The House

Ok time for an update. This one is about the house. Ok the place is fairly small. Its a basement unit and the house is on the side of a hill. So the interior is on 4 levels. The unit is getting renovated so there is another bedroom going on so the room Casie and I are in is just the living room thats been split temporally.

This is the view from my bedroom window!!!
This is from the front door looking at the kitchen. The living room is down the stairs to the left through the kitchen.

Here is the tiny living room

The bedroomThis is the lake that is a 5 min walk down the hill. O yeah last night while Neil was webering up some awesome ribs he spotted a bear at the top of the driveway. A dog from across the road came out and started barking at it. The bear growled at it then went back to eating flowers.

Hello from Whistler BC

Hey all a lot has happened in the last few weeks.. We arrived safely into Vancouver after getting the van back in one piece and catching our flights that had some minor delays. We really only had one day there so we got ourselves some phones and just looked around. We had to get up the next morning because the greyhound bus' don't reserve seats even though you buy a ticket in advance.... We were told by the ticket booth lady to get there early because 1000 school kids were heading up there for graduation (we assumed it was like leavers). So we got the the bus terminal at some ridicules hour of the morning to find the place was nearly empty. The bus was eventually half full by the time it left.
We spent the next few days just looking around hanging out etc. Calli and Dean headed back to Vancouver and Casie, Neil and myself moved into staff accommodation. It was filthy!!!!! We thought it had been lived in by 4 boys but turned out some girls lived in there to! We eventually cleaned the place up but it was still pretty filthy feeling.

Anyhow we are out of there now as we finally got our own place up in Emerald estates! Its quite nice inside but it has the smallest living room. But I have some really good views from my bedroom window! We headed back to Van the other day to pick up our boards and my paraglider and I bought myself a 32" LCD and an Xbox to keep me entertained. We also have got cable and Internet as well. We got it for a pretty good deal 60gb at 7.5mbs and cable tv for like $50/month!

Casie got herself a job at a restaurant called "The Old Spaghetti Factory" She had her first day the other day and starts properly tomorrow. Neil has got himself a job flippin burgers at Whistlers best burger joint called "Splitz Grill". Pretty tasty burgers but still nothing on a Ferg Burger!

The girl that lives upstairs said there was a bear at the top of the drive on Saturday night! I've seen 2 bears so far, one on the golf course and one at the bottom of the bike park. And today while I was sitting playing the xbox I spotted a Raccoon just outside the door!!!!
I've been riding my new bike almost every day. There is some really good spots to ride over here. The owner of our place took me out to the trails just behind the house yesterday morning for a ride but I'm not skilled enough to do the steep climbing over the roots and rocks. Apparently its all technique. I joined the Whistler Off Road Cycling Association the other day. Each week on a Thursday evening they do a "toonie" ($2) race. Some people race but most are just there to ride and you get a free feed and beer afterwards! This week was the first one that i entered and it rode from the village to the top of the Fitzsimmions Express chairlift via "Easy Does It". This took me about 45mins of non stop climbing to get to the top! But once at the top it was mostly down hill on the bike parks blue runs. The first section of downhill was a single track and then it opened up to a wide smooth track with banked turns and plenty of jumps, it was defiantly worth the climb up, but I'm still going to buy my self a pass for the bike park.

Virginia Beach

To the beach!!! On the way there we stopped at a servo so i could pee. But i did pick up the greatest invention on earth! A 40oz of Malt Liquor!! This thing was HUGE and it cost less then Casie's 400ml bottle of water! I think it was about $1.45!!!!So it was kinda raining the the afternoon we got there so the beach didn't look all that inviting. The next morning it was defiantly pretty out so we hired some bikes and rode along the board walk that runs just behind the beach. Its about 3 miles long and for that distance there is nearly every hotel in the area along it. On the street that runs parallel to the beach behind the hotels is much the same shops on every block. Each block had a Sunsations(general beach needs) and a subway. Reminded me of the main strip in Honolulu except colder. They did how ever have a really big Neptune statue on the boardwalk that was pretty cool. None of us swam in the ocean as it was a bit too cool and have just been in Key West wasn't as nice. There was plenty of military planes flying up and down including many fighter jets that make plenty of noise! O yeah we also had some really nice sushi there to!

Charlotte

Roll on Charlotte. Well we didn't really see much of it because we went to Carrowinds!!! Its was the theme park the people at the gun store told us to go to and we are glad we did! They were right about no lines! Except for one ride that had a half hour line for some reason, all the other rides we just basically walked onto! The best by far was this rikedy old wooden coaster called the Hurler! You we really scared for your life as this old wooden thing rattled you into oblivion and left the tracks as it went over the woops! No loops but really really scary!

Atlanta

Sorry for the delay in the postings, I'm sharing Internet at the mo. So Atlanta Georgia, i think we had 2 nights there, we were meant to have 3 but speaking to the local gun nuts in Savannah they told us to go to carrowinds instead of six flags. It turned out to be the right decision, but more on that later. Our first day we headed into town via the train as the road was packed!!! the train was quite like the one in Washington DC in the way it was made(tunnels etc). We headed to the park they built for the Olympics. At the end of the park was the Coke experience. Basically a huge advert for Coke. They give you the fun down of the history of Coke bla bla bla. Was pretty cool seeing all thhe old coke stuff but the coolest thing by far was the coke bear!!! It was basically a person in a suite but the anamatronic suite was sooo cool. Dean posted it up on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlGA18TWz3I

Day 2 we headed up to the national park near by called Stone Mountain. Its apparently the largest exposed single piece of granite on the planet or maybe North America. Either way it was big. But on the side of this thing was a carving of some civil war people on horses, i think one was general E Lee. We took a lenghy stroll to the top of this thing which was a nice hike. The power lines towards the bottom were covered in chewing gum! But the worst thing about it was that some of the gum up really high was quite fresh! meaning that some people had to climb up the poles to put the gum on!

Savannah

Next stop Savannah! This was one beautiful town! The old part at least. The historic part of the town dates to the early colony days of the US. There are some really impressive buildings that are nearly 150 years old! The first night there we booked into a dinner cruise on a river boat. Unfortunately the boat wasn't a paddle steamer. The food was a buffet and quite delish! The entertainment was some very cheesy stuff, but defiantly got a few laughs! We met a nice couple that even invited us to there place in Virginia Beach, but I don't think we will take them up on the offer.

Me and the 500 Magnum

Me and the Kriss

The next morning was spent on a walking tour in the historical part of downtown walking through the various square learning about the people that have monument/memorials in the square. There was a nice atmosphere as there is a University SCAD that is an arts uni, they own 70 buildings in the area so the whole area is a big spread out campus with students going to and from class. We had lunch in a tea house and all had some nice teas and salads.
Casie and the HK MP5

That arvo Neil stayed in town while the rest of us headed to a gun shop so we could shoot some guns!!!! We went to the first shop and were surprised at the large amount of assault rifles and sub machine guns for sale. We had to travel to there other store 45 mins away but when we got there the guns were awesome. I was all excited and told them I wanted to shoot everything! They gave us an arsenal and plenty of ammo and after a brief few seconds of "training" they were like have fun! So I got to shoot a HK MP5 a Thompson AKA a tommy gun that we got to shoot fully auto from the hip! Kriss 45 cal sub machine gun that was very loud! An M4 that was chambered down to 9mm, FN P90 that was awesome! Then a fully auto glock!!! you can't even buy them! and a 500 magnum revolver! All of the guns we were aloud to go fully auto with! Most of my rounds from the glock ended up in the ceiling!!! It was defiantly good fun!

Here is me and the auto glock

Miami

Hi all from Miami home of sunshine and really expensive cars. In our few days there we saw modified Bentley's, porches, Ferrari's and everything in between. Our first morning we went on a bike tour to look at all the art deco that Miami has to offer. Our guide Ricky showed us round at all the buildings with the corner windows, racing stripes, porthole windows and then balconies, these things typify the Miami art deco. While we were riding he was having a good perve at all the hotties that exist in Miami. We headed to a Jewish Holocaust memorial and the botanical gardens. The main shopping and cafe strip in Miami Beach Lincon Street. After our ride we spent the rest of the day lounging on the beach and playing in the tiny tiny waves.
Our next morning we headed up to the botanical gardens as it was closed during our ride the day before. Then some sushi for lunch and some more lounging on the beach. We did want to ride some jet skis again so we headed to the marina to go hire some but we were told by the guy that they were $189 per hour plus a $500 security deposit! Our 2 hour jet ski tour in Key West was only $150! So the rest of the day was spent sunning it up on the beach.
Here is Calli enjoying our bike tour

Key West

To Key West. Playground of the rich and famous! Private yachts with helicopters taking off from the back of them to semi celebrates. Our first night we went to a happy hour for some $3 super margaritas!! then to a spot to catch the sunset where we saw "can you duet's" winners from last year. And then started talking to some Amercians who one of which was last years country idol runner up Gabe Garcia!!! And he was a sparky building switch yards b4 Idol so there's hope for my singing career yet :P We then did a ghost tour which wasn't all that scary but there was a doll that was freaky!!!

The next morning we headed of to do a 26 mile jet ski tour round the island! It was soo much fun! We even saw some dolphins. Casie got some sun burnt legs on it though. But it was defiantly a blast! We headed back to the house to chill out because we had a wine tasting sailing tour that evening.. We boarded our 65ft sailing yacht and set sail. I got to help the female deck hands hoist the main sail, which I thought was pretty cool. Then looking towards the rear of the boat I see Nate at the helm! Then I got to have a go for about 10 minuets and even got to tack! It was defiantly an experience I shall never forget! It was a great day all round.

Florida City/Everglades

To the Everglades! We stopped down in Florida City to see Everglades national park. On the way is a fruit stand Robert Is Here. They do a variety of fresh fruit milkshakes all of them quite delicious. Into the park we headed stopping off at at trail to get a guide tour by one of the rangers. Being the dry season the water was quite low so most of the gators were grouped together, which for us was fantastic! There was quite a lot of wild life on display from a few types of turtles birds and vultures to fish and gators. After the tour we went further down the park to the coast. There was quite a lot of wind so we were only aloud to canoe up a channel past a salt water croc! unfortunately that was the only cool wild life we saw along the way :(

Orlando

Next stop Orlando!! Home to theme parks.... Our holiday house was nice except Calli found a suspectios stain on her sheets :(. Our first day was spent at Universal Studios and then across to the park adjoining it. Universal studios was Petty cool but most of the rides were just simulators or 4D movies. The Simpson's ride was pretty cool though, Was a cross between omni and a simulator of a roller coaster. The park next to it was called Adventure Island I think, it had the Hulk roller coaster which I rode a total of 6 times and also the Dueling Dragons which was a 2 coasters that wove in and out of each other! defiantly worth the extra wait to get on the front row, I think I rode each one 3 or 4 times each! Then there was the good ol log rides and a rapid ride. Each of them we ended up very very wet!!!

The next day we headed to Sea World. Rode the log ride there and Nate and I Sat at the front and got drowned! We then headed to the Kracken! Neil and I waited to go up front and it was worth it except for the fact that i lost my sunnies out of my pocket :( O well I have some new shinny ones now. Went and saw shamooooooo do her thing and again I was up front with Nate in the SOAK ZONE, needles to say we got soaked!

Straight after that we headed over to the water park next door Aquatica. It was a strange combination of Australian and New Zealand themes. The result was quite hilarious with all the announcements over the loud speakers. The coolest thing there by far was a "river" which was basically a loop pool taking some corners. You strapped on a life vest and just kept on floating round and around.

New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS the Big easy.. Ok so Katrina hit some time ago and there is a lot of places in New Orleans that are still bored up and looking very dilapidated.... but i don't think its all Katrina's fault most of it looks as though it was run down a long time ago. The road on the way in was like a 70mph car park full of speed bumps every 50 meters. Sitting in the back of the van was like riding a rodeo bull, it was quite funny at the start but after about 1 hour of bouncing it got a bit crap! Our sat nav guided us into a derelict warehouse district and said we had arrived! The house turned out to be next to the warehouse district but it was quite acceptable for a hostel. We then headed into Bourbon street for some food and a Hurricane or 2.

Jazz Fest followed the next day and i bought a huge hat for the occasion. we basically spent the day eating and listening to music.. The Gospel tent was actually really good when they had the whole choir up there. People in the crowd were dancing (most of them white?) it was a really good atmosphere. It was quite warm as a huge sweaty blob waddled into the tent letting us know of the temperature in the sun was. We ate quite a few tasty foods of craw fish, fried chicken, po boys, iced teas and all of it was good!

The next morning we went to an air boat tour to see some gators. The air boat was loud and quite fast. Once we found a gator he loured it in with marsh mellows and by calling it in french! So yeah gators aren't that tough! It was pretty cool being so close to a gator though. At the end of the tour our guide pulled out a gator that belonged to his daughter, its name marsh mellow! it was quite docile and we all got to have a hold. It was softer than i imagined a gator would be.

Memphis

Ok the next morning we work up and headed on out to Memphis. So when in Memphis you have to go to Graceland! Surprisingly it wasn't as cheesy as I thought it would be. There was no life size Elvis' no fake sideburns to buy it was all kinda respectful. So Graceland is defiantly an equal opportunity employer as Laura found out quite quickly ;) The house it self was quite modest in to days standards in terms of size and fit out but I'm sure in the day was quite out of this world! The front area of the house was a nice lounge and sitting room and a nice dinning room.

Downstairs had the TV room with 3 TVs because Elvis heard the president watched 3 news programs at the same time so he wanted to be able to. The pool room was cool with its all fabric ceiling and walls. Then there was the jungle room with its green shag pile carpet on the floor and ceiling and some cool wooden carved chairs. The rest of the property was pretty cool with a racket ball court with its own lounge and bar and an office/firing range out back. Then there was the area in which Elvis and his parents are buried. The whole thing was an audio tour which was interesting and which Nate had all in french! Did you know Elvis made 31 movies?!

After the house is a car museum and the private planes and the film museum. His planes were quite cool and apparently he took Lisa Marie all the way to Colorado just to see the snow one afternoon because she had never seen it and then flew straight back after just 20 Min's or so!

That night we headed into town to have a look around and get some food. To our luck there was a bike show on in which they had blocked off Beale st to just bikes and pedestrians. It wasn't just Harley's either there was plenty on jap bikes many with extended swing arms. We ate at one of the places in the guide book "Pig on Beale" and it was delicious! BBQ pulled pork, ribs,wings ah so so good!

Nashville

Ok so a one night stop in Nashville occurred. We decided to do a tour rather than just head out by ourselves. So we did the "Honky Tonk City" tour. Led by our tour guide Rex (he had a voice that only smoking 2 packs a day for 40 years could give you. We headed out to the Honky Tonks, basically all the bars that country music singers go to get famous.

Listened to some music and drank some drinks. One of the bars was filming a tv show called "can you duet?" basically American idol but duets. Met some random guy who dragged us all into another club that he "owned" but he did seem to know everyone and they didn't care that he was walking on the bar and stuff. We then headed to coyote ugly where Laura got up on the bar and had a dance with a hottie and Nate tried to hula hoop, needless to say it was a fun night.

O yeah that afternoon we also got a bit of a tour by a park ranger (who was armed to the teeth) at one of the parks in town who told us some interesting thing about the place.

Gatlinburg

Ok sorry again for the huge time delay between posts just been so flat out. So we stannardsville the drive wasn't meant to be that long so we started off mid morning. On the way we stopped off at FOAM HENGE an apparent life size replica of stone henge. It was quite impressive for a tourist trap along the way. So about that drive. It was meant to be about 5 hours, then we hit Pigeon Forge that was meant to be about 15 mins from our destination, but due to CAR SHOW our 15km drive took 2.5 hours. It was a "Rod Run" so there was plenty of very cool cars and trucks but the traffic was terrible!

The cabin was just awesome! Again 3 floors of 3 rooms each with spa baths then a down stairs den with a pool table, poker table and a video game machine! and of course the out door 7 person hot tub. The weather on the first day was a bit poo so we went and had a game of mini golf and looked around the town. The main road into the park through town is littered with mini golf, Ripley's believe it or not attractions, pancake places, it was defiantly cheesy and tacky to say the least. The next morning we headed into the national park and went on a hike up to chimney tops. It was a quite steep uphill walk for about 3 miles. The rock at the top we needed to scale up was quite slippery due to the constant drizzle and I wasn't willing to take the risk of the slide and huge looking drop off the side.

Stanardsville

Ok so the road trip begins! We all pilled into the van in the morning to head to Stanardsville. Its about a 2 hour drive from Washington, nothing to huge. Laura took the first shift of driving the van. Just near or Washington hotel there was a disk golf course so of course us and our Frisbees got out there to tear it up. due to all the rain the day before the course was a bit water logged and apparently Frisbees aren't what the pro use to play disk golf. Two nerdy looking guys with a bag full of "disks" came to play just after we had given up. Basically disks go a million time further than Frisbees so of course we never even came close to making par on even one hole.

The drive was quite nice and uneventful. We stopped at a winery on the way that had a few nice wines. We checked into our cabin which was really quite awesome! I think I could defiantly live in one. Three floors Three bed and a pool table and hot tub on the bottom floor. The next morning was a wine tour. We went to four winery's and had some nice sandwiches for lunch but none of us got all that trashed :( It seems that the tastings are a little bit smaller over here(credit crunch)..

Washington DC

Ok a bit delayed but here it is. Washington DC. First day was a look at all the monuments statues and all that jazz. The weather was a bit poo, some kind of constant drizzle but not rain. Had a look around the air and space museum which was quite interesting due to all of the space craft and things from the Apollo missions. Then to the Native American museum. I ended up buying some good shoes. Some Salomon Gortex ones like Neils. Super comfy and nice and dry. That night we had dinner at a collage sports bar, cheap beers and cheep burgers. We also went for a game of "bowling" but with "duck pins" which are really small and tiny balls with no finger holes! Kinda strange and harder than normal bowling

Day 2 we tried to go to Arlington Cemetery but the weather again wasn't on our side neither was the pentagon by being in our way. So more rain everyone decided to head back but Neil and i had a walk through the cemetery and then to the Iwojima memorial. It turned out to be worth all the dampness as it was huge!! We also did a quiz night but having basically no knollage of USA we didn't win, but we didn't lose!

New York New York!

The Big Apple! Ah New York sooo many stereo types! Getting food from the street vendors is a must. The one near our subway on the upper west side had bagels for $1 and bacon and egg rolls for $2 plus a sugar and coffee for a buck! Eating a slice of pie and having a fillie cheese steak! All the food was good and BIG!

First day was a trek out to the statue and Ellis Island. After a bit of a line and some airport style security and some yelling via mega phone to walk faster and take bigger steps (ah the land of the free) The statue was quite cool as was Ellis island. I did have a LARGE sea gull try to land on my head in its attempt to get my chips! We then headed up to the "Top of the Rock" Awesome views but again another que to get there :(.

Friday Mornin headed to Ground Zero. Just a big construction site for me. Hard to imagine how tall the towers were. Off to Times Square! Neon lights billboards etc! People selling knock off merchandise and Homies selling there demo CDs. Went into "Toys-r-us" and saw the Rockefeller center and the Chrysler building made out of lego! We then went and saw M&M world! Just 3 floors of everything M&M. Soooo many colours of M&Ms but at $12 a pound it was quite expensive. Speaking of expensive we lined up for an hour and a half to get discount tickets to a Broadway show. Our hostel staff told us that the tickets are usually $70-$80 so they said normally a 20-50% discount. We Finlay got to the window and were told the discount price was $120!!!! So we didn't go :( o well. Ended up getting some good Mexican near the hostel.

Saturday was the relaxing day. Had a sleep in then headed to MACYs the bottom floor was full of flours, including some large pink flamingos. That night we all headed out for dinner for Neils birthday. Went to a Brazilian Sushi bar. Strange combination but awesome food and a tv screen showing Carnival. Sunday was a trip to Coney Island, a very run down half closed amusement park. I won a stuffed doll on a ball rolling horse race game. Headed to Katzs deli for a fillie cheese steak! So next stop Washington DC and to pick up the van. Remember to check all the pics at my flicker site on the link on the right.