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