Today Chris and I departed from Guelph at around 9:30am and headed out on the final stretch back to Calgary, Alberta. The next three days are going to be a lot of solid driving, so posting might be short.

At 12:00pm we hit the border crossing into the United States for the second time on the trip. This is the crossing in Sarnia, Ontario, and is also border crossing number three for the trip total. It was extremely busy, so we didn’t actually show our passports until 12:50pm and finally took off into Michigan at around 1:00pm. It was a very long wait on a huge bridge that connects Ontario to the state of Michigan. There were also a fair number of swine trucks, so the smell was pretty bad as well.

We hit yet another mileage milestone today. At 4:00pm we rolled over the 11,000 mile mark. Man, that is a lot of miles huh? An hour later we found a KOA in Gaylord, Michigan. A pretty nice one too. We had chicken and beans on an open fire for dinner, then played some cribbage before bed. It rained a little, but nothing will ever compare to the rain in the Florida Keys.

Well, it’s been nine days since we returned to our hometown. Instead of giving a summary for each day (as I did very little for some days and don’t know what the others did) I’m simply going to give a summary of what I did over the last nine days.

Most of my days consisted of waking up, having breakfast, and then hanging out in and by the pool. I bought some CDs as well and backed up all of the photos I took. 16 CDs for the raw format and 4 for the JPEGs (of which I burned for Kelly). With the Tour De France on television, I rotated throughout the day between watching the television and swimming. I played a round of golf with my friend Jeremys, Craig, and Jeff on the Monday. I hadn’t swung a club in almost 2.5 years, so I was a tad rusty. It was good to get back at it though. I have my clubs back home in Calgary and really want to hit up some links after I return.

Anyway, other than trying to gain back the 7.5 pounds I lost on our 45 day drive, I didn’t do a whole lot. I got to see my grandfather and my aunt and uncle for dinner and played some poker with Chris and our friend Jeremy. On Saturday the 22nd, Chris and I attended the first wedding of our high school friends. Good times. Open bar from 2:30pm to 1:00am. It was great to see friends I hadn’t seen in years and I even ripped up the dance floor a couple of times. Something I don’t normally do. Congratulations Erin and Adam! All the best in your years to come!

So, after being home for nine days, it is now time to complete the trip. At 9:30am this morning after saying good-bye to our families, we headed out on the road to Kelly’s in Toronto. We got there around 12:30pm and spent the afternoon checking out a couple of sites in the city. We met up with my younger brother at Union Station and headed to the CN Tower. I had never gone up it before, so we figured we’d do it so that we could at least say we did. I mean common, it is the tallest building in the world. The view was similar to most other towers we went up (Space Needle, Stratosphere, and Calgary tower). What the CN Tower has that no other tower has, is the glass floor. Pretty cool. Lots of people were scared to walk over it, but most were not. People were laying down and taking photos while others jumped on the glass to prove their courage. Chris and I walked out, but Kelly merely took a few steps before stepping back. It was pretty neat.

After the CN Tower we headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame. My brother decided to depart as he wasn’t much for museum-style activities, so Chris, Kelly and myself spent just over an hour checking out the history of hockey.

Not wanting to walk anymore, we headed back to Kelly’s house where we spent the evening. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and watched a movie. Oh and we watched a slide show of all of our photos while remembering the trip. It took almost 2.5 hours to go through. It was fun to look back at the things we had done and what we had seen. Something we will all surely remember for the rest of our lives.

An early rise today. We packed up after an excellent night of free camping. Our destination today is The Big Apple. Eager to get there, Chris started off the driving by scoring himself a speeding ticket. Needless to say, this set the pace for his mood for the day.

The drive into the city wasn’t too shabby. We got to Liberty State Park in decent time and stopped for a look around and some photos of the Statue Of Liberty. Unfortunately all we could see was her back, but it was alright. After the park it was off to Manhattan and it’s action-packed streets of pedestrians and automobiles.

Downtown New York was the same as I remembered, as I had been there back in high school for a Rugby tournament. People everywhere, bikes, cars, and the constant sound of horns. We parked in a sketchy lot just outside of Little Italy where we basically handed the keys to our vehicle over to some guy who parked it for us in a lot that seemed packed to the max.

Our first stop was ground zero, the giant hole that is all that remains of the World Trade Centre. Once a towering staple in the New York City skyline, the twin towers are completely gone. The giant hole that remains after September 11th wasn’t what I expected either. I thought there was going to be some type of memorial, but all we saw was people staring into the large hole while taking photos. There was a large printed timeline for people to see and names of the many people who died were listed. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t have expected much, but it seemed like not much was being done there. A few of the surrounding buildings were under construction, but other than the large hole, we didn’t see much.

After ground zero, we headed up towards Times Square. Stopping for lunch at a small patio restaurant we sipped (and chugged) some well-needed lemonade. The rest of the day was spent walking up towards Central Park where we tested the subway. Taking the train back down to a “close” proximity to where we parked, then walking the remainder of the way to the parking lot. By now we were all tired, but Chris’ mood decided to get the better of him at this point. After getting into traffic and cooling down, we finally made our way out of the city and headed to Beaver Pond Campground, our last camping night before getting home to the parents’ houses.

A nice little campground that seemed to have lots of spiders. The only thing that seemed odd was that they had wooden platforms for the tents. Seemed odd because you can’t drive a tent peg into wood. Anyway, we cooked up a whole bunch of pasta (even though we weren’t THAT hungry), hung out for a bit, burned lots of stuff (okay, Kelly burned lots of stuff), then we headed to bed.

Ah Malibu. This place is truely a paradise. We awoke to the sound of the ocean waves (since the campground overlooked the coast, which was ALL beach). We had breakfast, then hopped in the Jeep and headed for Los Angeles.

Passing through Santa Monica, we stopped at Santa Monica Pier for some views of the beach. There were lots of fisherman on the pier too, which was neat to see. It wasn’t big though, so we were quickly back in the Jeep.

Our next stop, Hollywood Blvd. We passed by Beverly Hills (which we check out later) and park. As soon as we hit the main street, the people hit us. The walk of fame stars lines the sidewalks on either side of the busy street. We walked, checking out stores and hunting for our favourite stars on the sidewalk. Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and even Bugs Bunny were all seen, along with MANY more.

After Hollywood, we went on a hunt for the Hollywood sign in Hollywood Hills. Believe it or not, it took us over an hour to find it. It’s not as big as we thought it was, but in the end, we fullfilled our destiny and saw it.

Now on to Beverly Hills. Yes, the hills. Now, I used to live on Rideau Road in Calgary, which is one of the highest valued properties in the city. I’ll simply say this. Take any ritzy location you have ever been to, and times it by 1000. Beverly Hills was pure luxury. The 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee that we were driving was the junkiest car we saw the entire time in the hills. Cars that passed us consisted of Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and Bently. It was very cool to see all of the homes with their large entrance gates. Something to note, there are no garages. They don’t need them. All cars are parked out front, as if the driveways were each homes’ individual showroom for their automobiles.

The most popular brand of car I saw in west Los Angeles was by far Mercedes, but seeing the Bentlys and the Lamborghinis was very cool. Oh and, Porsches are also a dime a dozen here. Now that I was seen it, I believe that this really is the land of the rich and famous.

We headed back to our campsite in Malibu and back to the beach. We relaxed for a bit, checked out a bust that went down (with guns and over 10 police cars AND a helicopter), and are now taking the time to update the site.

As a side note not to be forgotten, from Chris, Kelly, and myself to each of our dads… HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!

Kelly lead of the driving day today. It was less than an hour before we got to the gates of Grand Canyon National Park. After looking at some insects in glass at the gift shop near the entrance, we headed for the first lookout.

If you have never seen the canyon, then think of how big YOU think it is. Now let me say, that it is MUCH bigger than you are thinking. It is one friggin’ big ditch in the ground. Averaging one mile deep, it was quite the view. We checked out various view points and took lots of photos. Some of Chris making his way to the edge too. At around 1:45pm we had lunch, then mapped out where we were planning to camp next.

Needles, California was our destination. Unfortunately for us, it was more desert camping. At 5:25pm we crossed the Colorado River back into California where the temperature officially rolled over to 39 degrees (102 ferenheit) which is officially the trip record for the hottest temperature. This would prove to be a “not-so-good” thing.

After setting up camp and having sausages for dinner, we desperately attempted to sleep in the Mojave heat. It was pure impossible. We all layed there, sweating, wide awake. Even after a swim in the pool and a cold drink, we couldn’t do it. In short only, except for Kelly of course, we all layed on top of our sleeping bags. The entire night was spent rolling around, watching the moon (as we had removed the tent cover in an attempt to allow air to flow more freely), and sipping water.