Finally!!!

Hi everyone!!!

Well, we have finally arrived in Vancouver. It's Sunday May 13 (mother's day) and we got in yesterday arvo.

Firstly, sorry we haven't kept you all in the loop. We have been so busy trying to cram stuff into our days. As you’ve probably guessed, we took a little longer to get here than 3-4 weeks!

Ok, so because we were so slack, we’ll do a few entries over the next few days. So lets start from the beginning and give you a run down of leaving home, Hawaii and Vegas.

Leaving Home
The last two weeks were flat out catching up with everyone and organising final bits and pieces. Even up until the last couple of hours before we left we were running around packing up our stuff at Mike’s parents. But we made it all ok and there was only a little bit of crying….ok, well a bit more but not as much as I thought there’d be. We arrived in Sydney ok and got to the plane all ok. The flight flew (hehe). It really didn’t feel like 10 hours, so that was a bonus.

Hawaii
We needed the ear plugs on the first morning – garbage truck at 7am each day! And the first glimpse of the beach at Waikiki was beautiful, but very similar to our own island beaches – and we were a little “so what”. However, within a few days we fell in love with the islands. We went on a fabulous tour of Oahu a few days after we arrived and learnt and saw so much (thanks Sue) – including some Italian boobs due to one of the lasses on the tour not being too surf savvy (Mike – my highlight so far!!!). Highlights of Oahu included Polynesian Cultural Centre, Pearl Harbour and a hike up Diamond Head Crater that had amazing views. We also spent a few days on Hawaii (the Big Island) which was pretty cool. The volcano was absolutely mind blowing – we walked down into the smaller crater, saw a whole bunch of old lava flows and sat at the end of the old lava flow from 2003 and watched the lava up in the mountains (we were a LONG way away, but still we saw it).

The only dilemma was I set the alarm for 4pm, not 4am the day we were supposed to catch the plane to Vegas!!! Lucky Mike woke up at 5! Oops!

Las Vegas
LOVED VEGAS! But it took us a bit to really appreciate this place – at first it was a little “so what, it’s just a bunch of casinos”. But it’s just soooo cool and there is so much to do!!! WE stayed at the MGM Grand – we reckon it was one of the best/busiest actual gaming areas, and the room was gorgeous (word of advice – don’t make international calls – Mike got caught out). My favourite casinos were Paris (has shops set up like the streets of Paris (I presume) and ceiling that looks like a real sky) and New York New York (pretzel shops and a rollercoaster). The Bellagio water fountains are amazing – the actual fountain is a whole bunch of small jets in one big line and about 3 massive circles. They “perform” to songs – it’s all computer programmed and soooo pretty! We didn’t gamble a lot, but mike found a Star Wars pokie (sorry, slot machine) that we wasted about $50 on and got NOTHING back! (Mike – I think the memories and experience of a life time were priceless) But on a good note, I learnt to play blackjack (doubled my money the first sitting – mind you I only put $50 down). On an even better note, we finally played roulette and Mike quadrupled his money (again, he only put $40 down), but we still won! We also went to Studio 54 (dancers hanging from the ceiling and on podiums (again, Mike’s highlight) and KA, the new Cirque De Solei (spelling??) at the MGM Grand – which was awesome!

Grand Canyon
The Canyon was amazing. We spent two days exploring the South Rim – on the first day we walked around the rim for about 7km or so. And there’s no fences or ledges, you’re walking right next to the end on some bits of the path – it’s pretty amazing. Photos and words just can’t explain how enormous it is. We hung around for sunset but it was too cloudy, and it was absolutely freezing! On the second day we walked down – not all the way to the floor, but far enough that it took 4 hours to come back and was one hell of a hike!

We then realised that we’d forgotten to go to the SkyWalk which was on the West Rim. So, we decided we’d just do it, even though it was a fair bit out of our way. So we headed off to the West Rim and got lost…..and couldn’t find the turnoff…..then we found it and it was a 14 mile dirt road with another 7 mile paved road. After putting the rental car through it’s paces, we got there quite late to discover a $75 entrance fee – didn’t see that sign at the start of the dirt road! It was $50 for the Indians just to go to the SkyWalk and then $25 to walk on the bloody thing, which goes to the guy who built it. It also included a buffet dinner and some other stuff that we didn’t have time to do. But we figured we’d never be there again and after what seemed like our 725th “heated discussion” decided to do it. I have to say it was a little disappointing compared to what we thought it would be like. On the other hand, the West Rim generally had a much more spiritual/natural feel to it. This area is still owned by the native Indians and is quite deserted compared to the South Rim which is very populated because it’s a national park (paved roads, a shuttle bus along the rim, cabins, places to eat etc). Anyway, we did it and it was worth it because we ended up seeing sunset over the canyon.

Our next port of call was LA……but we’ll keep that for our next instalment.

On one final note, we hope you are all well and want you to know that we miss you all! Even though you might not hear from us on a regular basis, we are still thinking of you – there’s been so many silly things that remind us of you guys – we’ll let you know what they are soon :-)

Take care and we will send another post soon.

Love bec and mike
xoxo

p.s. in case you were wondering we are now up to “heated discussion” 4576, but all is good :-) (Mike – I think my record is 1 Win and 4575 Losses, I’m counting Bec not talking to me as a win). Blah blah blah.

p.p.s we will be putting pictures up soon....

bye!