Jéééééllooooh everybody! We woke up with a beautiful sunshine and about 22°C today, which has gone up during the day to 27°C...lovely, beautiful, great ! A hint of summer in our spring holiday ! aaaahhhhh.... We have been about everywhere today, had a walk to the end of Fifth Ave to get something from Abercrombie & Fitch.And I hàve to say something about this store: two handsome guys are at the entrance, dressed in A&F outfit, then you walk in - from sunshine into shade/darkness- but not before passing a half naked young man...at my age, that is "fainting" material!!! woohoo! But then: very loud music is torturing your ears, and on every floor the passage is blocked by a dancing (and very skinny) young guy or girl. Not only very good for the self esteem but also quite annoying when it is busy and these people ask "hey, what's up?" Why do YOU care?! Then you try something on...eum...I have seen many, many, many muffin-like people, not to say "fatso's", but they DEFINITELY DON'T go shopping in A&F !!! because their largest size is a Large, yes...right! About half my body and an arm fits in it!!! Duuuuhh! So...nothing to be done, we were "banned" to the men's floor. The loud music still banging in your ears and the smell of their perfume (ok, smells good, but quite heavy) ruining your nostrils, and along the way the dancing skinnies....sigh! NOT a shop for me, I'm too plain, too old, too boring for it. What a happy, cheerful thought to start your day with! But then we discovered Rockefeller Center, and the NBC shop, where we saw a hysterical T-shirt of a drawing of Ross, Rachel and Chandler with the sofa on the stairs: "pivot ! pivot! pivot!" hysterically funny as it reminded us instantly of our own Friends-episode when trying to move a dressoir to the first floor!!! We had a lovely lunch at a take-away deli around the corner: some freshly made springrolls with giant shrimp, avocado, carrots and salad and a very good sauce to go along. Finished with some fresh pineapple and strawberries...we are acting already like the Newyorkers! We had another look at Time Square...that is not to be "captured" by the human brain: billboards, people, people, noise, cars honking, ... As said before: quite Las Vegas-like, too many people, too much noise, too much lights and things moving ...Maybe we are getting old ?! One tip for those of you who'd like to come to NYC in May: you will be surrounded by classes and classes of youngsters, having their yearly trip to Rockefeller, Madame Tussaud's, Empire State, ...wherever we go, there are there too! But...we also "discovered" the most beautiful part of New York: Greenwich Village. Lovely, peaceful, friendly, quiet, beautiful...I could live there!(except...I'm not that rich and neither is my husband!) We sat down for a while along the side of the Hudson River (amazing that a plane has landed there!) and had a look at sunbathing and jogging and simply-hanging-around New yorkers (don't these people ever have to work?! Wherever you go, whenever you go there, there are always lots and lots of people on the move!!)After discovering that the Spotted Pig restaurant was quite full, we tried to find something else and...we did! A very good address in Greenwich/Meatpacking District is The Place on 310, West 4th Street (Didier, that is a tip for you, it is not really cheap-cheap but very good and cosy to sit!) And now, our feet hurt again like hell, our legs have shrunk again a few centimeters and we have no clue with what we will fill our last day (except for shopping of course!! This is a very bad place for shop-aholics, but at least we'll know what we'll be working for in the coming months!!!) Sleep tight and tatààà!
Empire state building and walk in the neighbourhood
Good morning all! Before I start with the reporting of our day, I'd like to tell you something about the American toilets... why, oh why do they all have to be open on top and open on the bottom?! And not just a small space of a few centimeters, I'm talking about 40-50 cm!! Why is there still quite some space between the door and the lock so that people who would like to take a peek can do so?! I DON'T LIKE THAT !!! I'd like to take a leak in all quietness and serenity, not making noise like the Niagra falls with the entire population being able to hear it!! And...if ever you'd go to Central Park, near Belvedere Castle and you are a man...prepare for an adventure! Just imaging you are strolling around the park and need to go for number 2 . Well, I can tell you: the whole world can witness it if necessary, coz the toilets over there don't have doors!!!!! Marc got into the toilet for a pee and looked straight into the face of a man, trousers at the ankles, arms on the knees, taking his time to do this thing. Oh my God!
Anyway, having said this, let's go back to today: not much to report, we had breakfast at Starbucks and visited the Empire State Building. I must say the organisation is really very smooth. The scare the living shit out of you by saying that "you're on your own at the roof", "you'll never make it without a map", yeah, yeah...cool down woman! We've been to Yosemite !! It goes without saying that it was fantastic, super, magnificent, beautiful up there! Just lovely and worth the money !! Afterwards we spend one full hour or even more in a shoe store, deciding what shoes to buy and waiting for the guy to bring them to us. Then we went to Grand Central Terminal, where we visited the Oyster Bar and had lunch there. I must admit though that what I had was not worth the price and I don't want to have any more lobster for a few months now !(as if I have it every day!) Blègh! The oysters were good, that is, if you like to have a chewable gulp of seawater in your mouth The Terminal is lovely, really very nice! We ran into a Korean/Chinese/Japanese couple that was getting married and having their pictures taken. Always good to see something like that! For the rest of the day, we walked around in the area of Broadway/Midtown Manhattan, had a lovely time in the sun in Bryant Park (just great!! I wish I was young again and living in NY!) Via Madison Square Park and the private park of the English area (Cramercy Park) we went back home by underground. Strange though, this tradition of giving the people who own a house around the park, a key to the park and make it thus exclusive....phuh! We went to the hotel, got changed and went into Little Italy for a lasagna and a pasta and were sitting next to two men from Tenessee...we had a very interesting conversation with them. Now back to bed and have a small rest for tomorrow. We didn't manage to get to Greenwich Village but that is on the plan for....soon!! bye everyone!
The early bird catches the worm..... In order to avoid long queing for the ferry to Liberty Island, we got up early, took the underground and got in the line.After a good half hour waiting (or even longer) we were admitted to Castle Clinton to buy our tickets and then had to undergo an airport-like control: belts off, watches off, if needed shoes off, all in a basket and through a scanner. And when arriving on Ellis Island the same procedure, this to avoid that the 20 fish that swam along would enter the island with something illegal in their pockets !! Oh dear ! It was very impressive to be this close to one of the most famous ladies of the world, and the view on Manhattan was stunning! Same goes for Ellis Island...it must have been quite an adventure (in the broadest sense of the word) for those thousands and thousands of immigrants who came here, hoping to set foot on and start a new life in America, which was not an easy thing for quite a lot of them who were turned back to their homelands. We took the ferry back to Manhattan, had a stroll down Wall Street, a closer look on Ground Zero (which is now filled with cranes etc for the construction of the Liberty Tower) and then walked in the Century 21 store....Oh my God!!! That is worse than sales in a shopping mall! I had heard from several people that you should not just turn around and walk out again, but "bite through" the first impression. And an impression it was!! Not really the place to be if you don't like the sales atmosphere like I do, but probably seventh heaven if you are fond of shopping and finding "treasures" for little money. But again: not for me! you have to make your way via ladies with rolling shopping baskets, crawling over them (the baskets that is!!!), pushing them gently aside or with a loud and clear "EXCUUUUUSE me"....sigh! After that shop, we decided not to come in here ever again (so hopefully Marc's trousers will fit as he was not allowed to try them on) and we walked on direction Pier 17. It was really nice here, with a beautiful view on Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge. And then decided to have dinner in the Bridge Café, the oldest bar/restaurant in New York. It appeared to have been a saloon once. Well...prices are not outdated, for sure! But food was delicious!And so was dessert of butterscotch pudding and breadpudding with caramel and scotch !! That needed a brisk walk of course, to burn some calories, so off we went to Brooklyn Bridge-by night again to take some more pictures and then again in the subway to head to the hotel. I have to make a small side remark here: I guess that my English is not understandable. What is so hard in "I'd like to have a room on the backside of the hotel, not the front side"??? Oh yes, we got another room (in order to be more quiet), two floors higher than the original one but ON THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING! Again: sigh.... guess I'll have to head for reception again... Have a nice day, we're on our way to Greenwich Village !
Today was again a "green day": a day in the park. This time in the most popular and known park of New York: Central Park ! The weather did not look too promising when we woke up this morning: it had rained overnight and the sky was very grey and there was a fierce wind. But that did not scare these globetrotters, so off we went. We had to get out of the underground a bit too early as there had been an incident (at some works on the line) so instead of sitting in the train, we decided to go for a walk. And we went to CP via Fifth Avenue.Yes, there we were: in the scenes of Sex and the City. Except that I haven't seen any Blahnik shoe store yet! We did find a very nice bookshop and bought a travel guide, the english version of the "Wat en Hoe in New York". So now we are "on track" again ! When we arrived in Central Park we first bought a map of the park. For those of you who still want to visit NY: do not do that! Because you can get a free map (a small version but who cares?) at the Belvedere Castle. We rented some crazy bikes and drove around the park. It took us exactly one hour, no stops, no nothing, just having a good workout with these vehicles. You can simply not call that a bike! Marc craved for his Merckx-version! Anyway, the park is really huge, you can't understand if you haven't seen it.Then we walked along, had a look at Strawberry Fields, at the Lennon mosaic, at Belvedere Castle, ...And as today was the "NYC Walk for Aids", there were a lot of things going on and a lot of people on the move. After some good 2-3 hours, we went back via 5th Avenue, did some windowshopping and had a Starbucks coffee. Then we decided it was time to have some dinner and we read in the book that East was a great sushi bar. Now...you must know that sense of direction is not my strongest feature. So instead of reading "East 44th Street", I read "West 44th Street", leading us straight into Broadway! But what a great surprise that was: looked like Vegas but different! Amazing and fascinating! Anyway, back we went to the restaurant on the TOTALLY other side of the street! Past 5th Ave, through Grand Central Station (very lovely in the evening, also very hot!) to discover that the restaurant had suffered a fire and was now redecorating....sigh!! but the paper on the door suggested to try someone they worked with: West Udon, only two blocks away. "Udon" seems to be standing for "bouillonsoep", we were the only white people in a room full of Asians but we ate our noodles and tempura shrimps with our chopsticks as if we never ever do anything else ! And now it is bedtime again, our feet are heavy, our legs need a good massage and our head need a noiseless night... Sleep tight all, tomorrow we will visit Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty, hopefully the sun will accompany us ! Bye !
Good morning everybody! After a bad night's sleep, writing of the blog and dozing off for a short while again, we got up and went for breakfast at Balthazar's. Oh dear! This is definitely THE place to be for the more upper class New Yorkers! We were being served by well trained waiters, perfectly dressed, like a French restaurant requires.Had the choice between a "cup" of cappuccino or a "bowl" and saying that the waiter pointed with his hand a small cup. What we received however was supplying us with enough caffeine to run through the day! (what we actually needed) ! and the light boiled eggs with "soldiers" (did not know this was even an English expression!) and the home roasted granola with fresh fruit and yoghurt were superdelicious ! Not to be done every day, coz a bit expensive (40$ for only that is not really cheap) but the best way to start your day!! Then off we went to find us a travelbookshop, but the (only one) in the neighbourhood was closed on weekends! Bit strange though. And as we were then already quite close to Brooklyn Bridge, we decided to walk the bit and it gave us a flavour of Chinatown.If you wouldn't know where you were, you'd think you'd be in Hong Kong or so! We were approached a couple of times by people mumbling something to us (and no offence, but most Asian people are by definition hard to understand when they speak English) The only thing we could make out was "Rolex" or "handbag lady?", eum...did you want to make a statement darling, saying I'm not elegant?! Anyway...after some searching we found the pedestrian entrance to the Bridge. This is absolutely cool and amazing! It was a pity that the skyscrapers were topped off with clouds, but on the other hand this gave it a hint of mistery. In Brooklyn we walked around in the Heights, took a look at the waterfront to see the skyline of New York, saw Lady Liberty in the distance, stepped all the way down to Fulton Street, hoping to find a bookstore (strange area though, a bit of "lost" glory) took the underground to Greenwood Cemetery, one of the largest and most beautiful cemeteries in the world. It was rather a park, where the graves seemed to have been "seeded" lying crisscross on the lawns and on the hills. It was huge and beautiful with flowers blooming, and different trees growing and ...just so quiet and lovely! Then we walked through another huge park on our way to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. In that large park an american myth prooved to be true: fathers are playing baseball with their sons! Throwing and catching and throwing again, cheering them and encouraging them, and these small american boys, with baseball hats, and special trousers and that big glove...quite cute to see! The Botanic Gardens are a MUST, really, well that is, if you like flowers and herbs and plants. You have to pay a fee (8$) but it is worth it. We came accross a few couples having their bridal pictures taken! And that proved that an other thing is true: the bridemaids do all wear the same dresses and this flowery thingy on their wrists . Yesterday was THE day to get married in Brooklyn!!! Then, on our way to Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge again. Manhattan bridge is almost equally lovely as is Brooklyn's, so we sat underneath it, took some pictures of early evening-New York, got half deaf of the train rambling over the bridge, like every two minutes, and looked for a place to eat. We first passed a Spanish-Mexican little place, we managed to find us a seat, but it was quite smellly in there, the food looked ok, but we had to go order it ourselves, queue for a while and being quite tired (which is an understatement!!!!) we decided to leave and find us a place where we would be served! Which we found! With a beautiful view on NY's skyline and superdelicious pizza, served on a kind of "cake plate", you know a bit above the table on a foot. There were a few "standard" pizza's and a choice of toppings. Mmmmmmm! That and a glass of prosecco made the day complete. The walk back, over the bridge, with NY by night in front of us was also something not to forget! By 22:00 we were "home" again where - tatààààà!!!- Marc's bag was waiting for us! Yiehàà! And now I'm writing this here, the night was noisy again, the firebrigade here puts on their alarm for sports sometimes and some people find it really necessary to shout a bit under our window. We had pooring rain last night but now it is dry again, with a strong wind, let's hope that will change into sunshine again as the plan is to go to Central Park.... Let's see! Have a good day you all and take care!
Hello everybody! Here we are again with the sequel of our adventures in the USA!! It is good to be here again but... It all started already a day before our departure: I had to go for a meeting to Austria and the return was not that flawless: in the airport in Vienna the system was out so loooooooooong queues at the check-in.Thank God for the internet and for the possibility to check in upfront!! So when that problem wasn't a problem anymore, we went on. We took our trolleys with us as handluggage. Of course, all our toiletries were in there, so had to try to convince the man at the X-rays to let us go through (my colleague and myself) and again a solution was given: we could check our trolleys in at the last moment, cool! that was solved. Then the plane left with about 20 minutes delay...no problem, then we had to make a loop before Brussels due to heavy showers, and when the plane had landed, we had to stay in for at least 30-45 minutes as there was no ground personnel due to the weather. Ok, when that was solved we had to wait another toooo long time to get our luggage which we found by shere coincidence on one of the belts that were functioning!! I got home after 10. This only to picture the situation. (Next morning we were picked up by my parents with a 20 minutes delay due to some road travels in our neighbourhood, which brought me close to a nervous breakdown. We managed to arrive in the airport in time, dropped our luggage and went to the gate. Why oh why do they put too little people on the luggage-check early mornings?! and why do they never speed up?! anyway, we arrived just in time for boarding, one split second left to go to the toilet. sigh... Flight to London was perfect (except for the really shitty sandwich we received) and we arrived well on schedule, but again we had to wait inside the plane due to heavy traffic. Ahum! Still no problem though, we went smoothly to the other gate and came at the British control/check...Christ! No way you can stress these people!!!take off shoes, take off belt,..I always wonder why you have to go through all that misery again after having had it already in Brussels. Then we saw that our plane was boarding at gate B35. Unfortunately, B35 was still a train and a good run away! So we arrived just in time again, this time no split second for the toilet! Our flight was good, a bit bumpy once in a while, good movies and fortunately Marc had chosen excellent seat at the back, with no neighbours and close to the toilets. so after a good G&T and a whisky-cola, our trip could start. After lunch, I was dozing off, when suddenly Marc asked where I had put the travel guides... me?! huh?! I did not put them anywhere, thought that you would have packed them? not! ààààrrrggghh, drama! Ok, we got over it after half an hour or so (that is, me).Fortunately we had spend one day a few weeks ago, planning all and making print outs. Cool, we landed well at about 11:15, didn't really rush to get out of the plane and then found us at the end of the line for immigration! Took us one hour and some fingerprints! Ok, then to the luggage belt....shit! where were our bags?! the nice lady asked whether we took a look behind the belt and made us do the tour again (duhh!) Nope, still not there! So we went to BA-luggage services where we were served by a wannabe comedian ! anyway, he was nice and helped us out and we were told that my bag would arrive with the next flight (around 13:00 o'clock) but unfortunately Marc's was still missing. We received a 50$ voucher and some good tips on where and how to spend them plus some restaurant tips. So off we went, with very light packs this time!!!, to the airtrain. We made some extra sightseeing by chosing the wrong direction, but the weather was good and it was nice ! But we then found our way to Jamaica Station and to the correct subway (J-line) into Manhattan. You meet all kinds of people in that subway, quite interesting to observe! We were probably the only "real whites" there.Off at Bowery station and found our hotel without any problems.(Sohotel in Broome Street) Check-in was a bit hard for the receptionist due to too many people and us having an unusual name, so she drove me again close to a panic by saying that she couldn't find it!!!! But she managed to find us with some help of the back office and confirmed our 7-days stay (and an immediate hole in our budget as we had to pay the entire amount) Our room is really nice, very small but charming with an ugly view to the street. After double checking our lost luggage (still no news) we decided to take a walk in the neighbourhood (Little Italy - Soho -Chinatown) The weather in NY is superlovely, hot, sunny, just great! We did some clothes-shopping for Marc (and discovered that they could not accept the voucher!!) and have sniffed the atmosphere. Had dinner at Vincent's (so-so) and dropped into a coma in bed. Yeah...."I want to wake up, in a city that doesn't sleep..." ahum! We did indeed!! Feels like sleeping under a bridge to be honest, a lot of street noise gets into our room, we have the feeling the windows are widely open, people are yelling and screaming and shouting in the middle of the night, on a mattress covered with a layer of plastic (yes, it is the business we work for but that doesn't mean we want to sleep on it!! Far too hot and noisy!!!) ...it is now 05:15, and as we were awake anyway, we already took a shower, and decided to write this blog. We'll visit Brooklyn today and will keep you posted! Bye for now!!!
hello all, this will be my last message in this blog. The G&T was gooood, the meal and the wine were quite ok too and I have watched Sex and the City, so had an entertaining evening. Marc has watched the last Indiana Jones movie, but on a 15 x 25 cm screen, the effects are minimal! We arrived at Heathrow on a bright and sunny (!!) Saturday afternoon at about 13:25 hrs, and could still spend some time and dimes in the tax free shops of Terminal 5. We had a last Starbucks-treat and then it was time to board for our mini-flight to Brussels. A welcoming committee consisting of the two daughters was waiting for us and we went for some pizza in the local pizza restaurant. At home, the fridge had been filled, bunches of roses were placed here and there, ...it was really nice to come home ! But as we didn't have much of sleep on the plane, our bed was crying our names out loud by 21:30 hrs and so we hit the sack. After all, Marc had to go to work the next day...
And that was the end of a great adventure, of a beautiful trip with magnificent views, nice people, new friendships, lots of fun, astonishment, disbelief, eggs and cheese, muffins and bad coffee, long distances, bottles and bottles of water,sweating and heavily breathing, cereal bars, beautiful animals and a feeling of space that you simply cannot find in Europe as all is so bumped onto eachother.
What a country! What a trip ! What a fantàstic memory! To all of you: thank you for reading our little reports, we enjoyed writing them, we hope you all had fun reading it. For sure we will go back to the US and we will keep you informed in due time when you can start reading again!
Bye for now, you have been a great audience ! warm regards, Marc & Ann
Hello everybody, this is our very last day of the holiday. Unfortunately the sun has let us down these last days and so the beautiful Highway number 1 was a bit grey. Still, we had some beautiful views on the Pacific and among the surfers who were enjoying the strong waves, we have seen seals swimming and jumping out of the water! That was really cool! I forgot to mention yesterday that we have seen a humming bird (I hope I got that right, in Dutch it is kolibri Pretty amazing as we saw it in the street, buzzing around some flowers, really close to us, but of course, before we realized what it was, it was already flying a few meters further! And I also forgot to mention that a few days ago, we managed to charm us out of a parking ticket ! We were two minutes late and the officer was already printing the ticket, but after talking a bit with him and brightening up his day with my glorious smile (ahum!) he ripped the paper and threw it away ! pheuw, it was very close, but I think he appreciated the chat (and probably also the feeling of power he had )
We had quite a boring breakfast at our motel and took off for the remaining kilometers to the airport of San Francisco. Somewhere along the line, the sun broke through and that was lovely, making the color of the ocean change suddenly from grey and gloomy to beautiful deep blue! Aaaaahhhh! How we will miss the sun!!We had lunch in a lovely little city called Half Moon Bay, unfortunately I am always very nervous when we are traveling coz you never know what can still pop up och duuuhh! To be this old already and still being a woos, guess Ill never learn Anyway, we enjoyed our lunch and then drove further to the airport where I quickly checked whether our bags were not too heavy and then returned the car.When I asked the lady what I could best do with the cooler, her entire face began to sparkle as if we had given her a fantastic gift, she said that the people cleaning the car, would be very happy with it, I guess she will volunteer for the cleaning today! As soon as we had turned our backs to her, she was heading for the car. Well, the cooler served us very well, so hopefully she will be happy with it too.
Oh, I nearly forgot, today, around noon, we passed the 4000 miles, (we delivered the car with 4070 miles being about 6600 km), and Marc has to take the honors for it, because he drove the car for the full three weeks!
And now this is it, we are waiting in the airport, there is no internet access, but I will post this as soon as we are at home. Our flight is still foreseen at the original hour, so lets cross our fingers and hope we will arrive safe and sound in Belgium again!!! To celebrate a great holiday, Ill have a G&T to start with in the planeBye for now ! xx
hello dears, for the second time in 3 full weeks, the sun has disappointed us. No sun today, it seems that she cannot get past the mountainridge that is near to the sea, because further inland we can see blue sky and sunshine, unfortunately not on our heads. We left Morro Bay, passed by Hearst Castle but did not visit it as the next visit was more than 1,5 hours later and we did not want to wait for such a long time, so we continued our drive along the shore. Lovely views, nice waves, and a viewpoint where we were supposed to see sea elephants...jahàà! If the animals we saw at the end of the beach, all over eachother were sea elephants, I must be Santa !! But it was nice to watch them (from quite a distance!) Back on the road again, we drove up to Carmel, the city where Clint Eastwood has been maire for a while. The guy surely knows how to pick 'em! The shopping street of Carmel Bay is lovely and reminded us of Knokke Le Zoute (for those who don't know where that is, it is a posh neighbourhood at the Belgian coast), the houses were lovely, the shops were cute ànd very expensive and so were the cars parked along the sideway, our poor Mazda was a bit of a misfit.... A very healthy chicken wrap with a cappuccino at a coffee shop was our lunch and it was delicious! But, as we had read in our guide that there was an outlet store close to Monterey , we did not explore Carmel more, which was actually a pity because the "Outlet stores" were a bunch of sad, depressing shops, with not much to be seen ! So no further clothes shopping for us . We have actually done very poorly, so no extra suitcases or bags have been bought, because all fits in our (already slightly heavy!!) backpacks ! And anyway, the money's gone, we will have to work hard to get our piggy out of its half coma again !!! So we made a stroll to Fisherman's Wharf where another bunch of sealions were wellcoming us with their loud barking (ask me when I'm back, I'm a good imitator!!! ), pelicans were cruising the shore and we have seen....drums, drums, theme from Jaws....real live otters frolicking around, one even caught a fish and the flapping of the fish on the water was as if the otter was applauding!! really cool!!! And now...the end is near, we have made the check in for our flights, will have a last night in a super Kingsize bed, and hopefully the sun will accompany us on our last miles towards San Francisco! This will most probably be my last blog on american soil. Dear readers, you all have a nice Saturday, will revert to you soon! big hug
Hello everybody! It is strange, but I think that all the angels are sitting on a thick cloud in their city, because it was the second night we woke up with a "closed" sky. After a refreshing breakfast at Starbucks and a goodbye hug to Christophe (Inès must have been still in their room) we set off towards San Francisco. But on our way we met....an outlet village!!!! No way we would miss the opportunity to shop here ! But my goodness, these outlet villages are huuuuuuge !! As we had a bit of a time pressure, we kind of "ran" through the village, ending in Marc bying a few jeans and myself buying some Nike running shoes. (I really hàve to get started doing some sports after this holiday, so I began with buying running shoes...ahum! let's see where thàt will end... ) Anyway, we drove past Santa Barbara and had a fabidu hamburger at In-N-Out, thank you Peter for the great tip!!! This is really a great hamburgerplace ! you only have 3 choices: hamburger, double burger, cheeseburger with REAL potatoes. All is very clean and vèèèèry good! Ju-hùùùm! Cannot be compared whatsoever with any of the other hamburger chains and is miles away from our nightmare at Burger King! We arrived at Morro Bay around 4 in the afternoon and went to see the Morro Rock. And it is so cute, there are pelicans flying here, sea lions making a LOT of noise (and smell! ) at the pier and the fishing boats are gently lying on the water.. this is a lovely place, nice, cute shops, nice restaurants, and gooooooood sea air, so we have decided to spend the night over here. We found a good Inn for 65$ so we were all happy and went for a walk in the one street this place has. There are very nice little shops with a lot of crap, but still nice to visit, we saw some sealions swimming in the bay and heard from a lady in the shop that there are dolphins to be seen (but you need binoculars, and what didn't we bring???) Oh and we had a superlovely, romantic dinner right next to the water: some really nice fish and a great Merlot, what else can a person want? Aaaahhhh...this is the life ! (Annelies and Didier, we are staying in the Bayview Inn in Harbour Street, www.bayviewinn.net, clean and tidy and cheap and dinner at The Galley, really, really good !) That was about all we did today, tomorrow we are heading further for the North. It is with a lot of pain in our hearts that we see our holiday coming to an end, but we will try to make the most of it still tomorrow ! TTFN and have a great day! xx
hello all, we are staying in West Hollywood, so not really in downtown LA. Just for those of you who would like to situate us a bit... Today we have been searching for an outlet store but so far, nothing found, we did find lots and lots of shops selling wigs, real hair, drag queen attributes like fake eyelashes, amazingly high shoes, strange and special (read: superspecial and kinky clothes/underwear ),... pretty amazing actually. To us Hollywood is more like a ghetto neighbourhood once you go to the sidestreets of Hollywood Boulevard. Of course, Beverly Hills is tidy and neat and very nice and rich, but the rest...not really too appealing for us. Anyway, we have visited Warner Bros today (and not Universal Studios as reported earlier) and it was sùper! We had a really great guide, Brad, who seemed to love what he was doing, who liked our questions and really tried to show us as much as possible. And we were in for a treat: we actually went into Central Perk from Friends !! We sat in the famous sofa! that was só cool! And we went into the museum, on the groundfloor were clothes and attributes of several movies: the Joker-masks worn by Heath Ledger, clothes from the Matrix, dresses, costumes, letters, notes...and the second floor was entirely dedicated to Harry Potter. Marc and I were "chosen" by the Magical Hat, I was Griffindor and Marc was Slytherin !! There were all kinds of attributes: Hagrid's coat, the broomstick, Hermione when she was petrified (and that doll really looked as if it was her !), the Dementors,... anyway, being Harry Potter-fans it was awesome! We also saw the outside of Central Perk, the house of Ross and Monica, when it was Prom-night and Rachel still had her old nose, we saw Jack's bar from the Gilmore Girls and ....tataratààà! we saw a real moviestar: a doctor from ER (don't know his name, but it is the young guy, quite goodlooking and definitely goodlooking in real life!!) WB has the only "jungle" in movieland, the "lagoon" is surprisingly small, yet many scenes have been taken there... it is all quite surreal, it all is so small, yet on TV it looks so real. We went into the hall of ER, there were two vending machines, except...they were just posters, but they looked so real ! And then we were put in front of a green screen and had to make "a move", later on it appeared that the Hogwarts Express was passing us... We really had good fun today ! Late afternoon Marc and I drove to Santa Monica, normally it would have taken about 20 minutes but due to the heavy traffic it took more than one hour. And the Pier really disappointed us, the beach was ok, with very high waves and a cool breeze! Nice ! But the trip back - again with very heavy traffic- made us come back on our earlier promise to have dinner at the beach. Instead we had a very nice dinner with Inès and Christophe, Annelies and Didier in an italian restaurant at the Farmer's Market. The evening went by too fast, but time flies when you're having fun, isn't it? Tomorrow we will be heading for the north again, slowly facing our last days in California. Good night all, have a good day and to be continued....
from a sleepy wild west town to the City of Angels
Gooood morning everybody!! I know, it is almost night again for you guys, but after typing our blog yesterday evening, it was gone ! By no means I could find it back, and I didn't have the courage to write it all over again. Anyway, we had a very early rise and left Williams at about 5:45 hrs for a more than 7 hours long trip to Los Angeles. For the first time on our tour, I also took the wheel. Ahum! A car with an "automatic" gear is a special thing if you are not used to it and it made the trip quite exciting! The closer we came to LA, the more it all looked like we were sticking our heads into an ant's nest ! wohow! Fortunately our "Truus" -> GPS showed us the way and in no time we were at our Best Western hotel close to Hollywood Boulevard and the Hollywood Bowl. After a quick shower we were ready to go. It is only a few minutes' walk to Hollywood Bld, and arriving there it is like a kind of déjà-vu with Las Vegas! We met Spiderman, Captain Jack Sparrow, the Thin man from Wizzard of Oz and I even think that there were two celebrities in front of the Chinese Theatre, two blond women (no, not Paris Hilton) surrounded by cameras, but they did not look familiar to us...Anyway, we had a look at the stars on the pavement, had a walk and then decided to take the hop on, hop off-bus again, who took us for a 2 hours-tour through Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I must say though that except for Beverly Hills, it all looks a bit "neglected", dunno how to explain it, but it cannot really charm us. We liked San Francisco a lot more. Of course, I must admit that sitting on the top of the double deck bus, I DID think that it would be lovely to be just extravagantly rich We had dinner at the Farmer's Market, a big semi covered, fresh vegetables and fruits market and there was also a superlovely Plaza with shops and restaurants and some singing and swinging fountains like at the Bellaggio's in Vegas. When driving back to the hotel we were in for a surprise: the parking ticket was only very cheap if you could prove that you had something at the Farmer's Market which we didn't as we had dinner in the Plaza, so our ticket for 2 hours of parking was 14$ !!!!!!!!! That is a straight rip off !! And we were quite pissed off too, but what could we do?! Anyway, today we will visit Universal Studios, there is so much to see here and we have so little time, but ok, one has to make choices... will report back tonight ! (if I'm not kicked out again!) Bye! xx
Howdy folks ! (we are in the Far West after all...) We found a very nice and cosy coffee house - The Java Circle- on Route 66 where we had a huge coffee and a muffin and we did some windowshopping in the city (ahum) center. Then it was time to leave for our appointment with ....a helicopter !!!! Yiehàà! The Grand Canyon is much to big to be seen from the Rim, so we dug deep into our pockets for an extraordinary experience ! Flying in a heli is one of the things figuring on our wish list and where can it better be done than at the Grand Canyon? Now, when being face to face with one of those machines, I wasn't all that courageous anymore and I almost regretted it, but that feeling was completely gone once we were airborne! Wohow!! Amazing! Fantastic! Fascinating ! The 30 minutes were too quickly over, but all good things come to an end and actually the 30 mins were enough to have an idea of how huge this all is ! After the flight we went again into the park for a stroll at the West Rim, but as Hermits Rest is closed for road construction, our walk came to an early end. And maybe for the best, because in the distance we could see a thunderstorm heading our way with a lot of wind, so we decided not to stay in the park but to go back to Williams. On our way back we have seen some marvellous lightnings! As this country is so spacious, you can really see the lightning going completely down, cool! Anyway, then we were treated for the first showers in our holiday, pooring rain ! And a temperature drop to half of what we are used to: 17°C, I guess that is about the average temperature now in Belgium, so we could get used to that again! The "city center" of Williams really is very cosy, but the junk they sell in some of the shops would in Belgium be sold on flee markets or garage sales ! But it was nice to just stroll around, meanwhile the sun was back which made it of course a lot nicer! As we did not have lunch (again) we decided to go for an early dinner at about 18:00 hrs, and again we went to McGillycuddy's restaurant (same as yesterday) where we had again mexican food and a superdelicious Margarita on the rocks ! And had a good look at the local geeks ! Amazing how some people dress up here, honestly, we saw a real life Buffalo Bill entering, a guy who looked like a doctor in an old Western movie and an entire "rariteitenkabinet" in a row. Hysterically funny sometimes, especially because these people are serious. Anyway, tomorrow morning we will have to get up really early because the trip to Los Angeles will take us about 6,5 hours (450 miles), so we need a good rest. Next time I'll be writing, we'll be in California again! Tatààààà!
PS: due to the WiFi being extrémely slow, we cannot add pictures, sorry...
gooood morning dears ! After a good night's rest and an ok breakfast , we first drove to Horseshoe Bend, to have a look at some beautiful meanders of the Colorado river, at the moment we were there, a speedboat was cruising the river, which made it even more special. After this, we headed for Antelope Canyon, as this is Navajo property and no national park we had to pay some entrance fee: 6$ per person, but on top of that we had to subscribe for the trip (25$ each!!) We had to wait for a while and then our names were called and we were all (14 of us) seated in a pickup truck. Our driver was Leroy, a Navajo and Charles Bronson lookalike! The trip alone was already an adventure as he had to manoever his car through loose sand ! Then we arrived at on of the highlights of our holiday: Upper Antelope Canyon! Waaaauw ! This is a slot canyon, and when the water whooshes through it, it leaves marks which look as if some textile is blowing in the wind, with the light coming from the top of the canyon, it gave some spectacular views ! Our camera's did not stop clicking and the Navajo lady (Charles' wife) was a great teller and sometimes she just took the camera out of our hands and took a wonderful picture herself. After our visit and a bumpy ride back to the parkinglot (temperature was 41°C there!!) we passed via Lake Powell and then we drove to Grand Canyon. We did not really know what to expect of it, we knew it was very touristic but in the end it was ok. The first view was overwhelming: it is soooo huge over here ! It cannot be compared with anything we saw so far. We took pictures here and there and then sought for a "sunset"-spot. Unfortunately the warm reds, pinks and purples are not really represented by our cameras ànd there were some clouds in the sky which ruined the light, but ok, you can't have it all, can you? For the night we found something really cute in Williams: The Canyon Motel, where you can sleep in a trainwagon if you like (and if you make your reservations a bit earlier than we did!) We have a cosy cottage, n° 7. Then we went for dinner in Williams City, which is great ! Time stand still here, and the city has two main streets which form a kind of loop as they are one way, but one of them is part of Route 66!! isn't that great?! What still amazes us is, that the people live in this kind of Disneyworld and that it is real life for them! Back home we would never imagine that something like this still exists in this era.. very strange, but interesting and amusing too! We like it ! Tomorrow we will stroll around in the city when we return from Grand Canyon. So dears, we have to hit the sack now, tomorrow will be a long day again ! TTFN !! (tata for now)
Gooood morning everybody ! Our breakfast at the Riverside Inn was copious as yesterday, so about 10 minutes later we took off for the South, being Monument Valley. On our way down there, a bit after Bluff, we took a small dirtroad, leading us to the Valley of the Gods, which is a mini- Monument Valley area, where hardly any tourists come, but the views are equally beautiful or even more! Still, this was the first time that we wished we had a 4X4 instead of our Mazda 6! But our little fellow did very well, but I must say, the first steep climb was the worst, the car breathed and cursed and moaned but he made it! After that it was a lot of hopping around and shaking, but it surely was worth it! Then yours truly - who happens to be the navigator of the team, Marc insists on driving- made an error, leading us to another dirtroad: the Moki Dugway...ahum! This little (???!!!) road led us to the top of the plateau, no paved road, again a dirtroad and going the totally wrong direction! ààààrrrggghhh! I was só happy when we reached the top, you can imagine my face when we realised we were heading the wrong way and had to go back! Anyway, we reached the highway again safe and sound and then we followed Peter's tip and took the way to Goosenecks...marvellous ! There's a sign that says that you should enjoy the view and the quietness of the place, oh, we would , if one of the people there wouldn't have had his generator on!!! Anyway, after the necks -> Monument Valley, here we come ! Except...the navigator doze off again so we were already quite some miles further when we realised that there was something not really right.... Ahum! We again, we found it and instead of the nice paved road like in all the other parks we have visited, we again were facing a dusty dirtroad, so again some shaking and wobbling (all our body fluids are back into balance and the fat is spread out evenly again!) For sure Monument Valley was worth it, especially because it gives our typical image of the "Far West" and because the Navajo people still live in the park. For the rest, I think we have been spoiled in the previous parks, because we were not as overwhelmed as we have already been. As I say: spoiled...because for sure it was beautiful and fascinating ! And for those of you who know me, you will understand that I could not pass the little Navajo-stands who sell jewelry... (to Marc's dispair !) We are now staying in Page where we did some laundry and had some fun, because it reminded us of the Friends-episode where Rachel and Ross are doing laundry, you know with the chariot ? I couldn't resist taking one for "a ride" ! Oh yes, I hàve to say something about the public restrooms: why are all the toilets so low ? Why are the doors not completely closing? there is always some space where people could peek through!! And why are the sides of the cabine not closed to the floor or almost? Even for a short person like myself it is an awkward experience, I wonder what tall people do... !! Dears, that's it for tonight, tomorrow we would like to visit Antelope Canyon and later on drive through to somewhere around the Grand Canyon! Have a nice Sunday !!
dear sweet readers, we are sooooo happy with the reactions we received, giving us the enthusiasm to continue, even now when we (eum, I ) am craving for my soft bed... Thank you! thank you ! Thank you!!!!! Today we had an early wake up call and after a fine (???) continental (???) breakfast, we headed for Dead Horse Point State Park.I will not shock you with what the name came from, but it was quite sad. At the overlook, still a bit in the haze of the morning sun, we met Lisa, a lovely lady from Sacramento who was on holiday with her friend John from Canada. Nice chat we had ! Dead Horse Point gives a beautiful overlook over the canyon, created by the Colorado river. Next on our list was Island in the Sky, which is not the name of a psychedelic song, but the northern part of Canyonlands, formed by the Green River and the Colorado river. We have seen there, in the beauty of the early morning, an arche with an amazing view behind ! Immediately high in our top 5 of Highlights Of this Holiday ! A bit further, on Grand View point we could even see a bit of The Needles, which is the southern-east part of Canyonlands, but we will not visit it because of lack of time By noon, our breakfast was looong gone, so we came back to Moab and had a delicious salad at the Eclectic Café, bio-food and bio-atmosphere and we loved it! Then back to Arches National Park, this is by far the most extraordinary park we have seen so far! Wow ! Amazing what nature can do with rocks, water and sand ! We have seen beautiful arches, marvellously sculpted rocks, so magnificent ! The Landscape Arch has become famous because in September 1991, a big part of it fell down, so now the upper part of the arch is really thin...still...wow! After this hike, the mountain goat had to come into action again and not in the least way: as the sun was getting lower, it was time to visit Delicate Arch, which is at its best at sunset.But oh dear sweet lord, what a climb !!! Why do they hide all the beautiful things deep into the park so that you have to walk for over an hour (what do I say? Walk? Steep hiking, climbing, breathing like a nearly dead horse !!!) But the result was magnificent! The arch stands by itself at the edge of a plateau high in the hils, carressed by the sun and the wind and it is breathtaking (eum...in both senses ) We went silent after all this beauty and walked back to the car. After a hot shower we felt human again and ready to attack Zax Pizza Restaurant, which was a bit of a disappointment as it resembled more Pizza Hut than a nice pizza place! semi blègh! Tomorrow we will not go to Mesa Verde, Peter, because we have decided that it is too far away. We will go down to Monument Valley and decide there whether we will go to Page & Antelope Canyon or heading straight for Williams/Flagstaff... to be continued... have a nice Saturday all, we send you some sun and some warmth (today 35°C ) Take care and keep on reading !!! xxx
Hello dear readers, well I hope you do read because -except for Peter- nobody is giving any reaction... Anyway, after a cool night (temperature dropped to 12°C) and a heavy breakfast, we were on our way to Capitol Reef. We first had a look at Gooseneck viewpoint and got almost dizzy by the steepness of the rocks, we passed Chimney Rock, the Castle and then went for a small hike in the very narrow Capitol Gorge. Just the mere thought that one of those rocks could collapse ran shivers down our spine ! We passed the Pioneer Register, where courageous pioneers who passed the canyon with their horses and chariots wrote down their names and the date they passed the canyon...very interesting ! We saw dates going back as far as 1881 and even earlier, they were written high up on the side of the rock, proving also how the water had again deepened the canyon in a bit more than 100 years. We drove past the Egyptian temple (stunning!), we visited an old Mormon house and then drove up the Highway again to have a look on the trail of the Hickman Bridge. That required again some steep walk (at a temperature of 38°C!) but it was worth it! First we thought we found it, but it appeared to be a kind of mini slot-canyon, the real work was a few hundreds of meters further (uphill of course!!!). After seeing all this beauty of nature (see picture), we drove further, this time we were heading for Moab, which was quite a drive along long, long, loooooong roads !But again the views were fantastic and fascinating, just to see how in a few kilometers the entire landscape can change from red rocks into chalkstone into grey into brown into red again... When we arrived in Moab, we went on a queeste to find a hotelroom. Ahum! Not thàt easy ! I even barked at a poor receptionist for leaving the "vacancy" sign on when it should have been "NO vacancy", but hey! Don't fool around with moi when I'm tired ànd hungry! Anyway...we found a nice room with kingsize bed (I just love it, so much space!!) in the Riverside Inn, and the - totally bored- receptionist even reduced the rate with 5$ after I gave him a smile and some eyelash flapping (LOL) We decided to make it a bit easier for ourselves and booked also for tomorrow night, which will give us some more space tomorrow. We did some windowshopping in Moab city, I love the indian jewelry but Marc thinks it all looks quite fake (so K & D, if you want something indian style, try to convince your dad !!) And we had a nice dinner at the local brewery, where Marc tasted a "Belgian Wit", which it is not exactly like our Hoegaerden or Brugs tarwebier, but it has a good taste, even though they serve it with a slice of orange (!!!) Our Inn is located quite near the entrance of both Canyonlands and Arches National Park, so that is on the agenda for tomorrow. Guess we better hit the sack now... bye all ! Have a nice day !
good morning everybody !!! After a fantàstic sleep (boy, the beds are good in this country!!) we had a healthy breakfast at the Mean Bean in Springdale and did a quick small hike of about 1 hr in Zion on our way out of the park. Then we headed for Bryce Canyon, where we arrived shortly after noon.First we drove the scenic drive through the park to the most southern point and then we returned slowly, stopping at each scenic view. This park is stunning ! It reminded me a bit of Cappadocia in Turkey but then red coloured ! Of course, the visit wouldn't have been real without a hike IN the canyon! So we went down, down, deeper and down from Sunset Point via the Navajo Trail to Queens garden and (vèry steep!!) up again ! We now are a bit of a zoo: I am a mountain goat, Marc is a mule (carrying the heavy backpack with lots and lots of bottels of water and cereal bars) and we both are camels (drinking a lot of water )!! After every curve in the trails there was another breathtaking view, the rocks look as if they were painted and carved and you can find various features: ET, a sheep, an old man,... our imagination went wild ! There were also a few "strange" creatures: a very tiny, chubby, lizzardlike-but-not-really animal, a very small lizzard, a blue bird, and some very cute chipmunks. After this hike of about 3,5 hours (our muscles are becoming athletic! watch us when we are back !! ) we left the park and drove the long way to Torrey (a bit further than foreseen, but is was really worth it !) Highway 12 is sooooo beautiful ! We almost got a heartattack when a junior deer jumped out of nowhere in front of our car! Fortunately our Mazda has good brakes and Marc is very alert behind the wheel ! Then there were some (many!!!) cows at the side of the road, we encountered at dusk (so visibility was not optimal) some more deer-families and also managed to avoid a few suicidal rabbits ! That was quite some excitement for the end of the day and now we are in Capitol Reef Inn at Torrey for the night. Tomorrow we will visit Capitol Reef and then... well...keep on reading folks !! big hugs from us here and a ray of sunshine, XXX
good morning all ! After a very pleasant evening with Ines, Christophe, Annelies and Didier and no profit at gambling, we ended up too late in our bed again! So this morning, it was a bit of a struggle again, but at 9:30 we were driving out of Las Vegas, away from the glitter, glamour and money. The landscape soon changed from desert-like into beautiful rockformations in very different shades of brownish red, lovely ! And around 13:00 hrs we arrived at Springdale, a cute little town with quite some restaurants and motels/inns and a few little shops... where I would like to go and have a peek! But that will be for tomorrow. This afternoon we were a bit too early to check in our room at the Canyon Ranch Motel, so we decided to take the shuttle to Zion National Park. The shuttle stops in front of our motel and is free, so that was great! We first took the small hike to Weeping Rock, which was lovely: the water that has been absorbed for many, many years by the sandstone is there released again, causing a very gentle dripping and a lot of green...such a calm, beautiful spot!! We saw two very special butterflies too, but they were too hasty to have their picture taken. Then we decided to go on the Hidden Canyon trail, which was a steep climb against the red mountain.My calfs had just stopped hurting, they were just now back to normal...what do we do? We climb and make them all painful again!! Duuuuhhhh! At the highest part of the path, we had to hold on to chains which were fixed into the rocks, to prevent us from falling down into the canyon. And we safely reached the hidden canyon, but then....as if the steep climbing wasn't enough, we decided to go into the canyon hoping for an awesome view at the end...ahum! My chinese horoscope sign is a goat, and I might sometimes behave like one, I definitely am NOT a mountain goat !!! àààààrrrggghhh! We really had to climb over rocks, mount very steep and slippery specimen and I can tell you: I HAVE NOT BEEN DESIGNED FOR ROCKCLIMBING !!! and the climbing up is still quite alright, but we had to take the same way back ! For those of you who understand Dutch: mijn olleke ging open en dicht in sneltempo, godmiljaar zeg !!!! In the end we realised that we were climbing our way up to nothing really, but we did see a nice arche midway the canyon and some catfaeces, so maybe a lynx has passed the same path previously? Anyway, we arrived at the bottom of the trail safe and sound and had a wonderful time admiring the sunset against the red rocks. We ran into Didier and Annelies again, so we had dinner with them and now....we'll drop dead in our beds again, hopefully I will be able to walk properly tomorrow !! Goodnight everybody! Tomorrow we will be heading for Bryce Canyon !
hello everybody! We have to take something back: we don't think Las Vegas is as awful as we thought it to be yesterday ! The crowds yesterday were most probably due to the long weekend of Labour Day, which brought plenty of people to Vegas and made it as crowded as the Meir in Antwerp on a supersale day !!! Anyway, as we were in bed very late yesterday, we took it easy today, and had a nice breakfast in the Pharao's Thombe (or something) and then went to look around in Mandalay Bay. It is amazing how huuuuuge these hotels are and how spotless they are too! We visited Shark's Reef, an underwater world with quite an amount of sharks, exotic fish, waterturtles,yellyfish and even a real octopus ! Afterwards we went to MGM, Paris (with a beautiful casino and shopping street, it looks as if you are really in Paris, below the Eiffeltower,with a painted sky on the ceiling...amazing and yet very cosy too) Ceasar's Palace, went to an Oldtimer Exposition at the Imperial Palace, watched again the fountain show in front of the Bellaggio's... and arrived deadtired again in our room. Tonight we first wanted to go and see downtown Las Vegas, but as the people we met in Lone Pine invited us to go for some gambling, we will do that. Let's hope we will have a bit of luck on our side Tomorrow we have again a busy day: we will leave Las Vegas for Zion National Park, so away from the lights, the people, the noise, the fakeness,...and back to nature ! It will for sure do us some good ! Bye for now !
Italië 2024
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hello dears, for the second time in 3 full weeks, the sun has disappointed us. No sun today, it seems that she cannot get past the mountainridge that is near to the sea, because further inland we can see blue sky and sunshine, unfortunately not on our heads.
Hello everybody! It is strange, but I think that all the angels are sitting on a thick cloud in their city, because it was the second night we woke up with a "closed" sky. After a refreshing breakfast at Starbucks and a goodbye hug to Christophe (Inès must have been still in their room) we set off towards San Francisco. But on our way we met....an outlet village!!!! No way we would miss the opportunity to shop here ! But my goodness, these outlet villages are huuuuuuge !! As we had a bit of a time pressure, we kind of "ran" through the village, ending in Marc bying a few jeans and myself buying some Nike running shoes. (I really hàve to get started doing some sports after this holiday, so I began with buying running shoes...ahum! let's see where thàt will end... "Confused"){kind=icon}
hello all, we are staying in West Hollywood, so not really in downtown LA. Just for those of you who would like to situate us a bit...
Gooood morning everybody!! I know, it is almost night again for you guys, but after typing our blog yesterday evening, it was gone ! By no means I could find it back, and I didn't have the courage to write it all over again.
Howdy folks ! (we are in the Far West after all...) We found a very nice and cosy coffee house - The Java Circle- on Route 66 where we had a huge coffee and a muffin and we did some windowshopping in the city (ahum) center. Then it was time to leave for our appointment with ....a helicopter !!!! Yiehàà! The Grand Canyon is much to big to be seen from the Rim, so we dug deep into our pockets for an extraordinary experience ! Flying in a heli is one of the things figuring on our wish list and where can it better be done than at the Grand Canyon? Now, when being face to face with one of those machines, I wasn't all that courageous anymore and I almost regretted it, but that feeling was completely gone once we were airborne! Wohow!! Amazing! Fantastic! Fascinating ! The 30 minutes were too quickly over, but all good things come to an end and actually the 30 mins were enough to have an idea of how huge this all is ! "Surprised"){kind=icon}
gooood morning dears ! After a good night's rest and an ok breakfast , we first drove to Horseshoe Bend, to have a look at some beautiful meanders of the Colorado river, at the moment we were there, a speedboat was cruising the river, which made it even more special. After this, we headed for Antelope Canyon, as this is Navajo property and no national park we had to pay some entrance fee: 6$ per person, but on top of that we had to subscribe for the trip (25$ each!!) We had to wait for a while and then our names were called and we were all (14 of us) seated in a pickup truck. Our driver was Leroy, a Navajo and Charles Bronson lookalike! The trip alone was already an adventure as he had to manoever his car through loose sand ! Then we arrived at on of the highlights of our holiday: Upper Antelope Canyon! Waaaauw ! This is a slot canyon, and when the water whooshes through it, it leaves marks which look as if some textile is blowing in the wind, with the light coming from the top of the canyon, it gave some spectacular views ! Our camera's did not stop clicking and the Navajo lady (Charles' wife) was a great teller and sometimes she just took the camera out of our hands and took a wonderful picture herself. After our visit and a bumpy ride back to the parkinglot (temperature was 41°C there!!) we passed via Lake Powell and then we drove to Grand Canyon. We did not really know what to expect of it, we knew it was very touristic but in the end it was ok. The first view was overwhelming: it is soooo huge over here ! It cannot be compared with anything we saw so far. We took pictures here and there and then sought for a "sunset"-spot. Unfortunately the warm reds, pinks and purples are not really represented by our cameras ànd there were some clouds in the sky which ruined the light, but ok, you can't have it all, can you?
dear sweet readers, we are sooooo happy with the reactions we received, giving us the enthusiasm to continue, even now when we (eum, I ) am craving for my soft bed... Thank you! thank you ! Thank you!!!!!
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good morning all ! After a very pleasant evening with Ines, Christophe, Annelies and Didier and no profit at gambling, we ended up too late in our bed again! So this morning, it was a bit of a struggle again, but at 9:30 we were driving out of Las Vegas, away from the glitter, glamour and money.
