VEGAS!

The lights of Las Vegas left us quite dazzled after we spent a night wandering "the strip": the most famous area of the city, filled with casinos and stores and huge luminous signs. One of the most impressive features was the water show at the Bellagio (below) which played every 15 minutes. Even at night, the city was pretty warm.

Little do people know, but the city of Las Vegas also has a significant part away from the lights and gambling: we stayed in a quiet suburban house, just a few miles from the hustle and bustle, but feels like a world away.

Long Beach, LA

We stayed for two days in Long Beach with Ben's friends Eric and Beth Balmer.

LA is unbelievable, the population is at least 30 times bigger than Northern Ireland!
Spot the geography nerds!


It was Memorial Day, a national holiday, when we were there so everywhere was pretty busy but we went down the coast to Laguna Beach and spent the day swimming, relaxing and eating amazing Mexican food.

Carmel-by-the-sea, CA

After our time in San Fran we began the trip down to LA.

Along the way we camped for the night in Carmel, a quiet little town where Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor. Hows that for useless trivia!!

We saw our first californian surfers and got some icecream

San Francisco - Half way through the trip

On our way south we stayed in San Francisco for a couple of days and took in the sights!

We cycled the Golden Gate Bridge!

Checked out the local market

Ben and Boram also checked out the Wicked Musical which they said was awesome and we met some really nice people at our hostel who joined the roadtrip team at different times as we explored San Francisco!

Happy Burger Diner

This place was the real deal in terms of a blast from the past american diner.

Yosemite Mighty!

Hello from San Fransisco!

The crew is currently spending a second night of three in the city of Cable Cars, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge.

Two days ago we were in Yosemite National Park and saw incredible sights. The car (which we might name “Old Faithful” due to its fantastic resilience) made the 50 mile climbing drive to the park, which turns out to be a Garden of Eden. Full of flora and fauna, the park is a playground for any fan of nature. There were also many photo opportunities, including the numerous waterfalls, forests and rock formations (well, at least I found them interesting!).

Yosemite Park and Falls

Three foreign mammals

River! Trees! Nature!

Oregon and Northern California

Oregon was incredible! After we left Portland, we took the 101 which goes down the coast and although it was raining/foggy the views were amazing!

On Friday we crossed into California and got to see some of the Redwood National Forest. The trees are massive! I don't think the photos do them justice!

PORTLAND! INTRO. MUCH MORE TO COME!

After 3000 miles and two weeks on the road we reached Portland, Oregon!! We stayed with our friends from THESE NUMBERS HAVE FACES and spent a couple of days relaxing by exploring Portland, which is an awesome city, and seeing what goes on at the TNHF office.

This is the famous skatepark under Burnside Bridge, close to the TNHF office

We are back on the road now and went south along the Oregon Coast and just crossed over into California yesterday! 

We have a lot of stuff to get up here on the blog from Portland and traveling through Oregon which will hopefully be up in the next two days!

Until then if you haven't sponsored TNHF yet by pledging at 

www.thesenumbers.com/roadtrip09

Then please do, all money goes to Anda's education in South Africa, something that a lot of us take for granted with the availability of student loans.

Highlights from South Dakota and Wyoming

Lakeside, Montana to Portland,Oregon

We were in the state of Montana for 3 days, including our visit into Yellowstone National Park.

Montana has definitely been one of the most beautiful states we have visited so far, plenty of mountains and rivers which can be alot more interesting to drive past than cornfields, which we had seen for most of our first week on the road.Last night we stayed with Ben's friend Grace at the YWAM camp in a small town called Lakeside, in the northern part of Montana. From the photo you can see where it gets its name from.The people there at YWAM great and we didn't really want to leave but we pressed on to Spokane, Washington, crossing through a little bit of Idaho on the way.

We are heading to Portland today to meet the guys at These Numbers Have Faces. It will also bring us into Oregon and that little best closer to seeing the sea and reaching the west coast!!

Baseball in Cincinnati and visit to Clarke College, Iowa

SNOW DAY?! In May!!

After a wet night in the tent we got up early and headed for Yellowstone.

We had been following the weather in the last week and with the forecast for snow we weren't entirely happy about bringing our Volvo, no matter how reliable she is, up the side of a mountain so one quick trip to the rental desk at the airport in Bozeman and we were on our way.

Yellowstone was brilliant, we were only in the gate when we came across our first herd of bison.

We got to see Old Faithful do her thing, and saw a lot of other animals as well as getting caught in the middle of the hunt for a wolf that was on the loose and considered extremely dangerous, so all in all an action packed day of fun! 

MOUNT RUSHMORE!

WOW.....

Welcome to the Rockies!!

So we are now in Montana, which is home to part off the massive Rocky Mountain Range!

We are staying in an amazing time warp town called Livingston, which is a short drive from the entrance to Yellow Stone National Park.

Group morale is at a high after an awesome trip to Mount Rushmore and seeing the new X-Men movie

 tonight in the local movie theatre!

So tomorrow we hit Yellowstone and then the trip to Portland!

Please keep following the trip and sponsor These Numbers Have Faces by pledging 1 penny per mile for as many miles as you can!!

HEADING WEST

We are now in Wyoming! We have spent the last few days in South Dakota, home to Mount Rushmore, the Badlands and lots of buffalo!


We are camping each night, cooking beans, setting up our tents and all that good stuff so it really feels like proper roadtripping now!




Heres a little video that Min put together from our first couple of days on the road!!

"You guys are a long way from home..."

TWO DAYS IN!!

We are certainly a long way from home, and have already clocked a lot of miles on the car: 700 miles in the first two days!!

There are already some incredible things we have seen:

• MILES of beautiful farmland in Indiana and Iowa
  

• Ronald Reagan's Hometown, Dixon




• Beautiful hills and towns in upland Iowa (and the Mississippi!)

We have already been very blessed by the people we have met, whether they have bought us food or returned a bag we "lost" off our roof on the highway...

Peace!