Gary and Scott

Today Gary and Scott started a short adventure they continue to talk about years later.

We all started the day in Cedar City and at 11:00am started out in Steve's car for St George.

Here we checked out numerous stores and had lunch at Dennys.

At 4:10pm Gary and Scott headed off to Las Vegas in the St George shuttle bus.   Rayls, Amy, Katie and Daniel headed back to Cedar City and had a relaxing couple of days without the boys.

At 5:10 (Vegas time) the shuttle bus arrived at Las Vegas airport where Gary and Scott checked in for AA Flight 1812 to San Jose.  We caught the tram to D6 and boarded the flight at 6:15pm.

Interesting start to the flight - at 6:35pm  we backed out and at 6:45pm were ready for take off.  However, there was a change of wind direction so we had to taxi to another runway.   At 6:55pm we took off on the south runway - this was a very noisy and bumpy take off.  15 minutes later we were at 31,000 feet and 15 minutes after that we started our descent.  We landed at 7:52 so this was a 57 minute flight.  Much better than flying the Pacific in 14 hours.

We only had hand luggage so it was nice just to stroll off the plane and into a taxi.  Afghanistani driver, just like home!  We caught the taxi to the Days Inn in 4th Street and as there was no nearby restaurant had pizza delivered for dinner.

At 10:30am we caught the light rail 4 stations from Gish to Santa Clara.  We walked around San Jose, lots of shark statues.

We walked to the Arena, this was just to check out the place and after a short stay we twalked back into the city, checked out a Walden Books and had lunch.

At 4:00pm we went back to the Arena.  This was WWF Summerslam 200, only Scott went in to the event, Gary not that keen to spend the required $US100.   Many planes landing as runway not far away so whilst Scott enjoyed the event Gary watched the planes land.   Whilst outside the arena Gary was asked if he had tickets to sell, asked if he wanted to buy tickets and spoke with the lighting engineer for the stadium.

The event ended at 8:00pm and we walk back into the city and catch the light rail back to Gish.  Dennys for dinner, very poor service here and then we walked back to the hotel.

This was to be a very long day.

We were both home sick for Cedar City but enjoying our adventure.

At 8:50am we called a taxi to the hotel and drove to the National Car Rental facility at San Jose airport.  We rented a car, a Pontiac.  Lady behind the counter asked in what part of the UK was Western Australia!!!!!

Getting out of the car park was tough going and then we got into airport traffic.  Finally we got onto the freeway and on our way to San Francisco.  We called into a Best Buy and then past San Francisco airport.   Gary was under strict instructions from Rayls not to go into San Francisco so we cut across to a highway and by passed San Francisco but still managed to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was only a technicality but we didn't go into San Francisco.  Once over the bridge we stopped at a lookout to admire the view of San Francisco.  It was very overcast, raining and cold.  Gary bought a couple of SF jackets, one for himself and one for Rayls - just to ease the pain of the technicality!

Then it was onto I80 and a shortish drive to Sacramento where we went straight to the venue, the Arco Arena, for tonights wrestling event.  We bought a ticket for Gary and then headed off to a nearby shopping centre.

We rang Rayls and then British Airways to change our flights from US to London.  We were so enjoying the USA we decided to stay a little longer there.

We also checked out a Wal Mart and a few other shops.  Then it was back to the Arco Arena where we parked to car for a quick getaway.

The seats we had for the event were very poor and complaining didn't help so we just moved elsewhere.  Once again a very entertaining wrestling event highlighted with Kurt Angle entering the arena in a milk truck and spraying Stone Cold and others with milk.

At 8:00pm, and at end of the event, we started out on a long drive back to Cedar City.  We drove through the city of Sacramento which is the capital of California and then out on Highway 50.  It was dark and the drive was quite dangerous in parts the drive down the mountain into West Lake Tahoe was unexpected and quite treacherous.   As we pulled into a gas station at the bottom of the mountain Gary's hands and arms were sore from the strain.  "What was that" he said to the server behind the counter.   It was not only the drop of many thousands of feet that caused the concern but the fact that it was so unexpected.

Then it was a more sedate drive across the border into Nevada and you instantly notice the difference as Lake Tahoe becomes a haven for casinos.

We continued across Nevada not sure where we would spend the night.  Carson City is the capital of Nevada and we refuelled there and when the server noticed out accents asked how Essendon was going in the football.  Essendon supporters, you find them everywere!

We continued to drive and changed drivers regularly.   At one stage Gary pulled over because he was so tired but we were both keen to get back to Cedar City.

That night we drove across the state of Nevada - a pretty sparce countryside with the occassional mountain range to get across. 

Later as we entered Utah dawn broke and we had to take care for the deer.  It was quite a drive and eventually we arrived in Cedar City at 8:30am - given a time zone change we had driven 11 hours straight.

Amy met us at the airport where we had dropped the car off and we headed back to her house and collapsed.  The rest of the day was very quiet with much sleeping.