Day 12 - Lots of mountains

Today is Alan's blog day, provided that my fingers have thawed out sufficiently to type. Sarah's ramblings are in red.

 

We had a nice sleep in this morning since the weather forecast was for wet and icky today. We could see squirrels playing on the grass just across from the hotel carpark. They're so cute the way they chase each other around. There are plenty of sights to see around here, but with the weather looking ominous, we weren't particularly confident as we headed out at around 11am. Before we left the hotel we had a few flurries of snow so we were hopeful of a bit more.

 

We decided to take a drive the short distance to Maligne Canyon. It was only a short walk from the carpark to the canyon, which was quite impressive. We took some photos on the bridge over the canyon and then managed to find a waterfall a little further upstream. After leaving the canyon we made the decision to take the 38 kilometre drive to Maligne Lake, despite the low cloud looking like it could rain at any minute.

 

After driving for a short time, we started to come across trees covered with snow and it actually started to snow lightly. When we came across a rest area on the side of the road we pulled in there to take some photos. I convinced Alan to shake a tree branch while just wearing his jumper.  That was funny. Back on the road again and before long we came to Medicine Lake. We stopped at the viewing area once again to take photos. There was a couple of wooden tables and chairs which were covered in about 2 inches of snow which we threw at each other. More like you drowned me in snow. Someone had previously built an adorable little snowman there. Medicine Lake is very strange. During their summer and autumn, it's a perfectly normal lake, around 20 metres deep. But during winter and spring almost all of the water disappears, leaving sodden mud flats. Nobody knows where the water goes because the lake has no outlet for water.

 

A short way further up the road and we came to Maligne Lake. There was a heck of a lot of snow around this area and it was absolutely no surprise to us when we saw that the lake was completely frozen. We parked in the designated parking area and walked down the icy path to the lake. Unlike the frozen lakes we had seen in the last few days which were unsafe to walk on, this one was solid and we were able to take a walk out onto it. Yes, I can walk on water. Even I can walk on water. We ran into a guy from Brisbane there and he's doing a similar trip to us except in reverse, so we were telling each other what to expect in the days ahead. More photos were taken before we decided that it was time to leave and head back into Jasper.

 

It was around 2.30 by now and the weather had cleared up nicely. There was even some blue sky trying hard to poke through the clouds. So we thought we wouldn't have a better time than now to give the Jasper Tramway a go and we headed straight over there. The tramway is a gondola thingy which takes you up a very steep mountainside almost to the top of the mountain. The view on the way up was amazing. We had a great view of Jasper, plus the nearby lakes and all the surrounding mountain ranges. I think it's the first time that we haven't had cloud covering the top of the mountains. We got out at the top of the tramway and took a walk around the little boardwalk area they have there. The snow up there is so soft. It's like nothing we've ever experienced before. It's like touching cotton wool except a little colder. After about 5 or 10 minutes outside I was ready to get back inside and out of the cold. It was minus 2 up there and that's far too cold for me. One long sleeve shirt, a jumper, leather jacket  a beanie and with his hands in his pockets and yes, he was still complaining.  .It actually wasn't that bad if you were out of the wind. We caught the tramway back down the mountain and then headed across town to check out some of the lakes.

 

Lake Annette and Lake Edith are both light blue lakes, just like Seton Lake which we saw a few days ago. I was actually surprised that the water wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. I mean it was cold, but not freezing. But after taking a few photos in front of the lakes, I was absolutely frozen solid so I just couldn't stay out there any longer and we made our way back to our hotel room. It's lovely and warm in here because we have the heater on. We'll have to go out to find some dinner soon, but I think we'll probably eat in the hotel like we did last night because it's going to get down as low as minus 4 here in Jasper tonight so I don't think we'll be going outside.

 

We did manage to see deer and elk today, but still no moose or bears unfortunately. We're still hopeful.

We did have dinner in the hotel again.  Tonight they are having a special all you can eat chocolate buffet for $7.95 to raise money for the Make A Wish Foundation.  We are heading back down there shortly. It is for charity. Chocolate overload.  Chocolate fountain with strawberries, rockmelon, honeydew and pineapple. There were banana and chocolate crepes which we thought we were putting custard on but was actually white chocolate. Then there were various spoons with stuff, like dark chocolate squares, a brownie, chocolate and nuts.  Then there was chocolate mousse and chocolate tarts. Of course there were chocolate easter eggs too.

Day 11 - Jasper

Alan is making me write the blog tonight because he said nothing exciting happened today.  I'm not sure about that, but if he does feel like making a comment, it will be in red. It must be true because I can't remember anything we did today. I drove 430 kilometres. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

So, we survived our night in the hotel.  It really is spooky being the only guests in a hotel, when you are on the first floor and a couple of staff are staying on the fourth floor. We never knew whether they locked the front door last night and, really, we think it was better not knowing. At least we weren't disturbed by noisy neighbours. There were, however, quite a few strange noises coming from the hallway outside our room at various times during the night. Needless to say that we didn't go out there to investigate.

We packed up and went to check out at 10am.  They seemed a little sad that their own guests were leaving.  The new guy at the desk that we hadn't met before offered us a short cut to get to the main highway to Jasper which would save us 30 minutes. He told us we might even see a bear so we were sold.

Oh, before I go on, Alan forgot to mention yesterday that the Australian girl on the desk in Whistler had told us that they had a bear sleeping under their stairs in the staff housing. How cute. I would want to give him a big cuddle.

Anyway, back to the story, so we got on the short cut dirt road and started driving. Unfortunately the guy failed to tell us how long we would be on the road but, before we second guessed ourselves and turned back, we came upon a man on the side of the road who told us we only had a small way to go before hitting the highway. The dirt road was actually 40kms long, so no wonder we were starting to think we'd made a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

We stopped shortly afterwards at a little town called Barriere and found a coffee shop to get some breakfast (sausage and egg muffin with fried potato, not bad).  On the wall they had an LCD screen that ran various messages and told us we were at the Station House and Great Barriere Reef. Oh dear! That wasn't the really strange part as next it told us it was 15 February 1996! We all know Canadians are slow, but come on, that's a bit much isn't it? Everyone in the coffee shop stared at us for a while after we came in. Maybe they don't get out-of-towners stopping there too often.

The trip was long and there wasn't that much interesting to see.  There were snowy cliffs and we travelled a long way next to North Thompson River. We honestly must have crossed the river about 10 times. 

We did see another frozen lake, this time Moose Lake. Sarah had planned for us to stop during the trip today to see a couple of waterfalls. Unfortunately I drove right past the turn off to the first one because of poor signposting. I managed to pull into the parking lot of the second one, but the pictures of it looked pretty sad so we gave it a miss. We were hoping to see a moose or bear or deer somewhere along the way, and despite seeing plenty of signs warning us that they're in the area, all we saw today was 4 squirrels way back on the dirt road near Sun Peaks. Oh and cows. There's lots of cattle farms over here.

Finally we passed over the boarder into Alberta and discovered we had lost an hour.  Darn time changes, however it did mean we were now able to check into our hotel.  However, before that could happen we had to enter into Jasper National Park.  This will teach me to research things better as we were taken by surprise to discover that for 5 nights, the cost was CAD98!  They sure know how to charge. Approaching the National Park gates, Sarah had said to me that we'll need to pay about $9 to enter the park. All our cash was in a bag in the car boot so we pulled over to get some money out. Luckily they accepted travellers cheques after the lady at the gate told us it would be $98. Ridiculous! I did have $9 in my head because it is $9.80. That is per person per day or a little cheaper for a family.

Shortly thereafter we arrived at our hotel.  We were checked in by Tom, an Australian from Greenwich. For those who don't know Sydney well, that's about 10 minutes from our house. After dropping the bags in the room, Alan went to move the car and when he came back he said Tom was going to upgrade us.  The first room was nice with a window looking in to the atrium of the hotel.  The upgraded room has an external balcony.  However, 5 minutes after being in that room we had to go and asked to be moved as the heater wasn't working.  As it is expected to get down to 1 tonight, we thought we might need a bit of heat.  So, we were moved into the room next door.  Yes, this place is quiet but at least there are some other guests.  Tom also gave us vouchers for tomorrow's free buffet breakfast.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant tonight.  Great food.  Alan had some sort of burger and I had a steak sandwich, with fried onions, coleslaw and Caesar salad. We then shared a creme brulee for dessert.  I should have gotten my own.

We have no plans tonight other than to stay indoors and arrange our plan of attack for tomorrow.  We have a number of things to see but it will depend on the weather what we get done. According the to weather forecast, tomorrow is supposed to get to a maximum of 4 degrees with both rain and snow. We'd better rug up.

Day 10 - Sun Peaks

Alan is writing the blog today and Sarah’s comments will be in red.

We were up bright and early this morning as we had a long drive ahead of us today from Whistler to Sun Peaks. It had been raining very heavily for most of the night. We started off with some crepes for breakfast from the same place we had lunch yesterday. They were so yummy! Sarah had researched the trip for today and it appeared that we would have very little to look at during our drive.

We hit the road after checking out of our hotel at about 10am. We stopped a little way down the road in Pemberton to fill the petrol tank since there was a sign saying last fuel for 94kms. In Vancouver petrol was $1.16 a litre.  We paid $1.09 today at Pemberton and saw it later for $1.05. It would appear the more remote the place, the cheaper the petrol. We gradually began climbing into the mountains and before long, large snowdrifts started to appear along the side of the road. At one point we came across a sign pointing to Lake Joffre, which was the only place I had information on so we turned off hoping to have a short walk to the lake. Unfortunately, there was far too much deep snow for us to contemplate a nature hike so we quickly returned to the car. The information I had was that there was a lovely view right beside the parking lot but through some trees so you can’t actually see it from the road. So close, and yet so far.

At one point of the trip today we were driving for about 45 minutes through the mountains without seeing any other people or vehicles. Lucky we didn’t break down or run off the road. The mountains were so tall and steep, and not surprisingly there were Avalanche Area signs every now and then. From time to time there would be a sign saying End of Avalanche Area and then another one starting again within 100 metres or so. Why bother?

After driving for some time through the snow covered mountains, all of a sudden we came upon a frozen lake (Duffey Lake) which ran right next to the road. It was such an amazing sight so we just had to stop and take photos of it. Here and there the ice was melting next to the shore, so I suspect it would have been very unwise to try walking out onto the ice.

We continued on our way and began our descent out of the mountains. The snow covered slopes were replaced by rocky ones instead and a little way further up the road we rounded a bend when Sarah shouted to stop. It was more like PULL OVER at the top of my lungs. Beside us was a magnificent aqua coloured lake (Seton Lake), so we pulled into a viewing area and took some more photos. We came across a 3^rd lake (Pavilion Lake) further down the mountain and this one was a deep green sort of colour. Unfortunately the couple of photos I took do not really show the colour of the lake.

After finally coming out of the mountains we came across a small town so we stopped at the petrol station to buy a drink. There was a girl standing just inside the door, staring outside, waiting to say hello to anyone who might happen to walk inside. Small town people with nothing to do.

The countryside was now changing to cattle farms and it looked so dry that it was hard to believe there was so much snow and water half an hour back up the road. At one point we had to stop while 2 girls on horses herded a bunch of cows across the highway. There were so many calves in amongst them and they were ever so cute. They had 3 dogs helping them, but they seemed to be frightened of the cows.

The next 100 kilometres or so were very boring with not much to look at, but then we came to the town of Kamloops at which point we knew we were getting fairly close to Sun Peaks. The directions we had gotten from the internet weren’t particularly accurate and we were lucky to end up on the right road despite a great lack of sign posts directing us.

We were expecting there to be a fair bit of snow here when we arrived in Sun Peaks, but there’s really not too much at all. I guess that’s why the season ended here a couple of weeks ago. It’s a really quaint little town nestled in the mountains with all the buildings built in a very similar European chalet style. We found our hotel easily enough because it’s such a small, quiet place. After checking in, we decided to take a walk around the immediate area and were surprised to find a lack of people throughout the entire town.

Our hotel has 190 rooms and we are the ONLY people staying here. We went to have a look at the hotel restaurant and they close at 7pm because there’s simply no use staying open. We made sure that we got back there for our dinner nice and early so that we didn’t miss out and the waitress said that we were the first people she had seen in about 4 hours. She was heading home as soon as we were done. Our burgers were really really yummy.

We took a drive around the whole town (which took 5 minutes) and once again we saw hardly anyone. It’s really quite strange and freaky. Has anyone seen “The Shining”? We keep bugging Nathan, the guy at the front desk, but hopefully he’s happy to actually have some conversation. Not really bugging him. We had to ask about the internet because it wasn’t working, we needed to know where the ice machine was and I needed another pillow. The internet is very unstable here so there’s a good chance the photos from today won’t be uploaded until tomorrow night. I’ll try, but don’t hold your breath.

We’ve been for a couple of wanders outside, but it’s absolutely freezing out there now (8pm and still broad daylight) so I doubt we’ll be leaving the room again before morning.

So for a day in which we didn’t think we’d see anything good, we’ve done pretty well.

Tomorrow is our longest driving day of our trip as we travel from here to Jasper, which is between 500 and 600 kms I believe.

It’s 8.13pm and Nathan has just called our room to tell us that the hotel owners won’t substantiate having him on duty all night so he’s going home for the night. This place is so strange.

Day 9 - Blackcomb Mountain

Alan is napping so I'm starting to writing the blog. Alan will give his "oohs" and "ahhs" in red.

We slept in this morning pretty late, not getting up until 10.45am.  It was our first really long sleep in for the trip and we needed it.

The forecast for Whistler today was rain, rain, rain so we were more than surprised when we got up and discovered, although it was overcast, there had not yet been any rain.

We left the room about 11.45am and headed over to where they sell the lift tickets.  As mentioned in yesterday's blog, the Whistler season ended yesterday but Blackcomb Mountain still had one gondola running and when you reached the top of that, there were a few chairlifts.  The lady at the ticket booth told us we could get a sightseeing only ticket for the cut price of $C20 each which would take us up the gondola.  She said we could also go up the chairlift but that it was freezing and very windy and wouldn't recommend it.  So we bought our ticket and before boarding the gondola, we were given the same warning by the woman at the gate to stay away from the chairlifts.

We had no waiting at the gondola (and why would we, there is no one here) and took the 10 minutes or so ride to the top.  It was a lovely view, although not much to do there as the sightseeing section is fairly small as you are limited to where you can stand so as not to get run over by a skiier or snowboarder.

Deciding to throw caution to the wind, we went and got on the chairlift. Sarah was very hesitant, but I convinced her that we might as well go up further. Kind of scary for those of us who don't like heights and although it was a little cold it wasn't that windy and within about 8 minutes we were at the top.  We were greeted by an Australian.  Where was he from Alan? Mooloolooba, somewhere up around the Sunshine Coast. It was actually quite pleasant up there and we weren't really feeling the cold. Whenever we took off our sunglasses we were almost blinded by the whiteness of the snow. And it wasn't even sunny today.

There is a much greater area to move around up there for us non skiers.  The view was spectacular and I'm not sure whether our photos do justice to the sheer beauty of the mountains and the quality of the snow.  There was another chairlift we could take to go further up but it required us walking down a very steep incline, which probably wouldn't have been so bad but the trek back up would have been another matter. It was quite a long walk through the snow to get to the next chairlift and the walk back would have been very difficult indeed.

After spending almost 90 minutes on the mountain, watching the rain clouds roll in, we bid it farewell, not wishing to get caught on the chairlift in the rain. On the chairlift on the way down it started to get really, really cold. The wind was blowing and the temperature was dropping by the second. We were very happy to get off the chairlift and into the relative warmth of the gondola.

Once back on the ground in the Village we went looking for the bakery we had heard so much about.  We stopped by the hotel lobby to take a photograph of the large moose on the wall and asked for directions.  The Australian girl from the Gold Coast was working again and said she had just been there for lunch but seemed to have great difficulty giving us directions. There was even a map but she still couldn't seem to locate it. She's been working here for 6 months and for anyone who has ever been here, the place isn't that big. Whistler Village is actually tiny. You could walk around the entire place in 10 minutes. After we walked for 10 minutes around the Village without success, we asked at the information booth and discovered it was in the last little side street we had yet to check. As it turns out, the bakery was only a 30 second walk from the hotel and we discovered that we can actually see it from our balcony, just across the laneway.

We both had crepes for lunch; ham and swiss cheese following by lemon and sugar.  Ah, that was really nice. They were better than really nice. They were awesome. Just what we needed after a days exercise on the ski slopes.

After our lunch, we got in the car and took a drive down to where they held the Whistler part of the Olympic Games, hoping to get a glimpse of the ski jump but, alas, the area was closed off and is now a construction zone.  We assume, like with the sliding track here near the Village, it is being pulled down.  As we were only a few kms away from Brandywine Falls, we decided to stop by and this time, unlike yesterday, take the 15 minute walk to the falls.  You know you are not in Japan when they say 15 minutes walk and it takes you just over 5 minutes to get there. In Japan it would have said 2 minutes, but actually taken you half an hour. It is a 70 metre waterfall and quite impressive.

We then returned to the hotel to get some much needed washing done. There is hardly anyone else staying in our hotel so we comandeered both washing machines on the two levels below us. Unfortunately the drying process is taking forever and we might be up all night feeding the machine with $1 coins.

For dinner we went and walked around the Village not really sure what we wanted.  We ended up at the Irish Pub and had 2 for 1 fish and chips.  Gotta be happy with that. There was a live band playing there while we ate. Not sure, but it could have been U2.

Tomorrow we bid Whistler a sad farewell as we make a very long drive to Sun Peaks.  It is really just a stopover night as we drive on to Jasper the next day.  Not too sure what sort of blog information we will have tomorrow but here's hoping we see something good to report on the drive.

We've decided that maybe we need to learn how to ski because it looks like so much fun. I'll be fine, but Sarah will have problems galore given how clumsy and accident prone she is. Oh and Sarah wants to move here to live. I don't mind it for a couple of days holiday, but there's no way I want to live somewhere cold.

I am not the accident prone one.  Injuries suffered from Sarah while we have been together 0
Injuries suffered by Alan - 4

One last thing I should mention is the water here.  My hair has never been so soft or shiny.  I think I need to bottle a lot of it and bring it home.

Day 8 - Rain, Bridge, Sun, Snow, Waterfall, Whistler

Sarah is writing today's blog because we did so much, if Alan was to write it, it would be 3am before it got posted.  He will of course add his cold comments in red.

This morning we got up around 8.30am and started our packing to leave Vancouver.  We planned on attending the 10am Anzac Day ceremony and when we left the hotel it was teeming with rain.  We thought we'd be the only ones there and were surprised at the 100+ other people who were happy to stand out in the rain. There must be a lot of Australians and New Zealanders in Vancouver.

After the brief service we returned to our room via the cupcake place just around the corner from our accommodation. It doesn't open until 11am but the lady in the shop took pity on us and let us in early.  We bought two lemon cupcakes with vanilla icing and some chocolate milk. Just what you want for breakfast.

We returned to our room to eat them and packed up the rest of our gear.  When we checked out at 11am, the sun had actually come out and it looked like the cloud was lifting. We still had a few hours to kill before driving to Whistler so we went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge.  It is much bigger than the one we visited the day we arrived in Vancouver. There are also lots of other walks you can do around the site, including a treetop adventure.  We had a lovely hour or so there, with the sun out most of the time. The suspension bridge is 137 metres long, 70 metres above the river below and can hold the weight of 1300 people all at once. Back in 2006, a 17 ton tree fell onto the bridge under the weight of heavy snowfall but the bridge survived. This bridge sways quite a bit more than the one at Lynn Canyon. Sarah was very scared. The treetop walk was good. At times you're quite high off the ground. There is also a trout pond and we did see a few swimming around.

We had hoped to get to the top of Grouse Mountain while we were in Vancouver but there had been no visibility. However, with the cloud lifting we were hopeful we might get there but when we drove up to the entrance of the skyride, you could still only see it going half way up.  As it is expensive with no guarantee of seeing anything, we decided to give it a miss.  However, when I just checked the website a little while ago, it said at 5.30 the visibility was unlimited.  Oh well, it just wasn't meant to be.

So we started heading out to Whistler.  On the way I said to Alan let's go and visit Cypress Mountain where the moguls, aerials and snowboarding half pipe events had been held at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.  It is only about 40 minutes outside of Vancouver and on the way to Whistler.  As we started driving up the road, we saw a sign saying the season was over and the area was closed. We were therefore not confident we would be able to get close.  On the way up, we stopped at a lookout which looked back over Vancouver.

Then, back in the car we started driving.  Alan remarked that we weren't very high up and then about 3 minutes later, we turned a corner and there before us was snow, lots and lots of snow.

We were able to drive all the way up to the main gate and park the car. There were very few people around since the place is officially closed for the season. We then got out and had a frolic in the snow. It's probably around 25 years or so since I last saw snow. Alan of course had the wrong shoes on and after a few minutes needed to return to the car and put on his waterproof boots.  He also took the opportunity to put on a beanie as well. Then he could only complain about how cold his face was. I'm pretty sure icicles were forming on my nose.

We came across a couple of skiers who had just come down the mountain.  Not sure how they got up there to ski considering no lifts are working.

We had hoped to get to see where the snowboarding half pipe track was but was too far a distance away and we would have had to walk through calf high snow. It was hard enough trying to get through the ankle deep stuff, let alone trekking off through really deep stuff.

We did however get some photos of us taken in front of where they held the moguls and the aerials (albeit with the jumps now removed).  We had a great 45 minutes in the snow but then it was time to farewell Cypress and head to Whistler.

On the way we stopped at Shannon Falls which is composed of a series of cliffs rising 335 meters above the road.  We stayed here only briefly as all these places want you to pay for parking with a minimum of 1 hour. We were feeling stingy and didn't want to pay the $1, so we hurried to make sure we didn't get a parking fine.

Back on the road we came across another waterfall, Brandywine Falls, but as it was 15 minutes walk from the carpark and it was starting to get late, we decided to give it a miss.  We might get back there tomorrow depending on the weather. Plus we didn't want to pay the $1 once again.

When we got into Whistler at about 4.30pm, it was bright and sunny and the place was packed.  Today was the last day of the season for Whistler, but Blackcomb (next door) is open until 24 May. People were still getting on the gondola for the last skiing of the day but the majority were in the village.  We even saw some of the band Arrested Development who were live on stage. The outdoor concert was just finishing as we arrived. There were so many people around that we could hardly make our way through the crowd.

At about 5.45 we went and had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  It was really nice and inexpensive. The waitress was annoying so she didn't get a tip. When we came out about an hour later, the place was deserted.  Alan and I went for a drive hoping to get a glimpse of the Whistler Sliding Centre but unfortunately it is all closed off and is a construction zone.  Not sure if they are pulling it down.  We then drove up to the upper village and just like where we are in the main village, the place was deserted.  I will be interested to see what it is like tomorrow. Everyone seems to disappear very quickly once the chairlifts close.

I forgot to mention, there are Australians here EVERYWHERE from the girl from the Gold Coast who checked us into our hotel, the hostess at the restaurant to the checkout chick at the grocery store. We also heard plenty of them in the village when we first got here.

Our hotel room is very nice. It's a 2 level place, with our bed upstairs on the mezzanine floor. We have a balcony with a mountain view.

Tomorrow is scheduled for rain again but heres hoping they are wrong.

 

Day 7 - Vancouver

Sarah is writing today's blog and Alan will complain about the cold (constantly) in red. As if I would complain.

We had a lovely night sleep in our king size bed with very soft pillows.  Alan got up early this morning to check the soccer scores from England (on holidays and I still can't get away from it) but he was quiet about it so I slept in until 8.30.

This hotel doesn't offer breakfast so we chose to skip that meal this morning.  After a shower we dressed warmly to go and do the Vancouver Trolley Tour.  A quick check of the forecast before leaving the room said it was going to get to a maximum of 9 degrees today and be wet.  Lovely!  Even with jeans, a t-shirt, jumper and leather jacket, Alan still couldn't resist telling me most of the day it was cold.  Yes Alan, it's Canada! I think I'll have to start wearing 4 jumpers from now on. As Sarah's dad pointed out, I don't have enough insulation on me.

The trolley tour is a hop on, hop off bus and does two separate loops but we chose to stay on for an entire trip on each loop.  We enjoy these tours as it only takes a couple of hours, you get to see (and get information about) various locations and then choose what you want to go back and look further at. Luckily these weren't open top buses like you get in some cities.

The first loop took us through Stanley Park which is extremely large, very green and has great scenery.  We had only just entered the park when I saw something in the distance.  I asked Alan "what do you think that is?"  It was an animal of some sort but certainly not a squirrel the way it was moving.  Alan said "It's too small to be a raccoon", then it turned around and it was a RACCOON. Unfortunately he was too far away to get a photo. He was very cute though. Later in the day we came across a sign in the park warning you not to get close to the raccoons because of rabies.

After leaving the park, we continued on the trolley around the streets, eventually arriving at Canada Place.  The building juts out over the water and its
white sails makes it look like a ship in port and is the major cruise ship terminal for Alaska-bound cruises.  After a quick walk around, we got on the trolley for the second loop which took us through such areas as Yaletown, Chinatown and Gastown before returning to Canada Place.  There were a number of other Australians on the tour, including an obnoxious South Australian couple where the woman kept asking where Michael Buble was.  She was only in Vancouver to see him.  We tried to distance ourselves from her. It's disappointing when you see other Australians overseas being drunken dickheads.

After getting off the tour, we decided to take a walk to where the Olympic flame rests (of course no longer burning) and then walk back to our hotel.  The rain had held off for most of the morning but now, as we were walking, it decided to come down on us.  By this time it was around 1pm so we stopped into McDonald's for a bite of lunch until the rain stopped.  It was a typical McDonald's meal except the shakes were exceptional. We really only stopped there for lunch because at this point it was so ridiculously cold that we just had to get inside.

Back at the hotel we organised our plan of attack for the afternoon.  As it was still very dark and overcast, we decided to put off going up Grouse Mountain to hopefully tomorrow (there is no visibility today) and got in the car and headed back to Stanley Park.  First stop was to the Vancouver Aquarium. It is on a very small piece of land but houses a lot of different animals including 4 beluga whales, dolphins, seal lions and seals.  The belugas are amazing and Alan is convinced they are animatronic. They're not real. They're made of soft squishy marshmallow.

We were lucky we got there when we did as the queue was way out the door when we were leaving.

Our next stop was at the totem poles followed by a stop at Prospect Point to get a look at the Lionsgate Bridge. There are a lot of signs here to be wary of raccoons but unfortunately didn't get to see another one.

Then we left the park and went to English Bay’s Morton Park to see “A-maze-ing Laughter” by Chinese artist Yue Minjun. This is a larger-than-life, cast-bronze statues depict Minjun’s own face in a state of hysterical laughter.  Strangely entertaining to see.  It's on loan from China for 18 months.

Then we stopped at the Inukshuk.  The plaque at the base reads "Ancient symbols of Inuit culture traditionally used as landmarks and
navigation aids, this grey granite statue representing a human form
with outstretched arms is a well-known symbol in Canada of northern
hospitality and friendship".

By this time Alan was frozen and in need of a nap so we returned to the room.  Here we discovered that some of the cloud had lifted and that we did indeed have a mountain view from our room.

Alan had a very long nap and I finally had to wake him at 7.30 for dinner.  I had, three nights ago, spilled something on my jumper and had remarked to Alan numerous times that I was sure I had packed another one but it wasn't in my bag.  He, of course, never listens so I had to wear the stained jumper inside out for a few days.  I remarked again tonight that I wish I had my other jumper and he says "oh there is one in my suitcase".  Great Alan, just great.  Now you tell me!!! You never asked me for the one from my suitcase. You just kept blubbering on about the stain on your other one. Be more specific woman!

We chose to eat in the hotel restaurant as it was reasonably priced, we didn't have to go outside in the cold plus we had a $5 off voucher.  We both had crab cakes and shared a ceasar salad.  Nice meal.  The restaurant has a full glass frontage and we are located right in the middle of the busy section of Robson Street in downtown and we got to watch the traffic go by.  One thing we are confused about.  It is about 7 degrees outside and the busiest shop is the gelato place across the street.  At one stage there was a queue of about 10 people outside waiting to get in.  Now I think about it ... gelato might be nice Get me one while you're there please.

Tomorrow we are hopeful of better weather before we take off for Whistler.  We are still hopeful of getting up Grouse Mountain, might stop at the Capilano Suspension Bridge, swing by Cypress to see where the Winter Olympic events were held before taking the 1.5 hour drive to Whilster.  Unfortunately the forecast there is for rain for the next few days but we remain ever hopeful for a few breaks in the weather.

Trivia for the day:  There are no comfortable seats in Vancouver.  The trolley tour seat was dreadful, the chairs in the restaurant tonight were bad and the one I'm sitting on right now to write this blog is the most uncomfortable seat of all.  Wooden frame with cloth around it is not comfortable. By the end of the trolley tour my bum was so numb that I was happy to get off.

Day 6 - Hello Canada

Alan is writing the blog today with Sarah's comments in red.

 

We were up bright and early this morning to ensure that we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare to catch our plane to Vancouver. We chose to give breakfast a miss partly due to us still being full from the previous evenings feast and partly because Sarah was paranoid about missing our flight and wanting to get there as early as possible. As if we would ever miss a flight! We checked out of our Marina del Rey hotel just after 7am and made our way toward the rental car return place. The traffic at that time of morning was very light so it didn't take us long to get there at all. We dropped off the car and luckily a courtesy shuttle came along almost straight away and we were on our way to the airport. After arriving at the United Airlines terminal, we joined what we hoped was the correct queue to check in. After speaking to a United customer service rep, we were relieved to know that we were indeed in the right place. After a fairly short wait we made our way to the counter, checked our bags and printed out our boarding passes. Next up was the security check. The queue for this was very long and it took us ages to make it through. Lucky I gave ourselves so much spare time. Yes, it was lucky that I was prepared to get us to the airport in plenty of time.

 

So we made our way to the gate to wait for our flight. We went to a cafe and bought a sandwich while waiting and noticed an unattended suitcase in the cafe. That's a huge no-no in airports these days so we told the woman at the counter but when we came by again about 10 minutes later the bag was still sitting there. We boarded our plane, a CRJ-700 on which most of the 66 seats were full. The flight took almost 3 hours, but we slept through most of it since we had not slept much last night. We did manage to see Lake Tahoe as we flew over it, but we missed Crater Lake, Seattle and Mount St Helens. Not because we were sleeping but because it was on the other side of the plane.

 

After landing in Vancouver we made our way through the airport. There was a display of native animals made of wood in the terminal, although there were actually real birds nesting in there too. Strange. It didn't take long to get through immigration as it was very quiet at the airport, although the officer did ask us a heck of a lot of questions before clearing us. We left the terminal, found the Hertz rental car section and were given our Toyota Corolla. It's not as new as the car we had in Los Angeles, but it will do I suppose.  The car is registered in Alberta so we are taking it home.  We should have gotten a discount for returning it. 

 

By this time at was about 1.30pm, but we couldn't check into our hotel until 3pm, so we decided to check out a few Vancouver sights in the mean time. After driving through downtown Vancouver, we crossed the Lions Gate bridge and made our way out to Lynn Valley. Without too much trouble we found our way to Lynn Canyon and parked the car. It was starting to get a bit cold by this time but we wanted to see the suspension bridge. After a short walk we came to it. The bridge is a popular tourist attraction and there were plenty of other people around, many of whom had bought their dogs with them oddly enough. We ventured out onto the suspension bridge which was built in 1912, is 48m long, 50m above the canyon below and quite unstable. It really wouldn't be too hard to fall over, given that the rails are only waist height and the thing sways quite a bit. Not surprisingly there are warning signs telling people to be very careful as a lot of people have died there over the years. We decided against the 20 minute hike over rough terrain to see Twin Falls and made our way back to the car instead.

 

Back on the road and we drove to Cleveland Dam. The dam is at the end of Capilano Lake, Vancouver's main drinking water supply. It's surrounded by snow-capped mountains, most of which were covered by cloud. It was starting to get really cold by this time so we quickly wandered around the dam area, stopping for a few brief photos.

 

The rain was just starting as we got back to the car and as we drove to the hotel it got quite heavy. The drive was quite a slow one, especially trying to get back across Lions Gate bridge since 4 lanes of very heavy traffic had to merge into 1. We found our hotel and checked in. We've been upgraded to a king room on the 18th floor. We supposedly have views of the mountains, but we'll have to confirm this tomorrow as the cloud has completely obscured them this afternoon. Actually, as it starts to get darker, they are coming more into view.

 

We were really hungry so we left the hotel to look for something edible. Right across the street was a Mexican restaurant so we thought we'd give it a try. Not the best food in the world, but it was cheap. Unfortunately the dimwit of a waitress mixed up our orders, which meant that my food was smothered with sour cream, while Sarah's had none. Yuk!  It really wasn't that bad.  Alan scraped off the sour cream and gave it to me and it came with a good portion of his cheese as well.

 

It's just after 8pm here now and although it's not yet completely dark here, it's wet and very very cold. Tomorrows forecast is for a 90% chance of rain so we'll see in the morning what sort of things we're going to do. The weather forecast for our time here in Canada is not looking promising but we have our fingers crossed.

Day 5 - LA Tourists

Sarah is writing tonight's blog.  Alan will undoubtedly want to comment on his fluky navigation skills and will do so in red. Fluky? I always know exactly where I'm going.

We had a late night last night as Alan made me watch Marley & Me again. Grrrrr ... I don't need to be that depressed on holidays. The hotel offer free dvds for you to watch in your room and although there were plenty to choose from, there were very few actually worth watching.

Although the hotel is in a lovely location, the walls are pretty thin so as everyone started getting moving this morning, it was hard to sleep in.  We got up around 8.50am and got down to breakfast at about 9.30am.  It wasn't breakfast as we've known down in Anaheim so we settled for just a bowl of cereal each. 

It was a cool but clear morning when we got in the car and started driving, firstly to Venice Beach.  As usual we picked the wrong way to go.  We parked the car and started walking only to discover that the busy part of Venice Beach was a fair distance in the opposite direction so we walked the 15 minutes back to the car. One thing we noticed is that there are large piles of sand streets away from the beach.  We remarked outside one residence how much sand there was up towards the door and how we'd hate to have to live with that. There were also crews with brooms and shovels trying to get all the sand back onto the beach.

Back in the car, we drove down to the main part of Venice and walked around.  There were street vendors, muscle men at Muscle Beach, people riding bikes, people in the skateboard park, people throwing balls for dogs and homeless people.  There was even a guy who was trying to convince people to listen to his CD by thrusting headphones towards your head.

After a walk around there, we got back in the car and drove to Santa Monica Beach and visited the pier.  Unfortunately (or maybe that is fortunately) the rollercoaster wasn't going.  It would appear to have gotten stuck on the lift hill part and they were trying to fix it.  It would have been hysterical to see Alan get stuck up there. Poor me. I'm having rollercoaster withdrawals.

Unsure of what to do next, we started driving and found ourselves on Rodeo Drive and marvelled at the people standing on the side of the road with wine glasses in hand. We then found ourselves in the vicinity of the La Brea Tar Pits, the site for the 1997 movie Volcano.  They are not that interesting and they smell pretty bad so we weren't there long.

We decided to give Hollywood Boulevard a miss and try to find Griffith Observatory.  We had been there in 1999 and knew sort of which direction we wanted to go.  So Alan kept heading east along Santa Monica Boulevard, spending the majority of his time looking left up into the Hollywood Hills to see if he could see it.  How we didn't have an accident is anyone's guess. More awesome skill on my part. Eventually we saw it and thought we were heading in the right direction but instead found ourselves in Little Armenia. A few quick turns out of there and we were on the right road.  By this time the cloud had come over fairly heavy although it was a reasonably clear day, smog wise.  Must have been the tremendously strong winds we had overnight.  I love a place you can drive to and they don't want to charge you for parking.  A quick photo or two were taken and then it was back in the car (and the warmth) and we headed back to our hotel.

Before coming inside we decided to take a small walk around the beach/marina area where our hotel is located. I wished we had gotten here about 5 minutes earlier as just as we arrived, a guy was coming out of the water with his surfboard.  For those who haven't looked at the photos, we are located on a beach at the end of a marina.  There is only a small roped off section for swimming and the water is perfectly flat.  What was he doing on that surfboard?

We made a quick detour by the Cheesecake Factory, the location of our lovely dinner last night, to get ourselves some cheesecake for later.  With 50 cheesecakes and specialty desserts to choose from, I'm surprised we are not still there.  We have bought ourselves a really decadent chocolate cake and a chocolate mousse cheesecake to have later for dessert. One slice of each, not the entire cakes.

After freshening up, we headed to another favourite restaurants of ours, Olive Garden, about 15 miles from where we are staying.  Oh my lord.  It is places like these which is why we have breakfast in the morning and then don't eat anything else until dinner.  There was so much food.  From their bottomless garden salad (topped with cheese), to their bread sticks, the appetizer of melted cheese and then the main dishes, also covered in cheese.  Cheese overload. We ended up bringing part of a pizza back to the room which will probably be our breakfast tomorrow, considering we have cheesecake, chocolate cake and still fudge from yesterday sitting in our fridge. I ate all of my stuffed chicken marsala for dinner. The pizza was Sarah's so obviously her eyes are far too big for her tummy.

Tomorrow morning we are off early to the airport and then on to Vancouver.  I wonder what the weather will be like there. It's been particularly cold down here, so no doubt Canada will be lovely and warm.

All photos are now uploaded.

Day 4 - Magic Mountain

Today was Alan's day of indulgence, so he'll be blogging today with Sarah's comments in red.

 

We started our last morning in Anaheim with our free breakfast again. They had pancakes on offer today. Yum! After checking out of our hotel, we hit the road north to Los Angeles in search of our next destination. I had taken special care to check the route online and as a result we had no problems finding our way here. After about an hour driving we arrived at Marina del Rey and found our hotel. We knew we wouldn't be able to check in this early, so had already planned to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park for the day. The sky looked menacing but we decided to risk it anyway, as it had to be either today or tomorrow that we went there. Another hour heading north and we arrived at the park without any sign of a wrong turn along the way. Those who followed our blog back in 2007 may remember that we had all sorts of problems finding Magic Mountain after Sarah's directions landed us about 48 miles off course.  <sigh> It was your directions.  I had the correct directions printed out but you choose to ignore them and me, but you believed the Police Officer when he told you that you had gone the wrong way.

 

Anyway we pulled into the parking lot which once again was only maybe 10% full and walked to the entrance. I have to mention that it was almost midday, but we were absolutely freezing. I hoped that rain holds off for a few more hours. For those who don't know, Magic Mountain is a thrill junkies playground, containing some of the most extreme rollercoasters on the planet. The following are the rides I went on....

 

X2 - A massive floorless coaster which sends you down the first drop backwards.

Viper - A steel coaster with 7 loops.

Tatsu - The world's tallest, fastest and longest flying coaster. You spend the entrie ride on your stomach as though you're flying.

Terminator Salvation - A brand new wooden coaster.

Riddlers Revenge - The world's tallest and fastest stand-up coaster.

Batman The Ride - An intense speed looping coaster with nothing but air beneath your feet.

Scream - Very high floorless coaster with 7 loops.

Colossus - The big old wooden coaster built back when the park opened in 1971.

Goliath - Monster coaster with a 255 foot first drop into a 120 foot underground tunnel, reaching a speed of 138kmh.

 

Needless to say that Sarah did not join me on any of these rides.

 

Deja Vu and Ninja were closed today but luckily I rode both of those last time so that was ok that I didn't do them this time around. There are also 4 water rides at Magic Mountain, 2 of which were operating today, but it was far too cold to even contemplate getting wet today. Something else that we didn't get to do last time was go up in the observation tower. It doesn't seem all that high from the ground but once you get up there 38 storeys in the air, you sure get a fantastic view. And no, that does not count as a ride that Sarah went on.  Yes it does.  I queued up, got in, went up and then went down again.  That's a ride.

 

All afternoon we were watching the clouds get darker and darker and by the time I had ridden the last coaster it was just starting to drizzle. We made our way back toward the exit and just had time to stop off for a photo and to buy a magnet. After spending some quality time with Bugs and Daffy.  We were lucky enough to exit just as the people mover was coming around to take us back to the carpark. Bye bye Magic Mountain. I had a fun day. And I love the fact that there was no waiting time for almost all the rides.

 

Alan managed to buy some pretty funny one liner t-shirts for $5 and a funny jumper.  I hope he can fit all of this stuff in his suitcase.

 

5 minutes into our trip down the freeway back to our new hotel and the rain came pouring down. We got out just in time. We checked into our hotel. Our room has a nice view out over the beach and the marina. It's far too cold to be out on our balcony tonight enjoying it though.

 

For anyone who has ever watched the tv show Big Bang Theory, you will know that Penny works at The Cheesecake Factory and the boys eat there once a week. Given that there is a Cheesecake Factory right next door to our hotel, we thought we should really give it a try. On tv it is portrayed as a cheap burger/cheesecake joint. It is anything but that. The decor is really nice, the staff are lovely and the food is amazing. The menu was 11 pages long, featuring all sorts of different foods. We both had a combination shrimp scampi/steak diane with mashed potato. Although I did choose it first and then Sarah copied me as usual. I pointed out the combinations first and THEN he decided he would have what I was having. We could go there every night for a year and still not try everything. Well worthwhile. The servings were so big that we had no room left for any of their dozens of different cheesecakes, although they're open for another hour and three quarters yet so we may walk the 30 seconds from our room back there if we get hungry later.  It's about 8 degrees out there.  I doubt it.  However, we do have fudge that we bought at Magic Mountain to eat.

 

Tomorrow will be a free day, doing whatever touristy type things we feel like doing around Los Angeles.

Day 3 - Disneyland

Alan's writing this short blog for today and Sarah's comments will be in red.

 

We began the day once again with our free hotel breakfast. We probably shouldn't mention the fact that Sarah had 3 donuts.  That's because I only had 2 and a bit.

 

After breakfast it was time to cross the road into Disneyland. We've been to this Disneyland and Disneyworld in Florida numerous times before, but it's always been during scorching hot weather with massive crowds to deal with. So the fact that today was much cooler than usual was something of a bonus for us. It's not unusual for the waiting time to get on rides at Disneyland to be well over an hour, but today it ranged between no waiting up to about 20 minutes which was just awesome.

 

We started off by going on the Indiana Jones ride twice in succession, simply because it's such a fun ride and also because it's so far to walk out and back in again. After that, we did the Haunted Mansion followed by Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain is one of our favourites and we would have ridden it once or twice more had it been a slightly warmer day.

 

I rode the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while Sarah sat and watched. Unfortunately I was behind a family in the queue with 2 very annoying children who had made up a song about Disneyland and proceeded to sing it over and over and over. Sarah then convinced me to go on It's A Small World with her for the first time. Yes, it's pretty much as sad as I had imagined. When we were here back in 2007, the Finding Nemo submarine ride had only just opened and as such the queues to get on it back then were just ridiculously long. It was only a 20 minute wait today so we went on it. I have to say I'm darn glad we decided not to queue for hours to go on it 3 years ago, because it wasn't an exciting ride by any means. Add screaming kids sitting next to you in an enclosed space and needless to say we were ready to blow a hole in the side of the submarine to escape.  Unfortunately the Matterhorn wasn't operational today.  We like that ride.

 

That was about enough Disneyland fun for one day, so we headed over to California Adventure to see if it had added any rides in the last 2 and a half years, because there isn't a huge amount to do there. First up was the Grizzly River Rapids which is one of the best water rides we've ever been on. Once again, being a cool day meant that we only rode it once. I went on the California Screamin rollercoaster next, which is a pretty good coaster compared to some of the ricketty deathtraps I've ridden in years gone by. They have changed some of the scenery, not for the better unfortunately.  I wanted to go on the Tower of Terror as I hadn't done it before. Despite trying our hardest to avoid finding our way to the entrance by ending up in dead-ends in the park, we got there eventually. I told Alan he was heading for a deadend but he chose not to listen.  We'd done that the last time we were there. Not a bad experience I have to say. It's a 13 storey haunted hotel, with Twilight Zone style theming. You're taken up in the building in an old faulty elevator which then proceeds to drop you from great heights in the darkness, raising up again and again and dropping you. A couple of times the elevator doors actually open while you're way up in the air, giving you a view of the park before you suddenly drop. We'd had enough fun for one day by this time so we returned to our hotel for some rest. Was a good choice actually as it rained after we got back.

 

We took a drive to Target this evening to pick up a few bits and pieces that we needed, (like a mouse pad as even though Alan packed the laptop bag, he blames me for leaving it at home) after which we returned to our favourite Dennys for dinner at the request of Sarah's dad. Not that our arms needed twisting though; it's next to our hotel and we really love the food there.

 

So tomorrow morning we leave Anaheim and make our way to our next hotel in Los Angeles. It will probably be a fair few years before we're back here again.

 

Not sure what the weather holds tomorrow.  It is supposed to be rainy and cold.  Not sure whether we will go to Magic Mountain or save that until Thursday.

 

One last thing before signing off, I forgot to mention the large scrape on my arm that I got yesterday.  Anyone who has ever followed Alan up or down stairs, knows that he walks funny. (Let's just make sure people realise that it's not my fault. It's a result of a broken ankle years back.) Yesterday I made the mistake of walking next to him.  Reaching the bottom step, he seemed to throw his arm out to steady himself, pushing me into a concrete wall.  Gummy ankle boy! Whatever! You're just clumsy.

Days 1 and 2

This blog entry is started by Sarah while Alan sleeps.

He will fill you in on his ride tales later in red.

Sunday afternoon we bid a sad farewell to our little kitties and left them in the very
capable hands of our housesitters Mark & Vivien.  Dad took us to the airport and dropped us off
at our gate before doing battle with very bad traffic for his trip home, sorry Dad!

Even though check-in had only just opened, there were already about 40 people ahead of

us.  However, 20 minutes later we were checked in and quickly through immigration, the security check and then the secondary security check which seems to always be conducted for US flights.

The V Australia flight was on a 777-300 plane, high ceilings, the luggage bins above
the seats angle up so you have a feeling of space above you.  Also, being V Australia, we had various
lighting patterns which, I believe, is to make you feel like you’re a rockstar.  The only thing I didn’t like
is that you don’t have individual airflows but I was sitting on the aisle and
had a plane air vent over me so I was well and truly cooled. I’m naturally cool of course, so it didn’t worry me at all.

The individual entertainment units were great (I watched Mad Max before bedtime), the food was so-so and the plane seats were very hard.  On the return trip we are both going to try and score an extra pillow to sit on.  Not much sleep was had by me.  Alan, on the other hand, could sleep standing up.

We arrived in LA 40 minutes ahead of schedule.  Immigration here has changed since 2007 and there were many many queues to choose from (unlike the 1 we faced in 2007) and it only took 5 minutes from
the time we joined the queue, until we were outside with our bags, waiting for the shuttle to take us to the car hire place.

We got to choose any car we wanted from Section 1.  There was a Ford Focus, a Kia, Chrysler PT Cruiser  and several others but we choose the Chevy Cobalt, black. Has a lot of luggage room and we hope we get something similar to drive around Canada. It's a very nice car to drive and had only 3006 miles on the odometer when we picked it up.

We were quickly on our way to Anaheim with the streets becoming more familiar as we drove.

The accommodation we had in 2007 is just next door but I chose this one so Alan didn’t have as far to walk to Denny’s and also, to see whether the free breakfast was any better.  We weren’t disappointed, but more about that later.

We checked into the room and decided before showering we’d hit Denny’s for dinner.  I had a feeling that as soon as we’d showered we wouldn’t feel like going out.

First thing ordered at Denny’s was the Minute Maid Lemonade.  Hello my old friend.  I so wish we could get that stuff in Australia. Maybe when Costco opens we might get lucky.

For all those food lovers who always like to know what we are eating, here we go:

Sarah:  The Super Bird:  thinly sliced turkey, bacon, tomato and melted swiss cheese on a toasted sourdough bread served with fries and ranch dressing.

Alan:

Grilled chicken breasts smothered in Sweet & Tangy BBQ sauce served with smoked Cheddar mashed potatoes, fiesta corn and dinner bread.

Unfortunately there was no room for dessert although Alan did say he would come down during

the night while I was sleeping.  That didn’t happen of course.

So we turned in for an early night.

This morning we got up at about 8am and hit the free breakfast.  It was a vast improvement on the next door

hotel from 2007 which only served cereal and hard boiled eggs.  This morning we could have had cereal, eggs, sausages, bacon, waffles, toast, French toast, bagels and donuts.  There was also a variety of fruit, different juices, chocolate milk and of course coffee and tea for those inclined.

Then it was time to go to Knotts Berry Farm.  We had discovered we could get the bus for $1.25 each but we couldn’t work out from the website which side of the road we needed to be on to pick up the bus.  When we asked the hotel’s reception, she told us we would need to get one bus and change to another. That wasn’t right but instead of arguing with her, we decided to just drive and pay the $12 parking.  We are glad that we did, just for the convenience.

The park opened at 10am and we arrived at 10.30 to find very few cars in the car park.  On approaching the gate we saw a number of school groups but once we got into the park we found that the place was virtually empty.  No waiting times for any rides which is just what you want in an amusement park.  We are hoping Magic Mountain will be like that on Wednesday and we can only hope Disneyland/California Adventure will be like that tomorrow, but I suspect Disney is always busy.

So, now on to Alan to talk about his ride adventures.

It’s always fun to go to an amusement park for the first time. New exciting rides woohoo! I rode 5 coasters and even managed to get the normally wussy Sarah to ride the small steel "Jaguar" coaster with me. We also went on the water rides together; the log flume and the river rapids, as they're much more sedate than the extreme type coasters that Sarah makes me go on alone. Oh and we were all set to go on the "Perilous Plunge" boat ride together when Sarah had to call the attendant over to let her off because her gigantic oversized boobies were too much for the over-shoulder harness to manage.

We did go up the observation tower to have a nice scenic view of the park. It was kind of difficult though, given that the windows obviously hadn't been cleaned since the day the park opened. I was unable to go on the biggest coaster in the park, Xcelerator. Apparently all the staff who know how to operate that ride have quit, so new staff need to be trained. Bummer! We also caught the Wild West stunt show which was short but fun.

With so few people in the park we were out of there by early afternoon. I must try to remember that I'm not in Australia, and as such I must look both ways when entering roads and not turn blindly into oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road. Lucky there wasn't a semi trailer coming our way. I'm sure Sarah must have been distracting me at the time. No, the problem was that I failed to remind you when you turned on the street.  Scared me and about 10 other cars to death.

Dinner tonight was at Acapulco Mexican restaurant. We've been there on each of our previous visits to California, but we keep coming back as it's awesome food. After returning to our hotel we watched the Disneyland fireworks from our balcony and took some long exposure night shots, followed by a quick dessert trip to Dennys.

Anyway, we should probably get some sleep since we have another big day tomorrow when we wander across the road to Disneyland and California Adventure.