The bright lights of Las Vegas were my greeting as I arrived in the US. I met up with Mat and Michelle (MnM) and we spent a few days doing the rounds, drinking too much and staying out way too late. Day one was spent tagging along with MnM while they did some Vegas things I’d done before and then we saw Zumanity, the adults only Cirque du Soleil. Zumanity was amazing, we were laughing the whole way through.

The next day we took a helicopter ride over the desert, past the Hoover Dam and down into the Grand Canyon. The views of the cookie cutter houses throughout the Vegas suburbs, the bleak deserts and barren rock formations were impressive and then we were blown away by the sheer size of both the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.

After Vegas we hopped in the car and headed off towards the Pacific Coast to drive north to San Francisco. We spent a night in Ventura at a Motel 6. The Thai restaurant we went to that night blew us away and then we stumbled across a bar with an open mic night where we drank margaritas and listened to some great bands before stumbling home.

From Ventura we wanted to drive the coast road to San Fran but unfortunately it’s closed in a few spots due to damage from lots of rain and so we had to detour inland and backtrack from Monterey to see Big Sur. We were a little disappointed we didn’t get to do the coast drive but still Big Sur was amazing and so we arrived into San Fran late that evening.