Ok, sometimes it's REALLY not meant to be

The sun setting on my holiday...

Sometimes all you can do is laugh. Sadly, I don't think I'll be laughing about this for a while. It's kind of hard to after TWICE spending quite a bit of money to fly over here just to see some damn tornadoes and coming up with nothing to show for it. But as my fellow tourist Rachael (who's quite a good country singer and could surely make a song out of this) says, mother nature's a bitch. Don't we all know it. But it has been very kind to mid-west USA. It's the first time in seven years there has not been a single fatality from a tornado in the month of May. In a perfect world there would be tornadoes AND no fatalaties. It's what all stormchasers hope for. Considering my luck the US government might start hiring me to travel here to ward off tornadoes.

But to today, where we almost drove to Mexico to chase a rotating storm, the only thing that looked like doing anything all day. Ironically it was again outside the forecast area for any storms. But we were 250km from it when it started and we tried to get there but we were no hope. The thing was I was confident and optimistic all day that today, when many appeared not to expect anything from the day. As you could have told by my previous blog post, I haven't exactly hidden my disappointment and frustration. For some reason things don't appear to be going my way at the moment. That said I still think I'm quite a lucky person having a job most people would (and I did) dream of, being able to go overseas and do things I always wanted to do (although this has been an epic fail) and having it pretty good living at home. But sometimes I still feel unlucky at times.

Luck wasn't with us yesterday. After a cracker of a day in Oklahoma on Tuesday, the next day looked even better with a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms and 10% chance of tornadoes issued by the National Weather Service for the same region yesterday. Absolutely nothing happened in that area during the day. We were far enough west of that area, in Texas, to be able to drive five hours to catch another storm in the northwest of the state. For some reason we stopped in some town for half an hour which meant the sun had already set when we got to this storm.

First we got to see some impressive mammatus cloud, so we were on a strong storm. It also looked strong on radar and was FULL of hail. We also saw the damaged it caused in Childress, Texas with softball-sized hail and a 100mph (160kmh) wind gust (a tornado was reported but it wasn't confirmed). A huge sheet of metal was thrown across the town from somewhere. It could have caused some damage. So we drove into it. I got a great video of all the lightning and hail despite the low light conditions. We were following Dominator 2 and the navigator Reed claimed to see a wall cloud and one of our tour guides Kevin a cone-shaped funnel, which didn't touch the ground. It was intense. Red van (I was in blue) even got a small break in the windscreen.

Mammatus cloud aka "breast clouds"

Post-chase conference - our vans and Dominator 2

All in all I've still have fun on this trip. We've covered more than 6000 miles (9600km) and 11 states (Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas), almost from Canadian border to Mexican border. I also had an AMAZING time with my California/Vegas/Arizona tour. I'm glad I got some encouragement to do something additional. I can't say the nice long holiday wasn't worth it. Although I will look forward to some proper meals (mum's lasagne), proper Australian beer and not staying in a hotel. I also made new friends from this stormchasing tour and my other tour I'll hopefully see again. I might give the US a rest next year though. I know a couple of my tour guides are certainly thinking of travelling over soon. I might be playing tour guide for them.

I'd say this will be my last blog about my travels until my next adventure, but don't desert me! I'm sure I'll find some interesting stuff pop into my head to keep this blog rolling. See you all when I get back home! I'm looking forward to telling you all about what I may not have mentioned in enough detail in this blog. Well, some of it...

PS - Please don't refer to my last two weeks as a tornado chasing tour. Not even for shits and giggles. I won't be in the mood for it. Stormchasing is fine. Or America trip. Tornado is off limits.

PPS - I still have a day left and we COULD be chasing a storm, so you never know, I could be changing my tune. I doubt it.

A nice photo to leave you with...

IT'S HAPPENING... we just can't see it!

Gahhhh so close yet so far I guess is what I can say about yesterday's chase. We were on the right storm but we didn't see the tornado at the time. We moved about a minute before it crossed right where we were. But first to the previous day, where the beers were already out despite the group not having seen a tornado just yet. We had a long drive from St Paul, Minnesota to Kansas City, Missouri and it was decided to have all the Aussies (and a Pom) in one van. Um hello! I'm pretty sure it started with me having a beer with lunch then one of our tour guides (and resident alcohol connoiseur) Kevin encouraged everyone in our van to grab some drinks and we started downing them. There was a bit of singing, a bit of drinking - we even stole some people from the other van. Red Van became Party Van. I think some people regretted it in the morning.



Louise (UK - Essex), me, Nicole (Ballarat), "Chip" (Alice Springs)and Michael (Melbourne)

But everyone made it to the van for the big chase day. We travelled just under three hours south to Wichita, Kansas and just got into Oklahoma before we saw storms start to fire (maybe a tad earlier than expected) to our northwest (but conveniently, storms were moving south fairly slowly). It was a bit of a blur when the chase began, I don't know exactly where we were, but storms were exploding like we'd never seen before.

Massive updrafts!!!

Mammatus - an indication of strong updrafts

Storm's a coming - time to take the roof off this van!

But then of course we got on the best storms of the tour and there were road blocks in the form of COMBINE HARVESTERS on the road followed by a dozen semi-trailers. It was SO frustrating but we cleared them and found it pretty smooth sailing. After a little bit of driving things started happening. We got out of the van for a better look and I got this shot:

All this was getting sucked up into the storm

 Then I saw this:

Wall cloud - the place tornadoes drop from, usually

Not long after, we found a nearer wall cloud where it was ALL happening. It's kind of hard to explain, but there was rotation on the ground (dust devils) and in the sky (funnels) but none of it connected to each other, new clouds getting sucked up into the storm - it's hard to explain. But we couldn't stay long, the storm wouldn't let us! We took to the dirt roads to go south to stay in the "notch" of the storm. We had a few photo stops before the storm REALLY matured and we found a main road to wait and watch.



Imagine all that spinning anti-clockwise. You wouldn't have had to imagine it if my video I was trying to post below loaded.

Rotating funnel poking out of the clouds

(Insert video here - it was good)

The side of the highway gave us an excellent 360 degree view of the storm. Rain curtains were wrapping around the storm, the wind was up and we started hearing tornado sirens. There was a powerflash (the wind had pretty much ripped the power lines off down the line, under which we standing) and the rain was coming. We had to move!! So in the van we went, moments before the rain (which we later figured out had a tornado hidden in it) passed. We went a little way down the road before stopping again. Another great funnel had formed (I got video of it - the upload failed :S) so we watched that die then THUMP. A golf ball. THUMP. A tennis ball. No, a sporting goods store didn't get sucked up into a tornado. These were the sizes of hailstones that began to fall around us. Back in the van!!! Photos of hail the size of GRAPEFRUIT emerged shortly after. That's at least a 5 INCH circumference. Big stuff!


Tornado was in behind this rain

(A video was supposed to here but the internet had other plans)


But the excitement ended there as another storm crossed this monster's path and it descended into mostly heavy rain and some hail. We traversed the storm down to Norman, Oklahoma where we had dinner. The storm eventually caught up with us while we were in having dinner, which cut out the satellite TV (much to the annoyance of all those watching Oklahoma City Thunder getting towelled up in the NBA playoffs). Today we're heading to Kansas to chase. I'll look out for Dorothy for you! Or if you like you can try to spot her yourself on the live stream - live.tvnweather.com. We are the Extreme Tornado Tours tag. Let me know on Facebook or Twitter if you are watching and I'll try to give you a wave.

Sub-par storms sapping spirit

Much like our frustrations, the storms have been building this trip. But unfortunately like our storms, our plans to see tornadoes are becoming a right mess. The lightning shows are little consolation. If I spend another five days here without seeing a tornado, I don't know how I will be able to come home. How can you come half way across the world to the home of tornadoes, twice, and not see anything.  It can't happen. Surely.

It's just hard to keep going on these long days. Today we drove seven hours to be frustrated by several more hours of chasing before being let down again. U guess at least last time we got to see some sights. This time I've been able to meet a few more nice people, and go into a few more states of the US. You'd be hard pressed to find a mid-west  state I haven't been too now. I guess that's something. I wish I didn't have to go half way across the world to do it. But I guess it means I can chase storms in Brisbane and have the same luck!

Despite our disappointments, I'll take you through the highlights of the past few days. After spending the night in St Cloud (which was a pretty rowdy night for some of the others)  it was windy, and rain and cold outside our hotel alongside the Mississippi River. I had a good chat to Reed Timmer, the navigator of Dominator 2, and was able to hold an intelligent weather conversation with him! I guess I half know what I'm talking about then. He's keen to go tropical cyclone chasing in Australia sometime. We both were of the feeling we had to go south towards Sioux Falls, South Dakota as soon as possible! We got there within about an hour of storms starting, and conditions were quite hot (think 30 and humid) compared to St Cloud earlier (13, wet and windy). Perfect conditions for storms... or so we thought. The storms were choked off from accessing the surface moisture and died. I think we all died a little inside too. Our chase didn't finish until about 10pm (the sun was still up) so decided to make a quick trip to Sioux City, Iowa. Funnily enough, the previous day's birthday girl Shanda (whose family joined in our dinner at the hotel in St Cloud) LIVES in Sioux City so she got to sleep in her own bed. Lucky!

My pics from the day:

Oh a storm is raging... not so much

Sunset storm... kind of

The sun sets on another below-average chase day

Today was a 50-50 choice between Minnesota and Nebraska. All weather models were pointing to the northern target as our best shot. We made the drive, arrived well in time and chased an isolated but growing storm, which looked promising. Unfortunately, it died and we chased a slow-moving MASSIVE supercell, which had tornado warnings on it. It was the only storm to chase, but having the high-precipitation storm 'stop and drop' (new term, coined by me) was inevitable, sadly. It cause some major flooding in Minnesota. It just did not stop. There weren't any tornadoes in Nebraska either, so at least that couldn't bring us down. We lobbed into our hotel at White Bear Lake, outside of St Paul, Minnesota just before midnight.

Our guides Dave Holder and Blake Knapp like most chasers, attempting to find out why our storms keep screwing us around.

On approach to the monster storm

The monster fizzer on radar, with tornado warnings

Stormchasing is off the radar for tomorrow as we head back east and south towards Nebraska and the following day we're hoping for storms around Kansas-Oklahoma. We're hoping. It's the best chase country and if you're going to see a tornado, it's gotta be there right? Right???

Not much doing... yet

If we weren't keen enough to get out and find an elusive tornado this tour, a dose of Twister has helped this enthusiast get pumped for some weather action in Minnesota tomorrow. But funnily enough for all of Twister's excitement and drama, the film shows how different that is to reality, especially in 2012. I guess chasing is a little more advanced than when the film was made and the approach to chasing appears far more sensible in reality. I guess you just have to come out here and chase to know what I mean. It was the first time I'd seen Twister in a while, so it was interesting to make comparisons based on personal observations.

Today provided a chance for us to get in position for some chasing in Minnesota. It was a good thing really considering several of the group had a rather big night in Eau Claire. I only had a few drinks with dinner so turned in early to catch up on some sleep. We're in St Cloud, Minnesota tonight (how ironic) so we shouldn't have to go too far to see storms flaring up. But it could be a bit of a grind with a far longer drive than to the south on the Sunday. Of course, it won't be a grind once we've seen a tornado. Sunday (Monday AM in Australia) looks like being our day. I hope. We kind of got a bit of a taste of a few storms yesterday, experiencing some 60-80mph winds, but the storms just appeared disorganised and unfavourable to tornadoes. One was reported near where we were in northwest Wisconsin, but the photos seemed unconvincing. Here's my only photo from the day.

Yesterday's storm

Today also gave us a chance to catch up with the TVN (TornadoVideos.net) crew, who have a hand in running the tours. Here's their tornado intercept vehicle, Dominator 2, below topped with their data recording equipment, cameras and data probe cannons:

Dominator 2. Yet to dominate much this season.

Reed Timmer, stormchaser and extreme meteorologist, runs the whole show. Fellow Dom 2 rider Chris Chittick, who knows how to hold a camera to put it lightly, actually celebrated his birthday today. It was one of three in the touring party. We also celebrated those of Kara and Shanda, who ironically is originally from St Cloud. She certainly earned the day off driving. She has been excellent at the wheel, which she has done every tour this year while also producing books for each one. Shanda is a machine, but even machines need a bit rest once in a while! While we were completing our group dinner and drinks, there were several reports of tornadoes in Kansas, but we were never a chance to get to them and light was poor.

Hopefully I don't sleep in this time and get up prepared for some potential exciting weather tomorrow afternoon. I'll probably ride in blue van, which houses the live stream (live.tvnweather.com). When you wake up in the morning, you never know, you might see the group pursuing a tornado. Hopefully I have an exciting tale to tell you all for my next blog.

Positive start for reunited crew

The old tornado chasing gang of Shanda, Val, Melissa and I was back together again yesterday to seek redemption for our tour of nothingness in 2011. And today we almost got what we were looking for. But more on that later. Yesterday was a bit of the reunion and team meet and greet, but most of the bunch knew what we were in for with all but three having been on tours in 2011. We were all able to bond immediately comparing stories about our entertaining tour leader Dave Holder, who provided a few funny highlights last year despite not seeing tornadoes. Dave's an English citizen but has lived in the US most of his life having spent time in Philapelphia  and studied in Oklahoma. You wouldn't know he was English unless he told you (or you read my blog). He does have a few rather interesting traits, which is part of the reason people keep coming back. Everyone has a story about Dave. The good thing is he's an Oklahoma City Thunder fan (for those NBA lovers out there). I adopted them as my team having spent a bit of time in Oklahoma last year.

But before we get to talking about our LONG drive on our first chase day, I have to mention the State of Origin. Queenslander!!!! You beauty. I got up at about 3.45am in Denver to set up the live stream on my laptop. I tried so many sources that wouldn't work and JUST got in before the game began. The first half went off without a hitch, but by the time I hit the second the stream had it and I had some commentary coming through over Facebook before getting the feed back for the final 10 minutes. I thought:

1. Michael Jennings deserved to see the sin bin coming in third man in throwing a flying right hook to spark the all-in near the start.

2. NSW stuffed up a heap of chances and made bad choices, which is why they lost the game.

3. Cameron Smith and Brent Tate were our best

4. NSW had a good expansive game, good kick and chase and put pressure on Qld.

5. Qld had a hopeless kicking game and the defence was pretty loose (until NSW got close and made errors)

6. The Inglis try at the end probably wasn't one but at the end of the day Qld had the upper hand before that try was even scored. Add to that we would have got the ball back 10m out due to a NSW knock on in that play before the ball was kicked out of the hands of Inglis.

I'm glad I'll be home for the next game.  The lack of sleep caught up with me later that night (as I wrote this blog in the van on the way to the hotel somehow. Fortunately I was all up and ready to go when we left at 7am from our hotel in Denver. As opposed to last year, this year there are two vans, the blue van (last year's, the one with the webcam in it) and the red van (both SOOOO much more comfortable than the vans last week where we crammed 14 into one of them). It would have been wrong for me to pick the blue van as I proudly sported my Queensland jersey after our win, so it was into the red van with last year's crew, Mitch from Alice Springs, Nicole from Ballarat (again, I was one of five Australians on the tour - the other two were from Melbourne) and Cara from Illinois (C or K?). Another tour guide Blake, who has an uncanny ability to mimic accents, joined us from blue van just before we started the chase.

Red van - first session. Front - me and Shanda, Row 2 - Val, Row 3 - Nicole (L), Melissa (R), Row 4 - Mitch (L), Cara (R)

Red van... or blue van?

The first stop was the Extreme Tornado Tours custom of a morning coffee stop at Starbucks (they're everywhere). I wanted to keep going for the day so I got a chai latte as I would if I ever went to a coffee shop at home. The barista said I should chai to have a nice day. It's my style of comedy. Well I certainly needed something to laugh at on the drive, as we literally drove through the middle of nowhere (basically abandoned towns, no gas stations, no nothing) in eastern Colorado to prepare for either chasing storms in eastern Nebraska or getting into position for the next day set to be in Wisconsin. All we saw was grass and a motor racing circuit (amazingly, not an oval speedway). We stopped in at a Pizza Hut (eat-in!) for lunch. I went to order my pizza. No hawaiian. Ok, so I made my own - ham, cheese, bacon, pineapple. Sounds easy enough. Well, not if you're the waitress at the restaurant. I said it about three times and everyone else understood me, but not this lady. When she eventually took my order she thought it sounded a bit odd (has she never heard of a hawaiian pizza???).

That was about the only thing interesting that happened before we got to the serious part of the day. I wasn't expecting to be chasing storms today, but was still prepared to get some photos. We stopped in at a gas station in Kearney, Nebraska as we waited for another tour guide - Kevin, who built the Dominator (a tornado intercept vehicle which catches the eye of everyone in town when it stops or blasts through) and Dominator 2, which we are likely to see the latter and their navigator and 'extreme meteorologist' Reed Timmer tomorrow - to catch up to us. It marked the end of my tenure in the co-driver seat, where DJ Killa Grams was back in the house. The van enjoyed my chase CDs I'd done up for the trip. We stopped probably 20 minutes after Kevin arrived and joined the blue van to view some developing cumulus cloud, which matured rapidly and the chase was on! It wasn't long after that we saw several dust devils/gustnadoes and minutes later and rising dust everywhere indicating the air getting sucked into the storm. Add to that driving through 40-50mph winds and it was difficult to see and to keep up with the storm. Once we made it through the dust we saw new funnel-shaped lowerings forming once in a while, rapidly rotating clouds and a period of intense CG (cloud to ground) lightning strikes. I even heard tornado sirens for the first time as we travelled through the town of Garland. The longer we followed the more it looked like a tornado could happen, but any chance of that ended just before we hit Omaha. Reports suggested the storm we were on produced hail 3.5 INCHES in diameter. We kept on for a couples of hours longer into the night before staying the night in Des Moines, Iowa. Here are a couple of photos from the day.

Cloud lowering on our storm

Dirt kicked up by inflow winds

A proper dust devil/gustnado

Tomorrow it looks at this stage as if we will be heading north in the morning a couple of hours to Albert Lea, Minnesota before heading west and a bit further north to Wisconsin, which has a better chance of tornadoes than today. Actually we've just moment ago been told it will be a HISTORIC tornado event so get on the live stream live.tvnweather.com when you wake up and you might se us chasing one (we're the one tagged Extreme Tornado Tours or ETT or something). Our guides got on the right storm today but it didn't quite happen. But it has only been one day and it's already been better than last year's tour, which yielded nothing.

I've still got a fair few photos to upload to Facebook from Grand Canyon onwards, so stay tuned for them. Maybe if we have a down day on tour I can get them all done!

It's just not meant to be

Yesterday was a sad day. The final voyage for a tight-knit group of adventurers and their brilliant tour guide. Our group was really close after just one week together. But as is the case there are always certain people who will miss each other more than others. That was the case for me and it was obvious for our group that I was pretty close with Karina and vice versa. It sucks you can get attached to someone before realising after this you may never see them again. It's the only bad thing about trips like this.

So that made the final day a little torturous and we drove from Yucca Valley into Los Angeles. It was a pretty quiet ride and that, fortunately and unfortunately, gave me plenty of time to think of all the good times I'd had during the trip. The unfortunate bit was realising after today it was all over. I spent a lot of time thinking how the goodbye would go. What should I say? What should I do? It's not like I've never had to say goodbye to someone before. Why would this be any harder than those times?

It was all put to one side for a moment when we approached LA and had a bit of a look through the Hollywood Hills and Karina and I walked along Hollywood Boulevard for a bit around Mann's Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre. It was pretty hectic down there. It was a bit too crowded for me and if you knew me well enough you would know Hollywood wouldn't be a place I'd enjoy. I know that sounds kind of ironic I don't like crowd when at the same time I love attending massive sporting events. So it was back in the van and to our hotel.

And now for something completely different...

They reserved one for me. Not that I have Hollywood aspirations.

Our tour guide then dropped us all at nearby Venice Beach shortly after we all checked in. Karina, Toby and I farewelled the remaining people in the group (although we all later met up again at the hotel bar) and we decided to walk along the waterfront to Santa Monica Beach. It was the relaxing walk I was looking for to end the trip but you could feel it in everyone - the final goodbyes were inching ever closer. Most of the conversation was silence-breaking. At one stage we probably walked 15-20 minutes without saying a word. It was strange. We got to the famous Santa Monica Pier (the end of Route 66) and had fish and chips (awful service I might add - I waited an hour for mine) and even caught a glimpse of the eclipse, which was conveniently shrouded in a heavy enough layer of cloud to allow people to view it safely, before heading back to the hotel.

Venice Beach. Looks like a beach. A bit cold though.

Santa Monica Pier

 

Now I had to get a photo of Karina with her camera, because she took almost twice as many photos as I did in that week!

Eclipse!!!

I had a final drink with tour leader Abby and fellow tourists Andrew, Gillian, Katrina, Anita and Toby (Jesse who I shared a room with all tour had left earlier) that night and eventually most of them left for a nearby bar. It left Karina and I to say our final goodbyes. I walked her to her room (no, it's not going there people) and we sat and talked for at least an hour and just put some things into perspective. She said there were still a few things she had to work out. I won't go into them. But she made points about not making our time together 'complicated', trying not to think about it too much (I overthink everything) and how sometimes it's just not meant to be. It's reasoning you can't argue with. We said how there would always be Facebook, which is some consolation. But it won't be the same as being there in someone's presence. There were long periods of silence - again - but we seemed content with it. We both could have sat there all night. But at some stage I had to go. I was starting to get chills towards that time. So we got up and said our farewells and that we'd miss each other and how we'd meet again soon and there were a couple of hugs (I was a little worried I wouldn't let go) and I started walking out. We had a final look at each other... and I turned and walked down the hallway. When her door closed it was tough. The sound of the door completely filled the hallway. It's so hard to describe. But it just felt so loud, so painful. So final. That was it.
Hopefully I can find something good out of it. Karina lives in the US at the moment but she's heading back to Peru soon. I never really thought about going to South America but this could be an excuse to. Maybe I'll try to learn Spanish and head over there in a few years. I've never really had a use for a second language.

But I have to thank everyone from friends, work colleagues and family for encouraging me to do something else along with my tornado trip. If I didn't get all these suggestions from you all I would never have been able to meet such special people and get those amazing memories. This blog is for all of you!

But despite the pain of saying goodbye, tomorrow should be an exciting day because I get to catch up with four people I haven't seen in more than a year in Dave, Shanda, Melissa and Val! I'm told things are looking pretty good for some storms so that's exciting. Next time I blog, I'll be on the road... somewhere!

PS - I understand some of you think you have to make anonymous posts when you leave comments. Not so! Instead of clicking anonymous click Name/URL above it in the drop-down menu, enter your name only and voila.

Dust, devil and desert

Joshua Tree

So a nice later start for us to day, with less of a distance to travel to Joshua Tree National Park in the Yucca Valley. We started off with a bit of Route 66 action in Seligman, Arizona where I picked up plenty of merchandise for me and others. But some solid and uneventful driving followed. One thing I noticed about Arizona was their odd road names having seen Devil Dog Rd, Happy Jack St and Proving Ground Rd on the way. What was amazing was the fact it was 5⁰C when I woke up at 7am and 36⁰C at our first stop at 10am.

But today was my first stint in the co-driver's seat, helping our tour guide Abby out with some menial tasks and being the DJ. DJ Killa was in da house! From Wisconsin and a big Green Bay Packers fan, Abby also studied journalism like myself and did a bit of work with her local paper before she found her true tour guide calling. She's so friendly and energetic and knowledge and couldn't be better at making everyone feel happy and welcome and informed and having fun. I might have to return the favour with the driving when she travels to Australia.

Much of our travels today took part in the lifeless Mojave Desert, but for several dust devils. Basically they spin like tornadoes but are just dirt. We saw about 15-20 during our drive between the magma-formed mountain ranges. And thanks to Abby's driving, I had my first dust devil intercept! I was always hoping for it and had basically given up before about 100m away we saw a 6-7m wide dust devil right in front of us! We drove straight through it and there was a little bit of a gust of wind and a shake of the van and that was it. But exciting stuff. Hopefully that's a sign of things to come next week.

Dust devil

The intercepted dust devil west of Twentynine Palms

Then on to Joshua Tree, a very rocky and warm place. Joshua Tree is in the same family of the Yucca some of you would probably know. The rock formations were pretty similar to those you would see back home in Australia, but no two rocks are the same I guess. There were a few interesting rocks which resembled horses and shoes and that. We had a bit of a walk around, which was a leisurely end to the day for most people who fell asleep during the drive. In the park we also got to see part of the San Andreas Fault, which runs parallel to the US west coast. It's probably one of the most widely known fault lines in the world.

The "Merv Hughes" Joshua Tree

Woah! San Andreas faultin the background right.

To celebrate our final night together as a group we headed bowling in Twentynine Palms, just a little down the road from where we stayed. We toasted Abby for her amazing ability to make sure we saw everything possible during our time and putting up with us all for a week!

On to our final destination LA tomorrow. We'll be having a little Hollywood tour and some of us will be spending the end of the day at Venice Beach, where I plan to watch the sun set.

The SUPER blog - includes Vegas

Sorry in advance for the MASSIVE blog you are about to enter into. It includes Death Valley, Vegas and Grand Canyon experiences and photos. Enjoy.

So I promised you a "megablog" and it will have to be.  Despite some of the Vegas experiences that will stay in Vegas as is tradition, there's still heaps to digest (but I think I've done it quite succinctly, surprisingly), even for me currently as I write this part of the blog on three hours sleep. I'm surprised I can put a sentence together. I know everyone is waiting to find out how I went with the gambling: well, Vegas won as is pretty normal I suppose (but I don't mind saying I lost at the Bellagio). The Everyone is there for the same reason at the tables - to win, obviously - but the clubs and club culture is the thing that stood out for me. Everyone is on level pegging and you don't have to be dressed to the shit (although some do choose to) to be accepted. There's few juiced-up over-confident knuckleheads typically with tight jeans and shirts three sizes too small (no one I know) driving guys like me down. I didn't feel out of place I guess I'm trying to say, despite Vegas being such a crazy place.

Now to Vegas itself. This place has EVERYTHING. I rate it right up there. Everyone needs to come here. I couldn't fit everything in I wanted but the tour guide(the super-energetic Abby!!) reckons I did the best job in terms of activities. There was a gondola ride at The Venetian, probably the best indoor spectacle of the lot on the Strip (despite the ride being outside). I got to see a show, something I thought was essential, where I saw a comedic musical ventriloquist, took a limo ride down the Strip, watched the Bellagio fountain show, ate at a $20 all-you-can-eat buffet, I even went shopping (and I looked GOOD) and I've probably forgotten some other things. No, I didn't get married. A lot of this was possible thanks to the tip from our cab driver on the second day. This guy knew everything. Legend. But one thing was probably the highlight: the Voodoo Nightclub on top of the Rio hotel. If you go to Vegas for the first time, or again, you HAVE to make your way off the Strip to this place. I got in for free, surprisingly, and once I arrived had the best view of everything on the Strip and in and around Vegas. Words can't describe how awesome it was. You just have to see it for yourself. The music is great, the smoking and bubbling House cocktail, the Witch Doctor (a peachy rum cocktail) is something you need to try. It really topped of Vegas for me. I know Jesse, Toby and Karina (my "wolfpack" for much of the tour) couldn't believe it wasn't more popular. It is the place to be. Go there. Do it. I would definitely go back. Maybe having the lovely lady around helped me enjoy it all a bit more. Thanks to Karina for these Vegas pics.

Toby (left, England), Jesse (back, NZ), Karina (front, Peru/Washington DC) and I.

The gondola

The Witch Doctor, an experiment bubbling away.

From the Voodoo Lounge on the roof of the Rio

 Before we got to Vegas we travelled through Death Valley. It seems weird but I was so excited and pumped for that day. I know you just think desert: flat, dry desert but there's terrific gradient changes (we went from 5000ft (1524m) to sea level back to almost 5000ft then back down to below sea level within two hours driving), coloured rocks and huge canyons, sand dunes in random places, salt pans in random places, lavish hotels in random places and the lowest golf course in the world (mostly salt). We came to a stop at the Badwater Salt Flats, 282ft (86m) below sea level, the lowest point in North America. It must have been about 50⁰C. But dig 15cm below the surface and you'll find water. At a bearable temperature. Salty, but cool. There's a 'sea level' sign up in the hills indicating how far below you are. It's also incredible.

Devil's Golf Course

Ok now AFTER Vegas we travelled to the Grand Canyon. As recommended by many, I took to the skies for a birds-eye view. It has kind of made the budget tight but, when else am I going to get to do something like this? When in Rome. The 45-minute helicopter flight took us over the canyon, the wild Colorado River and to parts of the canyon not seen by tourists on foot. Our guide was excellent When we did walk around there seemed there was so much respectful quietness for the canyon. It's pretty hard to describe the size of the place or the sheerness of the cliffs, the patterns of the rocks... unless you've already seen it for yourself. Or looking at my photos.

The Fish formation

Fault line in the canyon

So tomorrow we are back to California where we'll stay near Joshua Tree National Park. Twin brothers and sisters in our tour group have their birthday tomorrow and we're going bowling and having a "tight bright neon night" party in conjunction with that to celebrate that and our last night together on the tour. Stay tuned for the next blog.

PS. If you haven't seen my recent Facebook or Twitter posts, I have read the mid-west states of the US are possibly in for a tornado outbreak from Wednesday/Thursday. So odds look good for me.