Trip Report

We left Melbourne on a cold and windy morning and flew 3 hours to Auckland, New Zealand. Here we spent 2 nights winding down from all the hype we left at home and exploring the new city. We splurged on a nice hotel here and spent a lot of time in the room consequently.

After 2 days in NZ we boarded the plane for a 12 hour flight to Los Angeles. I had been before, but the boy hadn't so it was quite fun touching down and walking out into the hot Californian air. We hopped on our transfer out to Anaheim, where we stayed for 9 nights. From Anaheim we played at Disneyland, Universal Studios, Hollywood and Tijuana. We saw Good Charlotte play at the House of Blues in Anaheim - really good show, they were awesome live. We lounged by the pool, went shopping alot and began our foray into American cuisine (the boy loves it, i'm not too keen).

From Anaheim it was off to Vegas, we caught a private bus and were there in 4 hours. We checked into a suite at the Flamingo Hotel (we could only afford this for 2 nights then moved to the significantly cheaper Imperial Palace Hotel). I'd been to Vegas before, the boy hadn't so i had so much fun watching his reactions to some of the things we saw. We had cocktails by the pool, caught the LA Kings play the Avalanche at the MGM Grand, boy rode the rollarcoaster at NY NY, i was too scared, we shopped again, ate at the buffet in Paris - so much fun. I was having a bit of a down hill spike in health on the Friday night so i went to bed, the boy tottered off on his own returning at 4am with more money than he'd left with, a packet of smokes (doesn't usually smoke) and a rose for me... it was quite funny.

From Vegas we picked up a hire car - Pontiac Cruiser - and headed out towards the Grand Canyon and after that up to Colorado. We drove through the Rockies, stopped in Vail and decided we should live there ;o) On to Denver which was a really pretty city. We walked the whole city it's so easy to do. We caught a Rockies game against the Diamondbacks - their only losing game in that long winning streak they had going.

I'll post a couple of photos to go with this bit, and write some more on the trip tomorrow...

I love the BAD stories - they're always fun and unexpected, so i'm with you guys waiting for the next installment!

Ozi

LA City from Mulholland Drive

Garden in Bellagio Atrium

Our car!

At the Baseball