Day 11 Grand Canyon to Austin Texas

I awoke to a beautiful day. The sun was out, it was warm and a nice breeze kept it just the perfect temperature.




We drove to several look out points to see the Canyon. Words and pictures can't describe the scale of this place. What surprised me was how close you can get to the edge, one slip and you're a goner. Of course we tempted fate and crept out to better but sketchy vantage points.

The landscape was quite arid and pretty similar terrain the whole way.

The landscape was lots of flat areas with large land humps.

Tempe University

After hanging out a couple of hours we began our long drive south to Phoenix and Tucson Arizona. They're not that biggest of cities but they had a hazy cloud of pollution hovering over them. It was really noticeable in Tucson.

The sunset was pretty awesome.

All I ate was garbage today. Good food doesn't seem to be available leaving me no choice but eat at Wendy's and Taco Bell. I'm disgusted with myself.

Day 10 Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon, Arizona

I felt I had enough of this city and ready to see some stunning natural beauty of the Grand Canyon. I had a good time but I got sick of the endless urban sprawl and the traffic.

It's difficult to get around in the city without dealing with the frustrations of traffic jams. We had to drive right through the city to get to Arizona which means we had to deal with the worst of it.


Along the way our frustrations mounted as we tried to stop off at the infamous In and Out Burger.
That alone was a hassle. It took us a couple of hours to get out of the city and into the dessert.

Random odd thing I saw
When we finally go out of the city and onto the interstate it was a refreshing (although really hot) to finally get to the open road and away from the mayhem.
The drive to Grand Canyon is about seven hours and we drove right into the night arriving at 1:30 in the morning. Along the last hour, we encountered half dozen deer on the side of the road that were huge. Luckily we didn't hit any of them.

We manage to find an open camp spot and pitched the tent under sky full of stars. It was incredible how many there were.We saw a few shooting stars and tried to shoot pics. It wasn't very long before we called it a night. It was a long day of driving. Tomorrow will be worst as we try to drive through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Day 9–Mulholland Drive & Abandon Missle Launch Pad

Today we meet up with Paul's friend Kurt who was nice to take the day off to show us around town. He wanted to show us Griffith Park and Mulholland Drive to show us a great view of Los Angeles.

After we picked him up from Plia Del Ray and headed to Roscoe's for Chicken and Waffles. We heard about this place for years so it's about time we see what the hype is all about. We passed a couple of guys hustling their rap cd in front of the restaurant before sitting down to order. Paul and Kurt ordered the chicken and waffles while I ordered chicken, eggs and grits. I had no idea what I was ins tore for but I felt adventurous. The food was really greasy and grits lacks flavour even though I melted a golf ball of whipped butter into. Overall, I would have to say that I'm not a big fan.


Our first destination was Griffith Park. We drove a windy road up to the observatory perched at the top of mountain with a great view of the city.

Kurt wanted to show us Japantown in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. As a local resident, he helped us avoid the worse of the traffic, I don't know how local residents deal with it all the traffic all the time. Downtown LA is where all the buildings taller than three floors are. After a work day, the city's core becomes empty. Japantown is where the civic center is located and it's going through a revitalization. Kurt was hoping to show us the real crappy area of town but all the homeless were gone. There use to be people living in boxes and huddled around flaming garbage drums. Japantown was really clean and the old buildings are being converted to condo's. If I had to live in LA, I would buy into this area, property will go up just like Yaletown in Vancouver and the Pearl District in Portland. After cruising around for a couple of hours we headed up to Mulholland Drive.



The road snakes up the hills overlooking the Burband and the movie studio's such as Disney and Universal. We stopped at a look out point looking over the city, the congested highway and the distant mountains. The homes up on Mulholland are for the affuent–they're almost like mansions with amazing views. Further up the mountain, when the road becomes dirt, is one the coolest things I've seen in Los Angeles–an abandoned missile launch pad!


During the cold war when America and Russia was going toe to toe, there was a fear of a nuclear missile attack. One of the prime targets was Los Angeles so as a counter measure, they built a missile defense system on top of the hill on Mulholland Drive. After the coldwar, they converted it into a look out area.
The area is beautiful, you can see all the nice homes dotting the mountain side or ride the mountain bike trail that stretches for miles. We were up there as the sun began to set, casting a warm glow all around us. It was stunning.

We ended the day by going back to Santa Monica for dinner with our generous Los Angeles hosts John, Stacey and Kurt. They gave us a place to stay and played tour guide for our stay in LA.