Ballarat

Hello again I must apologize in advance because this will be a very short post. Apparently there is very little internet in the resort we are staying at. however on the other side of that this resort is amazing. I will take lots of pictures and post them sometime when I have a nice connection. Maybe we will mosey into town and find a place there anyway I just wanted to let you guys know in case I dont get anything posted tonight. I promise I will post stuff asap...

The Great Ocean Road

We woke up today which is Tuesday refreshed and renewed even though I woke us up at 2am with a mis-set alarm.(Whoops) We checked out early and after a quick stop at Safeway...which is not at all like safeways at home fyi...we headed out towards the GOR (Great Ocean Road). The sun nice and warm and the breeze refreshing.

We didn't make it far however before we came to a very beautiful beach. Naturally we had to pull over and take a walk. There was a nice walkway to get down to the beach and having recovered some of my swagger in the hotel bed I decided to climb some stuff. Dad had a better idea though, he felt that since he was on vacation he would take a mid morning nap.
I suggested that he probably should get up as we were burning daylight and also he looked like he was getting sand down his shirt. We headed on down the road toward Port Campbell which is our final destination for the day. .After about 30 mins we passed a dirt road that said Otway National Park, not wanting to pass up an opportunity we turned down the one lane red rock road. This went on for about 5 miles deep into the middle of nowhere. Finally we came to a turn around and there we found a nice place to park in the shade and we headed down a trail not sure of what we would find. What we found was pure paradise...it was amazing...huge cliffs overlooking a nice beach. After that we moved on down the road toward Port Campbell. There were many amazing sites to see and Ill try and put up a slideshow so you all can see the different countryside. We drove through hills right along the coast, farmland in valleys with cows and sheep, and barren fields where nothing stirred. Finally we came to the site we had been waiting for all day. The twelve apostles are one of Australia's premiere wonders. It was definately worth the wait, the sun was setting and the cliffs were fantastic. After that we got a room in Port Campbell which was only about 10 mins past the apostles. All in all it was a great day!

Geelong (How Long?)

After getting turned around twice once due to my error once do to the GPS although that may have been my error also we were on our way to Geelong. Driving on the wrong side of the car is one thing but remembering to turn into the correct lanes and not drive on the wrong side of unmarked streets was quite another.
Even looking in the review mirror was a challange. Dispite my initial trouble we soon made it to our hotel in Geelong (The Four Points Sheraton). We will probably post some more as we are just getting in around 2ish so we have some daylight left that we will most likely use to explore but anything can happen on this our magical journey.

Arriving in Australia via New Zealand

Even though I had been briefed as to how long it would be and how annoying sitting in those cramped seats would be I still didn't fully appreciate it until I finshed my second movie after I read about half of my book and we still had about 7 hours to go to Auckland, New Zealand. Fortunately the plane was only about half full so we could spread out which was good cause dad found a nice front row seat where he had lots of leg room. When we finally got to Auckland (Dear God finally!!) we had to disembark and go through security which turned out to be a walk in the park. We walked around some of the shops and I bought a cool tshirt. Then we boarded the same plane again to fly another 3 hours to Melbourne.

We were a mere 15 mins from landing in Melbourne when the captain made an announcement that we had been diverted to a holding pattern due to severe rain in melbourne. So we did donuts in our 747 for about 30 mins before being cleared to land. Once there we breezed through customs and baggage claim and customs again before finally making it to our car. This car is a beast plus it is gold which is the best color to blend in with right?

Los Angeles

We made it to the City of Angels around 130. We had to get our bags since we were changing flights so we dollied on down to baggage claim where our bags appeared almost too fast for us to get them. After that we met up with Uncle Rocky who had a fantastic tour of the city lined up for us. The weather was nice and sunny with a cooling breeze.

Uncle Rocky took us to see his work. We got to go up on the roof and see a great view of downtown LA. Then we made a loop around through Hollywood Blvd. Along the way we drove up into some very nice homes up on the hill finally we found a good place for a look out. This lookout included a very good view of the Hollywood sign.

(Aprox Time 6 hours)
Then we let the GPS system guide us to a hole in the wall resturant.. on our way back to LAX...called Billingsley's. We had a fantastic steak dinner with excellent service and a very downhome atmosphere. After that it was on to LAX for the long arduous part of our journey.

Seattle Departure

We started off on our grand adventure only to run into some security trouble right off the bat. Dad forgot to mention he had two very metal hips which kept setting off the detector no matter how many items he removed. Much to the chagrin of the TSA agent. We made it through ok after that and had some wendy's before heading to our gate to board the plane.
On this particular flight we didn't get to sit together(the flight was full but we were close enough that dad felt the need to throw napkins at me from time to time.
(Flight Time 3 hours aprox...)


We stopped briefly in Oakland before heading on to Los Angeles. Oakland was nice but we were only there a short time. Although we both got to watch some of the NIT finals in the lounge while we waited. Everything went smooth and we got to sit together.We rode in style with lots of leg room with our feet up on the wall.
(Flight Time 2 hours aprox..)

Cruising in Las Angeles

We made it safely and easily to LA. We are driving with uncle rocky. Dad wants to let everyone know that LA is huge!!!

Thank you Everyone for your support. This would not be possible without the love and prayers from all of you. This trip is going to be something that will mean the world to Dad(I will probably do most of the typing for this trip lol) but more importantly he feel truly blessed to have friends that glady help each other out. Thank You so much and we hope you enjoy watching and reading about every step of our trip.