South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota & Wisconsin

We drove into South Dakota and visited deadwood where apparently they filmed a tv show that we have never seen. We grabbed some lunch picked our first KOA to camp in near Mt Rushmore and set off on our way. Usually the KOAs are too expensive to camp in but we bagged ourselves a buy one get one free night. Yippee! We stayed for two nights, when we arrived it was raining slightly but Andy wanted to get the tent up straight away. It obviously started to pour down and our neighbours helped us put up our tent, it hailed too and the biggest hail or ever seen for us English folk, apparently that size is quite normal.
We spent the rest of the evening in the hot tub surrounded by kids and the odd adult. That night we settled down in our tent about an hour in my leg was soaking and the rain water had soaked through my sleeping bag to my clothes so we abandoned ship and slept another night in the car.

In the morning we ate pancakes and set off for Mt Rushmore. It was smaller than I expected but still pretty impressive, definitely something to see if you can. We then drove on to the crazy horse memorial which was a let down to start with how much it costs to get in and that doesn't even cover the bus fare down to the sculpture. We watched a video about the monument and then decided to go back to the camp ground, crazy horse bugged me as not much of it had been done.. They talk about how much they need our contributions to finish it but there is a brand new massive welcome area new paved roads etc it's like common people lets get a wiggle on. Our last night in the KOA we managed to sleep in the tent which was nicer than the car because you can stretch your legs out.
We left SD in the direction for Minnesota driving through Iowa so that Andy could say we have been there, it pissed it down so we couldn't even get out the car.

In Minnesota we visited Minneapolis for the morning the main reason being so I could visit the sculpture garden and the cherry and spoon sculpture. I studied the sculpture when I was in school so it was pretty cool to actually get to visit! Before we went there we yelped a place for brunch and picked the Bad Waitress, we both had omelettes and they were good! You also take your own order, hence the name.

After leaving Minneapolis we picked a camp site near a lake in Winona, it was hell! We had to sleep in the car the first night due to storms and we had been bitten at least 10 times. The next day was the same bites all over again, they just wouldn't leave you alone even with the bug spray. The next night we got to sleep in the tent with a thunderstorm going on. Andy slept through it whilst I gripped his hand as the tent lit up from the lightning, it was terrifying!

We decided to book a semi cheap hotel for 3 nights before we arrive back in Chicago to get rid of the bugs and clean ourselves properly. We are currently here at the moment
With 2 nights to go. Tomorrow we plan to go thrifting, stuff is so much better in this country! If anything exciting happens I'll include it in my Chicago post.

We are nearing the end of our trip and the feeling is bittersweet, I am looking forward to going home and movin into
Our new house to nest but I am not looking forward to going back to the hell hole of work & I am sure you will be worse than before!

Chicago next!

Washington, Idaho, Montana & Wyoming

The state of Washington is so beautiful, we drove around the Olympic peninsula which was stunning with a beautiful glacier lake just on the outside. We visited Forks where Twilight is based and Port Angeles which was a nice little town with twilight bits and pieces every now and again. If you've only read the books then these two towns are exactly how it's described. Nothing like the movies though. After P Angeles we visited olympic Game Farm which is the home of the waving bears. Basically these bears and others used to be trained for Disney movies and are still trained today. They were deffinately a high light of my trip. We stayed a night in Tacoma and spent the morning in Seattle where we ate Brunch in a cute little place called Citizen nom!
We drove through a little bit of Idaho and into Montana where we slept our first night in the back of the car due to the weather being bad! We woke up early...ish the next morning and made our way to Yellowstone National Park! Another must see place if you've never been, snow capped mountains, lakes , waterfalls and Geysers! The Geysers smell like rotten eggs but are ace! The colours of the waters and the minerals are so interesting, can't get too close incase they burn your face off though! People have actually died from burning alive eeeekk! We did get to see Old Faithful erupt though yay! The park is huge so we didn't even make it round the top half but the bottom part was still pretty awesome!
After leaving the park we drove to Cody which is a cowboy town which Buffalo Bill is from (or something like that, he may of founded it actually) this is a proper cowboy town with steakhouses and rodeos every night! We didn't watch a rodeo as I thought I might get too upset when they tie the calfs up :(
Once leaving cody we drove to Devils Tower which is an old volcano thats core is just left. It's pretty cool as it sticks out of the ground with nothin really around it for a couple of miles. After visiting DT we made our way down to South Dakota!

San Francisco and the rest of CA and Oregon!

After leaving Sally and Stew we made the long drive up to San Francisco with a stop in a town called Seaside on the way. We drove the 1 hwy up to SF which was beautiful with loads of coastal roads and views.
We arrived in SF too early to check in so we took a walk around lands end, roman baths and drove around to get some views of the golden gate bridge. We ended up on a beach full of nude men trying to get a view of the bridge which was also full of washed up jelly fish.
We checked in to our hotel which was on Lombard street, across the road from doggy day care which was full of pups every day :) we relaxed that evening and ordered in Indian take away nom. Whilst we were there we also took a trip to Alcatraz where we learnt about the prisoners. We went to fishermans wharf and pier 39 to see the seals. We walked up Lombards crookedest street and down the other side, man SF is steep and full of hills. We also ate Chinese in a box which we had wanted to do since we arrived.

We left San Francisco and made our way up the 101 hwy which was still a drive up the coast. We drove through a tree on the way to redwoods which had some impressive trees and we bought some more tiger butter fudge which is my favourite. I also ate a pint of salted caramel gelato! Nom!

We drove into Oregon which is a beautiful state, well what we saw of it. It was full of beautiful green trees and mountains with beaches doted in between. The weather was grizzly which made the state even more pretty!

End of 66 and start of CA

We finished the rest of route 66 after leaving Vegas by visitng Calico, a ghost town. We wondered around for a bit but had to give up as it was far too hot and we could feel our skin burning. We finished our last night on route 66 by staying in a Wig Wam motel for the night. Harry potter was on when we arrived and we drank special flavoured sodas that we picked up in OK. The next day we drove to the airport to collext Sally and Stew before making our way to Hollywood. We were waiting for them for ages and even saw Sean Wright Phillips and some other footballer. I liked Hollywood, we stayed for 5 nights, got as close as we could to the Hollywood sign. Visited 6 flags (must do it) which was dead so we managed to get on a lot of the rides. We went to Santa Monica pier, We visited Universal Studios where we saw Kurt from Glee and the large white girl with glasses. I turned into a complete geek and took photos lol. I calmed down once they got on the tour cars with us. We saw whysteria lane (desperate house wives) the plane crash from war of the worlds, Bates motel from Psycho and some other cool film sets. We got to test our the new transformers ride before it was open which I thought was amazing haha. We also took a tour of WB studios which I only found out about through google but it was FANTASTIC. We saw so many sets my favourites being Merlottes bar and car lot area from True Blood, friends places - Gellers house, central park where phoebe runs weird and actual Central Perk. :) also saw the Big bang theory set!!!!!!! If you visit, you seriously have to do this. Our tour guide told us how to get tickets to watch sit coms being filmed so we ordered 4 to watch Sullivan and Sons which is produced by Vince Vaughnan, he was practically sat next to us as we got there so early and got amazing seats. The TV show airs in July on TBS my favourite channel over here! So you'll be able to hear us laughing
On episode 4. Before I forget vince waved at me. Ask Andrew... No one else had noticed he was there and I was clapping to myself like a loser. He must of thought I was special.

We moved onto Anaheim for
5 nights which had a heated pool and
A hot tub. We went to both parks is Disney and spent a day by the pool
where we all got incredibly burnt, mine being the worst because it's me!! Andrew and I went in the hot tub till 11pm one night because we are crazy!
We moved on to San Diego last for 4 nights. It's a beautiful place! We ate lots of great food, visited
Seaworld, went to the beach, went to a shopping mall and met Sally's cousin and bf who have no sense of time!!! Over all California has been good to us so far! X