Back In America!

Hi Everyone,
Well we are back in America!
We left Brisbane at 6am & on Saturday morning & got to Sydney at around 8am. We had to transfer to the International Airport Clear customs & then we waited until 1pm to fly to L.A.  Which was much better than last time when we only had an hour between flights & our Perth flight left late!

We arrived in L.A. extremely tired, it was only 10am local time, we cleared customs & got our luggage - which took nearly 2hours - very busy place!
we asked about a shuttle to our Motel & a very friendly shuttle attendant told us it was only a 10-15 minute walk. Which we did, it was a beautiful day.
We checked in, had showers & then had some lunch at the Motel Restaurant:

Back to the huge meals & giant drinks - lookout scales!

After lunch we went for another walk. They say to avoid Jet Lag you shouldn't sleep during the day, but we had to give in and set the alarm to have a few hours sleep :)

We did feel a little better when we woke up.

So another shower & back to the restaurant for dinner.

The view from our 7th floor window was mostly the airport:

Mostly Planes

But boy did these look good at night!

From this:

To This!





We had another early morning, back to the Airport by 7am to fly to Miami. With the time difference it was a 5 hour flight. Another huge, busy airport, we had to catch an "air train" to get the hire car!

With all the paperwork done it yet again another 2 hours gone!

We had a motel booked at Pembroke Pines (according to Trip Advisor a better town to stay in as far as expense & safety) it was supposed to be a 45minute drive! But we got off the main highway because of tolls & ended up dreadfully lost in some really bad looking neighbourhoods! - no photos taken there - too scared!!!

 We got surprised when a 4 wheeler went flying up the road at high speed beside us weaving in & out of traffic then putting 2 wheels up on the curb so that he could overtake everyone - he had a child on the front of it - no helmets!!!!!!!!!

After over an hour of trying to find our way - we got back on the Motorway!

By this time the weather had really changed, it was still hot but very overcast:

By the time we got to the Motel in was dark & pouring rain! But we got there safely & that was the main thing.

We checked in & had dinner at a restaurant next door.

The next day we slept in until 8.30 - much needed!

We decided to have a look around, Pembroke Pines is a beautiful town, these are just photos I took while driving up the road.

The weather changed again, but it was still 85 degrees!:

But it all blew over. We spent the rest of the day catching up with washing & just chilling out!

We had a lovely dinner at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant just around the corner.

Well today we got up very early & were on the road by 5am to drive to Key West. We wanted to drive on the overseas highway that we had seen on quite a few movies. Well that turned out to be a real fizzer - obviously it looks a hell of a lot better from helicopters than it does driving it!

It was a very boring drive & it wasn't all over the sea - Maybe we should have researched a bit more! So we decided after about 3 hours drive to head back and go do an Everglades tour instead.

This was much better, we had a ride on an Air Boat & seen some beautiful scenery:

 Gators Too!

Dave even got to hold one!

This is a 3d picture of the gator - so he looks blury!

After that we drove to Miami Beach - through the city!

Very big place!

But the Beach was well worth the drive - Just Beautiful!

The water was just beautiful - as it was 97 Degrees! Our kind of weather!

Well that is our time in Miami, tomorrow we head off to Orlando for a few days :)

Cheers everyone,

Dave & Shell

Charters Towers to Brisbane

Hi Everyone,
Well we had a wonderful time in Charters Towers catching up with Shantelle, but it was time to move on so we headed off to Claremont. We parked the van at the C/Park:


Then we headed off to Moranbah to visit Dave's sister Leonie.
The drive in was quite pretty:



Leonie & Dave

We spent a lovely few hours catching up with Leonie & then headed back to Claremont for the night.
Next morning it was time to head off again but not before we took some photo's of the beautiful artwork on these trains:

Another lovely day & nice scenery:

Fields of sunflowers

We stopped for the night at a little town called - Banana!

Working on the Blog!

We stayed at the Hotel/Motel/Caravan Park which was quite nice & we had dinner at the Hotel - no cooking :) We met a lovely couple name Danny & Shirley Carroll & we had a nice chat with them.

Then it was onto Gympie where we spent 4 days just relaxing - very nice!

Set up at Gympie

Dave gave the van a wash!

After a lovely 4 days it was time to hit the big smoke! So off we went, we called into the Spinifex factory to order some mods done to the van while we are away in America & then we headed to Lawnton Showgrounds, where we are now until Friday.

We had a wonderful dinner at the local Chinese restaurant last night with our good friends Rod & Mavis (fellow Spin Owners) It was really great to catch up with them.

Today we had lunch with my sister Kaye & her partner Sue - it was wonderful to see her again :)

A long time coming Sis!

Lawnton Showgrounds

Well that's it for now, we leave on Sunday for 3 months in America so please keep following us on our Journey,

Cheers & Happy Travels,

Dave & Shell

Mt Isa To Charters Towers

Hi Everyone,

Well we have a lovely couple of days in Mt Isa. It was great to catch up with Lyall & Trish.

We left Sunday Morning - Mother’s Day & headed off to Richmond., Part of the Dinosaur Triangle Where this fellow hangs out:

Kronosaurus

where we stopped for the night at the town caravan park - it was a lovely little park, we had a drive through powered site with shade & Grass J

Plus we had good internet reception - MT Isa was dreadful!

We set up & enjoyed a few Bundy’s:

Cheers

A Great Mother's Day!

 before walking up the street to the Mud Hut Pub for a wonderful meal of Grilled Barramundi - very nice!

We also won $10 on the pokies! So a great mother’s day.

On Monday we headed off to Charters Towers to catch up with our middle Daughter Shantelle.
We went through Hughenden another part of the dinosaur triangle & saw this fellow:

We checked into the Top Tourist Park - another very nice park, & set up.

We did all our washing before Shantelle came over after work.

We enjoyed a lovely few hours catching up & then we organised to go out to dinner at the Enterprise Hotel - great meals! We lived in Charters Towers for 2 years so we know the place pretty well.

.

We had a wonderful meal together & then it was back to the van to retire for the night.

The next day Shantelle had to work so we booked ourselves into a Tour at the Texas Longhorn Wagon & Safari Tours: www.texaslonghorn.com.au
We didn't get to see any Texas Longhorns while in Texas - so this certainly made up for it.
We were the only 2 people there that morning & we cetainly got a personlised tour, Michael the owner drove us around in his Polaris 4 wheeler:

We were shown all the Longhorns including JR - the world record holder for the longest horns:

JR

There were Buffalo too:

This is Elton - Because of the hair!

Michael has the Magic Touch!

Other things there:

Assistant tour guide!

Deer

wagons

They also have accomodation:

We had the best morning there & would thoroughly recommend it to any fellow bloggers if you are in the neighborhood.

Hosts: Lynda & Michael Bethel

We had to drag ourselves away!

Well after our huge morning it had run into lunchtime so we caught up with our good friends Karen & Chris for lunch - at the Enterprise of course :)

Another great meal & good company!

Then it was back to the van for a rest!


We invited Shantelle over for Dinner - Pizza on the Baby Q -Yum:

Cooked to perfection!

The Chef At Work!

Great Pizza!

Another great night.

Well that was our time in Charters, it was wonderful to see Shantelle again, it is very hard when you live on opposite sides of the country.
Cheers to everyone,
Shell