Me and dad had planned for years to go on the wildest trip ever, we decided that doing a tour of the west of America for my 21st would be the perfect excuse, here's the diary:
Day 1 - Tuesday 25th
So we set off just as Chris Moyles started on what should have been a pretty straight forward drive to a long stay car park just next to Heathrow. The traffic turned out to be ridiculous and on top of that someone forgot to print off the postcode for the parking, things couldn’t really get worse…but they did and we ended up erratically parking in another long stay car park (which would cost us loads more). 15 minutes later and we had checked in our bags, and were getting through security. I had the best banana cake ever in McDonalds owned Pret a Mangér, whilst dad had a nutty muffin (yum?).
We had to wait at gate30 for some people with really long Jewish surnames to actually check in, when the airport staff realised that they were probably celebrating Hanukah somewhere else we managed to get onboard.
For double the price, “world traveller plus” class is actually worth it. The seats are quite a lot bigger and have foot and calf rests, along with reclining back further and lumbar support. Little trays in the arm rests mean that you can’t put them up, so I couldn’t invade dad’s space and put my feet up. But I was generally comfortable. We decided to have a vodka and something to start off the flight, also had 2 bottles of chilled red wine with my amazing shepherds pie, which made me feel really tipsy so I decided to sleep it off; I’d recommend this to anyone who’s flying a long distance as it really kills those hours!
The flight went generally quickly with a lack of turbulence, one of the best flights I’ve had. In no time at all we had picked up the beast that is the Nissan 350Z Convertible in tangy orange. I stupidly chose for 2 hours through rush our out of LA, wow they have some shitty road surfaces! When It got quieter on the road I managed to bring it up to 130mph, the scary thing is; it had a lot more to give…cant wait to find out how much more! If I could afford one, I would without a doubt buy one of these, they are absolutely amazing to drive, but really easy to go too fast in without noticing.
We got hungry at about 6:30pm and chose to eat at a burger king located in Mexico, actually it was about 100 miles from Fresno, we were the only “white” people in the so called restaurant. After eating my cholesterol burger dad decided to have a go with the beast and completed our drive into the sunset and into Yosemite. We checked into our room at about 10pm and headed straight for the “themed” bar which had the loudest jukebox EVER! We each had a Newcastle Brown (imagine flying half way across the world just to drink that shite!) and a miller, then went to bed. In my dream I lived out the thriller I saw on the plane, which wasn’t too much fun, and I couldn’t get back to sleep after.
Day 2 - Wednesday 26th
Not that I was asleep really, but i woke up at 7.20 ish, got a shower and went to the only place in about 30 miles that we could have breakfast. We got robbed by the walking dead people that work there, $24 for 2 people’s breakfast!! We then got ready and drove into Yosemite national park, it’s probably the most beautiful place ever, with so many breathtaking views that you really do have to just brush each one off otherwise you’d never get anywhere. We parked are car and walked up a bloody mountain, totally unprepared, no water and I was wearing plimsolls. When we got to the waterfall the trail had taken us to, the long hike became worth it, one of the many amazing views we’d have that day.
After walking back down the mountain we drove to get some lunch at a “grill bar” (had another burger). We then drove about an hour to glacier point :
After we’d driven back on the most dangerous road ever, we chilled in the hotel room and then went to get some dinner, finishing the night off at the bar with “dean the hard drinker” barman and some really nice live guitar music.
Day 3 - Thursday 27th
Today was going to be some long driving, we’d planned to drive 540 miles. We again had breakfast at the same place with the 300 year old waitresses, and checked out of the hotel at about 10 past 8. Dad drove for about 2 hours through difficult roads in Yosemite
and once we headed to the desert, I took over and took the roof down, and drove like Nigel Mansell for a few hours (roughly doing 135mph at times) until we got to Tonopah for lunch. We stopped at literally the first petrol station we saw, which just so happened to be the first building in the first part of civilisation we’d seen for hundreds of miles, so of course dad made us eat at Burger King, yes I’m starting to get fat! After eating there we then drove through Tonopah, looking at all the nice western themed restaurants that we could have eaten in. Dad then drove us through some of the best Nevada views,
through Vegas all the way to Laughlin, (a Vegas for rednecks). We’re staying in the Aquarius Hotel and Casino, in our upgraded river view rooms for 3 nights.
After we’d checked in, we headed across the road to an outlet mall, just to check it out. I managed to pick up two pairs of Levis for a tenth of the price that it would cost back home: Steve – 1 / America - 0
We then came back to the hotel, got ready and headed down to the Steakhouse, an Australian themed restaurant. We had to wait 20 minutes, so we bought two beers at the bar with built in poker machines, we got buzzed back to the restaurant before we could finish our second beer and found that we weren’t allowed to take it in with us, so had to down it (possibly one of the reasons for our intense hangover we’d find ourselves having the next morning!). We both had some big steaks, I decided to have mine raw (forgot that having it cooked “medium” actually meant that its raw, with just the outsides warmed) but it tasted brilliant, in between my retches. To fuel my retches was an amazing smeggy smell: coincidently this wanky smell appeared right as the waiter walked up to us, he realised the smell too and started to go red with embarrassment; we realised after he’d gone that the smell was coming from the kitchen, possibly from a “special sauce” being made? With the meal we drank margaritas and some other cocktails which put us in the mood to gamble.
We wanted to break into ht whole gambling thing easily, so we headed to the slots, and boy does this hotel have some nice looking slots! Dad lost the few dollars he gambled, but I walked away $28 up. We then went to the roulette table where we were steadily loosing, I was down to my last $4 (it’s a $4 minimum bet on the table), so i listened to dad and a lady the other side of me and put my last $4 on 21, as the ball was spinning round the wheel I asked dad for another $10 to carry on, he handed me the money, but I ended up giving it back as I’d just won $144, yes I hit 21!
We left the table and cashed in my winning chips, and had a few celebratory drinks; the rest of the night was a fun blur…
Day 4 - Friday 28th
Waking up with an oompa loompa jumping on my head I could tell today would be quiet. We had a late breakfast and headed over to that malls again; why is it that every American mall has got the same shops??? Who actually wants to buy a sports helmet can holder…and why have one for every American fuzzyball team?! We then drove to the million question burger shack (not its real name of course) but to order a burger feels like you may actually have a chance at Chris Tarrant handing you a cheque for a million: “hi can I have a burger please?” “what type of burger? with what onions? what cheese? what salad? bacon? Cholesterol? Death?” you get the point.
After eating our weeks worth of recommended salt we decided to check out a free classic American car show that was next to our casinotel, when I say it was free I mean we had to donate $2 each (god tell me why?) to some fat persistent American bint who was wearing those sunglasses that go over her specs (yes she looked like a twat), I bet she was saving up for one of those oversized wolf fleeces from the home shopping channel. So we checked out some of the coolest cars I'd ever seen, until something from the sky went ping and we knew we were cooked, it was just too hot to be outside. We went back to the hotel and had a nap….for too long. We went down to the casino and got hammered, between us we were up over $600, excellent! We decided to call it a night when some retarded slag kept screaming “10,000 go 10,000”.
Day 5 - Saturday 29th
Today was one of the days I was most looking forward to:
We got up at nearly 5am, it was still dark outside, got dressed and called Pamela for directions, we left the casinotel and headed for Topock where we would meet Capt Doyle, and got fishing!!
This dude was seriously funny, he hadn’t really been much else in the world over than Alaska and Topcock (he even said he camped here on his honeymoon!). We caught quite a lot of fish and even learnt the skippers handshandy… I mean handshake. I’m definitely coming back to Topock, its just amazing!
So after a days fishing we headed back and got ready for our last night in Laughlin, we walked to the end of the strip of casinos, having a few beers in each one (I even beat dad at pool!) we ended up having dinner in a Mexican restaurant, served by Jim Carrey, this guy was obviously a retard, but was so nice and funny, he would appear sideways poking his head out at 4 second intervals from the kitchen; we ended up tipping him loads (knowing he will probably end up on Jerry Springer one day). I wont go into full details but I’ll just mention a flock of starlings here and the funniest time I’ve ever spent in a public place! We then did out usual with was to gamble until we hit a loosing streak and head to bed.
Day 6 - Sunday 30th
Today we were heading to Vegas (you can only call it Vegas if you’re a high roller, otherwise you’d say Las Vegas in a northern accent). The drive was ok, nothing compared to the 540 mile drive we’d done a few days before. As soon as we got there, the roof came done straight away and it was time to blow out Billy fucking Idol, this is exactly why we came! after surviving the marathon from the MGM car park to the lobby we were told that we couldn’t check in for about 3 hours, we trekked back to the car and headed to one of the many malls Los Wegas has to offer, I managed to blow the remainder of my budget on a new camera lens and bag, deffo glad I did though, I saved a hundred or so - Steve – 2 / America – 0. We then went to the “fashion mall”, this place rivals mall at millennia in Orlando, really sweet place. After we realised we shouldn’t really spend too much time here or we’d spend a fortune we left to check in….after I quickly bought a new iPod touch (cha ching!).
We finally got connected to the net, so I facebooked it for about an hour, realising that I didn’t miss the internet all that much. We got dressed and caught a taxi to the top of the strip and began our journey back to the MGM, making sure we sampled each casinos offerings. I had really nice lobster spaghetti from one of the nicer casino’s, dad chose shrimpy pasta I think??
Realising that this expedition was a lot greater than we had anticipated we got battered and flew back to the room (wasting a few hundred dollars here and there).
Day 7 - Monday 1st October
Woah what a hangover I had, we chose to sleep in for a few more hours and have a late breakfast from the universes largest buffet (who wants to eat fried chicken or fillet mignon for bloody breakfast!?). We headed back to the Fashion Show mall looking for presents for the ladies back at home, I hate Abercrombie and Fitch with a passion; do they really need gladiators standing in the doorway, as you enter they say hi but they are really saying “I could have your girlfriend if I wanted”, I came so close to kicking Thor in the nuts.
Deciding we were shopped out, we got ready for out last night out and headed back to the top of the strip a bit earlier than last night. We started drinking pretty early and I was surprisingly drunk. We had to get to the Venetian by 8.30 (I think?) to go to a show. We ate at a really nice tequila restaurant, where you could buy a shot of tequila for $250+ (nuts!), we both had lobster and mignon, a very nice last meal indeed. As we were heading to the show I wanted to pick up one of those really cheap long plastic drinks you see northerners drinking at theme parks, only the ones in the Venetian were filled with alcohol slush puppy, and then 5 shots of whatever spirit you chose added. We were going to see a pretty famous American comedian – Wayne Brady, I didn’t care if we were watching ted bundys home movies; I was wasted, and I mean really drunk. I had to leave half way through his set as I thought I wee’d a little from lauging too hard. He later brought this up with me when we met him at the end (paid extra for front row seats and to meet him) I remember mocking him for naming all the stars he’d worked with, telling him that even I could name names, big deal (sorry Wayne, I love you really), realising that I could be a nutter, he promptly left.
We did the usual and gradually headed back to the hotel, getting some last minute gambling in. I cant really remember how the night ended, it was a bit of a blurr!
Day 8 - Tuesday 2nd October
Last day today, both of us had the usual end of holiday blues, and to top that off, the worst hangover yet!
We drove to LA and said goodbye to the 350, I really need to get me one of those someday. We checked in and got wasted on the plane, next thing I know we’re back in London with sour faced British tw*ts.
We were home before we knew it, still buzzing from an experience we would find hard to ever beat!
Day 1 - Tuesday 25th
So we set off just as Chris Moyles started on what should have been a pretty straight forward drive to a long stay car park just next to Heathrow. The traffic turned out to be ridiculous and on top of that someone forgot to print off the postcode for the parking, things couldn’t really get worse…but they did and we ended up erratically parking in another long stay car park (which would cost us loads more). 15 minutes later and we had checked in our bags, and were getting through security. I had the best banana cake ever in McDonalds owned Pret a Mangér, whilst dad had a nutty muffin (yum?).
We had to wait at gate30 for some people with really long Jewish surnames to actually check in, when the airport staff realised that they were probably celebrating Hanukah somewhere else we managed to get onboard.
For double the price, “world traveller plus” class is actually worth it. The seats are quite a lot bigger and have foot and calf rests, along with reclining back further and lumbar support. Little trays in the arm rests mean that you can’t put them up, so I couldn’t invade dad’s space and put my feet up. But I was generally comfortable. We decided to have a vodka and something to start off the flight, also had 2 bottles of chilled red wine with my amazing shepherds pie, which made me feel really tipsy so I decided to sleep it off; I’d recommend this to anyone who’s flying a long distance as it really kills those hours! The flight went generally quickly with a lack of turbulence, one of the best flights I’ve had. In no time at all we had picked up the beast that is the Nissan 350Z Convertible in tangy orange. I stupidly chose for 2 hours through rush our out of LA, wow they have some shitty road surfaces! When It got quieter on the road I managed to bring it up to 130mph, the scary thing is; it had a lot more to give…cant wait to find out how much more! If I could afford one, I would without a doubt buy one of these, they are absolutely amazing to drive, but really easy to go too fast in without noticing.
We got hungry at about 6:30pm and chose to eat at a burger king located in Mexico, actually it was about 100 miles from Fresno, we were the only “white” people in the so called restaurant. After eating my cholesterol burger dad decided to have a go with the beast and completed our drive into the sunset and into Yosemite. We checked into our room at about 10pm and headed straight for the “themed” bar which had the loudest jukebox EVER! We each had a Newcastle Brown (imagine flying half way across the world just to drink that shite!) and a miller, then went to bed. In my dream I lived out the thriller I saw on the plane, which wasn’t too much fun, and I couldn’t get back to sleep after.
Day 2 - Wednesday 26th
Not that I was asleep really, but i woke up at 7.20 ish, got a shower and went to the only place in about 30 miles that we could have breakfast. We got robbed by the walking dead people that work there, $24 for 2 people’s breakfast!! We then got ready and drove into Yosemite national park, it’s probably the most beautiful place ever, with so many breathtaking views that you really do have to just brush each one off otherwise you’d never get anywhere. We parked are car and walked up a bloody mountain, totally unprepared, no water and I was wearing plimsolls. When we got to the waterfall the trail had taken us to, the long hike became worth it, one of the many amazing views we’d have that day.
After walking back down the mountain we drove to get some lunch at a “grill bar” (had another burger). We then drove about an hour to glacier point :
After we’d driven back on the most dangerous road ever, we chilled in the hotel room and then went to get some dinner, finishing the night off at the bar with “dean the hard drinker” barman and some really nice live guitar music.
Day 3 - Thursday 27th
Today was going to be some long driving, we’d planned to drive 540 miles. We again had breakfast at the same place with the 300 year old waitresses, and checked out of the hotel at about 10 past 8. Dad drove for about 2 hours through difficult roads in Yosemite
and once we headed to the desert, I took over and took the roof down, and drove like Nigel Mansell for a few hours (roughly doing 135mph at times) until we got to Tonopah for lunch. We stopped at literally the first petrol station we saw, which just so happened to be the first building in the first part of civilisation we’d seen for hundreds of miles, so of course dad made us eat at Burger King, yes I’m starting to get fat! After eating there we then drove through Tonopah, looking at all the nice western themed restaurants that we could have eaten in. Dad then drove us through some of the best Nevada views,
through Vegas all the way to Laughlin, (a Vegas for rednecks). We’re staying in the Aquarius Hotel and Casino, in our upgraded river view rooms for 3 nights.After we’d checked in, we headed across the road to an outlet mall, just to check it out. I managed to pick up two pairs of Levis for a tenth of the price that it would cost back home: Steve – 1 / America - 0
We then came back to the hotel, got ready and headed down to the Steakhouse, an Australian themed restaurant. We had to wait 20 minutes, so we bought two beers at the bar with built in poker machines, we got buzzed back to the restaurant before we could finish our second beer and found that we weren’t allowed to take it in with us, so had to down it (possibly one of the reasons for our intense hangover we’d find ourselves having the next morning!). We both had some big steaks, I decided to have mine raw (forgot that having it cooked “medium” actually meant that its raw, with just the outsides warmed) but it tasted brilliant, in between my retches. To fuel my retches was an amazing smeggy smell: coincidently this wanky smell appeared right as the waiter walked up to us, he realised the smell too and started to go red with embarrassment; we realised after he’d gone that the smell was coming from the kitchen, possibly from a “special sauce” being made? With the meal we drank margaritas and some other cocktails which put us in the mood to gamble.
We wanted to break into ht whole gambling thing easily, so we headed to the slots, and boy does this hotel have some nice looking slots! Dad lost the few dollars he gambled, but I walked away $28 up. We then went to the roulette table where we were steadily loosing, I was down to my last $4 (it’s a $4 minimum bet on the table), so i listened to dad and a lady the other side of me and put my last $4 on 21, as the ball was spinning round the wheel I asked dad for another $10 to carry on, he handed me the money, but I ended up giving it back as I’d just won $144, yes I hit 21!
We left the table and cashed in my winning chips, and had a few celebratory drinks; the rest of the night was a fun blur…
Day 4 - Friday 28th
Waking up with an oompa loompa jumping on my head I could tell today would be quiet. We had a late breakfast and headed over to that malls again; why is it that every American mall has got the same shops??? Who actually wants to buy a sports helmet can holder…and why have one for every American fuzzyball team?! We then drove to the million question burger shack (not its real name of course) but to order a burger feels like you may actually have a chance at Chris Tarrant handing you a cheque for a million: “hi can I have a burger please?” “what type of burger? with what onions? what cheese? what salad? bacon? Cholesterol? Death?” you get the point.
After eating our weeks worth of recommended salt we decided to check out a free classic American car show that was next to our casinotel, when I say it was free I mean we had to donate $2 each (god tell me why?) to some fat persistent American bint who was wearing those sunglasses that go over her specs (yes she looked like a twat), I bet she was saving up for one of those oversized wolf fleeces from the home shopping channel. So we checked out some of the coolest cars I'd ever seen, until something from the sky went ping and we knew we were cooked, it was just too hot to be outside. We went back to the hotel and had a nap….for too long. We went down to the casino and got hammered, between us we were up over $600, excellent! We decided to call it a night when some retarded slag kept screaming “10,000 go 10,000”.
Day 5 - Saturday 29thToday was one of the days I was most looking forward to:
We got up at nearly 5am, it was still dark outside, got dressed and called Pamela for directions, we left the casinotel and headed for Topock where we would meet Capt Doyle, and got fishing!!
This dude was seriously funny, he hadn’t really been much else in the world over than Alaska and Topcock (he even said he camped here on his honeymoon!). We caught quite a lot of fish and even learnt the skippers handshandy… I mean handshake. I’m definitely coming back to Topock, its just amazing!
So after a days fishing we headed back and got ready for our last night in Laughlin, we walked to the end of the strip of casinos, having a few beers in each one (I even beat dad at pool!) we ended up having dinner in a Mexican restaurant, served by Jim Carrey, this guy was obviously a retard, but was so nice and funny, he would appear sideways poking his head out at 4 second intervals from the kitchen; we ended up tipping him loads (knowing he will probably end up on Jerry Springer one day). I wont go into full details but I’ll just mention a flock of starlings here and the funniest time I’ve ever spent in a public place! We then did out usual with was to gamble until we hit a loosing streak and head to bed.
Day 6 - Sunday 30th
Today we were heading to Vegas (you can only call it Vegas if you’re a high roller, otherwise you’d say Las Vegas in a northern accent). The drive was ok, nothing compared to the 540 mile drive we’d done a few days before. As soon as we got there, the roof came done straight away and it was time to blow out Billy fucking Idol, this is exactly why we came! after surviving the marathon from the MGM car park to the lobby we were told that we couldn’t check in for about 3 hours, we trekked back to the car and headed to one of the many malls Los Wegas has to offer, I managed to blow the remainder of my budget on a new camera lens and bag, deffo glad I did though, I saved a hundred or so - Steve – 2 / America – 0. We then went to the “fashion mall”, this place rivals mall at millennia in Orlando, really sweet place. After we realised we shouldn’t really spend too much time here or we’d spend a fortune we left to check in….after I quickly bought a new iPod touch (cha ching!).
We finally got connected to the net, so I facebooked it for about an hour, realising that I didn’t miss the internet all that much. We got dressed and caught a taxi to the top of the strip and began our journey back to the MGM, making sure we sampled each casinos offerings. I had really nice lobster spaghetti from one of the nicer casino’s, dad chose shrimpy pasta I think??
Realising that this expedition was a lot greater than we had anticipated we got battered and flew back to the room (wasting a few hundred dollars here and there).
Day 7 - Monday 1st October
Woah what a hangover I had, we chose to sleep in for a few more hours and have a late breakfast from the universes largest buffet (who wants to eat fried chicken or fillet mignon for bloody breakfast!?). We headed back to the Fashion Show mall looking for presents for the ladies back at home, I hate Abercrombie and Fitch with a passion; do they really need gladiators standing in the doorway, as you enter they say hi but they are really saying “I could have your girlfriend if I wanted”, I came so close to kicking Thor in the nuts.
Deciding we were shopped out, we got ready for out last night out and headed back to the top of the strip a bit earlier than last night. We started drinking pretty early and I was surprisingly drunk. We had to get to the Venetian by 8.30 (I think?) to go to a show. We ate at a really nice tequila restaurant, where you could buy a shot of tequila for $250+ (nuts!), we both had lobster and mignon, a very nice last meal indeed. As we were heading to the show I wanted to pick up one of those really cheap long plastic drinks you see northerners drinking at theme parks, only the ones in the Venetian were filled with alcohol slush puppy, and then 5 shots of whatever spirit you chose added. We were going to see a pretty famous American comedian – Wayne Brady, I didn’t care if we were watching ted bundys home movies; I was wasted, and I mean really drunk. I had to leave half way through his set as I thought I wee’d a little from lauging too hard. He later brought this up with me when we met him at the end (paid extra for front row seats and to meet him) I remember mocking him for naming all the stars he’d worked with, telling him that even I could name names, big deal (sorry Wayne, I love you really), realising that I could be a nutter, he promptly left.
We did the usual and gradually headed back to the hotel, getting some last minute gambling in. I cant really remember how the night ended, it was a bit of a blurr!
Day 8 - Tuesday 2nd October
Last day today, both of us had the usual end of holiday blues, and to top that off, the worst hangover yet!
We drove to LA and said goodbye to the 350, I really need to get me one of those someday. We checked in and got wasted on the plane, next thing I know we’re back in London with sour faced British tw*ts.
We were home before we knew it, still buzzing from an experience we would find hard to ever beat!
