Home Sweet Home

Home is the place we love to be most.
Bears' are no different to humans in their love of the place they live.

After a Road trip of 3 weeks starting in bitterly cold, New York, frozen ponds in Central Park, and the coldest boat ride ever to Liberty Island.

 Then driving Route 66 from a snow covered, freezing Chicago

 Across Illionios. meeting Gary Turner at the Gay Parita filling station. That was a meeting none of us will ever forget. A true gentleman.

Across Missouri to the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, Rhamona was another lovely person and a pleasure to meet.

Melba ' The Mouth' in Galena, Kansas was passionate about keeping '66 alive (happy that Pixar Studios arrived there oneday).

To Oklahoma, Beautiful.  Onto Texas, just how I hoped it would be. New Mexico,  really high up, hot and dusty. A great place to buy Indian Jewelry. Into Arizona, next and a detour to Sin City, Nevada and all of its' temptations

Ending in Sun drenched California, with a huge sense of achievement and feeling that our preconceptions of a nation had been changed for the better.

Thanks America and Route 66, Fred has had fun.
But its great to be home.

If you get the chance to, do it!
Its fun.

See you on the road.

Fred.

Fred is California Dreamin'

Well it's been an eventful 24 hours as we near the end of our road trip across the USA on Route 66. We left Las Vegas behind us on Friday morning slightly less cash rich than before. My foolproof system to break the casinos along the strip failed.

Fred putting on his pokerface.

The drive across the Mojave desert is fairly unremarkable except for a quick stop off at Elmers' bottle ranch. His collection of stuff collected from the desert is a sight to behold.

Fred at the bottle ranch.

And so on to Los Angeles and the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA. The Biltmore is a very grand place, it was the home of the Oscars' ceremonys during the 1930's.  The lobby area has many pictures from those glamourous times. Walt Disney, Shirley Temple and many other Hollywood stars have received their gold statues in this building. The Biltmore Bowl is a huge ballroom within the hotel complex that held these prestigious events.

The Biltmore today however is a hotel that for us did not live up to these high standards, car parking costs $48 per day, wifi $10 per day (hence no bear blog yesterday) our 8th floor room was extremely noisey, at 3am we went down to reception to complain and arrange to check out in the morning. 

We decided to drive down to Santa Monica and find some new lodgings for the remainder of our time in LA. We are now checked in at the Days Inn on Santa Monica Boulevard (old Route 66), a lovely room, a great balony with beautiful view and hopefully some peaceful nights ahead. 

Fred is living the dream in California.

Recharging at Battery Park

Ive been a busy bear on day 2 in NYC. After a hearty breakfast at Carnegies' ,my new favourite Deli on 7th Ave we jumped on a tour bus and headed downtown. With the weather hovering around freezing an open top bus ride meant hats and scarves for my buddies. I was pretty cosy tucked up in my backpack. A boat trip out to Liberty and Ellis islands are obligatory in New York. More posing for photos for me. Returning to Manhatten we decided to bypass the bus and walk back uptown to try and warm up. A quick stop off at our hotel before setting off again to see a show. 'Once' the musical was fantastic and a great way to spend our evening. Dinner at the Hurleys bar next door to our hotel on 48th West meant I was far to stuffed to blog before bed. Sorry. Day 3 is here already. Bring it on.

Planning the trip of a lifetime

Our impending road trip has taken alot of planning. Flights to NYC and onto Chicago have been booked. We arrive in the Big Apple on St Patricks Day. Spend a few days exploring the city, move onto Chicago for a couple of nights while we prepare ourselves for the 'Mother Road'. A Jeep Cherokee will hopefully be waiting for us on Monday 24th March. 

Then a 2000 mile drive over the next two and a half weeks begins. Stopovers have been booked in Springfield,IL, Lebanon,IL, Tulsa OK, Amarillo TX, Albuquerque NM, Santa Fe NM, Holbrook AZ, Williams AZ, Las Vegas NV, and our final stop in LA. A mix of posh hotels and traditional Route 66 Motels should make for the trip of a lifetime. Flying home from LAX on April 9th we will definitely be ticking the trip off of our bucket list.