Wandered down the road to Disneyland today. It’s a short walk from my hotel (which is nice) and I arrived just as the park opened. I picked up a two day park hopper pass which gives me plenty of time to go through both Disneyland and California Adventure.

Entering Disneyland I decided to navigate the park clockwise starting with Adventureland. There was no noticeable line for the Indiana Jones ride so I went for that first. The scope and size of the ride was pretty impressive even if it was all a bit by the numbers. There are three paths for the ride, when I’m back at the park early I might try it again to see if I get a different one.

After the Jungle Cruise I skipped Tarzan’s Tree House and went on to Pirates of the Caribbean. I never realised that it was all indoors and animatronic,  always figured it would be outdoors with actors. Whilst it’s showing it’s age I had a lot of fun. Jack Sparrow pops up all over the place in a where’s Wally sort of fashion. I took some photos but none really turned out, movement and low light seem to be my camera’s kryptonite unfortunately.

After meandering through Fantasyland and Toontown I moved on to Tomorrowland. There was a Jedi Training show that made me wish I was 10 regardless of the numerous inaccuracies. Star Tours was ok for one of those rides that moves around without actually going anywhere.

After finishing up in Disneyland I headed over to the California Adventure park. I’m not really much of a scary ride person so there wasn’t heaps to for me to do there. I did go to the Muppets 3D show which I enjoyed a lot and the Monsters Inc. ride which I enjoyed less. I wandered around for an hour or so before I decided to check out Downtown Disney.

After a cup of coffee and a little window shopping it was time to head back to Disneyland for the Christmas Parade and fireworks.

The Parade was the same as they have at Movieworld back home just swapped the Warner characters with Disney ones. They played the same Christmas song over and over again for 30 minutes which got pretty annoying. The Disneyland Castle looked pretty spectacular at night and it was decked out with Christmas decoration. I found myself a good spot and waited for the fireworks. They were very well done, I saw a couple of things I hadn’t seen before including the signature Disney shooting star arching over the top of the Castle.

I’ve still got another day at the parks, but I don’t have to do it tomorrow. So I may do some of the Hollywood stuff tomorrow and revisit the parks later in the week.

It was amazing to see the scenery change so much over such a relatively small distance. It started very flat and desolate with lots of cacti, to barren rocky hills, to forested mountains.

Stopped in Flagstaff to stretch the legs and grab some gas. I’ve worked out that if I run it down to a 1/4 full, I can prepay $20 worth and it almost brings it back up to full. This saves me having to leave anything with the cashier while filling it up all the way. I also took the opportunity to nick in to the local Walmart to pickup a new charging cable for my iPod. Walked past a few massive stacks of DVD’s at $5 each. It took everything I had to ignore them, telling myself there will be plenty of time for such splurging when I get to LA.

Arrived in Tusayan just after midday, tried to check in to my hotel but my room wasn’t ready yet. Headed down the main street to the IMAX theatre which also serves as the main visitor centre in these parts.

Picked up my visitors pass for the National Park and grabbed a ticket to the IMAX movie too. The movie was around 45 mins long and jumped around a bit between different time periods. Photography was pretty amazing, especially during the scenes involving rapids.

Nothing I saw in the movie prepared me for the enormity of the Canyon once I actually got out there. It’s a breathtaking sight, taking up your whole field of vision going on for miles in every direction. I was far more impressed than I expected to be. I think I got some pretty good photos but it’s hard to convey the scope in them.

Got back to the hotel and my room was ready. Hotel is pretty nifty, there’s a sports bar downstairs with an arcade and bowling alley next to it. There are also two restaurants upstairs, which seem pretty decent, although the sports bar is more my style. There’s also a coin operated laundry down the hall, which I’ll put to good use tomorrow. My room is pretty big, lot’s of space to spread out.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to the other viewing points around the Canyon. I’m especially interested to check out Desert View which is home to an old watchtower.

Parked at the Arizona Center which is sort of a open air mini mall. Wandered around for a little while, grabbed a coffee and browsed the stores. Walked past a big 24 screen cinema and noticed that Quantum of Solace was about to start so I grabbed a ticket. The film is pretty relentless, there’s an action scene about every 10 minutes. Very fun though and a worthy successor to Casino Royale. One this the US cinemas (or at least this chain) do is they have a standard digital projector displaying news, ads and making of’s before the scheduled time so there’s something to see before the trailers start if you’re early. It would be cool if Aussie cinemas adapted something like this.

Stopped off at the local Safeway on the way back to pick up some supplies before returning to the hotel. Had a nice steak for dinner in the hotel restaurant, then headed up to the bar on the roof for a couple of beers while watching the sunset.

Early night tonight, big drive tomorrow to the Grand Canyon.

Armed with a map and scribblings from the guy at the hotel I went in search of breakfast first. The OK Cafe was the recommendation so I headed a couple of blocks west and found it on a quiet corner. I ordered the bacon and eggs on toast with some coffee. One thing I’ve noticed over here is that you tend to pay for coffee once then can drink it all day if you want as they keep coming around topping up your cup. Probably not very good for you but still a nice touch.

After breakfast I was a little early for everything to open so I decided to go for a wander around the town to get my bearings and snap a few pics. Walking down the main street I noticed a number of small convertibles gathering. Turns out there was a Pontiac Roadster meet up in town. There were some nice cars there, but not exactly what your looking for when you want to be transported back in time 130 years. Fortunately they kept to a smallish area so they weren’t too much of a disruption.

The Courthouse Museum was the first thing in town to open so I headed over there. The museum did a pretty good job of chronicling the towns early history and was in great shape. A number of rooms (including the main courtroom) had been restored to look as they did in the late 1800’s.

Next stop was the site of the OK Corral. Inside was a Historama exhibit created back in the 60’s when Historama’s were trendy. The guy who created it was mates with Vincent Price and asked him if he’d do the narration for it, which was very cool. This was less about the shootout at the OK Corral and more about the town being totally destroyed by fire over and over then being rebuilt each time. This is why it’s been called “The Town Too Tough To Die”.

Leaving the theatre I moved on next door to the OK Corral museum. Here they detailed pretty much everything there is to know about the famous shootout between the Earp Brothers, Doc Holiday and the Clanton’s and McLaury’s. Set up out the back there were these mannequins in the roughly configuration of the actual gunfighters. When you pressed a button they moved their arms up and down whilst yelling at each other. Very cheesy but highly entertaining.

Running out of time I hit the road and headed for the Boothill Graveyard. There were a lot of well know personalities from the area buried here including the men that didn’t survive the gunfight at the Corral. I was a little disappointed there weren’t more comical headstones. I know graveyards in general aren’t really there for a laugh but I’d always thought this is where all the jokey inscriptions lived that were ripped off back home at Movieworld. Anyway I grabbed a brochure that told a little story about each person buried there which was pretty interesting.

Had no trouble on the drive back to Phoenix and I only needed to stop for gas. Found the hotel easy enough, really nice place. My room is essentially split into two. One is a lounge area with a table, couch and counter. This is there first place I’ve stayed where I could sit upright with a computer which was a real blessing. The second room was the bedroom with a massive comfy bed and a 50 Plasma with HD cable. Outside the room was just as nice with a great pool and a rooftop bar which has great views of the surrounding area.

Stayed at the hotel long enough to grab a shower then it was off to the US Airways Centre to see the Suns vs Trailblazers. Found a park easy enough and had no issues getting my ticket. The stadium is a lot more vertical than Madison Square Garden, with the seating sort of like the nosebleeds at the MCG. My seat whilst a fair way back gave me a very good view of the action because I was looking down at it.

The game itself was a pretty one sided affair with Portland never really looking like they wanted to win it. Nash, Amare and Hill played well and Shaq had a monster night. Whenever Raja Bell nails a shot a bell chimes which I found pretty amusing. For the Blazers it was all Roy, Blake and Aldridge. This was the first time I’d seen Oden and he was ok while Amare was matching up on him but once the Suns moved Shaq onto him he folded like a cheap suit. As big as he is, Shaq is bigger and out muscled him in the post over and over. He ended up with 5 fouls and almost throwing a tantrum before being benched. I know he’s really young but he needs to get his emotions in check because Shaq was thriving on it.

After the game I headed back to the hotel to watch some TV and crash.

Entered in the details into the GPS and I was off on the road to Tombstone. About an hour into the 3 hour drive I stopped at a rest stop to grab a bite to eat. After getting back on the road I started feeling really tired. Only sleeping 2 hours in 28 was starting to take it’s toll, so I pulled over again to have a snooze. I was right to go after that and drove on to Tombstone.

Rolled into Tombstone at 4pm and checked into the Larian Motel. The guy at the counter gave me a map of the town and circled all the things I should see in my limited time there, including where to eat.

After having my first shower in 36 hours I headed out to the Longhorn to get some dinner. Their burgers are apparently famous (according to the menu) so I grabbed a “Cowboy Burger” which was very tasty. Finished off a couple of beers then strolled back to the hotel, was in bed by 9pm for the first time in forever.

They only had two types of car available, Dodge Neon or Dodge Journey. I went with the Journey as it was a little bigger. It’s one of those half van half sedan type cars. Didn’t have too much trouble adapting to driving on the other side of the road, the New Jersey roads were another matter. The GPS never steered me wrong but I frequently faced a scenario were I was supposed to turn right but there were 3 right turns all within 30 metres of each other. After a few wrong turns I eventually got the hang of it, I just needed to focus on highlighted street on the GPS as approaching intersections.

It took less than an hour to reach my first stop in Red Bank, New Jersey and Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. Red Bank was a really nice area, lots of trees with houses on big blocks with heaps of space. I was a little early as the store doesn’t open until 11am, so I headed down the main street looking for some breakfast. Stopped in at No Joe’s Cafe which seemed like a nice little place. Grabbed a “Heart Stopper” wrap containing Egg, Bacon, Sausage, Onion, Cheese and Potato. It was as full on as it sounds, but pretty tasty. Had a regular coffee too which was bigger than most mugs you get back home.

After breakfast I went down to the store. Upon entering the guy behind the counter told me if I needed a hand with anything to find someone else cause he didn’t care. I said “Ok” and started browsing. After a couple more snarky exchanges with the guy I realised that he was putting it on trying to give me the “Clerks” experience. After chatting with him for a while he turned out to be a pretty nice dude. Lot’s of cool stuff in the store, particularly all the comic and movie statues. After picking up a Ranger Danger t-shirt and the new “Evening with Kevin Smith” DVD, the guy handed me a piece of paper with directions to the Quick-Stop Convenience Store where “Clerks” was filmed. I thought it’d been sold off and torn down, but armed with the knowledge it was still out there I had to check it out.

Managed to decrypt the directions and enter them into the GPS. Arrived at the Quick Stop in around 15 minutes. The area looked nothing like I expected after seeing the films, although the building itself looked as I imagined. It’s almost on the side of a hill and there’s a pretty major road just to the right hand side. Went inside, grabbed a bottle of water then hit the road again.

Upon arriving in Philadelphia I found a 24-hour parking lot across the road from the Khyber where “Local H” were playing later in the night. The location was really good as everything I wanted to see was only a few blocks west so I didn’t need to drive around.

I had an hour to kill before my Independence Hall tour so I went to check out the Liberty Bell first. The bell was located at the end of a long hall which chronicled it’s history. After that it was on to Independence Hall .

There were two main rooms the tour took us through, one was a Courtroom and the other was the Assembly Room. The Assembly room was where both the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution were drafted and signed. The room contained little of the original fixtures and furniture except the for the main chair where George Washington sat when he was in town.

I had a wander around the streets taking some photos of the old buildings and gardens. The old section of Philly is quite a pretty area and just standing there you can feel it significance. It’s a lot more laid back than New York with fewer people and no one hassling you.

For dinner I went to Campo’s on Market St as I’d read they had the best Cheesesteaks in town. It was nice but very sickly, I think it’s the cheese they use that makes it this way. They use some kind of processed cheese sauce, and a lot of it.

Still having 3 hours before the bands started I went to the only cinema in the area, a little arthouse place called the Ritz. There wasn’t much of a selection so I decided to catch “Rachel Getting Married” which I’d recently read some favourable reviews of. It was pretty decent although the director spent far too much time trying to make the audience feel like they were there at the wedding rather than spending time with the main characters they’d invested in.

By the time I got back to the Khyber it was time for the bands to begin. First up was “Fall On Your Sword” a 3 piece electro rock outfit from New York. They weren’t really my cup of tea using synthesized voices more than singing themselves.  Next up was “Local H” the reason for this side trip. In the 10 years since I last saw them they haven’t lost any of their intensity. They played a 5 song 45 minute set, with a lot of extended jams in between.

There was a bit of “entertainment” in the crowd too thanks to this one guy with black curly hair and a leather jacket who kind of looked like Leo Sayer. He was being a dickhead jumping around knocking in to people. He eventually jumped into the wrong guy, an Irish looking fellow in tracky dacks and a Philly Eagles top, knocking over his beer. The guy took one look at him then laid him out Leo in one punch as the crowd cheered him on.

I watched the first couple of songs from the last act “Electric Six”, but really needed to hit the road. I was feeling pretty tired and wasn’t too sure how I’d hold up on the couple of hours drive back to Newark Airport.

About halfway back I could feel the eyelids getting heavy so I pulled over at the next rest area for a power nap. I set the alarm and giving myself 45 minutes. I was ok when I woke up so I got back on the road and continued on my way. Arrived at Newark Airport at 3am a couple of hours before my flight to Phoenix boarded.

Was out the door by 9am this morning which is pretty good as I’ve had trouble adjusting to the time zone. Stepped outside to the coldest day yet, was in the negative (on our scale anyway). But the sun was shining so it’s hard to complain.

Straight up 5th Ave again today then east along 42nd St to check out Grand Central Station. I had a little trouble finding it as I thought it was between 5th and 6th and all I could see were some steps going to the subway, which didn’t feel right as I thought it’d be bigger. After circling the block I continued down 42nd St and found where I was supposed to be. I knew it’d be big, but it was way bigger than I anticipated. One of the best things about this city is the pre 1950’s buildings are pretty spectacular to look at. After snapping a few pics I continued east along 42nd St to 1 Ave then turned north. After a few blocks I reached the United Nations.

Feeling patriotic I walked down to the far end to grab a picture of the Aussie flag. It was flying high as I walked up then the wind went away, so I did the best I could with a couple of gusts. Went through another full on security checkpoint, I take my belt off at the mere site of site of a metal detector now. Got my ticket for the tour then strolled around the lobby waiting for it to begin. After a brief overview of the UN grounds we started the tour in earnest. We went though a hall containing a number of gifts given to the UN by various member countries then entered the main assembly hall. This was by far one of the coolest things I’ve seen since being here, so of course I wasn’t allowed to take any photos The hall was in session and it was massive, like needlessly massive. We were only in there for a short period of time but the delegates appeared to be talking about Sudan and the pirates taking control of ships passing by there, I reckon I could’ve sat there all day.

After leaving the UN I headed back to 5th Ave to plan my next move. Decided to take the Rockefeller Plaza tour but they were full up for the next couple so I moseyed on down to Times Square to see what else was going on.

I walked past the Belasco Theatre and saw a matinee of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” was about to start. Being a fan of some Mamet’s  film work like “Wag the Dog”, “Ronin” and “Spartan”  I went in to see if there were any (cheap) tickets. Got a ticket for $26.50 which put me in row F, six back from the stage! I have no idea where the $160 tickets put you but unless it’s on stage with the actors, it ain’t worth it regardless of how good the play is. And the play was pretty kick ass. The announcer at the start said Mamet requested every one turn their f**king phones off (censored for Mum ) which set the tone nicely. The play revolved around three guys planning to rip off a coin collector of his precious Buffalo coins. The three guys were John Leguizamo (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rogue), Cedric the Entertainer (Street Kings) and Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense kid). I was particularly impressed by Osment as I haven’t seen him in anything as an adult and he held his own really well. At one point Leguizamo hit him in the head with an iron and it looked so real I thought he wasn’t going to get up. Overall a very enjoyable couple of hours that I’m glad I rolled the dice on.

After that I headed back towards the hotel to grab a bite to eat. I’m currently sitting in the Galway Hooker Pub on East 36th St having a burger and a few pints, picture uploaded especially for Baff!

Got an early start tomorrow. The shuttle to take me to Newark Airport arrives at 7am. Should be picking up a car around 8:30 then on the road to Philly via Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Redbank, New Jersey.

Might update again from Newark when I get back, if not it’ll be from Tombstone, AZ.

Walked up to Rockefeller Center, just as I arrived they were lifting up the star onto the Christmas tree. Snapped a few photos then grabbed my ticket for the Studio Tour. Browsed the NBC store while waiting for the tour to begin. A couple of NBC Pages came by after a while (like Kenneth from 30 Rock, but not quite as eccentric) to take us on the tour. After watching an intro video they we were taken to what seems like my 50th security checkpoint. The first part of the tour took us through the MSNBC newsroom. From there we went to the Saturday Night Live set. Unfortunately not much was going on there today, apparently Thursdays and Fridays are the days you’re most likely to see some action. After that we went through the makeup section then to a mini studio where a couple of people simulated the reading of the news. No Conan O’brien or 30 Rock stuff unfortunately.

Went up to Central Park next. Wandered through for a while before heading over to the Central Park Zoo. It was a lot smaller that I thought it’d be, only taking me a couple of hours to go round and I was just strolling. The Polar Bears were pretty impressive and bloody big. The Zoo has this mini rainforest set up with what seemed like a hundred tropical birds, got some great photos but it’s the first time I’d wished my camera had a better zoom.

After finishing up at the Zoo I headed back down 5th Ave. Spent the afternoon tracking down stuff on the shopping list. Will hopefully check out Grand Central & the UN tomorrow, then make the final arrangements for Thursday’s Philly trip.

Tired from the late night before, I got moving early again. When I stepped outside it was only 3C but sunny with blue skies. I decided it would be the perfect time to visit the Empire State Building. There was no line when I arrived so it was straight to the security checkpoint. It didn’t take long before I was standing on the observation area. The views were pretty outstanding in every direction. Once I was back at street level I headed for Times Square and the Uptown bus.

The first bus I jumped on was just finishing up so I needed to get off at the next stop and grab another one. Went up through the top of the Theatre District past the Lincoln Center to the Upper West Side. Just around the corner from where John Lennon was shot I hopped off the bus at the American Natural History Museum.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a big museum so it was pretty interesting. Not long after entering the African section my camera battery jumped from 3 bars (full) to none (flat) so unfortunately I didn’t manage to get too many pictures. After walking around the museum for a few hours I decided to get back to the bus to continue the Uptown tour.

After passing Columbia University and a couple of massive churches the bus took us through Harlem then down the Upper East Side (the really really fancy section). Unfortunately a lot of the galleries and museums were closed on that side of town so I only got an outside view. I considered going to Central Park Zoo, but was feeling pretty zonked after a couple of busy days and with little sleep. So I hopped off at Times Square then walked back to the hotel around 3:30pm. Must be getting old because once I got there I set my alarm and crashed for a couple of hours.

Left the hotel at 6pm for the 7pm Rangers game. Was expecting trouble when I got there after yesterdays ticketing debacle, but there were no issues and I got right in. The game was pretty entertaining, Ottawa scored the first goal and for a while looked like they might win it. However the Rangers scored early in the third period to tie and the game was still tied after overtime so they went to a shoot out. The Rangers scored once more and blocked the three Ottawa attempts to win.

Got back to the hotel around 10pm, uploaded the photos then hit the hay.

Was much more organised this morning. Got up at 8, was out the door by 9 and headed straight to Times Square to catch the tour bus downtown.

The bus went down through the Garment District, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Soho, Tribeca and the Financial District. I jumped off at Battery Park to catch the ferry to Liberty Island.

When I arrived at the pier I had to go through what was essentially an airport security checkpoint just to get on the ferry. It was freezing on the boat, the weather dropped 10 degrees from yesterdays 20 and the wind made it feel like 4 out on the water. Took a heap of photos from the boat using the new filter. It’s hard to see the difference on the LCD as you’re competing with the glare, but when it worked it worked well. The ferry stopped at Liberty Island where I hopped off and wandered around for an hour. The ferry next stopped at Ellis Island, but there was a big line to there to get in and I was wary of the time it would take to get back for the Knicks game.

Jumped off back at Battery Park then grabbed the next bus to continue the Downtown tour. Headed back up past the Brooklyn Bridge, through Little Italy/Chinatown, passed the United Nations finishing up on 5oth St in the Theatre District. The bus wasn’t looping back so I jumped on another one figuring I could ride it through to 34th St, hop off, drop my gear off at the hotel then head to the Garden for the Knicks.

All was fine until the bus didn’t stop at 34th St as there was no one there to pick up. I told the tour guy that I wanted to get off at the next one, which the bus proceeded to drive through too. Unfortunately I couldn’t just jump off anywhere as the bus wouldn’t stop anywhere that wasn’t an official stop. At that point I toyed with the idea of riding the bus all the way around again, but considering it was 4:45 and tip off was at 6 it really wasn’t an option. I decided I’d try the subway back Uptown.

Got off at City Hall and headed down to the subway. Paid my 2bucks for a 2 hour ticket and waited for a train headed uptown. There wasn’t a lot of indication of where the trains were actually going so I figured I head in the general direction and jump off if need be. Uptown train arrived at 5pm, I was lucking it was an express and had me back at 34th St in 10 minutes.

Back on schedule I went back to the hotel to drop off my bag and made my way to the Garden through the Korean area on west 32nd St. I was lining up to pick up my preordered ticket at 5:40. They swiped my credit card and handed me the ticket the machine spit out. The ticket scanned ok and I was let in. The ticket said I should head to gate 90 which was way up top. I thought this was a little strange thinking I had better seats, but started taking the escalator anyway. When I showed the guy my ticket at gate 90 he said wrong night and laughed at me. I looked at the ticket, it was for tomorrows Rangers game. Turns out I’d paid for the Knicks game with my other credit card, which was locked in my bag back at the hotel.

I had to head back to the ticket booth, to try and sort it out. If I was going to go back to the hotel I would miss the entire first half. The guy at he ticket booth said there was nothing he could do without the original card even though I could rattle off every bit of info except the card number itself. Was about to head back to the hotel when the lady who ”d originally served me was listening to the conversation said she should be able to print off the ticket using my confirmation email and drivers license. She had to get here supervisor to do something but they managed to get my ticket out of the system and I made it to my seat just as the ball was thrown up.

The Knicks were firing early and led all game before letting the Mav’s catch up right at the end sending the game into overtime. In overtime they were destroyed by Dirk’s unguardable fadeaway jumpers. Still it was an exciting game to watch and the crowd was really pumped up. Jason Kidd is an absolute freak with eyes in the back of his head and Lee and Nate must’ve hustled 15 points from loose balls heading out of bounds. Magic Johnson was in attendance and when he appeared on the big screen everyone stood up and gave him a standing ovation. I also approve of there use of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ to fire up the crowd late in the game. A fun night out regardless of the outcome.

I’m heading Uptown tomorrow, which will be museums, galleries and Central Park. Will need to be extra early to the Garden as no one knows what will happen when I get my ticket scanned again.