Washington State

We arrived in Seattle after a two and a half hour flight. The most stressful part of the journey was wondering if the bus to take us to LAX would turn up! As luck would have it, not only did we arrive in the middle of the biggest heatwave in years but it was also Labor Day and the Disney Marathon was run on Monday morning. And of course, we were caught up in that as most of the major roads were closed meaning traffic could not get through. However, we arrived in Washington without incident and stayed at a hotel close to the airport on the first night. It felt like murder central but we survived.. The next morning, Rod and Linda arrived to pick us up and take us to their place where we stayed for a couple of days. Rod and Linda live in Montesano, about and hour and a half from Seattle and it is where Chris leaves his Goldwing. Rod and Linda are the nicest and most generous people you could hope to meet. I think a kiwi must have been nice to them once because for some reason they think all New Zealanders are just great. Anyway, they not only put us up at their home, they also took us on local rides in the beautiful Washington State area (we oonly saw a fraction of it of course) and made sure we were well set. When the time came for us to go, Rod and Linda rode with us to Port Angeles - a three hour ride! Jenny and said our goodbyes there to this great couple and we boarded the ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island. We caught up with a number of other riders on the ferry and swapped stories of varying degrees of truthfulness. Jenny and I visited Butchart Gardens - a Vancouver Island icon yesterday and as we write this, we are about to check out of the hotel and catch another ferry to Vancouver where we will then start our ride to Edmonton via Whistler and Jasper National Park. We are having problems uploading photos but will have more pictures when we can.

The Adventure Begins!

Our flight from Wellington to Auckland was delayed for about 30 minutes which meant we made the international connection with 10 minutes to spare. As it happened, the flight to LA was also delayed. We had heard all sorts of horror stories about arriving in LAX, but actually it was pretty good. It was reasonably quick and the officials were very pleasant. We went from the airport to our hotel opposite Disneyland, had a quick shower and change and headed off to the magic kingdom. We arrived a Disneyland at about 4.30pm and stayed until 10.00 - watching the amazing fireworks show. The second day (today) we were back at Disneyland and California Adventure. You can see some photos. It is Labor Day weeekend here so there were lots of people, and the temperature is hot! About 35 - 40 degrees. We have already received text messages from friends and family wishing us all the best. Thanks to all.