I must say those fireworks looked awesome
I would even consider going to Vegas on New Years to see that
We went to the outlet malls everywhere we went and Vegas was the cheapest we certainly left the Nike and Oshkosh store with less cash in our pockets
We brought electrical things home with us and just use an adapter and have had no problems with any of it!
That's good to know about the adaptor for next time (I still want my Kitchen Aid and preferably not for 800 bucks!) Is it just like a travel adaptor that someone from the US would use to operate their hairdryer etc. over here?
Love your Vegas shots and that was a very quick drive up the PCH. Still....you got to the main bits.
I've drive Route 66 between Flagstaff and Needles. It is a reasonable drive and there are bits that I found sad because it just seemed so run down. I'd love to do it again...and Kingman and Oatman is where I consider the best experiences of the drive to be. Both towns were great, too. If you do the drive, there was a town....I can't remember where....might be Seligman or one of the other smaller stops....that offers a 4-wheel drive out to the Colorado River i.e., the base of the Grand Canyon without the need for donkeys! I really wanted to do that tour but we didn't have time to do it on that trip.
Thanks for the advice, I've heard other people enjoyed stopping in Kingman as well. DF would love doing the 4WD! We have an old Nissan Patrol that he loves taking off road here.
Awesome update. The Vegas shots actually made me want to go back to see some things I missed.
The coastline you drove along looks beautiful, and the seals are adorable.
Thanks You'll see how big the elephant seals really are in my next post because there's a picture of me standing next to a statue of one. I can't believe idiotic people approach them in the wild (sadly we saw it happen, which is just stupid when you consider how good the view is from the safety of the lookout) they are massive and could probably do a bit of damage!
Wow, just finished reading. Great photos and great report! Just wondering how you and the car coped with the snow? Did you need to use chains?!?!? We will be travelling through Montana right about when the snow should start arriving so I am a bit worried about driving in the snow!
We didn't use chains because as DVCAustralia mentions the car was fitted with snow tyres. I didn't actually realise that at the time though and started freaking out about it until somebody told us (I think I've watched too much Ice Road Truckers!) Our little rental car was great, it held the road really well (except a few black icy patches, but nothing scary)
We spoke to a taxi driver in Buffalo about it later on in our trip, as we were driving through a snow storm, and he kind of laughed and said he'd lived in those conditions for 40 years and that nobody really uses chains; they just fit the heavy duty snow tyres in winter. So I'm still a bit confused about the whole thing to be honest!
Generally the US and Canada simply have proper 'snow' tyres on their vehicles (the rental depot should have them on all their cars but it is worth checking). As long as you have these driving with snow or even on snow should be fine (although as the navigator, whilst I have a front seat view I do not have to actually do the drining). However California seems to insist on chains, probably because of the dominance of cars that would never venture into areas prone to snow (just like vehicles in Australia).
Lulu83, I appreciate you posting the trip report and look forward to more.
Thanks for reading! I'll have the next update ready to go very soon.