New York City

Johnny and I arrived in New York yesterday evening. We hopped on the bus, transferred to a subway, and arrived to Eric's place [the couch surfer we're staying with]. He lives in lower Manhattan and has an awesome place. We went to eat pizza & crepes in Washington Square Park and then came back to crash and recharge for today. 

Today we walked all over the city. We went to see ground zero and the construction of the Freedom Buildings. There were news reporters ALL over talking about the recent news regarding Bin Laden. The President will be here tomorrow to speak on the subject of  9/11. 

We then continued to the Financial District and watched all of the important business men as they hurried by, engrossed in their blackberries, clearly without a minute to spare.

We headed up to Time Square and looked around the shops, I even held the world's largest Hersheys bar--it was not easy to leave such a heaven-sent behind.

After attempting to find reasonably priced tickets to a Broadway show, we gave up just in time for an all too stereotypical New York scalper to offer us tickets to Wicked for $40 bucks a piece. Skeptical Johnny told the guy we think he's ripping us off. The man then pulled out a huge wad of 20, 50 and 100 dollar bills. He then shouldered up against us and thumbed through his cash claiming that he has enough money, 'why would he need to rip us off?' Although this little demonstration convinced us less of this guy's validity, the fact remains, Izzy knows every word of Wicked the Musical but had never seen the play. so we couldn't pass this up. We had our new scalper friend come with us to the entrance to make sure we weren't getting ripped off, payed him, and happily walked in to witness the best show we had ever seen. 

After the show we walked for hours around Central Park. There is no way to describe the feeling of escaping the city within a matter of minutes and finding ourselves absolutely surrounded by natural beauty. It was wonderful.

Wish us safe travels to London tomorrow,

I&J

Venice Beach

We spent a total of 9 hours roaming around venice beach and laying out in the sun. We shopped, ate, and gawked at the crazy things people were doing to earn a dollar. 

We made a stop at Muscle Beach, and played for a bit. Here are a few of our tricks:

Jaxon:

Isabel:

Johnny:

Then we [accidentally] fell asleep in the sun for 1 hour & 40 minutes. We woke up scorched by the sun, with all sorts of funky tan lines.

We left the beach in search of Baby Blues BBQ, a restaurant featured on the Food Network. 

We ate our hearts out & returned to LA to take ice cold showers and cover ourselves in Aloe.

Happy day,

I&J

San Diego

Our initial reasoning for going to California was to visit Johnny's grandparents. I had never met them, and it had been quite a while since Johnny had seen them so it was due time for a visit. We had a lovely lunch at a little diner and chatted for hours about the "good old days." They shared their wisdom with us and we soaked it up. These individuals have been a large part of who Johnny is today, so I could not thank them enough for their hand in that.

We later went to visit Johnny's aunt, uncle, and cousins in San Diego.

It was an absolute dream. 

We finished the night off with hot tubbing and delicious fish tacos. 

Yours truly,

I&J

Las Vegas

Vegas was a first for both of us, so it was a wild experience. We strolled around the casinos observing the people and marveling at the site of so much money being thrown around, and the man made 'beauty; all around us. Though amazing, Vegas cannot compare to the natural beauty we observed in Zion.

Our friend Alex Vaughn was sweet enough to let us stay at her home. They're place was a fairytale, as was their dog. 

Until Next time,

I&J

Our Big Journey

The Adventure Has begun. Please follow us as we travel across the US and then into Europe. 

Here's the list of our destinations:

1. Zion

2. Las Vegas 

3. L.A

4. San Diego 

5. New York

6. London

7. Wales

8. Ireland 

9. Berlin

10. Brussels 

11. Paris

12. Barcelona 

13. Rome

14. Cinque Terre (Italy)

15. South of France

16. Back to London

17. Pittsburgh 

18. Seattle

19. Portland 

20. Back to SLC

It's going to be quite the summer! If you want to see some sweet places and get some tips on super cheap travel stay tune.

Now for stop one:

Zion National Park:

This place is spectacular. We had no idea what we had been missing. While Utah is full of great national parks,  Zion has some of the most dramatic cliffs and terrain we have ever seen. Take a look at our two days there.

Day one we did the Kayenta Trail.

 Along that same trail we found the Emerald pools. 

 Later that night I (Johnny) burned my 10 year old North Face backpack.  It was given to me by my sister a long time ago and I've used it to travel all over the place. It finally broke and I decided to burn it as a tribute to its long life. 

The next day we went to Angel's Landing. It was beyond brilliant, the hike takes you on a series of switch backs up the mountain, a few which you have to hold to a chain in order to climb up.

 As we descended we had to wait 45 min for trail maintenance. This was a perfect opportunity to get some sun thousands of feet in the air...on the edge of a cliff. Not so safe, but oh so wonderful.

Below gives you an idea of what kind of terrain we were hiking (more like climbing) up.

Next up, Vegas.

I&J