see below.

I’d reckon that we spent about 20 minutes in Tennessee, before we crossed over into Arkansas as we escaped not just the Memphis city limits, but also Highway 78, as we worked our way back onto the Interstate system, in particular Interstate 40, which carried us out of Tennessee and over a border into Arkansas. Sarah had the camera poised to photograph the “Welcome to Arkansas” sign as we crossed over a bridge that separated Tennessee and Arkansas. As Sarah scoured the end of the bridge to prepare for the photo, we saw the Welcome sign sail effortlessly above our heads, suspended from one of the “arches” (I can’t think of a better name for it) on the bridge!! We then spent a good portion of the morning driving through Arkansas, stopping at a little place about 50 miles from the Oklahoma border called Ozark to fill up the car with petrol, as I had already gone through three-quarters of a tank to drive the 420-odd miles to that point, and also to grab a sandwich at the Subway store that was in the petrol station (and yes, I know, I said that I wasn’t going to visit any chain food store that has a presence in Australia. I changed my mind slightly today, and instead ate a variation of the sandwich that we don’t have in Australia, getting it on flatbread (not pita bread). Anyway, I was craving the salad fix, so it was allright to bend the rules just this once!!).

About 40 minutes after lunch, we then passed into Oklahoma, and having been disappointed with her previous miss, Sarah made sure that she wasn’t missing this photo!!

The drive through Oklahoma was mostly ho-hum kind of stuff, mainly because we had 330 miles of it to drive before another hundred through Texas. I thought I had doomed myself again when we started to approach Oklahoma City, Oklahoma’s largest city, just after 4:20pm, but thankfully the peak-hour traffic moved in directions away from us, and any delays through Okie City were minimal at best. It was then quite eerie to see little to no traffic on the roads as we passed through smaller Oklahoma towns like Clinton and Sayre, with historic Route 66 now being usurped by I-40 through this area, except where it squirts through the town centres, and into Texas..

OK, I know, that’s not the best photo in the world. But it is the Texas welcome sign from a distance, which came up a bit quick on Sarah (may have something to do with Peter Brock behind the wheel thanks to a legal speed limit of 70 miles per hour!!). Once we passed that sign, we knew we were on the home stretch for the day, and as the night started to get darker and the warning light on my petrol gauge shone brighter – we had chewed up all of the fuel we purchased in Ozark as you would imagine, being another 500-odd miles on from that point, and we crawled into Amarillo on about 13 miles of gas (there’s a petrol station across the road from the hotel though, so all will be right for the morning).

Amarillo is a funny old town. It’s quite spread out – there are 13 miles between where we passed the “Welcome to Amarillo” sign and our La Quinta Inn – but since Route 66 was decommissioned back in the 80’s, the only real attraction to Amarillo is the Big Texan Steakhouse, which offers a free 72oz (about 2.2kg if my conversion is up to scratch) steak dinner to anyone who can eat it in a hour. Plenty have tried, and plenty have succeeded – although those who literally bite off more than they can chew get bitten again, as if you don’t eat the meal in the allotted hour, you have to cough up $72, which I’d imagine would include those two American customs – tax and tip – to bring it more likely to about $88!!!

And for those wondering, no, I didn’t give it a go. I’ve struggled eating a 1kg steak at Universal Pizza on Lygon Street in Carlton a couple of times, and couldn’t fathom eating a steak more than double the size, plus sides!! Also, the Big Texan is a good ten miles back down I-40, and after having driven 907 miles, I wasn’t going back for a meal when there were perfectly good restaurants across the road!!

Or, at least we thought there were. The Golden Corral was our intended destination – after missing out on it thanks to the stoopid lines in Orlando, we were looking forward to a buffet packed with veggies!! As we walked over the road (a tricky proposition in itself – we didn’t fancy crossing a six-lane highway in failing light, there was no footpath and the little green man at the traffic lights didn’t want to appear), we saw the lights on and few people at Golden Corral – good, no lines, and the internet said it’s open until 10pm. The internet lies. The Golden Corral shut at 9pm – no good for us standing on the doorstep at 9:15pm. Our second, and eventual, choice, was pretty interesting too – the Outback Steakhouse on the other side of I-40. No need for the car, you can cross underneath the underpass, and we were standing on the doorstep of the Outback Steakhouse in no time, practising my best Ocker accent as, you see, the Outback Steakhouse is an Australian-themed restaurant. I was actually a little excited about this – perhaps they had pie and chips, or bangers and mash, or even a dirty great parma on the menu. Nup, it was all the usual American dishes with fancy names, like “Victoria’s Steak”, “Queensland Delight” and “New Zealand Lamb Ribs”, which I wasn’t touching, as I didn’t know whether the lamb was prepared in true Kiwi style or not!!!!! (Ooops, Nanna test!!). There wasn’t even Lamb’s Fry and Bacon, which I despise, but is a staple of the Aussie counter lunch menu!! I was going to have a VB if they were on offer – but again, the best they could offer was Coopers Pale Ale, Boag’s Premium and the ubiquitous Fosters – the stuff that is synonomous with Aussies overseas, yet we Aussies never touch it back home!! Funnily, once the waitress heard our accent and asked where we were from (yep, it was an all-Yank staff as well), she immediately rushed off and got the manager, and turned us into quasi-celebrities for the rest of the night!!! Unfortunately, the celebrity status didn’t extend to picking up the tab though!!!!

And that ends another day on the road, with Flagstaff, Arizona tomorrow (Thursday) night’s destination, to facilitate an early start Friday morning to see the Grand Canyon for the day, then hit Las Vegas Friday night, this time staying for three nights though. Until then, though, there’s another 550-odd miles of I-40 to tackle tomorrow, which after today’s magic number, should be a walk in the park. Still, one thing America has taught me is take nothing for granted (apart from Red Sox victories – another win in the bag tonight, this time 6-1 against the Florida Marlins at Fenway, where the Red Sox haven’t lost since the day I was there), so I’ll put the game face on in the morning and be prepared for whatever is thrown my way. The clock jumps back another two hours for us tomorrow, for those keeping score – our anticipated arrival is for 5:00pm Central time (the time we are on now), which will be 3:00pm Flagstaff time, but will be 8:00am Friday morning in Melbourne!!

Confused?? Don’t be – just pop your head in this direction about the same time tomorrow, and all will be clarified. Au revior all, and have a good night!!

Good evening all, from Jasper, Alabama – a small town about 30 miles from Birmingham, Alabama’s largest city. Leaving Mickey’s wonderland in our wake, we have started the third and final leg of our Road Trip – one that has a few destinations, mind you – as we now start to cross America from east to west. Bloody hot here too – when we arrived after 5pm, the mercury was still in the high 80’s, or over 32 degrees for the Aussies, so we were thankful for in-car and in-room air conditioning!!

First things first, birthday wishes must be sent out to both Sarah’s brother Andrew and her cousin Brigid, who both share June 16th as their birthday (in the same year too!!). I know that I missed your actual birthday guys, but it’s still June 16th here, so I hope I can be forgiven!!!

Secondly, for those of you trying to keep track of us via the clock, know that we are starting to move back through the time zones, and will commence to get further behind Aussie time. With the move into Alabama, we slipped into the USA Central time zone, being 15 hours behind Melbourne time (interestingly, we don’t cross into a time zone tomorrow, and then when we do on Thursday into the Mountain time zone, we’ll be crossing into Arizona (where the Grand Canyon lie waiting), which doesn’t observe daylight saving time and therefore isn’t on Mountain time, but Pacific time, the same as Las Vegas and California – don’t worry, I’ll explain it more on Thursday so you don’t get confused!!)

The morning started in Orlando by having breakfast at the Courtyard Café at the Courtyard Marriott, as we had done the last two mornings also. The self-serve buffet worked a treat, as did the chef that was on-call to whip up an omelette upon request – which I tried this morning, and was wonderful!! The best part of all was that there was no reference to the breakfasts on our bill, which was slipped under the door this morning!! This wasn’t a surprise though, as free breakfast was part of the accommodation package (although I still remembered to tip our waiter every morning). The money spent on the two dinners from the food court was also credited, so it was only the agreed amount that we paid for the room!! After using the in-room check-out, we packed the car and taxied out of the Courtyard Marriott, leaving Orlando and its long lines in the rear-view mirror (it was about then, when we were starting to rustle money together should we encounter any toll roads, that I realised I had forgotten to leave a tip for the maid!!).

Today’s drive started in pretty usual conditions – we drove north down the Florida Turnpike, turning over a total of four bucks at two different toll points for the experience, until it merged with Interstate 75 to take us over the border into Georgia…

This is actually the photo from when we first passed into Georgia on Saturday, but it hasn’t seen blog time yet and it’s the same laid-out sign as what we went passed today!! There were actually two ways to get to where we wanted to go according to Google Maps – take I-75 all the way to Atlanta and merge onto Interstate 40, or to cut across towards Birmingham off the interstate system. 62 miles into Georgia, we made the choice not only to get off I-75 at a place called Tifton in Georgia for lunch and a petrol stop, but also to stray from the interstates for the rest of today’s trip (bar a few miles here and there!!), as it was a series of US Highways that took us over the Alabama border and delivered us to our destination here in Jasper (the “Welcome” photo is still on Sarah’s camera, as she is asleep next to me – I’ll post it tomorrow with the other half-dozen “Welcome” signs you will see!!).

Driving the highways had its pros and cons. The good thing was that it felt like you were really driving through middle America, as you passed through the middle of a lot of small towns and past houses and driveways, and saw nary a billboard, just some nice flora scenery (mostly of the tree variety). Interestingly, a few of the towns we passed through would have been no bigger than Sarah’s hometown of Orbost in eastern Victoria, but were fully stocked with four or five chain motels and all of the different fast food chains that populate this country!! The highways also seem to carry a lot less traffic than the interstates, which made navigating them a touch easier.

The cons were that, as you enter into the towns, you come across traffic lights, which can have an impact on your travel time, with the stop-start and getting back up to speed, and that drivers don’t seem to be as courteous as they are on the interstates – many a time would the local farmer pull into the left lane (the highways and interstates are all at least two lanes each-way, and the left lane is the fast lane – again, backward for us Aussies) and take his sweet time, or Miss America would be talking on her mobile phone like there was no tomorrow, swerving here and there as she went along!!

The other thing that slowed us up today was, as it has done before, hitting one of the major cities right on peak hour!! Today, it was Birmingham, Alabama’s biggest city, that we copped right on 4pm, and it added an extra twenty minutes or so to our drive. Still, we got to our Super 8 Motel in Jasper at about 5:25pm, checked in, relaxed for a bit and then went out to a local restaurant called Garfield’s for dinner – steak and veggies for Sarah and Bourbon Chicken and veggies for me, and didn’t the bourbon sauce have Jim Beam all the way through it!! After dinner, we came home via the local Wal-Mart, a large department store chain (like Target or Big W back home), where I started Sarah’s birthday shopping at her insistence (I’ve got a week to get my act together) and picked up something for my brother Dan as well, before coming back to Super 8 to find that the Red Sox had defeated the Florida Marlins at Fenway Park 8-2, with David Ortiz again going deep and the Red Sox batting through their order in the fourth inning to give pitcher Tim Wakefield his team-leading ninth win for the season – go Wake!!!

I’d better be off then – tomorrow looks like it could be a long driving day. We’re going to try and hit Amarillo, Texas for tomorrow night – means it could be a long day tomorrow, but a shorter day on Thursday to rest up for the Grand Canyon on Friday (and then Vegas on Friday night). But for now it’s good night from Alabama, where as I mentioned in the sub-heading Lynard Skynard got it right – where the sky is awesome blue!!