The last National Park we visited in Utah was Zion, we were looking for accommodation and stumbled across the Clear Creek Ranch. We drove up a long drive and went into this large house via several different entrances (all the doors were unlocked) but no one was about. After driving around the land for a while we found the owners who were not at all bothered that we had been in the house, it seems like not a lot of doors get locked round here! John and I were the only guests in the ranch house which had 13 bedrooms! It was nice to be in a place where we could cook for ourselves and lounge around on the sofas in the evening.
Jane after a 15 mile hike in Zion, (OK it was actually more like 2 miles).
It’s so nice when the wildlife are happy to pose for photo’s.
After Utah we headed into Nevada, the plan was always just to travel through but we needed an overnight stay so stopped in a place called Primm which is around 80 miles south of Vegas. Having experienced the adult theme park that is Las Vegas on a previous trip we purposely did not stop there but is seems the whole of Nevada is the same, Primm was just like Vegas on a much smaller scale! Rows and rows of slot machines and gaming tables and no natural light to distract the gamblers, quite surreal. The only plus side was the hotel rooms are incredibly cheap ($25 for a huge room), unfortunately for the casino they didn’t make any money out of us as we only stopped long enough to take this photo we didn’t gamble at all. This place was in the middle of nowhere and we met a security guard with a broad Yorkshire accent who had lived there for 6 years.
Jane was very relieved to see this sign for Santa Monica, John had done a fantastic job of battling through the mad traffic that surrounds LA, basically for those who know the M25 it was like 3pm on a Friday with double the amount of lanes. From the first LA exit to when we exited for Santa Monica which is still part of LA there were over 40 junctions and we travelled about 55 miles. It’s huge.
We spent most of a day cleaning the bike and all our riding gear and luggage in preparation for shipping to Australia, fingers crossed it is good enough for Australian Customs. Other women in this fashion conscious city carry designer handbags, however, Jane had spent 2 days on the back of the bike clutching a blue plastic bucket as we travelled around town to buy cleaning materials and find somewhere to do the cleaning.
This kind of sums it up for the Tenere‘s US trip, today we took it to the shippers for crating and shipping to Oz. For the next 12 days we are using a hire car to explore this part of California. After a couple of days in the hire car we are both missing the bike!
Opposite our motel in Santa Monica was a music shop called McCabes, it’s been there years and has quite a reputation with both amateur and professional musicians in California. It’s a big shop and several nights each week they have live music. The night before this photo was taken we went to watch a singer called Eliza Gilkyson in this room, the dark area at the back is the stage and the floor area was all seating. 12 hours later it looks like a music shop again.
As soon as John stepped onto Muscle Beach all the bodybuilders left, they were just too intimidated!
An example of John’s strict training diet, roast beef and a few pints in an Irish bar!
Sunrise at Jalama beach near Lompoc in California, we are camping about 50 yards from this beach. Going to sleep listening to the waves crashing on the beach, it’s pretty special.
The last National Park we visited in Utah was Zion, we were looking for accommodation and stumbled across the Clear Creek Ranch. We drove up a long drive and went into this large house via several different entrances (all the doors were unlocked) but no one was about. After driving around the land for a while we found the owners who were not at all bothered that we had been in the house, it seems like not a lot of doors get locked round here! John and I were the only guests in the ranch house which had 13 bedrooms! It was nice to be in a place where we could cook for ourselves and lounge around on the sofas in the evening.
Jane after a 15 mile hike in Zion, (OK it was actually more like 2 miles).
It’s so nice when the wildlife are happy to pose for photo’s.
After Utah we headed into Nevada, the plan was always just to travel through but we needed an overnight stay so stopped in a place called Primm which is around 80 miles south of Vegas. Having experienced the adult theme park that is Las Vegas on a previous trip we purposely did not stop there but is seems the whole of Nevada is the same, Primm was just like Vegas on a much smaller scale! Rows and rows of slot machines and gaming tables and no natural light to distract the gamblers, quite surreal. The only plus side was the hotel rooms are incredibly cheap ($25 for a huge room), unfortunately for the casino they didn’t make any money out of us as we only stopped long enough to take this photo we didn’t gamble at all. This place was in the middle of nowhere and we met a security guard with a broad Yorkshire accent who had lived there for 6 years. 
Jane was very relieved to see this sign for Santa Monica, John had done a fantastic job of battling through the mad traffic that surrounds LA, basically for those who know the M25 it was like 3pm on a Friday with double the amount of lanes. From the first LA exit to when we exited for Santa Monica which is still part of LA there were over 40 junctions and we travelled about 55 miles. It’s huge.
We spent most of a day cleaning the bike and all our riding gear and luggage in preparation for shipping to Australia, fingers crossed it is good enough for Australian Customs. Other women in this fashion conscious city carry designer handbags, however, Jane had spent 2 days on the back of the bike clutching a blue plastic bucket as we travelled around town to buy cleaning materials and find somewhere to do the cleaning.
This kind of sums it up for the Tenere‘s US trip, today we took it to the shippers for crating and shipping to Oz. For the next 12 days we are using a hire car to explore this part of California. After a couple of days in the hire car we are both missing the bike!
Opposite our motel in Santa Monica was a music shop called McCabes, it’s been there years and has quite a reputation with both amateur and professional musicians in California. It’s a big shop and several nights each week they have live music. The night before this photo was taken we went to watch a singer called Eliza Gilkyson in this room, the dark area at the back is the stage and the floor area was all seating. 12 hours later it looks like a music shop again.
As soon as John stepped onto Muscle Beach all the bodybuilders left, they were just too intimidated!
An example of John’s strict training diet, roast beef and a few pints in an Irish bar!
Sunrise at Jalama beach near Lompoc in California, we are camping about 50 yards from this beach. Going to sleep listening to the waves crashing on the beach, it’s pretty special.
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