All good things must to come to an end

Hi all,

Well, this post is a little late as we're actually home, but thought we'd give you a rundown on our last couple of days in SF.

Tuesday we went on a Segway tour of the waterfront, etc. It was so much fun and the 2.5 hours went way too fast. The tour started with a 15 minute introduction and training session and then it was time to hit the streets. To begin with they limited the speed to 4mph, but after a warm up and zoom along the pier they increased it to 10mph, which still wasn't fast enough!
At the end of the tour we received an honorary doctorate in Segway Navigation and Rider Proficiency!

We took the bus back to the hotel to drop our stuff off and then it was time to tackle Lombard Street (the most crooked street in the world). Every cable car we had previously caught had taken us to the top of the street, but not this one ... it landed right at the bottom, so we had to hike all the way to the top.

They put all the bends in the street because the horses that carted goods up the hill were dying of exhaustion going up the vertical slope! Getting to the top was well worth it, the views were incredible and the houses were extremely well maintained. I guess having hundreds of people driving past every day you would like your place and garden to look good (maybe we need to have more traffic up our street and we will manage to do our yard more often!).

By this stage it was dinner time, so we walked to a tapas restaurant we had spotted a couple of days before. The food and wine were great and we managed to make some friends, even after Nell unknowingly insulted them by guessing that one of the guys sisters was his mother ... oops!
They invited us to a bar down the road and after they found out we had just gotten married the champagne came out for a toast. Mixed with the white wine from dinner and the red wine we were drinking at the bar you can imagine that the cable car ride back to the hotel was interesting.

When we got back to the hotel room Luke decided he hadn't had enough to drink so it was off to the hotel bar for him, leaving me chatting online to Ally .... mmm, I'm sure I made a lot of sense!

Wednesday was a very slow day. We managed to get up and go shopping at China Town for another case around 3.00 pm. We had an early dinner at a Thai restaurant before heading back to the hotel to get back into bed.

The last day was interesting. Luke found out that Dave's Insanity Sauce was made in SF, so he got on the website to find out how to get there. He assured me that the whole trip would take two hours max. Well ... the underground train ride was good and quick, then came the bus ride, or more to the point rides.
After a few trips and lots of walking we finally found the place which was actually a warehouse and they were mighty surprised when two Aussies knocked on their door! All the trekking was worth it though because we got to meet Dave himself and they gave us lots of freebies that he signed. We also purchased a couple of sauces etc.

We got back to the hotel in plenty of time to catch the shuttle bus to the airport where we made some more friends, who we had a few drinks with in the bar before the long haul back home.

Well, that's about it. Thanks again everyone for your comments, texts, emails etc while we were away. We look forward to catching up with you all and boring you senseless with our stories and photos!

Nell and Luke xxxxx

San Francisco

Well we're on the countdown - only three more days left before we fly home!

On Saturday we walked through Chinatown and down to the Pier area. We passed a church that we thought was cool so we took a pic to later be told that it was where Jo Dimaggio married Norma Jean!

Being a Saturday the Pier area was packed. We lined up to ride the cable car back to our hotel. Luckily time isn't an issue for us as it took an hour to finally get on. Luke must not have heard when I said I didn't want to be on the outside of the car, because that's exactly where he took us! I couldn't have held on tighter as we went up and down those steep hills if I had of tried ! We stayed on until the end of the line and then went to have a look at the Westfield shopping plaza. It was Robbie heaven - seven floors of shops!

Sunday we headed back down to the Pier and went on a 2.5 hour tour of the city before going on our tour of Alcatraz, which was amazing. It totally lived up to what we thought it would be like. Lots of stories - some sad, some funny and some down right scary! The cruise there and back was quite good too - seeing the SF skyline from Alacatraz at night is quite spectacular. We got back to the Pier around 8.30 pm so headed to a place called the Cannery for dinner before heading back to the hotel.

Today we had a bit of a sleep in and then in the afternoon went to the Imax theatre to see the Transformers movie and then to one of the Grotto's for dinner. The place we went to was recommended to us, but it was very disappointing.

That's about it for now, more to come tomorrow.

One day in September

We arrived in San Francisco about 5pm, after an interesting plane flight with some woman showing us photos of her kids. She obviously was a little geographically challenged, not only did she think we came from Austria, but she didn't even seem to know Australia existed. She also looked just as blank when I offered up kangaroos and koalas as a suggestion to jog her memory.

It took us about an hour to get to the hotel. The last 2 blocks took about 30 minutes due to a traffic jam. Quite the different experience from little old Hobart.

We had to check in quickly and jump on a bus quickly so we wouldn't miss the singing of the National Anthem or the first bounce. Luckily we got there in time, and got some beers and found a good spot where we could see one of the 1000 TVs they had showing the game.

I needn't give a run down of the game, I think everyone knows how it ended. The pub started packed but by half time the crowd had thinned out quite a bit. Just a few hardcore aussies left, and of course we just had to have a chat to them all.

There was a few varied stories, some there on holidays like us, some living in the US, and one girl from Geelong who married an American and has been living in San Francisco for the past 7 years.

Not having any real idea where we were and what time the buses ran etc. we figured it best to catch a cab back for some much needed sleep.

Nashville Rocks!

We arrived in Nashville, and it looked like a very interesting place, much bigger than Memphis. Nell drove a bit of the way and couldn't pull over before we hit the city, so had to drive us to our hotel! Thank God for the GPS we hired when we got the car!

After checking in we went for a stroll around the block to get our bearings and work out where everything was. We passed the Ryman theatre, and saw the Country Music Hall of Fame a few blocks over so the sight-seeing destinations for the next day were scouted.

Having figured out where all the restaurants and bars were we went back to the hotel room to get changed then we were off to the Wild Horse Saloon where we heard there's boot scootin!!!!!!!!!
The Wild Horse had some of the best ribs we've ever had, they literally fell off the bone. But that wasn't the only good thing there. They had a live band called Tell U Ride, who were very good and played a good mix of country rock and some more mainstream tunes. Nell knew a lot of the country stuff and was bopping away, so much so that she convinced the guitarist to come over for a chat. Imagine that! We also saw two people boot scootin - we're not sure they were all there, but it was very funny. It was a good night but caused a few sore heads the next day.

We still struggled through however and got up early enough to do a tour of the Ryman theatre, which is one of the original venues The Grand Ole Opry was performed in. Next was the Country Music Hall of Fame, which included a tour of RCA Victor Studio B, where many hits have been recorded, Nell was in heaven.

Next stop was the latest home of the Grand Ole Opry - Opryland. The place is massive, it includes a hotel, a shopping mall, theme park and of course the Opry House itself. We missed the last tour for the day, but managed to catch the first one the next day. The Opry House besides hosting up to 3 performances a week of the Grand Ole Opry, has also hosted many other shows and performances, such as; Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen, Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Kelly Clarkson, Robin Williams, Bill Cosby, Dr. Phil, Wheel of Fortune and most famously the first event to be hosted other than the Opry was a live cattle auction, as you do.

Fatefully we went for a walk through the shopping mall and the first thing we saw was a Fossil shop - you guessed it, another watch was purchased!

We then headed to Lynchburg to visit the Jack Daniels distillery. Instead of taking the freeway we went via some back roads and got a good look at some of the smaller towns along the way. It was much more interesting than flying along in four lanes of traffic with trucks surrounding us. The tour was interesting. We're not sure if our tour guide was really a true southern hick dressed in his overalls and talking so slowly it was painful, or if that was just part of the atmosphere they wanted to portray about good whiskey taking time to produce.

After some further driving we got back to Memphis to the worst hotel ever; The Heartbreak Hotel. Enough said about it really, other than don't bother staying there.

We're now once again waiting in an airport to head to the last stop on our trip, San Francisco.

The webcam video of the wedding is now up on the Viva Las Vegas site - http://archives.vivalasvegasweddings.com/ramgen/Archive/LButcher.rv

Keep the comments and emails coming, we love reading them.
- Luke and Nell

I'm going to Graceland

Graceland
In Memphis Tennessee
I'm going to Graceland

We spent three hours doing the tour of the house, grounds, cars and planes. It's an amazing place - nothing like we expected. The house itself is actually quite understated (apart from the Jungle Room).

The grounds are huge and there are stables, racquetball courts, the pool etc as well as exhibitions showing Elvis' awards, clothes he wore in movies and lots more.

The end of the tour in the racquetball area where Elvis spent his last morning before going upstairs where he died was very emotional, and then it was time to go past Elvis' grave, a memorial plaque for his twin brother Jesse Garon and the graves of his Mum, Dad and Grandma (that was the end of Nell - the tears they did fall!). They still get flowers and tributes to Graceland from all over the world on a daily basis.

After that we went to the Memphis Fire Museum for a look - very underwhelming, but at least we can say we saw it. Then it was time to work out what to do for dinner - we decided to go to Little Rock, Arkansas. It was only two hours up the road and we're on holidays so off we went. The highways here are insane. We've never seen so many trucks in all our lives. You rarely see a car, its just truck after truck the whole way.

That's about it for today. Tomorrow we're leaving for Nashville so it might be a couple of days before we're online again.

Take care y'all xxx

Memphis

Today we ventured to Sun Studios at 706 Union Ave. This place is considered by some to be the
birthplace of rock and roll, blues and soul. It's most famous for being the place Elvis Aron Presley cut his first record.

Some other famous people to record at Sun studios include Carl Perkins, BB King, Ike Turner, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Besides doing tours during the day, it has reopened in 1987 as a working recording studio. The "modern" stars to record there since the re-opening read like a whose who; Matchbox 20, Def Leppard, Beck, Bonnie Wraith, Paul Simon, Ringo Starr and last but not least Bono and U2 recorded a little track called When Love Comes To Town, as well as others from the Rattle and Hum album there.

I was privileged enough to be able to belt out a verse of Love me Tender on the actual mic used by the King himself. Quite an amazing place and a massive part of the history of Rock and Roll.

The Big Day

The big day started with breakfast in our room. Dani turned up around 11.30 am in time to head down to the Salon for a massage. We chose one called the "Goodluck Ritual Massage" and it lasted around 80 minutes - very relaxing. Then it was time for Luke to get his haircut and shave and Dani and I to get our hair, makeup and manicure/pedicures done. I wish I had of done my makeup myself after seeing the end result, however it was too late! I asked for a natural look - I'm guessing that means something different in the US than it does in Australia! Anyway, after four hours of pampering we were ready to go back to the room and get dressed.

Luke obviously finished before us, so he went and bought the champas etc. Ben, Cyryla, Merrilyn and Alan arrived for drinks and then it was time to go downstairs to hop in the limo to the chapel.

We got to the chapel and when we stepped out it was like getting out into a wind tunnel! We got inside and then Luke and I were whisked away to make our grand entrance in the Pink Caddy. The rest of the ceremony went by fast, and then it was time to have our photos taken and then into the limo again to go for dinner.

We had dinner at Spago's which is located at Caesars Palace. The place is huge, so it was a bit of a trek to get there, but the meal was well worth it. Our waiter Charles was a hoot and kept us entertained for the evening.

Once dinner was finished it was time to go back to our room so that everyone could pick up their belongings and say our goodbyes as we were all going our separate ways the next morning.

Some people have asked so here are a few photos from the day.

The Grand Canyon

Well this update is a little after the fact, but it's the first real time we've had a chance to sit down and clean-up some photos and type up some words.

One of the days we spent in Las Vegas we decided to hire a car and head out to the Grand Canyon.

My usual impeccable style shone through once again, seeing us rent a bright red Ford Mustang convertible. If you're going to do something it has to be done right.

The drive to the Grand Canyon took about 5 hours. It could've been a little shorter but we decide to go via Lake Mead national park, and the Hoover Dam. Both also amazing places in their own right, but the Grand Canyon itself was the highlight of the day's journey. You hear numbers like 300 miles long, 1 mile deep and 10 miles across but you don't get a feel for how big that really is until you see it in the flesh.

Actually I still have no idea about what a mile really means, as evidenced by the Arizona state policeman who stopped me and pointed out that 87 was a bit faster than the 75 I should've been doing. He was nice however and left me off with a warning, no doubt helped by Nell winding down the passenger window and greeting him with a hearty G'Day in her best Australian accent. There was also another minor incident involving a red light, but nothing too big. Apart from that driving on the opposite side of the road was fine and Nell even gave it a go, strangely not long after I got stopped, go figure.

The deed is done!

Hi all, just a quick update as we sit in the LV Airport awaiting our flight to Memphis.

Unless you're living under a rock, you will probably know by now we are married! The ceremony was good, and everyone there in the flesh said they enjoyed it so hoping everyone virtually there did as well.

Nell did a very good job of holding it together, but there were a few close moments. :) Hopping out of the caddy was a bit of a challenge especially in high heels.

If anyone didn't get to see it because of technical or other reasons, never fear we have video and photos to bore you all with when we get back.

After the ceremony we went to Spago's at Caesar's Palace for dinner. The food and service were excellent which finished the evening really nicely. The only sad part was afterwards, when we had to say goodbye to everyone as we all flew out for different destinations the next day.

Thanks to everyone for all your emails, text messages and comments here, you helped make our day extra special. We'll try and get some pics and a bit of a blurb up in the next few days now the the hectic craziness of Vegas has come to an end.

Vegas is Awesome!

Hi everyone - yes it has been a few days since our last post - we are having such a great time in this amazing place that we haven't had the chance to update the blog. It's extremely hot - around 35-40 degrees most days so we are sleeping in and heading out early afternoon and getting home anywhere between midnight and 2.00 am!

We have been catching up with Dani, Merrilyn and Alan every day and just trapsing up and down the Strip wandering in and out of hotels - once you get in it's almost impossible to get back out again so we've only seen a few of them. We managed to see the water fountains at the Bellagio, Volcano eruption at the Mirage, Gondolier rides at the Venetian etc etc.

Luke went crazy at the factory outlets today and is now the proud owner of five more watches!!! I think that brings him up to about 20 - you can never have too many apparently.

Tonight we went to Treasure Island to see Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere - we were mesmerised! Oh prior to that we were in a great bar where if the crowd made enough noise they got free shots - directly into their mouth from the bartender.

As you can tell from the ramblings we've been doing heaps, but I think we've only seen .5% of the place.

Just in case anyone missed it the link to the webcam is http://www.vivalasvegasweddings.com/livevideofeed.htm. We'll be in the "Main Chapel" so to view that feed be sure to click on the Icon that says "Our Main Chapel" (the first one). A reminder as well it'll be showing at 11:30am Saturday September 22nd Hobart/Melbourne time.

You'll need to have RealPlayer installed which you can download from www.real.com, to test it you can click the link at any time but before Saturday you'll probably just see Elvis telling you the wedding hasn't started yet. It might not start exactly at 11:30am either so don't lose hope if you still see Elvis, just close RealPlayer and click on the icon to try again.

That's about it for now - it's just turned 2.15 am and we're beat. Time to get some sleep so we're ready for some more adventures.

We hope you are all well - keep the comments coming we enjoying reading them (does this make up for the lost days Rae?).

Welcome to Lost Wages!

Just a quick update to let you all know we arrived safely in Vegas. We spent the next few hours after arrival trying to sort out hotel stuff up, not happy Jan!

All was eventually sorted though and we caught up with Dani, Mum and Alan. We had a wander around the Venetian and checked out the canals complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers. Dinner was then had at one of the restaurants along the canal.

We finally got back to our hotel about 2am, quite a long day and we saw a lot even though it doesn't sound like much on paper.

Hopefully we can get some photos in the next few days of this amazing place for you all.

Seaworld

Today saw us head south down to Seaworld in San Diego. It's about a 2 hour trip from LA, but I'm sure our driver was trying to make it in 1.

First thing on the list of must see was Shamu, the star attraction, and he was well worth the hype. We also saw an animal show somewhat similar to Universal, but still just as good.

Then it was time for Luke to try the Journey to Atlantis roller coaster, which was very disappointing, not nearly long enough or scary enough for the wait.

We also saw heaps of exhibits / enclosures such as the polar bears (which involves a very cool motion simulator helicopter ride to the "arctic base"), and the sharks which were quite scary close up.

The day finished with the dolphin show, which again was amazing to see how high they can jump out of the water. We then saw the Haunted Lighthouse 4D show, which like Shrek included squirting water and eerie wind and ghosts moved out at you and mice ran under foot.

We then went on the scariest ride of the whole day - the bus ride back to LA.

Venice Beach

Just a quick entry today - we went shopping at the Beverley Centre which was huge and then we headed to see the freak show at Venice Beach, including some guy who wanted us to pay him to see the stars! There are definitely some crazy people in this neck of the woods. To catch the bus back to the hotel we went to downtown Santa Monica - very nice, we could definitely live there.

Shopping and Ball Game

Today we had a bit of a sleep in and then made our way down to Hollywood Boulevard to get Metro all day tickets. After trying to see Will and Charlize again to no avail we made our way down to Melrose Avenue to check out the shops. We saw Pink's Diner where it's rumoured Sean Penn proposed to Madonna.

Later we hunted down a bus to go to Dodgers Stadium to see if we could get tickets to the game. We really had no idea where to get off the bus, however we spotted this guy in a Dodgers hat that looked like he was heading our way, so as soon as he got off the bus so did we. The stadium was nowhere to be seen, so the shy souls we are went up to him and asked if he was going to the game - luckily he was, so we had a chat all the way up the hill to the stadium.

We managed to get tickets and saw the LA Dodgers defeat the San Diego Padres 6 to 1, whilst enjoying a beer and a hotdog. It was then time to go back to the hotel (with Luke stopping for Sushi on the way) to rest for another day of touring.

Universal Studios

Today we went to Universal Studios - it was awesome! We arrived at 10am and stayed until it closed at 6pm. A full day of being kids :)

We started off with a tour of the studios and backlots - we saw where Desperate Housewives is made (it was being shot today, but we didn't see any stars ... once again!), then it was off to see the attractions, including Backdraft, how movie sound effects are done, the Mummy ride (pic of entrance here).

After some lunch we saw the Universal Animal Actors, Terminator 3D (absolutely great!), Shrek 4D (4D added the next dimension, including the sensation of donkey sneezing on us) and the Waterworld show.

We also went on the Jurassic Park ride - now most of you would know Nell doesn't do rides .... well Luke assured me it would be ok and despite my suspicions, I wouldn't get wet. Mmmmm - we weren't on the ride two seconds when the first drenching came .... and it was downhill from there!

We were glad to get back to the hotel after a big day. We hope you are all well xxx

Hollywood

Today was our first full day in Hollywood.

We toured the star's homes in Beverly Hills, unfortunately they all seemed to be out at the time. We then took a ride on a double decker bus and checked out Sunset Boulevard, Melrose Avenue and the part of Hollywood Boulevard that wasn't closed for filming!
Yep they were filming a movie, apparently someone must've heard we were in town. It's titled John Hancock, and starring alongside us will be Will Smith and Charlize Theron.

Tonight we ventured up to Universal Citywalk and had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.
Nell is now telling me to go to bed, so I guess that's all. Stay tuned.

We Arrived!

We have arrived in LA - flights were horrible, Luke felt sick the whole way - we think a bit of food poisoning before we left. I forgot how horrible it is to sleep on a long flight - just over 12 hours trying to sleep sitting up is not fun. I felt like I had a hangover when I got here!

We got to the hotel and slept for a couple of hours and then just went for a walk down the street - we're just up the road from Hollywood Boulevard so we went to have a look at all the stars on the sidewalk.

Further updates in the next couple of days.

Our Trip

 9th Sept - 15th Sept  Los Angeles
15th Sept - 22nd Sept  Las Vegas
22nd Sept - 25th Sept  Memphis
25th Sept - 27th Sept  Nashville
27th Sept - 28th Sept  Memphis
28th Sept - 4th Oct    San Francisco