journal7

Journal Page 7

Goto the photo page to link to the pics

8/8/04 We have finally arrived at the West coast! We even put our feet in the Pacific Ocean today!! But, I am getting ahead of myself� let�s talk about Las Vegas first. It was HOT! Over 100 degrees each day we were there, only a little humidity but it was still HOT. Before we got into town, we drove over the Hoover Dam, we didn�t stop�got a few pictures on the drive by. We took a tour of the dam a few years ago, so we decided to continue our journey to Vegas. Our first stop was the Mirage hotel. They have dolphins that you can visit (which I always do when I am in town). They have 8 bottlenose dolphins. They don�t have any regular shows but they do have play times during the day. We happened to catch a playtime and got some good video clips on our camera. Unfortunately we are not able to put videos up on the website (yet) so I will pick some good pictures for the website. They have an underwater viewing area, which is the best place to get pictures and videos of them in action. You know how I love my dolphins!! We then visited the Flamingo hotel to see the penguins and flamingos. My parents flew out to spend a few days with us and we stayed at the Excalibur Hotel, which has a medieval/castle theme. We have been staying there for years. It was great to see my parents again before we head off to the islands. Keith and I visited Las Vegas a little over two years ago and did most of the sites up and down the strip. We spent the next few days sleeping, eating and relaxing by the pool, very much needed. On Wednesday night all four of us piled into the Jeep, not an easy task to accomplish (we don�t have a back seat)! We went downtown to the �old strip� to the Freemont Experience. This is an area that is a couple of blocks long that is covered by a huge canopy made of light bulbs that displays an electronic show along with music. It�s pretty impressive and I can only imagine how many light bulbs there are and how they can keep up with the ones that burn out! Keith and I went out on our own on Thursday and went to the Venetian hotel where they have Madam Tussaud�s wax museum. This is a very famous wax sculpture woman who has a few museums around the world. We saw impressions of Princess Diana, The Rock, Bono from U2, Madonna, Elvis and many more. It�s an interactive museum so you�ll see Keith and I being pretty silly. At the MGM Grand hotel we visited a few female lions in a viewing area right inside the entrance to the hotel, very cool. We took off around 4am Friday morning to head to San Diego because over the past few days temperatures in Death Valley were topping out around 125 degrees during the day and we wanted to beat the heat. It felt great to be on the road again! More on our Cali arrival to come�

Goto to Page 8

8/18/04 We are wrapping up our stay in Southern California. The weather here is near perfect. We spent a few days touring San Diego over the weekend. We took a trolley tour around town, it even brought us out to Coronado Island where the hotel The Del Coronado is located. We walked along the beach and put our feet in the Pacific Ocean, we have finally made it to the �other� coast! We spent the next day at the San Diego Zoo. It is a huge zoo and a lot of fun. We both personally liked the Washington Zoo better, yet we had a great time. We have been in staying in Hollywood for a few nights and it�s been interesting. We took a bus tour around Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Hollywood checking out some homes of the stars, most you can�t really see over the hedges and walls. Some of the homes we saw belong to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt & Jennifer Anniston, Dr. Phil, Harrison Ford and Marilyn Monroe. We also got to tour Sony Pictures Studio. We got to walk around the set of Joan of Arcadia, which we haven�t watched yet but we will now!! We also got to see where they hand paint backgrounds for movies and TV shows, pretty amazing. Then we took a walking tour of Hollywood Blvd. We saw the walk of fame, Mann�s Chinese Theatre, the foot and handprints in front of the theatre and Kodak Theater where they have the Oscars. Today we treated ourselves to a day in bed (until 2) and went down to Long Beach. There we ate at Bubba Gump�s and walked around the waterfront area where there were two lighthouses. We then went across the bay to tour the Queen Mary. Queen Mary is a huge luxury ocean liner from the 1930�s that is now berthed permanently as a hotel and museum. We watched a video of its history and then took a walking tour of the ship. They also have a show at the end of the tour that takes you down into the depths of the ship that are supposedly the most haunted parts. During World War II, the ship was painted gray and used to carry troops to Europe from the United States- up to 16,000 at a time. Through it�s history over 50 people died on the ship and there have been many reports of it being haunted.