Disney World, Orlando

 After a somewhat stressful departure from New York we flew down to Orlando and caught the Magical Disney Express (coach) from the airport to the Corronado Resort, Disney World, which was to be our home for the next four nights.  The weather of course was hot and sunny and the resort was excellent. This is a view from outside our unit looking across the lake (with its wild, though smallish alligators) towards the other buildings, all low and surrounding the lake.

 No sooner had we checked in than we donned our 'I'm a 1st Timer' badges and set off for the first of the four Disney Worlds we would be exploring, Disney's Hollywood Studios. We spent about three hours until closing time and that seemed to be enough time for that park.  The next day was off to the Magic Kingdom which is essentially an adapted Disney Land.  Here's Steve in front of the Magic Castle, which  he thought 'would be bigger'. Oh no, a Disney Disapointment - surely there is no such thing.

 We actually spent a full 12 hours at the Magic Kingdom, venturing into the various 'Lands' that make it up - Frontier Land, Adventure Land etc, and having fun on all (well most) of the rides and experiences on offer.  This was the jungle river boat ride which was lots of fun and full of animatronic animals such as

 bull elephants peeking out of the shrubbery

 Of course we had to go on things like the cup and saucers ride and It's A Small World...

 and we made sure we got a good position for the afternoon parade up Main Street so we could see Mickey and Minnie of course

 Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was a lot of fun and where I developed my enthusiasm for big dipper kinds of rides

 And at the very end of the night, 10.00pm was the magical fireworks display. Then it was time to wait for the bus - did you know that Disney World has the biggest bus fleet in the States apart from New Jersey - and head home for the night.

 The next day saw us immersed in the future at Epcot Park...it's Disney's original plan for the Orlando site but it seems to me to be two parks in one - there is the World of the Future aspect and then you go through into a separate area which then becomes like a World Expo with various countries being represented around a giant lake.

 So this was Morroco, and there was Germany, China, Norway, Mexico, USA, Italy etc where you could stroll around, look at shows and films and of course buy things. Lots of things. Again, we stayed until closing - at which there was a very impressive light and sound and fireworks show.

 This is the reception lobby at our resort. And below, one of the free living alligators in the lake at the resort.

One of the most interesting things at Epcot was a giant greenhouse in which all sorts of plants were being grown hydroponically and aqua culturally. We took a behind the scenes tour of the facility which was really interesting and gave us lots of ideas. And that's what it's all about, at least in part, isn't it. Travel I mean.

Animal Kingdom, Disney World, Orlando

 Animal Kingdom was the park I enjoyed the most and I was pretty impressed by the quality of the animal exhibits and the animals themselves. The park is a mix of animal exhibits, themed rides including roller coasters, Disney Shows and Disneyfied replicas of African villages. One of the experiences is to take a safari vehicle into a very large series of paddocks supposedly simulating African savannah. It was fun, the guide was very good and well it was not a bad experience.

 The simulations went so far as tyre imprints into the 'track'

 There were a range of animals inhabiting the 'savanna' including elephant, giraffe, lion, cheetah, various antelope etc.  This is a wart hog.

 Once disembarked from the safari vehicle, you wandered into the gorilla exhibits.  These were far and away the best I have ever seen...there was a series of very large paddocks which were landscaped and planted up to resemble the rainforest habitats of the lowland gorillas. One compound was for a group of adolescent males who would normally band together until old enough to challenge a big silverback, while the other paddock was for a family group of a big silverback and a number of females. One of the females had given birth a few days prior to our visit.

 As you walk around the park you go through replicas of African villages, marketplaces etc, full of places to eat and buy souvenirs of course. There's also a number of shows such as the Lion King show which was based on the musical, but an abridged version of half an hour - but truly spectacular and we actually saw it twice :-)  There was also a Finding Nemo musical which we enjoyed and this

 bird show which was quite interesting and informative.

 We decided to go on safari again in the late afternoon - who would know you were in Orlando, Florida?

We screamed like girls on a number of rides including Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl and Expedition Everest - you can see Everest peaking up behind us. They were all lots of fun and who would know I would enjoy roller coaster rides so much!  Greater self-awareness through travel, I hear you muttering. It poured wit rain for the best part of an hour around lunchtime but luckily we were under reasonable cover. I wouldn't mind coming back here to do some research.

Viva Las Vegas

 This was our view from our room at Paris Casino and pretty much set the scene for our four nights in this hyper-real oasis of consumption in the middle of the desert.  Where else can you get a cab from Paris to Luxor in 5 minutes and pass New York on the way? We arrived on a Sunday afternoon which happened to coincide with a major boxing match which had swelled the numbers on the streets enormously. After the orderliness and calm of Disney we took a little bit of time to adjust to chaotic footpaths and people drinking booze as they walked along the street as if it were soft drink.

 Luckily neither Steve nor us has the slightest bit of interest in gambling so not a cent was spent - that way at least - but the casinos were certainly fascinating places to walk through and watch.  Of course the only way in or out our hotel was through the casino - all the casinos are at ground level so that the punters can be swept into them easily - and in keeping with the Parisian theme, the entire casino was themed to look like Parisian streets right down to a Parisian summer sky.

 The Bellagio, probably the most upmarket and expensive of the casino hotel properties was just across the road from Paris. Every 15 minutes the fountains in front of the Bellagio would come alive and dance to music.

 This gives a bit of an understanding of the geography of Vegas and how close the city is to the desert.

 And to the desert we went when we took a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon. This was fabulous. There were two other couples in our chopper - one young couple from Brisbane, the other from Montreal. Our pilot, Shane, was very friendly and chatty so he gave us a great commentary on the way out. It took about 45 minutes to reach the Grand Canyon from the airport we took off from which was about an hour from Vegas.

 I didn't mean to include this shot but at least it gives you an idea of the arid landscape.

 Flying along the Colorado River and seeing the weathered sides of the canyons like this was just awesome.

 Colorado River

 So part of our flight was a 30 minute stop at the base of the Canyon where we had a champagne lunch and had the opportunity to put our feet on the ground and get some sense of the massive scale of this place. It was very hot - around 40 degrees - but it can get much hotter.

 Then back on the street again at night. Although we didn't add to the gaming economy we certainly gave plenty to the live entertainment economy, seeing five shows in four nights, which isn't a bad effort. Donny and Marie (Osmond) was the first show we saw - they were great actually and had one the Best Vegas Show for the past three years running; we saw two Circe du Soleil shows: Mystere and Zumanity; Divas Las Vegas, a 'female impersonator' show which had been running 29 years and which was excellent; and Human Nature.

 On our last night we bought this monstrosity which was some kind of mojito filled with dry ice...but it was very delicious - and we shared it, as it cost close to $40.00!

 And so yeah, on our final night we had front row seats to Human Nature.  They were fine about taking pics provided you didn't use flash or filmed them so I took a bunch.  They were very very good...very slick but lots of fun.

We also took a four wheel drive trip to another canyon, Red Rock Canyon, which is about an hour or so from Las Vegas which was also a fantastic experience. So from a beginning when we were wondering how we would fill four days in Vegas, we found plenty to do and see. It's a crazy place and I couldn't cope with more than four days there at a time but yeah I'd go back.

Kamloops, British Columbia

 Kamloops is a city situated about 4.5 hours by car east of Vancouver, where our friends Dave and Cathie now live (they used to live in Alberta) so we took the opportunity to spend a few days with them. After a somewhat stressful exiting of Vancouver (i.e. getting lost for half an hour or so) we made it up to their place. The landscape here is of rolling hills which are governed not by trees but by sage bushes and other prairie kinds of vegetation. There are some forests on some of the higher peaks.  The photo above shows Cathie, Dave and Steve on the lookout for burrowing owls - and Cathie did find one for us! It was perched on a stump looking for field mice and what not.

 I can't disconnect the two pics above so the first is of another part of the local landscape where Dave and Cathie tools his walking one morning and the one above is us having lunch in their back yard. It was a lovely few days and we also visited the local wildlife park and saw a couple of young grizzlies playing ruff and tumble with each other; went to the local cinema to see Boyhood, which is an excellent movie; and checked out a couple of second hand bookshops as well as doing a number of walks through the hill country.

 After spending three days with Dave and Cathie we then spent the weekend with our other friends living in Kamloops (who would have though), Kathy and Harold.  I used to work with them at University of Newcastle in the early to mid 90s and indeed Kathy and I shared an office for a couple of years. They took us up to this lovely skiing village called Sun Peaks about 40 minutes from Kamloops, where they spend much of the winter skiing. It was a gorgeous sunny and warm day when we were up there and we had a couple of beers under the green umbrellas.

 Kathy and Harold also drove us about two hours or so to a provincial park (the name of which escapes me at the moment, and which is akin to our national parks) where we were able to walk through stunning forests in which many of the trees were starting to take on their fall colours and where there was also a good assortment of waterfalls.

 It was a brilliant day and although we didn't see any bears we loved spending time out in the forests and viewing the magnificent waterfalls.

 Kathy and I alongside one of the rivers.  It was wonderful to spend the weekend with Kathy and Harold and their two sons, Jonathan and Kai.  I hadn't seen them for probably 15 years or so...maybe a  bit longer.

Another river, this time with salmon leaping upwards. Well we saw a couple of salmon - it wasn't quite like the nature documentaries with the dozens of hungry grizzly bears, portray, but it was tremendous to see the salmon jumping out of the water in its attempt to get beyond the rapids and further up the stream where it hoped to lay its eggs (or fertilise them, whatever the case may be).

After our five days in Kamloops we drove back towards Vancouver but we detoured off the highway to Chilliwack, where our friend Ryan, who now lives in Cairns, comes from. We had morning tea at the Yellow Deli, which, we found out when we got inside, is run by a spiritual community and which has a number of locations in Canada, USA and also Katoomba, I just discovered when I Googled them. Anyway, the food was scrummy and provided us with sustenance for the journey back into Vancouver airport and then back into the city so we could spend the next three nights at an airbnb apartment.

Vancouver

Our arrival into Vancouver from Kamloops was a tad stressful.  The 4 hour drive down to the outskirts of Vancouver was enjoyable but once again we got lost trying to take the hire car back to the airport. We eventually managed to get back to the airport and then we easily caught the air train into Vancouver and then walked the kilometre or so up to our airbnb apartment. We arrived around 1pm but couldn't get into the apartment until 4 so we wheeled our luggage down to a harbour side pub and enjoyed a slow meal and drinks there until it was time to check in.  This was the night time view from our apartment which really was a beautifully appointed apartment really well located.

 We took a long walk up along English Bay to the beginnings of Stanley Park, a huge parkland on the tip of a peninsula and then walked back again just on sunset.  We only had three nights in Vancouver so it was a bit of a rush.  The weather had been beautiful and sunny for the previous week but by the time we arrived it had returned to typical Vancouver weather for that time of the year - cool and wet.

Our apartment was only a five minute stroll up to Davie Street which is where the Vancouver equivalent of Oxford Street is situated. Vancouver was able to cope with rainbow pedestrian crossings unlike Sydney.

 A fabulous installation of about twenty laughing men along the foreshore of English Bay.

 So what did we do in Vancouver?  Well I was a tad off colour and needed to see a doctor, so pretty much half of one day was waiting to get into see a doctor and then getting the antibiotics he prescribed; but other than that we visited the marvellous Granville Island with its incredible markets and arts and crafts shops: so much food but I wasn't in the mood to indulge; we visited Stanley Park; the Vancouver Aquarium; and generally strolled around the city

 We saw more wildlife in Vancouver than I think we saw in any other city: these were river otters we saw in the harbour - we also saw a sea lion as well - and orcas have apparently been known to venture right inside the harbour.  We had been hoping to go on a day trip to see orcas but unfortunately we ran out of time.

 While we were making our big walk through Stanley Park this racoon came right up to us, realised we had no food for it, and then continued on its way.

We pretty much spent a full day in Stanley Park visiting the Vancouver Aquarium and then going on this horse drawn carriage ride for an hour through the park. Really lovely way to see the park.