America - West Coast Road Trip

A few years back we planned an American Road Trip which would include LA - Vegas - San Francisco, Seattle, Montana to Minneapolis in 3 weeks.

Leaving from Edinburgh to Amsterdam and then onto Los Angeles, we were really excited, it’s a long flight but you don’t seem to notice much when your heading out on an adventure.

We landed in LA and picked up our rental car, a standard saloon that was to be our transport for 3 girls and a whole load of camping gear – yes people, the plan was to camp around the West Coast!

Having only arrived with our back packs and sleeping bags, we made our first stop at Space Camp to pick up our third traveler, we spent the first night here in the cabins and spent a bit of time just soaking up the atmosphere of a new place!

The second day in LA was as it should be – POOL PARTY, we’d been invited to one of the other camp leaders parent’s home for a party, real 90210 stuff! When we got there, the house was just enormous and you could see the Hollywood sign as you drive into the street. There was already a big crowd of people there, music pumping on the stereo and just lots of people having a great time.

The house had a massive den where others where watching movies and feasting on pop corn and it’s where most of us just crashed, it was really chilled out and a great start to the holiday.

We had to say goodbye to new found friends and head to Target to pick up supplies, Tent, camp stove, gas, plates, cutlery, cool boxes, food, essentials etc, packed up the car and waved good bye to LA.

Next stop Vegas baby yeah!

We drove through the Nevada desert in our fabulously air conditioned car and stopped at Taco bell (one thing I would say, road trips don’t always account for those of us who enjoy healthy eating, I was in the middle on my Aerobics instruction course and don’t enjoy fast food, but needs must!) we got out the car and the heat hits you like a punch from a heavyweight! It was over 100 degrees, hot as hell!

We left Taco Bell behind us and drove the rest of the way to Vegas – what a fantastic place to visit – the closest I got to a casino was a Grosvenor Casino, but this was just amazing. We found a travel lodge and an American couple who wanted to go half on a big room – save cash, so there was 5 of us in this suite, which was actually really very nice. We all got ready and headed out to hit the strip, WOW, we watched the Bellagio fountains, wandered through some of the big casinos, had a chair massage, which was lovely and of course had a little flutter, we’d budgeted what we were going to spend on that night and I braved the Black Jack table and won a couple of hundred dollars in my sitting! The drinks were flowing and we were euphoric, collecting my winnings we walked through the casinos again (as many are connected and its all a/c which is a delight, we were passing the craps table and some Texans required us lovely ladies to throw the dice for them – it’s like something from a movie!

We got back to our hotel around 5am (you lose all track of time in the casinos) got some sleep and then up and out to Starbucks for brekkie!

With the car packed, coffers a bit fuller and smiles on faces, we left the hazy desert behind and started our long journey to San Francisco.

We took the road back to LA and from there headed north, we drove up to Sequoia National Park, where we had our first camp, we got the tent up and made some smores and having my first experience on making sure you’re food is all packed away completely to avoid attracting bears!!! BEARS!! I’m all for nature, but sometimes I like to just enjoy it on the TV – bears are one of those things I’m not keen on meeting in the flesh! We were all camped up and were inside the facilities brushing our teeth when all we can hear is some guy outside, banging some pots together screaming ‘there’s a bear in the camp’ sweet mother of all things holy, I got the fright of my life, imagining some huge beast waiting outside the door to eat us! The panic passed and we all went back to our tents. Honestly, no, I didn’t sleep that night, shadows, noises, my overactive imagination – I slept in the car the next day!

In the morning we spent some time exploring the National Park, which is just beautiful and time passes too quickly and we were back in the car and heading up towards Yosemite, where we past the night undisturbed!

Getting to San Francisco and a bed was fantastic, we were staying with friends who had emigrated there years back and it was a great place to base ourselves and go see everything! We jumped on the BART (train system) and during the course of 2 days, we say, Haight Street, Golden Gate Bridge and the Tea gardens, China Town, pier 39 and fisherman’s wharf – we packed a lot in and it was fantastic!

Driving back up north past Eureka (everyone has to stop here for a pic!!) on to Redwood National Park for a day of trekking,

Heading on up to Seattle, our next destination we had an unexpected stop in Eugene when we crashed our car on the highway! It was one of the scariest moments of my life, when everything is in slow motion and you really think that this is it, we totaled the car and an amazingly friendly woman stopped and helped us with everything, calling the appropriate people, took us back to her home, fed and watered us and made sure we were ok, thankfully we all walked away with just some bruises and a big fright!

The car rental company were amazing, we stayed in Eugene for the night in a motel, treated ourselves to dinner out to try and recover from the days events and in the morning a people carrier was dropped off for us to use for the rest of our holiday at the same price as our saloon – it was sheer luxury! It was almost like the accident never happened – everything taken care of for us and we were back on track for the road trip.

We took ourselves up the Olympic National Park, again, like all the parks we went to, they are breathtaking the things you see there!

Next stop, Seattle and we were staying at one of their hostels, ditched our gear and went in search of a gig that had been recommended, some rock band, still can’t remember the name of it! We met some locals there who invited us onto a new club that was opening and so we agreed and had a fantastic night out with some great people!

In the morning, a little worse for wear we went out to Pike’s Place market for some lunch and it would be rude to be in Seattle on not indulge in Starbucks! Once the hangovers had passed we headed to the Space Needle and went straight to the top for an amazing view!!

The rest of the trip was spent travelling through Washington and Montana, a short stay in Glacier National Park, visiting friends, and catching up and drinking copious amounts of Captain Morgan’s, then the dreaded drive down to Minneapolis to fly home and then end of our road trip!

An amazing time, some scary, some breathtaking, but everything memorable and well worth doing!