Woo Hoo! We are back in the USA!
Within a blink of an eye we got stamped with permission to stay another 6 months in this beautiful country. The RV park we left our car and caravan/trailer in had valet-parked our rig back into a spot and we so we stayed there for a few more days.
It’s funny that after spending some time in our beautiful hotel room in Mexico (where just the bathroom was bigger than our full caravan/trailer) when we got back we sighted our rig with a smile and said ‘it’s great to be home’!
We quickly found out while shopping to replenish our stock (food, etc) and slowly adjusting to an ‘English speaking country’ that ‘gracias’ is not as much appreciated here as it was down south, LOL.
We did a couple of things while we were still in Tucson. One of them was a visit to the Sonora Desert Museum, which was a bit of a cross between a desert zoo, botanical garden, a gem and fossil museum. All about the desert. It was very interesting.
We saw the snakes, the scorpions, the tarantulas and all other usual suspects found in this part of the world.
We even got to become a Paleontologist for the afternoon, looking for all sorts of fossils.
The Museum had beautiful Caverns we walked through
Where we found some funny looking bats
And then we saw lots of beautiful conglomerate rocks where lovely gem stones come from
And some bigger animals as well, like this teddy – bear…
And medium ones like these pussy cats (bobcats)
And some smaller one, like this gorgeous little humming bird.
It was a real fun day!
Another day, mummy found something really interesting in Tucson. Apparently the town has a ‘Bone Yard’. 1200 acres of it! But before you get shocked like we did when mummy told us about it – relax – they are not real human bones! It is a jumbo airplane version of a car wrecking place. Lots and lots and lots of military airplanes and helicopters which have retired from their services and are acting as an ‘organ transplant’ place for other airplanes still in use. There are over $72 billion of military equipment stashed up behind the wired fences. And although we tried to drive round and round looking for a good place to photograph them from the pictures did not do it justice
This is what our friend Google came up with (image search). Lovely snap shot from the satellite – how awesome is that? That's what you call precision parking!
One day, we decided to head a little more south to a town called Tombstone. It is a well-known old town where cowboys still rule!
We strolled the main street for a while enjoying wonderful cowboy culture
We even joined in with an interesting street entertainer
But by far the most memorable experience from this day trip was meeting the famous artist Allan Davidson. He is an incredible airbrush artist who has just recently moved here from Hollywood (used to do portraits for celebrities). His work was simply jaw dropping. We met him just outside of his gallery as he was airbrushing another one of his masterpieces.
He moved away from his work when we came over and explained to us what he was doing. He then draw a tic-tac- toe game on his hand and we played naughts and crosses.
Allan was just unreal! He showed us how to airbrush with his expensive tools and even let us use numerous artist cards until we perfected our artworks. What a blast!
Scottsdale 25 February 2012
On the airplane back from Mexico mummy saw an advertisement for an Arabian Horse Show where more than 2000 Arabian horses were attending! Wow, that certainly pricked her ears! And so we ventured north to Scottsdale, AZ to see all these magnificent animals.
The show was huge and had lots of different arenas where we could watch either the competition or the preparations. Both were very interesting.
But one thing that got us totally puzzled was this competition.
The western, bling encrusted, beautifully sequined saddle on this Arabian with a male cowboy looked as pleasant on the eye as a dress on a bulldog. And the cowboy seemed like he was holding on to a fine china cup of Twinings tea rather than reigns - little queer perhaps? We thought we’d send this photo to Justin (our cowboy friend from Texas) to get his professional opinion on this type of riding, LOL
Mesa, Arizona
Mesa, Arizona
Our next stop was in Mesa, AZ – not very far from Scottsdale. We went to attend an Indigenous American Indian show in town, which by the way was fantastic!
We watched an amazing Indian hoop dancing show performed by world champion himself. It was unreal! He had about 10 of them going at the same time constantly changing them into different shapes. Awesome!
Here he is riding a horse:
Here he is riding a horse:
After the show we went to meet the performers. They were very, very nice and gave us advice where we could go to learn more about their culture.
The show also marked the beginning of the baseball season and there was a lot of baseball related entertainment going on, which was really fun.
We met these two fellows. Apparently they are famous – they insisted on giving us their autographs, which we gladly accepted although truth be told – we would trip over them and wouldn’t know who they are. Baseball? That’s the sport where you hit a ball with a stick and catch it in a glove, right? Sorry, no disrespect intended – we just really haven’t got a clue, LOL.
What we also learned that night, is how to play ‘Chubby Bunny’. We’ve never heard of this game before – apparently you stuff a marshmallow in your mouth and say ‘chubby bunny’. The person with most marshmallows wins! Graham told us he won a competition once with…wait for this…27 marshmallows! And they are NOT the normal ones we have in Australia, they are huge! He had a big mouth – but 27??? We have NO IDEA how he managed to do that – we struggled with one!
Apparently after we were tucked in to bed, Graham decided to show our parents his lavish collection of …..guns. Oh, yes of course, what else would one have in their caravan/trailer?
Out came the handguns and were being passed around the campsite like if they were a mere stamp collection. Mummy was quite impressed with the ‘lady 007-type’ handgun. She said it would lovely fit into her new cowboy boots. Although daddy said she’d probably shoot her toe off.
Graham also invited our parents (and us!) to go shooting the next day. He had all sorts of pure fancy military assault weapons we could’ve shot out of (with earplugs on of course). As tempting as it sounded our parents declined as they couldn’t figure out how to go from ‘children, you are not allowed to play with guns, not even toy ones!’ to ‘here honey, why don’t you watch mummy shoot a AK47’ or even better ‘do you want to throw a grenade darling?’ It was too much of a quantum leap for them to take. But so tempting!
In the morning we helped Graham walk his beautiful dogs around the block and after saying ‘Asta La Vista’ we drove to meet up with some friends who were a surprise ‘Blast from the Past’!
We didn’t mention it before but our parents had been in contact with our Canadian friends we met at NASA in Huston. Remember Jayden, the Blues Brother?
Well his father mentioned to us that they will be having a birthday party in Las Vegas for his 50th and said that if we are anywhere in the vicinity of Vegas – to join them. And since Arizona is only a state away, mummy rang our friends to tell them we were coming. Anyway, it turned out they were only a couple of hours away from us so we decided to hook up earlier.
Well his father mentioned to us that they will be having a birthday party in Las Vegas for his 50th and said that if we are anywhere in the vicinity of Vegas – to join them. And since Arizona is only a state away, mummy rang our friends to tell them we were coming. Anyway, it turned out they were only a couple of hours away from us so we decided to hook up earlier.
Jayden and his parents were staying in Mesa for a longer period of time and they organized for us to have a site behind them. It was ace catching up with them!
It took us like…30 seconds to ‘costume up’ and pick up where we left off with Jayden – he’s a ‘soul man’ after all!
We played while our parents caught up of the latest gossip (translation: talked and talked and talked). We all seem to get along like house on fire!
In the evening our Canadian Friends (whom from now on will be referred to as the Blues Brother friends) invited us to this hip Organ Pizza Stop (restaurant), which was out of this world! It’s pretty hard to describe it hence we’ll put a photo in here. See the man on stage?
Well he’s playing the Organ, which controls ALL of the instruments on the walls and behind the glass. There are over 6000 pipes and dozens and dozens of full sized instruments located throughout the entire 2 story building all being controlled by the man in the middle.
Here we have found a you-tube link. Somebody has recorded him play Check this out:
Cool, hey?
The next morning we went to the local market while our friends went off golfing. We spent a good few hours there – it was huge!
In the evening our parents had a happy hour and so did we. They had some wine while we exercised on Jayden’s bike. He was nice enough to share it with us and since it was a bit too big for us he run next to us to make sure we did not fall – how is that for a friend?
We had nice BBQ at night and decided that we would go to Sedona the next day. As our friends had a few commitments here and there they decided to join us the following day.
We left early in the morning and drove towards Sedona. On the way there we stopped at Montezuma Castle National Monument.
An incredible 20 room ‘high rise apartment’ bang-spank in the middle of a limestone cliff! A surely-impressive 1000-year-old legacy of the Sinagua (prehistoric people of the desert).
The only thing we couldn’t work out is why on earth would they build it so high if the lifts were yet to be invented…Go figure!
We did our job in obtaining yet another Junior Ranger certificate and a badge.
And just in case you are wondering - yes, it is an Australian Gum Tree I am writing on. Quite lovely specimen indeed. We wondered how did they transplanted it all the way from Australia...
After being sworn in by the ranger, this lovely lady showed us a photograph of a girl who had 100 badges on a vest her grandma made. It had to be custom made to fit all of the on it. Wow! That sure gave us motivation. Can we get that many? We probably will run out of time on this trip but she surely ‘raised the bar’ for us of what is possible! Giddy up!
As we were checking in a man ran towards us asking to move our car so he can get out. He seemed to be quite flustered and in a hurry. Daddy asked him if everything was all right and he said he needed to escape the snowstorm that is about to hit Sedona. He had his horses in a trailer and was anxious to get them out of here.
A snowstorm? We were boiling during the day and now we going to have snow? In Arizona? Ooops!
We decided to stay however as our friends were joining us the next morning and since we did not have any phone reception we decided to stay put and rug up!
In the evening the manager came over to show us something cool. Next to her office she had this massive broken tree stump and every other night she would feed the wildlife with some cat food. Within minutes she had raccoons and skunks galore! They were so cute, especially a little raccoon who was constantly playing ‘peek-a-boo’ with us. What an experience!
In the morning our Blues Brother friends arrived and although it was a bit cold that day, there was no snow to be seen. Poor bugger did a ‘runner’ for nothing!
After a short tour around the campground, we decided to all hop into our car (it is a bus after all) and go to Sedona which was about ½ hour away. As we were getting closer we saw a little snow on the mountain tops which for this spectacular desert town looked a bit like ‘icing on a cake’.
Sedona was absolutely jaw-dropping. An awesome funky, arty, cultural hub – full of restaurants, coffee shops, galleries, golf courses and … more galleries. All surrounded by a spectacular array of red sandstone.
It started to get pretty cold but our adventurous spirit was not to be dampened. Even when we found out that a tour we had decided to partake was to be in a open-air Jeep. Snow, mountains, no windows in the car? Hmmm. Luckily we came prepared with gloves and jackets and a lot of warm intentions!
We hopped into the jeep which incidentally was... pink (maybe that’s why they called it ‘the pink jeep tours’?).
Anyway, we all jumped in. The driver was kind enough to give us some warm blankets and off we went on adventure!
The tour was tremendous and we would highly recommend it to anyone heading that way.
We stopped in spectacular places for a few photographs (or a few dozen in mummy’s case).
We even got to goof around in the jeep.
On the way back the driver took us down a 60% angle decline staircase which was so much fun that we asked the driver to do it again (which he did!).After the two hour tour we got back and we went to this beautiful Mexican styled village which was full of beautiful galleries and some warm Mexican food (to get us defrosted).
After lunch we went to a beautiful church out of which the views are breathtaking. The church itself was also a work of art!
Out of the church Bella spotted what could potentially be her ‘future house’ although after careful consideration she decided she’d probably prefer a castle. Nevertheless, still a nice real estate, wouldn’t you agree?
The rest of the afternoon we spent driving around admiring the beautiful vistas. Very often mummy would jump out of the car to take a few shots. What a spectacular area this was.
We kind of got lost at one stage but truthfully…. what better place is there to get lost?
The massive storm turned out to be a ‘storm in a tea cup’ and all it did was beautify our memories of this incredible, red rock mountains sprinkled with ‘icing sugar’ snow tops. Exquisite!
When we got back to the camp we started a fire and decided to get in touch with our indigenous sides. We got dressed as Indians and danced around the fire.
Here is a picture of the three of us. Let us introduce you to (from the left): Feather Warrior, Dances With Soul and Rainbow of Many Words
Jayden and his parents did not bring their caravan/trailer to the campground but instead they rented a little bungalow (next to us) with the coolest little loft. Well, it wasn’t that little. It could probably sleep a whole tribe of little Indians. Needless to say we had checked with the Chief (dad) who intimately has become known as ‘Runs with Beer’ to see if we could spend the night. The boss said yes! And so did our dad, LOL.
We had an awesome sleep over at Jayden’s and in the morning we changed our outfits into Ninjas.
After breakfast we went in two separate cars to the Tuzigoot National Monument. Tuzigoot stands for ‘The Crooked River’ as we have found out during our Ranger Program.
Tuzigoot is a hilltop village, which in its heydays used to house as many as 250 Sinaguas (ancient people, approx. in the 1300s). It is built almost entirely without any exterior doors; the two-story pueblo was entered by ladders through rooftop hatches – although who knows what they did when it rained? At least these people did not have to climb the cliffs like the ones at the Montezuma Castle!
After we finished our Junior Ranger program we went to Jerome, which is a town that looks like it’s poised to jump. Which apparently is what happened here more than once when the nearby copper and silver mines used dynamite and accidentally blasted off the town (jail inclusive)! Ooops! But they have rebuilt it and a Phoenix newspaper is being known to say that “ Your neighbor in Jerome can’t look through your back window although he can look down your chimney from his front porch”. It sure is steep here!
We had a lovely lunch in a pub up, up on the top (see the yellow building?). It was a lovely old building with a lot of character.
After lunch our friends had to get going so for the third time we bit them farewell.
We spent the rest of the day driving around the Sedona area snapping some more photos. Sedona had certainly got our thumbs up!
Williams, Arizona
Williams, Arizona
The following day we drove towards Williams (near the Grand Canyon). We stopped on a way as it started to snow (we were traveling into higher elevations), so nothing like a little break to throw snow balls at each other.
We got to Williams in the afternoon and decided to visit a new zoo they opened a couple of years ago called Bearizona. Somebody had highly recommended it. And we are so glad they did.
We drove through the park and were able to see some of the animals roaming free (well almost)
Like these White Bison (never knew they existed)
Check out some other animals we saw in there:
Not called Bearizona for nothing!
This gorgeous little bison gave Jordi a kiss. Mmmm, sloppppy! LOL
Mummy was totally mesmerized by the eyes of this little fox.
They even had tiny little baby bears in the incubator – two girls and a boy. Hey were soooo beautiful!
Grand Canyon – 7th of March 2012
SO finally the day has arrived! The Grand Canyon! We have waited so long to see this Canyon and here it was in all its grand glory!
Mummy of course had to hop on a chopper to see it from above while we stayed with daddy and watched interesting historical movie about the discovery of the Canyon by the ‘white folk’.
Mummy came back from the flight a little bit disappointed. The strong wind made the helicopter very unstable which caused her a few bruises and a black eye. Her camera weights a ton and constant wind would cause the camera to bounce off the window and straight into mummy’s eye – ouch!
And to top it all it was a very glary day and pilot’s shirt reflected badly from the window, affecting most of the view. She is so used to flying without the doors that this had never been a problem before although with all these winds in the Grand Canyon, it was probably better they had their doors shut. Otherwise she’d get back as an icicle!
She still managed a few decent shots though…
When mummy got back we decided to do the South Rim walk. It took us over 6 hrs! Mummy thought the views from the rim were much better than from the chopper.While walking we were completing our Junior Ranger’s program, which was quite involving.
As part of the program we had to attend a Ranger talk which we did half way through our walk. Ranger Richard taught us how important it is to respect an elk which although very majestic can be quite aggressive.
After we have completed our program, another ranger swore us in and gave us lovely badges.
We then continued with and came across a ‘2 billion years of Grand Canyon geology’ walk. They have different Grand Canyon rocks from different timeframes placed along the way. By the time the sun was ready to set, we completed our 2 billion year walk. Phew!
As we set on a nicely warmed up car mummy and daddy were hanging on to their hats on a cliff snapping pictures away. When they got back to the car an hour later they could hardly speak they were shaking so much but after their fingers defrosted mummy scrolled through the digital images she just took and smiled a little saying it was really worth it! What do you think?
We decided not to stay any longer at the Grand Canyon. First of all we had a party in Vegas to attend (well, the parents did) but secondly it was way too cold! Besides we promised Angelique (the lady we met in Mt Shasta months and months ago) that we would go hiking into the canyon with her. We might come back here again when it warms up. There is a lovely waterfall mummy wants to hike to (apparently a hard hike on an Indian Reservation) and if anyone can get her there, it would only be Angelique.
Angelique, waterfalls.… doesn’t that just sound familiar? DeJavu we say!
Viva Las Vegas! – 4th of March 2012
Today was Jayden’s dad’s birthday. Our parents really wanted to go out with the grown ups to celebrate but that meant they needed to find very good reliable baby sitters for us.
And what do you know; the lady who was managing the reception (who lived on site) was a delightful girl who was more than happy to look after us in the evening (especially once she met us). Her shift was finishing at 5 and as she only lived a couple of caravan/ trailers from us – she was more than happy to do it.
And she was ACE!
Her name is Marcie and together with her husband Matt (who also works in the lovely RV Park we stayed at) they have retired from professional Opera singing.
Very quickly they have both became known as our favorite M&Ms (Marcie and Matt). Marcie even sang us beautiful lullabies before we fall asleep. In 'Opera' language! What a voice! How lucky are we?
Very quickly they have both became known as our favorite M&Ms (Marcie and Matt). Marcie even sang us beautiful lullabies before we fall asleep. In 'Opera' language! What a voice! How lucky are we?
Having Marcie around gave mummy and daddy a little bit of time with the grown ups at night, which was fine by us as we really enjoyed Marcie’s company and we were usually exhausted by the evening from all the adventures we had during the day.
Las Vegas is a beautiful, sparkly city with lots of wonderful distractions. Our parents said it was a playground for the grown ups but we found a lot of interesting things which were kids friendly. Like these smurfs for example – don’t know what they were doing in adult world?
One night we ventured off with mummy and daddy and all the other grown ups from the birthday party to see the town at night. Oh, it was beautiful! We went to Fremont Street (the old part of Vegas) where they had a beautiful light show on.
They also had lots of street performers entertaining tourists. We even found Elvis and Michael Jackson. Weren’t they supposed to be dead? They certainly looked alive to us….
We also found this leopard man who was showing us that he could fit into this little box… Bella showed him she could get in as well. Well I guess she is a bit smaller…
It didn’t take me long to join the entertainers who played music. I so love to dance! If we ever work out how to upload the videos we will place it here one day, LOL
It started to cooled down at night and Bella started to get quite concerned about some girls not having enough clothing on them. ‘Wouldn’t they be a bit cold mummy?’ she would ask innocently… ‘Those feathers don’t seem to be very warm’
One night mummy and daddy went to watch Terry Fator while Marcie braded our hair. They weren’t sure if the show would be kids appropriate but they ended up loving it so much they bought a DVD to show us the next morning.
Terry Fator, for those of you who don’t know him, is a very famous ventriloquist (a puppet man) who won America’s Got Talent. He is incredible! Not only he can copy any famous singer (male and female) but he also does it through his puppets WITHOUT even moving his lips!!!!!
And he is absolutely hilarious!
We laughed our little heads off watching him. Here is a link to one of his performances. This should explain why the man got a $100mil contract to perform in Las Vegas for the next 10 years. Even in our kids language it sounds like a lot!
In the afternoon we went to have a look at some of the galleries in beautiful Las Vegas hotels.
Some hotels were even more beautiful than the galleries themselves! We really loved the Caesar Palace – it was by far our favorite one.
Some hotels were even more beautiful than the galleries themselves! We really loved the Caesar Palace – it was by far our favorite one.
Bella even found her favorite shopping destination!
Planet Hollywood also had an incredible mile of shopping (all indoors although it looks like you are outside). Mummy kept on dragging us from gallery to gallery and then saying that the artwork was either too big or too expensive to buy. Go figure!
On our third day in Las Vegas we went to Circus –Circus, which is the main hotel where we stayed (in the RV Resort section). They had a whole floor designated for kids’ entertainment. We even got to watch real circus performers (some of whom were also in America’s got talent) – they sure were talented! Especially the Jamaican team of boys who would have put monkeys to shame - they jumped so high!
Mummy and daddy went out that evening and told us the next day that they saw a man hypnotizing people and make them do some silly things. They said they wish they had that power over us (hypnotizing that is) although it beats us why? We do silly things without encouragement…
On our last day in Vegas we went for a day trip to Lake Meade and the Hoover Dam.
We did our junior ranger program at the lake; saw the dam, whichsure was big and then we ended up having all you can eat buffet lunch at a near-by hotel. $5 a head gave us meal to last us a month with all you can eat ice cream – how is that for value???
After lunch daddy discovered that Valley of Fire is only an hour drive from where we were. That area got highly recommended by one of mummy buddy-photographers she met along the way. The lady who lives in Vegas said it’s an absolute must. So… we hopped in the car and drove.
We got there just before the sunset- and what a sunset it was! Check it out! SPECTACULAR – we say!
The area had such an effect on us that we decided to go back to Vegas, hook up the trailer/caravan and even though it was in the opposite direction to our planned destination- we went back to the Valley of fire for a couple of days.
And what a fantastic detour that was! The campground to start with was just breathtaking! We parked next to this rock – a miniature version of our Uluru (Ayers Rock) – well…a REAL miniature. This is what it looked like during the day.
And the camp ground at night.
The stars at night were fantastic. Coupled with the full moon – it was such a treat!
We spent the next two days hiking. And we mean hiking!!! From the sunrise to sunset we made more steps then in the last two months!
Oh what a beautiful area this was!!!!!! Check out the 'UFO' mummy spotted in the sky! Isn't it incredible?!
Palm Springs 13th of March 2012
On our first day in Palm Springs we decided to go and restock our supplies in our favorite shop – Costco. We haven’t been here for quite a while because first we were trying to finish off al the food before we left the country and then we couldn’t have a lot of fresh fruits/veggies when crossing the border to California – so we waited!
The basket filled up so quickly. And no, we were NOT allowed to buy the teddy bears (again)
Even though we begged!
That’s OK, daddy didn’t get his way either – mummy said ‘no way, Jose (pron. Hose)’ to this little purchase!
We so couldn’t wait to catch up with the Super Js. It’s funny – we only met them a couple of times but we feel like they have been our lifetime friends!
The two days that we spent with them were absolutely awesome. When you travel for so long mostly with the grown ups, it is so refreshing to hang out with kids! Especially as cool kids as the super Js!
We spent the first day by their pool. They have a beautiful holiday home in Palm Springs in a gated community, which has a lovely communal swimming pool and a hot tub. We had a fabulous time in the pool while our parents lazed by the pool soaking up the sun and catching up. 
Oh, what a relaxing day it was. Except for Jake of course who now had to deal with 5 girls (3 sisters and the two of us)! Poor bugger!
When we got back to their place in the evening for a wonderful BBQ the super Js parents prepared, Jake quietly snuck out to read his book. Smart boy!
He did join us for a game of cards afterwards though. It was so much fun!
The next day we packed up our backpack and hiking boots and we went to ‘The Living Desert’ zoo together with the Super Js and also another family from Vancouver who joined us – Super Js friends from their school. Now poor Jake had to deal with 7 girls! Oh, boy!
The zoo was quite nice. We started off with a morning wildlife show. They had a few interesting animals, but nothing made us more homesick than a ‘laughing’ kookaburra! It is amazing how much we are starting to appreciate animals from back home. The animals we had once taken for granted are now becoming so exotic! Surely that is a sign of homesickness, no?
After a lovely visit to the ‘living desert’ we headed over to our new friend’s (Sophia and Emma’s) place. They were staying in a really nice timeshare resort called the World Mark.
Beautiful lush gardens, awesome swimming pool and a ‘lazy river’ to die for. Lazy river is a man made single lane circular pool which goes around a tropical garden. It is powered by gentle jets, which once you relax on the tube- will take you round and round and round…. Oh, how relaxing! Of course we kids have very quickly figured out how to make it more fun. We connected the tubes together and got Jake to pull us! Did we mention there were 7 of us? Poor Jakey!
We had an absolute ball on the tubes!
When the sun started to go down we all hopped into a HOT tub (parents included) and once we were warmed up enough we headed back to Sophie and Emma’s place. Their parents prepared a yummy dinner for us all.
While the grown ups were cooking BBQ, all the girls invaded the bathroom and had their own slumber party. Out came the nail polishes and nail art pens and we had some serious beauty parlor going!
After delicious hot dogs and burgers, all the kids curled up on the sofas to watch the only thriller movie Disney has ever produced- The Hollywood Tower. Wow, that was scary! Even the older kids were hiding underneath their sheets!
The night came about so quickly and once again we had to say goodbye to our friends. Even Jordi who normally is cool, calm, collected shed a tear or two (or three…).San Diego 14th of March 2012
We meant to leave early this morning to get to San Diego which apparently was only 2.5hrs away (or so our GPS told us). We didn’t end up leaving till almost lunch and after we have driven for about 10 minutes, we spotted an Oasis – a beautiful palmed area in the middle of a desert.
We initially stopped thinking it was just a bunch of nice trees mummy could take a photo of but soon we discovered there were some hiking tracks out there. So, boots were assembled and off we went looking for adventure.
After walking for half an hour through the desert, we discovered why Oasis is called Oasis. With the scorching sun and the dusty track we came across the spectacular shade of massive palm trees and a picturesque little pond. Oh, so nice!
We spotted this lovely older couple sitting on a bench, reminiscing...
We spotted this lovely older couple sitting on a bench, reminiscing...
This is where we met Isabella and her parents who are originally from Mexico but have been living most of their lives in south California. Their oldest daughter currently lives and studies in Sydney so we had lots to talk about. Well, the grown ups did. We did what kids are meant to do – we played tag and hide and seek. It’s amazing how the very long walk to the pond was shortened by great company.
San Diego, 15th March 2012
Wow, what a wonderful city! We initially planned to stay here 3 days but ended up staying 10….
There was so much for us to do!
Well, you cannot come to San Diego and not see the famous San Diego Zoo! So this was certainly our first stop.
The zoo was very big and also extremely busy with lots and lots of tourists. We first hopped on a double decker bus to take us around the zoo, which took over 45 minutes!
After getting our bearings right we attempted to go around the zoo on foot. As the park is built for animal comfort, not as much for little feet, it took us hours to get around. Luckily Bella has a sixth sense if it comes to navigation so she was in charge of us not getting lost.
The zoo was fantastic - more so on foot than from the bus. A lot of wonderful enclosures, some which were made out of glass allowing us to get so close to some of the animals! Like this adorable Hippo for example.
Or this wonderful orangutan which Jordi insisted she will teach how to ‘rub your tummy and tap your head at the same time’ trick.
We saw lots of cute little monkeys
And a few not so cute ones, LOL
We even tried to become monkeys ourselves
No, really! There was this rock climbing wall which somebody named ‘Ayers Rock’ – how could we possibly go pass it and not climb it?
We saw lots and lots of different animals. We saw giraffes
And Bears
And these adorable Rhinos
And their fantastic handlers
And dozens of beautiful birds
And by the time we finished we were totally ‘zood’ out!
The next day we needed to catch up with our friends we met in Tucson, Arizona. Remember the beautiful Yorkie dogs, which looked just like us?
Well, Mel, the owner of those cute little creatures has a beautiful boat and has invited us to come for a cruise in San Diego. Mel was there with his sister Cheryl and his brother in law, Larry. And of course their adorable poodles Muffin and Marcel. We met all of them just before we went to Costa Rica (their motorhome coach was parked next to ours).
Well, Mel, the owner of those cute little creatures has a beautiful boat and has invited us to come for a cruise in San Diego. Mel was there with his sister Cheryl and his brother in law, Larry. And of course their adorable poodles Muffin and Marcel. We met all of them just before we went to Costa Rica (their motorhome coach was parked next to ours).
We spent a fantastic day with Mel, Larry and Cheryl and their awesome-foursome (the dogs). Mel took us for a morning cruise, which was nicely topped off with yummy lunch Cheryl made for us. Are we spoilt or what?
Mel took us past cruise line boats, the USS Midway the Navy aircraft carrier and he even showed us where Navy Seals (the best of American soldiers: Navy’s Sea, Air and Land Teams) train.
We even got to drive the boat!
It was great!
When we got back to the marina, Mel took us for a spin on his small boat and then let our parents take us out too. Mel was definitely much faster and more fun! Mummy had a camera she didn’t want splashed – what fun is that?
In the afternoon we let our friends have a bit of a break from us and made arrangements to catch up for dinner. Meanwhile we went to check out the USS Midway, up close and personal!
Mel’s friend who lives in San Diego met us there and used her membership to let us in for free, saving us a lot of money. What a nice lady!
We spent the next two hours looking through the carrier. It serves as a museum right now but in it’s heyday it was a floating city at sea, home to over 225,000 sailors (throughout the years). And check this out – they didn’t have much space to sleep in. Jammed in like sardines.
On the board we did an educational program, which earned us well-deserved junior pilot WINGS!
We even attended a “Top Gun” type of school…
But the most exciting part of the exhibit was by far the top – 25 superbly restored aircrafts – jets and choppers! AWESOME!
They even had the star of ‘Top Gun’ in there – the jet that is. Funny, the name of the jet was Tomcat. Mummy tells us that’s what Tom Cruise (you know the heartthrob for the oldies) and his wife are called.
The planes were so cool – you could even get inside some of them – not that we’d need any invitations!
We learned lots today about the way sailors lived on this floating city and what sort of work they performed.
In the evening Mel invited us over to dinner to a wonderful restaurant in ‘Little Italy’. The food was fantastic and company even more so. What a fabulous day this was!
On our way home we stopped so that mummy could take photos of the city at night. Isn’t this town beautiful?
On the third day in San Diego we spent most of the day indoors as the skies have opened up and washed everything away (well not quite but it rained and rained and rained). It was time to catch up on our schoolwork. We tend to do a bit each day but sometimes if we have a lot of fun things to do we wait for a day like this to catch up on schoolwork. Needless to say with so much fun in the last week or so, there was quite bit to catch up with.
But all this work did not go unrewarded – in the afternoon we went to the theatres to watch The Lorax movie. It was fun!
The following day was Sunday and it was still a bit rainy although no as much. We got ourselves a pass to three parks and so today we decided to go to San Diego Zoo Safari Park. This is where the Zoo initially established their breeding facilities but decided to turn it into a ‘wild safari’ place for people to see. So this is zoo, round 2.
Normally we wouldn’t have gone there on Sunday, knowing how popular the San Diego Zoo is but since the weather was so not attractive, we decided it’d probably keep the crowds away. And it did! But what we didn’t count on is it’d also keep most of the shows and facilities at bay! We felt like 80% of the facilities were closed, which was a real bummer! Lucky we brought some snacks and water with us because we didn’t find an open shop till 4:30pm!
One thing, which was still operational was a 40 minute ‘safari’ ride which took us on a 2.5 mile loop through their grounds to see the animals. Some more Giraffes and Rhinos and lots of antelopes.
The grounds were beautiful, a real paradise for the animals!
I think we’ve seen more African animals in the last few days than we have in our entire lives! Lucky we love them all!
On a way back to our RV Park, we detoured via a local beach were mummy found this pier. She actually saw this pier in a famous photographer’s gallery in Vegas (one of the reasons why we came down to San Diego). You like?
On Monday (19th March) we went exploring the Children’s Museum, which is situated in the beautiful Balboa Park.
We learned lots of interesting things (as always).
After a few hours in the museum we went to explore the rest of the Balboa Park.
The Balboa Park is a town of its own, with spectacular architecture, various gardens, arts and culture associations and over 15 different museums! No, not a typo - 15!
And as today was Monday…yes, you guessed it right – most of them were closed!!! The gardens and the beautiful architecture kept us occupied for hours though!
On the way home, we stopped at the shops and mummy and daddy bought us scooters! Our next-door-neighbors have a couple of kids and we tend to borrow their bikes and scooters and so our parents decided they will invest in our own scooters so that we can zoom around together! Lucky our RV Park is like one giant car park (a very quite one) so there is lots of zoom area to cover!
When we got back to our RV Park we very quickly discovered that we weren’t the only kids with scooters on the ground– it took us about 7 minutes to gather a fun scooter clan together and zoom around till the sun went down.
Our neighbors’ Shawn and Tara made a fire that night and as our parents set around it exchanging stories, we watched a movie with Tommy (their son) in their coach.
On sunny Wednesday we finally went to Sea World! We were so hoping the weather would improve so we can go there. After all, you don’t want to go on wet rides when it’s freezing cold!
(And no, we weren't allowed to buy these ones either!)
(And no, we weren't allowed to buy these ones either!)
The park was great – and so was the spectacular show with the Orcas –oh what beautiful animals they are! Big as whales, smart as dolphins (maybe even smarter) and graceful like…. well… orcas – really is there another comparison?
And polar bears
And lots of pretty fish
But what topped it all were the rides of course!Daddy, Bella and I went on most of them, mummy was lugging all her camera equipment, which didn’t agree too much with the water component of the rides – so she had to stay back. I guess someone has to record this beautiful trip for us!
We went on a lazy water ride, where we got absolutely drenched – Bella especially!
And then Bella and Daddy went on this massive roller coaster, which finished dropping 5 stories down into a river!
And guess what? They had to do it twice because mummy missed taking their picture the first time around, ha ha!
I was just happy hanging around with mummy – not that much into scary stuff anymore (I think I am growing out of it).
In the evening our parents cooked a BBQ with Shawn and Tara while we ….you guessed it – watched some more movies. Unfortunately our friends had to go home the next day.
But the next day was even more exciting! Do you remember our army friends from way, way back? Well they are actually from the air force (which is still army, right?). The ones who invited us over to Sacramento and cooked us a fiesta? Well, guess what? They were going on a trip to New Mexico and when they found out we were ‘in the area’ they detoured all the way to San Diego to meet up with us! It was sooo much fun catching up with them!
They arrived mid morning and we had lengthy brunch at our RV park, catching up on the ‘good all times’. We then went for a long walk in the nearby park along the beach – lucky we had our scooters, it was a long, long walk! We even got to exercise with our 'army friends' in the exercise park.
We even met a man in the park who was walking his…guinnea pig! His name was ‘Chocolate’ and he was the most adorable and spoiled guinnea pig we have ever met. The man takes him out walking every day!
In the evening, one of our friends sister, who lives in San Diego – Rachel and her partner joined us for dinner in a groovy 50s style restaurant – the Corvette Diner. As there was a little bit of a wait to get in - we got to enjoy a cool pin- ball arcade, which was located within the restaurant. This time our parents even gave in and gave us some money to play with (without a lengthy lecture about gambling). We had a ball although as predicted the money did not last long!
The diner was really cool – even had waitresses dancing in their polka dot dresses. Yummy hot dogs and the most amazing milkshakes paired up with a funny magician and a great company (kids and adults) – the night was simply a blast!
Unfortunately all good things come to an end and we had to say goodbye to our friends. They all had to go to Arizona to do a special 14-24 mile ‘Remembrance’ hike in honor of 30,000 soldiers who died in Japan (and who often get forgotten). Lucky this country has people like our friends to remind them!
The next day we went back to Balboa Park where all those nice museums are. This time we went to the Natural History Museum, which was terrific. We watched a couple of 3D movies, one about Sharks and another one about dinosaurs. We learned that a lot of sharks are now very endangered, like our Great White for example. The Hammer Head sharks are almost wiped out and so are the Manta Rays and Whale Sharks. Apparently there are some weird people out there who make soups out of their fins and other poachers who are killing them off. So sad! We have to figure a way to stop them!
An interesting fact we had learned about dinosaurs is that if the whole of the Earth’s evolution was a 12hr clock, the humans world would represent the last 7 seconds! How is that for a perspective?!
The museum also had the most amazing gemstone display ever! From crystals to diamonds – you name it, they have it! They were quite incredible!
The museum also had a whole floor designated to sculls. All sorts of animals from tiny snakes to massive whales – they were very cool! There was even one little monkey, which had a scull almost identical to humans.
When we were in the theatre watching our dinosaur show mummy decided to wander off out of the museum and take some photos of the beautiful architecture. That excursion unfortunately lasted about 10 minutes, as mummy accidentally smashed her lens (the heavy camera outbalanced the tripod and hit the concrete with glass smashing to pieces). Ouch!!!!
This is where it happened:
This is where it happened:
Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent in the RV park on the phone to insurance companies and repair shops. Lucky we had our scooters to keep ourselves entertained. We would just zoom around the park and ‘collect’ new friends – which is so much easier when you have hot wheels!
As it was Saturday now in Australia, the insurance company was not open till the Monday, which meant we had to stay put in San Diego until we find out what to do with the lens.
In the next two days we covered a lot of schoolwork, exercised in a nearby park and played a lot of indoor games (when it started to rain on Sunday).
On Sunday we went to a fabric shop and bough lots of different fabrics and craft supplies and spent the whole afternoon making stuff. Mummy bought these really nice suede fabrics and made us awesome American Indian outfits. Check this out! Nice, huh?
On Sunday we went to a fabric shop and bough lots of different fabrics and craft supplies and spent the whole afternoon making stuff. Mummy bought these really nice suede fabrics and made us awesome American Indian outfits. Check this out! Nice, huh?
We are sure these costumes will get a good use over the rest of our trip.
Joshua Tree National Park - California
Our next stop was in-land California – Joshua Tree National Park. Funny this Park was almost an afterthought but it was so nice we stayed there for a whole week! Gosh, we are so lucky we can do this!
We initially went to the information center to familiarize ourselves with the park and we found out that of course…they do run a Junior Ranger programs here as well! So we geared ourselves with Ranger books and off we went looking for a campground. We were informed that the school spring break had started and we will be lucky to find anything available. Oh boy!
We arrived at the campground at about 4pm and guess what? They were right – the campground was totally ‘chocker block’ (for our US friends translation – FULL as full can get!).
The campground was quite spread out through beautiful rocks - Jumbo Rocks in fact (funny…they even named it that). Lots of campsites were nicely tucked away in between the rocks and so we drove around for a while hoping that we would find something. And as luck had it, we did! We found the last existing spot, and it was just perfect! We set up our caravan/trailer and we were just about to go on a little hike when we discovered that there was a small two-man tent hidden behind a boulder on our site. Oh no, we crashed somebody’s campsite! What do we do? It was almost getting dark and there were no campsites for miles and miles….
Our parents decided to stay close by and see who’d turn up. Whether we’d have to leave straight away or a bit later made no difference and maybe who’d ever show up would let us stay. We were hoping….
As we were waiting there were different thoughts going through our heads – what if a couple a Texans rock up with guns? What if a grumpy old people come back with a massive motor home and will tell us off, what if there are some cannibals which will… ah yeah, wrong country!
And so we waited and waited…… and finally a little Jeep pulled up with a young lovely couple from Rhode Island who both decided that they’d rather share a bottle of wine with our parents rather than shoot us! Woohoo! Not only did we get a great camping spot but also we gained some really nice neighbors!
Rob and Lara were terrific and they really like kids (well we think they did). They even took us on little hiking trips up onto the rocks towering over our campground. It was a real pity they had to go in the morning – we would’ve loved spending more time with them. But they were ‘on a mission’ to get to the Grand Canyon before flying back home to the East Coast. We are really hoping they will not freeze in there. After all it was snowing there barely 2 weeks ago (well maybe 3? So easy to lose time on this trip). Either way, their tent didn’t seem to have any padding on it – so hopefully they’ll stay warm.
This night Bella invented ‘Smoreos’. When we started up the fire she was determined to have some s’mores but because we only had the marshmallows Bella asked Laura if she had any other ingredients. Lara said she only had Oreo cookies. Bella said ‘great, lets split them in half, stick a marshmallow in the middle and create a ‘Smoreo’. Well, you should try it! They were fabulous! In fact mummy told Bella she should patent it, they were so yum!
The next day after Rob and Lara departed, we spend a whole day driving to different places and doing some cool hikes. Well, our parents thought they were cool – our legs are a bit shorter than theirs you know…
We finished our Junior Ranger program and we got sworn in for like the 16th time – this time the Ranger made us promise we would listen to our parents AND eat vegetables? Can you imagine that?! Vegetables!
After the nice walk in the cacti garden we drove to the Cottonwood Spring where we did another 4 mile walk through the mountains enjoying the fact that the spring had sprung in the desert – the flowers were popping out everywhere.
The next day at the camp we decided to stay put and explore our ‘own’ backyard. The Jumbo Rock campground had a lot of tracks and so we went exploring there the next morning. Can you spot Bella up on the rocks?
We went for this amazing walk to the ‘scull rock’. We kind of got lost and accidentally discovered some amazing sites.
It just happened it was a family reunion – grandparents and two brothers with families (and of course lots of nice kids). What a fantastic way to have a reunion. We wish our grandparents and cousins were all here – it would be a total blast!
Anyway, we did some craftwork and went on a couple of hikes with them. On one we even build some sculptures out of stones. Their family created a tremendous 3D turtle – ours built a …….. .....kangaroo of course! 
At night all the kids decided to have a talent show. They (our neighbours) had a fire going and all the kids did their best at dancing, singing, poem reciting, and getting the audience (parents) involved in different games. It was really good! It was fun hanging out with such a nice, creative and clever bunch of people!
On our way back from the talent show we stopped at our next door neighbours who we met earlier that day. They were lots of fun! They have three kids: Thomas, Everett and Rebecca. Thomas is 13 years old but he is one of the coolest teenage boys we’ve met. Not only he didn’t mind playing with us little kids but he even taught us some great Karate moves (he will be getting his black belt in October this year.
Everett and Rebecca were awesome as well and we played with them and other children from the campground whole afternoon. Our parents even let us climb some of those big boulders by ourselves (with the other kids). That’s probably the most freedom we have had in quite a while!
As we mentioned earlier, we stopped there on the way back from the talent show and guess what they had? A massive telescope! WOW! You should see the stars! And the moon!!!!!
Mummy just fell in love with the moon! It was a real pity it was not full – check out the picture she was able to get by putting her camera to the eyepiece! Needless to say, we have decided to remember these friends as the ‘Star Gazing Family’.
We stayed up pretty late that night, cooking up marshmallows and having a fabulous time with the Star Gazing Family and another fun family from San Francisco. Man, life is fun at campgrounds!
The next day, we spent the whole morning hanging out with our ‘star-gazing’ friends. Well, all the boys (including daddy) went for a hike while the girls (us, mummy, Rebecca and her mum- Julie) decided to indulge in some serious craftwork. Julie happens to be a seasoned quilt maker and so while making all sorts of wonderful things, we listened to some wonderful quilt stories and how people from around the world exchange their special pieces of fabrics and create ‘friendship quilts’ – how wonderful!
After lunch we (just our family) were just about to go on a hike when Bella said ‘why do we have to drive to a hike, here is a mountain we can climb’ – well, duh! - so we decided to stay and play ‘follow the leader’ (Bella of course) on the rocks near by.
Up on the rocks we met another family (mum and 4 kids). As there was a 6 year old girl with 3 older boys we decided to rescue her (McKenna) from the boys and come and play with us instead. It turned out the kids were cousins and were travelling with one mum (Katherine) and their grandma. They were on a school break all the way from Oregon. They only stopped for a daytrip and so we made the best of our time- climbed the mountains like mountain goats!
Bella even showed us the ‘butt-rock’ she found and we all took an appropriate picture, LOL
Bella even showed us the ‘butt-rock’ she found and we all took an appropriate picture, LOL
Their grandma was so nice- before they left she even gave us some yummy, homemade cookies – oh, how we miss OUR grandmas!
As we were waving goodbye to McKenna and her family we noticed that there was a car with people looking for campground. The camp has been so busy all week that their chances of finding anything at this time of the day was buckleys (translation – nonexistent) so we stopped them and invited them over to our campground – why not share?
They were a lovely couple (from US/England) with a lovely 9-year-old girl Hanna and an adorable dog. They were very grateful we invited them over. We have decided to nick name them our ‘Worldly Friends’ as Jan (the mum) is from the States, Steve is from England, their daughter was born in Jordan (Jordi was wrapped someone named a country after her). They have lived the last two years in New Zealand and are on a way to live in England. Yep, pretty worldly indeed.
That night we all climbed our sunset rock: us, our star-gazing friends and our new ‘worldly’ neighbors we’ve just met. We watched an amazing sunset.
and then we made our way down to the amphitheater to listen to a ranger talk about the Big Horn Sheep. It was very interesting.
When the talk finished we went down back to our “Star –Gazing” camp and indulged in a fantastic fire. We call it bush telly (television) back home and it really is! And only marshmallows can improve that experience! Which they did!
The next morning we watched (and helped) our Star Gazing friends pack up. As they were not leaving till midday, there was no rush so Thomas helped us make these funky swords out of sticks and gaffer tape. They were ace! Lucky the Worldly Hanna is a tomboy just like me (Jordi) so we practiced sword fighting together.
Julie (the mum from our Star Gazing Family) had surprised us this morning with a gift - a whole zip-lock bag of buttons and beads – you have no idea how thrilled we were – jumping up and down from excitement! She probably had no idea how she just made our day (or a month for that matter!). Now every time we are going to make a puppet, or jewellery or anything at all we will be thinking of Julie – the master quilter from the Star Gazing Family! Love ya Julie!
After a few final photos of our families together
and some more didgeridooing (the boys were very good at it!) we had to bid goodbye to our awesome friends. We were all almost tearing up when we hugged each other. This is the hardest part of our journey- saying goodbye to fantastic people who (there is a chance) we will never see again. But then again, it’s a small world, right?
After Julie, Brad, Thomas, Everett and Rebecca left Worldly Hanna, Bella and I pulled out the craft box (with the wonderful buttons of course) and made some groovy puppets as ell as clothes for our dolls.
During our walk we met K.J. and her teammates of rock climbers. She was nice enough to explain to us how they climb all the way to the top and how they attach themselves to the rock (in case they fall). It was so cool! Wish we could climb with them!
During our walk we learned lots about our Worldly Family – we think it’ll be easier to mention the countries they havent been to / lived than the ones they have! And we though we travel lots! Wow! They lived in Korea, in Jordan, in Oman, in Dubai, in Poland, in Abu Dhabi, in New Zealand, in India, wholly guacamole! We are sure we forgot the other half of them. Both Jen and Steve teach English in Universities and other schools so they get to travel the world. Unreal!
We had a nice fire in the evening and did another talent show. Hanna could even do a New Zealand Hakka and sing in their native tongue, which was great!
Join us soon for the update from Zion and Bryce National Parks - sorry mummy can't keep up with the updates. Lots of hiking, homeschooling and photography is keeping her busy. Luck of internet connection doesn't help either , LOL
Stay tuned!
Wonderful blog Anna (Jordan and Bella)! The photos are amazing! It was great meeting you guys, we hope to see you again before you go home. Travel safely!
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