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Map your own trip! Map Options. Show trip route. Hide lines. shadow. Where I stayed. Lena's house. (Louisville hotels). What I did. House sit and dog minding. Flag of United States Louisville, Colorado Wednesday, July 20, 2011 ...
We have had a very busy week and it is now time to slow down a bit and settle in to our new home. We spent three enjoyable days in La Palma, a suburb near Anaheim. On Monday we went for a drive to Downtown Disney which is the shopping centre attached to Disneyland. They had a lot of interesting bits and pieces. It was a surprisingly big shopping centre. We didn’t bother about going to Disneyland with no kids to take. We decided to go for a drive along the coast instead. The beaches were interesting with houses right down to the sand with only a walk/bike track in between. They had lovely positions but it wouldn’t be a good place to be if they had a flood or tsunami. We enjoyed just being able to go for a good walk. The weather was lovely.
View from our window in Las VegasWe booked to go on a bus tour of Los Angeles rather than attempt to drive. We were too short notice to book online so had to call. We chose the closest pick up hotel from their internet list and paid our money over the phone. At 9am the next day we waited and waited. By 9.30 Rob rang to be told that they don’t pick up from that hotel and had already gone. No refund. Bad luck! We weren’t happy. They then said that they could fit us on a shorter tour leaving at 12 o’clock instead. We settled for that. It was very disorganized and muddled as we changed buses and drivers several times. We finally got away and had a reasonable but limited tour. We were very disappointed that we hadn’t caught public transport into the city and gone on a hop on hop off bus. They are good because you get the commentary and can stop wherever you want for as long as you want. We learnt a lesson there. I am threatening to write a review about the bus tour on the internet but haven’t had time to do it yet.
Ruth, our host was very nice and helped us a lot with bits and pieces during our stay there. On our last night she took us out to a local restaurant, a bit like Sizzlers but bigger. It was absolutely packed. People are certainly still eating out even though the economy is in a bad way. We enjoyed the meal and also the people watching. It was very cheap for what we got.
Lena and Ajax. It was an interesting drive through the desert. We deliberately chose the bus so that we could revisit the interesting countryside along the way rather than just fly over it. We stopped at a lot of little towns along the way. More interesting people watching. One thing we are finding here is that nearly as many people are speaking Spanish as English. It is a very cosmopolitan country - even more so than Australia I think.
Our hotel in Las Vegas was very central and we had a view of the top of the Eiffel Tower and also the dancing water fountains at Bellagio from our room. It wasn’t new but spotlessly clean and we were very happy with it. We had three nights there and didn’t get to bed before midnight on any of them. There is just so much to see and do in Las Vegas and we crammed as much as we could into our limited time. It is an amazing place and we were very glad that we went back there even though we knew it was going to be hot. We visited some of the newer casinos and they were amazing. The decorating must cost a fortune (not millions but billions). I loved the Cosmopolitan which had huge screens of crystal drops falling from the ceiling and around the lights. It was so pretty.
We also saw some wonderful art galleries at the Aria. There was one with the most amazing photos. Another one had hand blown glass which was beautiful. As well as seeing the finished product, they had a video going showing how it was made. We spent a lot of time in there but didn’t dare ask the price of anything. I heard someone being told about two pieces - one was $50,000 and the other $70,000.
We went to see the live show ‘The Jersey Boys’ which was very good. We also saw a show with ‘Fat Elvis’. I am not keen on Elvis impersonators but he sang very well and not only Elvis songs. However he was so fat that he couldn’t stand to sing. He had a huge wooden chair. They said he had lost a lot of weight so I hate to think how big he was before. We did enjoy his show though.
We didn’t get around all the casinos but saw quite a lot. It was very hot but it was cool in the casinos so we were able to escape it pretty well.
Saturday we packed up and headed for the airport nice an early. After checking in our luggage we had about an hour and a half to fill in before the plane left. We had breakfast and I wandered around the shops. Then we headed in through the security gates. There was a much longer queue than we expected and to cut a long story short we missed our plane which left at 9.50 am. They were very helpful and managed to fit us on a plane leaving at midday. Our luggage had gone on the first plane. We all boarded the midday plane, then it had mechanical problems so they transferred us to another plane. We eventually arrived at Denver 3 hours later than originally planned. We managed to find the bus to Louisville and called Lena who met us at the bus stop (about 45 minutes). It was a long day.
We are staying in Louisville until the 1st August to mind Lena’s small white fluffy Havanese dog called Ajax while she goes on holiday. We set it up on the internet through Affordable Travel Club. Lena leaves tomorrow (Wednesday). We have been getting to know Ajax and Lena has been trying to pack and show us around the area at the same time.
Sunday Lena took us into Boulder where there was an art and craft exhibition in the local mall. It was very good and we enjoyed our day wandering around there. Lena had a quick look then went home to pack and we caught the bus home later.
That night we went to Lena’s friend, Bonnie’s place for a meal and book club meeting. They have a book club where they read books about other countries. As well as discussing their books they give talks on their latest travels. Bonnie showed pictures of her trip to New Zealand. She also went to Australia and did a house sit in Perth during that trip. One of the men there was a doctor who was into mountain climbing and has climbed Mt Everest twice. He wants to climb Australia’s highest mountain (not such a challenge after Everest), then he will have conquered the highest mountain on every continent. It was an interesting night.
Monday I was having computer problems so Lena took us to get it fixed. (I picked it up today ). Then we went out for lunch with a friend of hers for both their birthdays. Lena and Rob are only 3 weeks apart in age. We had a nice lunch then Lena got into the packing and we had a lazy afternoon reading. It has been very hot and everyone is complaining because they are not used to it - good weather for hibernating.
Today I walked Ajax at 7am, then went to the pool for water aerobics at 9. I was surprised how similar it was to our class at home and felt very good afterwards. Rob and I then took Lena’s car and hit the shops. There were so many sales and bargains that we had to be careful not to get too carried away. I can see some fun shopping days coming up over the next few weeks - just hope it all fits in the suitcase when it’s time to go home.
Lena has been wonderful to us and we have had a good time here. We’ll put her on the bus at 5.30 in the morning and settle in for a couple of weeks minding Ajax before moving on to Denver..
Wow what a letter, sounds great. Did you win any thing at the casinos?All's good here in Maffra, we are on flood watch today, well not us here in Henry st.
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