"...Party in the city where the heat is on
Soooo sorry for not posting this one earlier, but here it is!
Our goals in Atlanta werent that much, only to be in a place, a big place, to celebrate the 4th of July. It sure is a huge city, but we didnt see much of it. We came in on Saturday night and just chilled and Sunday we relaxed again before heading to Stone Mountain Park to celebrate the 4th of July! We were all really tired cause of the long roadtrip and were actually looking forward to it to end, even though we knew it was going to be sad.
We took a taxi towards the park and everything was fine, but then there were waaayyy to many cars wanting to enter the park. So we got out of the taxi cause we didnt want to spend money on just waiting, and thought we could get in by foot, but then we were stopped by a guard telling us that we simply cant enter without a car. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?
Luckily there was a pickup waiting in line right next to us and the two gentlemen driving it were nice enough to let us tailgate so we could get inside! Haha! We got a lot of weird looks...
When we got to the park we found a restaurant at a hotel almost straight away and there was a buffet with so much good stuff (God, do we like buffets!), and so we dug in. After a nice dinner and very nice dessert(s) we went downstairs to the bar and started our journey to space once again and then headed out to the hotel garden as a laser-show and the fireworks were about to begin.
First of, the laser-show was amazing!!! On the mountain wall, there were carvings of three persons riding horses, some historical thing, and the lasers made animated pictures and a show of the history of the three riders. It was veery cool, ive never seen a lasershow like that.
Over to the fireworks; Ive Never seen anything like it. We don't have that kind of firework in Norway, no way! If im not mistaken i remember a UFO and a smiley too? It was so amazing and cool. (there will be pics of the same kinda fireworks later...)
We left Atlanta with more patriotism in our minds and headed for Jacksonville. All we new
about Jax was that we would finally see the ocean again and the
white sand embracing the coast of Florida. When we got there, it was Exactly like that…!
We came into town in the evening. The sun had just set and had painted beautiful colors in the horisont and we parked our cars and Ran down to the beach. It was magical! We had waited So_Long for this and when we finally felt the sand between our toes and the water splashing on our legs, Nothing needed to be said. Just; Finally.
We stayed in Jacksonvile for 4 days i think. We stayed just outside of downtown and had to drive every day to Jax Beach(es). We basically hung out on the beach every day and then went downtown in the evening or just hung out in the motel. One night we ate at a fine restaurant downtown. This was in the dining district The Jacksonville Landing. A great area down by the water with beautiful view to the famous bridge in blue.
On the beach on day we rented surfboards!!
This was a highly anticipated activity that we had talked about for a loong time and that we had agreed on doing in Miami, but then we couldn't wait, so we did it in Jax. The condition for surfing was beyond perfect, big waves (not huge); perfect to get a great surf-experience. Runa was the only one who had surfed before (in Australia) but Lars managed to stand up on the board the first time he tried too! (I think someone else made it too, but i dont remember who, sorry!)
Me not so much, but i did get up after a long struggle with the waves!
So surfing was GREAT, its definitely a sport that both me and Lars agreed on that we would like to be doing as a hobby!
So now we were finally back by the ocean in the final state; it really felt incredible after everything we had been through, driving trough _18_ states! Our next stop was going to be…. Disneyworld?
- vic -
In the evening the same day we went downtown, which is very nice. Clean and a lot of nice buildings. Since 4th of July was coming up there was a lot going on in Baile St; it was all closed off and zoo many people were out in the street drinking and having fun! We went eating in a great bar/restaurant, got completely stuffed and then headed for Baile St.
The next day was sightseeing day! What a GREAT day this was as we first started our tour at the legendary Sun Studio: Where Rock & Roll was born. Memphis is the home-city of Elvis if you didn't know, which is why Sun Studio is so special. This is the place where he first started his legendary career, paying 4 bucks to get to record the first time and after him, a lot of many big artists continued to record in the studio, stars like Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and even U2.
Sun Studio is also where history continued to be be written, as Elvis, Cash, Lewis and Carl Perkins united into The Million Dollar Quartet. Another historical moment was also when Perkins, Orbison, Lewis, and Cash met up and became the Class of '55.
Beeing at Sun was such an amazing experience, especially for me, as music is the air that i breathe. The guide we had was also fantastic because he told us all this history in such an incredible way, a way that mesmerized the whole crowd; waking up the teenager in the older audience.
Anyway, haha i got a little dreamy right there. We got to touch and use the mic that the King himself had used when he was there, so many years ago. Just a GREAT experience!
WHAT A LIFE did he live. The mansion was huge with so many rooms, so much variety from one room to another and so much furniture and decor and all sorts of things that just wow'ed you away. He had everything you wanna have in a house, and he had a big-ass carport wish siiiick sick cars. One of them was actually meant for Frank Sinatea, but he got the hold of it, after sweet-talking with the boss. So much cool stuff, and also motorcycles. We also got to see his private jets where he had gold-buckles in the seats!!
We got to listen to a lot of old recordings, at both Sun Studio and at Graceland, all of his Golds, Platinums, Diplomas and trophies of all sorts were there, all his costumes from the shows and from movies.
The next day we headed to Fort Worth, which is, i think, a part of Dallas because on the Weather Channel they write Dallas/Fort Worth.
Anyway, we were in Stockyard first and this place is like almost all original from the western time, with real cowboy saloons, shops with real brands like Stetson and we saw actual cowboys too! They werent cowboys like before but they looked like people who live in there and work in the saloons and stuff, and they were wearing worn-out cowboy-boots and hats so i guess they were modern cowboys of some sort!
So we drove a little further and got to see the mountain up close over at the Mt. Rushmore monument park. It was really cool to finally get to see it. The four presidents are, for you who dont know: George Washington, USAs first president, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Its amazing that theyve been carved out in a mountain. At 9 PM a show started where they were suppouse to light up the mountain. The time is set back or forward for every state we come in to so we rushed over around 8.20 PM to get good seats before the show was supposed to start when the time was actually 7.20 PM. Yeeeeeeeey. We sat there and waited for over 1 & 1/2 hous..
Personally i fell in love with the native americans which ive always loved, but this place showed their works over the years and all the incredible arts and crafts theyve made. Crazy Horse memorial is a tribute to all the indians all over America and Crazy Horse was their hero. One of the reasons why are because he turned down the opportunity to alliance with the Americans. Until this day, and the reason for why the memorial isnt finished is because the people who today are working on it, Still havent accepted anything from the government. All the money they have are donations from anyone who wants to donate and well, i think its great that they still dont accept. (The pic on the right is a miniature of how Crazy Horse is going to be like when its finished).
After a long but nice trip trough a few states we finally arrived to Yellowstone National Park. As we were driving in we actually went throughout Montana first for about half an hour, yeeeey another state, and then we came in at the west entrance to the park.
We weren't too prepared for the nights out here, i think we all agree on that. The first night we all almost died, im totally serious haha. It was soooooooooooooo cold and i was wearing tights, pants, a top, polo and a sweater and it still didn't help. So to you guys, if you ever go here or anywhere up north like here; bring WOOL and many smart clothes, and for Gods sake; don't sleep in a sleepingbag that holds down to 6 degrees (celcius)………………
After that we went for a walk around in the Old Faithful area and there was more geysers and hot springs. Then we went for a hike up a trail. Again; bear warnings, so i sang and clapped all the way up and down to scare any bears away, haha.
In the afternoon and evening we grilled as it was very nice outside. We met a few guys from, i think Washington and Seattle?, and they were alright. Before they came over we played Beat for Beat by the fire, which was very fun!
We went on and drove to Salt Lake City. We didnt really stop, only to try to take out some cash. The city was clean and all that, but i didnt think it was that much pretty and all. We saw to little probably!We continued our trip after we made the decision to camp in Ogden, right after Salt Lake City. When we got there we couldnt find any campground so we decided to keep on and drive further towards Yellowstone.
We stayed the night in Idaho Falls, not much to say about that really and we only passed trought Montana right before we got in to Yellowstone National Park, which lies in Wyoming.
On the way to Grand Canyon we saw Hoover Dam too! We were lucky because they closed the place down when we came but i talked to a policeman and begged since we <
We did end up lucky the next day though because Mather Campground had 1 spot left due to cancelling, so we put up our tents fast and then we went up to the rim trail at Yavapai Point (i think thats what it was called). Can you imagine eating breakfast by one of the worlds most beautiful places?
Until next time
