Down
here in this diary, you can read my daily experiences !
Monday, July 19
Today we started with the flight to Los Angeles. This was the first time I was flying. It
was not so exciting as I had expected. The flight was very long (11 hours!). I have been sleeping most of the time, at least I tried.
Tuesday, July 20
Still very tiered from the Jetlag (9 hours difference). We have been doing a
roundtrip LA. The good news is that there are here a lot of hamburgerrestaurants. In one
of them we had a nice breakfast. In Hollywood, my dad got his first parkingticket! This is
also where I bought a fantastic South Park T-Shirt. In Santa
Monica we visited the pier. But the best part was that I bought myself a Furby (much
cheaper as in Germany !!). My dad surprised me with a junior Golfstick set. At the end of
the day we had big fun checking all the things we bought today...
Wednesday, July 21
We walked (!!) to Disneyland today; only 10 min from our hotel. In the beginning
it was very quiet, so we had no waiting lines. First was Space Mountain, but it is not so
fast and good as in Paris... I was hungry like a bear, so we
ate there, next to a large group of little kids (very noisy). The Mulan Show was not
that good, but the Dragon was the same as in Paris (ever seen a
dragon on a bicycle?) One hour before start, we looked for a good spot to watch the
Fantasmic show, but that was almost too late!! It was very busy, but the show was very
good. As a souvenir I bought Pumba and Timon!
Thursday, July 22
As in Disney, thanks to coming early, we had no waiting lines for the top attractions!
Specially the tramtour was very interesting; lots of special effects
and old filmsets (Jurassic Park Lost World). There was a new
part in the park with E.T., Fire Brigades, Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. In the
Jurassic Park "water-ride" we had a free fall of 32 feet !! We were completely
wet... Wet too in Waterworld, spectacular show with plenty
shooting and explosions. Further on we visited a few shows with
cowboys and trained animals and after the shopping we went home for some swimming!
PS: I think Universal Studios is BETTER than Disneyland!
Friday, July 23
After bringing Suzan to Alicia, we visited the Queen Mary and
the Scorpion Submarine in Long Beach. During I learned
that the Titanic was smaller and that one of the 4 chimneys was fake! Just to make it look
bigger. During our walkthrough the ship, we met a man living in Las Vegas, he gave us some
very good tip's on what to if we are there. The bad news was that we will not be allowed
to enter the casino's! at 15:00 exactly the shipshorn blew. This was very very loud, one
of the crewmembers told us that you can here this more than 10 miles away. After that we
went through the Foxtrot submarine. Although built in 1972, it looked so old (fashioned)
to me. On our way to Alicia, we stopped at a large Sportshop where we bought some golfing
stuff.
Saturday, July 24
Compared to the other days we stood up late today and went for a swim. After packing the big mess we left exactly at 12:00 (latest
checkout time allowed...). On our way to San Diego we stopped at the beach. A railroad was right next to the beach. I
have flattened some coins on the rails! After finishing my Chili Hotdog we moved on. Bad
luck, our next room was a smoking room (stinks like hell) and no other available. At night
we went to the San Diego City. There were a lot of homeless people here, sleeping on the
ground and walking around with their shopping cards. We tried to go to Star Wars or South
Park at the cinema's, but they were not playing, although they had 15 features! We went to
a large shopping mal, Horton Plaza where we had to wait veryyyy
long for Suzan, buying earrings. Afterwards we had a very nice Mexican diner. The waiters
and the owner were very friendly and kind to us! German waiters can learn something from
them!
Sunday, July 25
Today's program was the San Diego Zoo, so no need
to get up early...This Zoo is more like a large park where the
animals not have to live in small cages like in may other Zoo's. At the Hippo's, we waited
a long time for them to come out of the water, but no chance, they stayed
in! The polar bears were very difficult to get pictured closely, but lucky for me
there were a lot of posters. We also visited two shows with sealions and birds. For lunch we had the "kidsmenu" with some funny souvenir kind of beach
buckets.
Monday, July 26
We did Seaworld today. At the dolphin rock, we have
been petting some dolphins. Totally wet was our reward for
sitting at the first rows at the dolphinshow. The second show
was some kind of water stunt show with two teams, fighting for
the first place with water-ski-ing, ski-jets and other stunts. Also very spectacular was
the Shamu Show with the orca
killer whales. I also fed the sea lions with some fresh fish.
During Suzan's DIP, I did some feeding again, this time the dolphins (with "sea lion
fish"). Later on this evening I fed myself with pizza.....
Tuesday, July 27
Easy going, stood up late and hopped on the car for some driving around and
checking the surroundings of San Diego. First to the beach, where we found a attraction
area with an entertainment hall, where I did the classic stuff.
There was also an old wooden rollercoaster which was very fast
by the way! In a shopping mal next to our hotel I bought a nice golf polo shirt with Taz.
We wanted to go to the cinema, but could not find any. When asked we found out that we had
to ask for the AMC theater.... But we found it and had a good laugh with South Park, The Movie.
Wednesday, July 28
Suzan waked us up very early this morning and told us it was already very late, which it
wasn't. Therefore we were early on the road. The ride was too long for me and very boring.
I made some pictures to prove this.... Lucky enough, I could play some PC-games on
the notebook back in car. First we could not find the hotel, but it turned out that Circus
Circus is completely at the other end of "The Strip" then where we started to
look. We checked out the hotel with it casino's and the "Adventuredome", an attraction park inside (!!) the hotel. I did Rockclimbing
here. In the evening we went to the "New York New York" Hotel where we did a
super fast rollercoaster, which is built around the hotelbuilding itself. In the kids
casino we did some gambling; I won a treasure chest with Loony Tune Pictures.
Thursday, July 29
Again, we started slowly today. We had nothing else on the program than flying
over the Grand Canyon, starting at 2:30. So at one 'o clock we had "breakfast".
Actually you can eat breakfast here round the clock!! We had to hurry a little bit, but at
the end the bus who picked us up was more than a half hour late....We had a very nice little plain with large windows for a good scenic view. The cockpit looked quite old fashioned to me. The first interesting
thing we saw was the Hooverdam, which we will visit tomorrow by
the way. The Grand Canyon itself was very interesting. You could
see very well how the canyon developed over the (millions of)
years. Back again, we had a nice view over Las Vegas. In the
evening we all went to the casino. Dad went to the normal casino to play roulette and we
to the kids casino (each with 10$). We all came out with some prizes!!!
Friday, July 30
On our way to Hoover Dam we had quite some traffic jam. It was very warm (40
degr.) so I was glad the visitor center was very cool. There was a very interesting movie
(black and white) on how the dam was build. Afterwards we did the guided tour, to see the powerplant an the dam from at the foot. The dam was so large that it would not fit on one
picture, so we made a composition too show the dam from the top.
During the evening I won 3 stuffed animals in the kids casino with the camel race
gambling...
Saturday, July 31
I went with dad by car to the Red
Rock Canyon (Suzan stayed at home, she wanted to go swimming). We did the special
scenic road, where we could get out regularly for some nice photo's of the Red Rock and the dessert or some "hiking". The last we did only once because it was
extremely hot in the dessert. In the car we had at least cool airco! Round sunset, we
walked to the Stratospheretower. This hoteltower has a
"drop 'n shot" and a very small rollercoaster at the top, 350 meter above
streetlevel!!. The rides were very expensive, so we did not do them. The view however was great; at the right bottom you can see our hotel,
"Circus Circus". Even the Red Rock was visible here. We stayed a little longer
after sunset, so we could see the "Strip" in full
nightlight.
Sunday, August 1
When packing our bags, we felled a real earthquake!! We were really rocking! On
our way we passed a religious village, where they even advertised
Jesus... The route through Death Valley was quite a long ride, the landscape was very
nice, but quite the same to me everywhere. We stopped at the "Zabriskie
Point". In the valley itself, we saw 3 (little) twisters, one actually crossed
our road only 100 meters in front of us!! Arriving at our new destination, it stroke me
that there are here so many restaurants and fuel stations. May be because it is in the
middle of an important route. Finally we could take a dive in the
pool...
Monday, August 2
Sportive start today, in the pool. After breakfast with pancakes and banana's, we
moved on to the mountains for a visit to white mountain. Here
are living the oldest trees on earth; more than 4.000 years old
!!! We were so high that you could see the other side of the valley
with snowy mountains. At the visitor center there were very friendly squirrels. I fed them with my Pringles Chips.
At our way back, we helped two ladies, from which the motor had run too hot. We ended with
a refreshing dip in the pool.
Tuesday, August 3
On our way from Bishop to San Francisco, we traveled through Yosemite Park. This
was quite a long drive; The Park itself is also very large. We left
the car once for a hike to the Sequoia Tree's. These "mammoth"
tree's can get as high as 100 meter, age 3.000 years and have a diameter of 8-10
meter. In an old dead one (died 300 years ago) people made a
tunnel for cars to drive through... Also the seedlings were very
big. In the past they were sold for 50$'s. Unfortunately it was not any more allowed to
take them with me... Arriving at the motel, we found out that the telephone connection
with the computer was not working (still not) so we are not sure when this will be
published
Wednesday, August 4
We went to Pier 36 for some sight seeing. Unfortunately
we could not do the Alcatraz tour. The demand for this tour was so high that we had to
wait a week if we wanted to go!!! We than toke the cable car to China town. The waiting lines for the tram were so long, that we
decided to walk back. We were rewarded with a very nice overview over Alcatraz and SF. We specially drove to a
scenic point at the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, in
order to have a nice view over the bridge and San Francisco.
Back at the motel, the modemconnection still did not work, fingers crossed.....
Thursday, August 5
The weather was very bad today, cloudy and cold. I was glad we already did
the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday.... Good day to visit some thing indoor! We started with
the "Basic Brown Bear Factory". Here you can select your own bear (and cloths) and stuff
him yourself! Afterwards the bear is sewed tied and
aircleaned. I took a t-shirt with "Stuffed in San
Francisco". The rest of the day we spend at the Academy for Science in SF. One of the funny things
was, that at the exhibit of an Elephant Trunk, the sign told you
to actually touch it. The idea was that by doing this it would be polished smoothly!! For
the rest it was very interesting with lots of animals and dino's
and a special exhibition of earthquake's with a life show!! Although cold and dark this
night, I went out to swim with Suzan in the pool. The water was wonderful warm!!
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