Catching up

Hey all,

I've decided to try and catch up with what happened over the last week: it's been really busy, witha butt-load of miles covered, and multiple memories made.

On the 24th of december we got up to watch the sun rise over the Grand Canyon. Seriously special, and words/photos can never do it justice. There was a light dusting of snow, which made it look even better. As you were watching, new valleys would appear, making the canyon look even bigger. Until a bunch of loud retarded tourists turned up and started making plenty of noise, it was very serene.

We left there at 8am and drove to Odessa, which is located in West Texas. Their local high school football team (Permian) was the subject of the book/film Friday Night Lights, and they regularly get 10,000 plus people to a game. These are 15-17 year old kids remember! It was 2am on the 25th when we arrived, so nothing was open, and there was razor wire on the fences, so we couldn't even jump the fence. It was interesting to see the landscapes mentioned in the book, and you get a certain understanding about the mentality of the people from the area: there is nothing out there but oil derricks and open land.

We got up early christmas morning and started driving early. We basically just hauled arse across Texas to a place called New Braunfels. Mac and Greg have a friend from Med named Heather, who graciously (foolishly?) agreed to take us in for christmas. Southern hospitality is alive and well, as Mike and Debbie (Heather's parents) were amazing hosts, looking after us, regardless of what we needed. We had christmas dinner of deep fried turkey. Seriously, a whole tub of boiling oil, and a complete turkey inserted. It tasted as fantastic as you imagine it would.

On Boxing Day (which they don't celebrate in the US: it's just another day) we did some shopping, both for food (at Costcos... wait until it gets to Oz, it's money) and at some factory outlets. We ate at a traditional style mexican place, smashing some of the best tasting food i've ever had. Everything in texas is spread out: you have to drive everywhere. So although we did plenty of driving (thanks Heather for the driving!) it was nice to have a relaxing day out of the RV.

Greatest moment of my life

I don't mean to alarm people, but I was on the field at the game today, in front of 66,166 people, winning a competition, and then dancing thriller. So loud, so amazing.

Don't fret, videos will be up soon.

I'm also out of credit people, so feel free to call : )

Las Vegas Bowl Shots.

BYU Band Pre-game... they're forming a giant Y.



Getting the flag in place.



Flag done. That's a whole football field people.



UCLA looking to score... You can't see from the photo, but the BYU NT had immense legs. BYU ran with a 3-3-5 stack look for most of the game, which was fun to watch. People flying everywhere! BYU had a spread O, while UCLA ran a pro style with multiple formations. Overall, BYU was much more entertaining to watch, although the fact that they couldn't pass for half a game meant that I got my kicks watching the LT work against UCLA's #44... a pimp of a DE. Only little, but the kid could fly!



There's no way he can miss from there... The kick is blocked by the BYU lineman, game over!



Invade the pitch! Unlike stuck up Aussie officials, crowds are allowed to rush the field and congratulate the players, and it's awesome. The BYU fans were streaming out the stadium one minute, then rushing the field the next. For a crowd that was pretty quiet, they got into the celebration.

Click on any of the photos to make them bigger.

hope y'all doin well.

Las Vegas Bowl

Hey all,

I'm a little behind in my postings, as I haven't had the net for a while, so i'll try and catch up, rather than speed ahead to where I am now (Texas)

We went to the LV bowl, and it was a whole heap of fun. The day started with us driving the RV to the carpark, and setting up a BBQ out front. This is known as tailgating, and is a past time for the football nuts. You basically spend the hours before the game chilling with the other crowd members, eating meat and having fun.

Once in the stadium we had solid seats, right in the middle of the BYU faithful. Actually, 85% of the crowd were from BYU, but it was still fun to make noise. AS opposed to back home, fans know all the chants/songs, and cheer for their team. Although BYU didn't make much noise, there were dances, chants, a jet flyover, a US flag the size of the field, and marching bands. All this for a pissy little bowl? That's america for you.

For the record, UCLA came from behind, drive the length of the field, and then shanked the figgie from right in front... WHen they were in position to kick it, the BYU fans started leaving. When the kick was blocked, the fans came streaming back in, and proceeded to storm the field. Pretty cool, but nothing on what we are going to get.

I haven't got much time, so i'll try and get some photos up soon.

miss y'all.

Dave

Vegas Pics

Petri Dish of Pleasure

On Friday night we decided to get dressed up in suits and Ocean Eleven the living out of Vegas. The first bar we went to was the Voodoo Lounge I mentioned in an earlier post. Once you pay to get in, you’re taken to the 51st floor, and the bar is up there. It was a lame bar (like Jacksons on Jacksons in the city: full of old people… and hookers) but the view was incredible! Our photos and cameras didn’t do it justice. We had 300 degree views of the city, and you could see what LV was really like. There are lights going off in every direction, right to the base of the mountains, which is how it got it’s Petri Dish nickname: it’s like vegas is in a dish, and the lights go all the way to the edge, and then suddenly it’s darkness.

It was about 11pm, and the sky was still full of planes landing, bringing more people in. We decided to leave Voodoo after a bit because seeing some of the most sweetly retarded people in the world dancing wasn’t much fun. We tried to get into Studio 54, but it was closed for renovations. The next club in the MGM we tried was also closed, and the night was looking mediocre. We decided to try one more club in the Venetian: Tao. Holy crap, it was from another planet. It took some bribes, mac checking out a guy’s busted ankle, the rest of us hamming up the aussie accent, and generally pretending we were good football players to get in.
Once we were in, it was the most plush, over the top, yet still banging club I’ve ever seen.As you walk in there were a bunch of bath tubs, covered in lotus flowers. Very zen, very beautiful. Inside some of those bath tubs were ladies, with perfectly placed lotus leaves, washing themselves and generally looking like they were completely cool with dancing in a bath tub in front of the whole club. Inside the bottom level was a 10m tall statue of Buddha, and more opulence. This was just the entrance.

As we went up to the club itself, it was everything you imagine a hot vegas club to be like. Straight out of Entourage (or so I hear: that show is for divs.), there was a great DJ (spinning rock, to hip hop, to new stuff… Super Soak them ho’s anyone? Anyone?... Greg was very sick of using technology.) a heaving dance floor, girls in cages dancing, podiums, and people everywhere! I doubt the photos will turn out perfectly as it wasn’t exactly perfect lighting, but it was one of the best nights I’ve had out. Rather than just being in a bar that was like a Sydney bar, but with weird accents, it was something really unique, and completely fun.

Anyone coming to LV needs to hit up Tao.I’ll post some photos of that night, and the night we hit the tables (pre hot tub) and some random vegas ones. They’ll probably end up at the beginning of the post again.

Vegas Baby!

Hey All,

We're currently out of the desert, and into the insanity that is Las Vegas. We're talking a town that never sleeps, and is huge on a scale i've never seen before. I'm not saying it's the biggest town ever, but it is over the top. Basically everything here is open 24/7... We're at an RV park called Sam's Town, and it's pretty sweet. Opposite is a Super Walmart: it's the size of a massive (i mean MASSIVE: twice the size of a Campbells back home) aircraft carrier, and inside is everything, including a 24 hours Maccas. So, in Vegas, 15 mins away from the centre, there are 24 hour shops, 24 hour chemists, 24 hour everythings. And we're not even in the middle of town. I'll pop a few photos up soon.

On the strip is a half scale Eiffel Tour, a ful scale Arc De Triumph, and massive "fountain" the size of a lake, which has syncronised light/water shows every half hour. I'm talking about water shooting up 50m into the air, with light playing off some of the shots, at certain times in time with the music. Serious amazing.

At the moment in LV on the strip, there is a construction site. Now, as it's vegas, they don't do anything by half measures: there are more than 26 cranes working on this site, with people there 24/7. It's the single biggest privately funded construction site in the world. One guy is putting up 8 billion dollars to make a set of buildings with a single objective: you can live in these buildings for years without having to do anything else anywhere else: it's completely self contained, and in theory you don't have to leave. Sorta like the World Tower on George St, except not crap. And it's huge. So very Vegas.

It's so freaking cold here it hurts: the wind is whistling off the Rockies, blowing dust everywhere, and chilling us to the core. Inside the casinos it's warm, artificial and generally numbing, while outside it's literally numbing.

The shopping in LV is stupid good: the outlet malls are basically 40-60% off everything. I was wandering through the French Connection Store, thinking "hey these prices are quite reasonable, I might get some stuff..." I then realised that they hadn't taken the 60% off yet! I picked up a bunch of stuff that cost me bugger all. The rest of the guys did a heap of shopping too: with leather jackets ($100), suits (3 tailored with shirts for $500) and so many other things that we're already running out of room in the RV.

For those in the know: Downtown Joey Brown is with us. We got him all sorts of jacked up last night, and he had to spend most of today sleeping it off.

Speaking of last night, we got destroyed. We started drinking, playing drinking games, and generally having fun. We decided to get in the hot tub. We had to climb the fence to get in, and it was all naked, but at 2am, it doesn't matter. We had a great time talking shit and dehydrating, and decided it would be a good time to get out when the sun came up. We were in a hot tub for 4 hours until 6am. Between us we polished off a couple of bottles of Jaeger, 2 cases of beer and some other random beers. Seriously, we were messy. Downtown was spewing, and we were all rough as guts the next morning.

Tonight we're planning on hitting a nice bar: Voodoo lounge. It's really classy, so we'll all have to get pimped out, but it'll be nice to try. Tomorrow is our first bowl game (Las Vegas Bowl: BYU Stormin Mormons vs UCLA Bruins) and we've got a BBQ, meat and beer ready for tomorrow. I'll keep you all posted. I don't know why the photos always go to the beginning of the post, but hey, it's better than not getting any right?

Keep sending the emails my way people, it's good to be reminded of reality in the middle of all this!

Dave

Naked Tuesday

Hey all,

Today is Tuesday, and we had planned to make Tuesdays "naked"... what a letdown. I got naked quite early, and happened to be the only one. When I left the RV naked (plus monogrammed robe) I got told that it wasn't cool. Meh, there are a few more tuesdays for me to get the guys around to my plan.

We picked Freeman up from LAX: greg managed to drive a 30ft lond RV through LA... seriously impressive. Liam also drove today, and for a man who's never driven in the US, he's doing damn well. Although he has rig experience, it's still sweet.

We're in beautiful Santa Barbara at the moment... And it's raining. Today is the second day of rain in SB in the last 6 months. Lucky us. We walked for 20 mins in the pouring rain to get Mexican food, and were soaked. It was so worth it: i couldn't get through a burrito that was bigger than my arm. As i'm typing this we're sinking a few beers, getting ready to play quarters in kiernan's apartment. For those who aren't in the know, quarters is a drinking game that involves throwing coins around while sitting in your underpants. Lots of fun is about to happen

Today we went from Santa Monica beach (beautiful in the rain), to Santa Barbara, which is also beautiful in the rain. We walked by skinny's stadium: a 5 thousand seater overlooking the beach with palmtrees and other sweet things. Terrible weather, nice place.

On the way to SB we jumped off the highway, to play some sweet beach football. It's not surprising, but still amazing that the smallest activities are a heap of fun. Greg is a real arsehole. Seriously, that canadian sucks balls, and watches us shower.

I'll post some photos here:

xoxo

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I'm Alive!

G'day everybody.

It's 8am in LA and this update is coming from a small internet cafe, which is the only thing open within an 8 block radius of our hostel. Don't think that we're staying out in the boondocks (we're in West Hollywood), but everything in LA opens late, and stays open until 7. The hours are 11-7, so there isn't much to do in the mornings.

The last 36 hours have been full on. For those who don't know, here is the rough story:

9:30pm Sat night- Win Grand Final

4:00am- Stop drinking, get to bed.

7am Sunday- Get up and head to the airport.

8am- get jerked around by QANTAS for a bit.

10am- leave for LA. The guy with the window seat had a bladder like an infant, going the the bathroom 9 times on a 12 hr flight... and he wasn't even drinking anything.

6:30am LA time: Arrive

8am- meet Mac and Skinny

1pm: meet Greg.

10pm: get to bed.

We went out to a steak house for Kiernan's birthday. Meals were huge, building was huge (with a bunch of crazy crap on the walls: shennanigans anybody?) beers were huge. We then went to this little bar (Standard Bar) for a drink. There was a live band, and as you walk in, a girl was sitting in a glass box, surrounded by teddy bears, reading her emails. Nothing sexual, I think it was art. I guess. Just real weird, and pretty cool. The guys all got cocktails, and I decided to channel my inner LA and order a Colt 45 40oz. Little did I know that a 40oz was 1.2L, and 10% alcohol. The waitress laughed at me when I ordered it, and the bitch didn't even give me a glass! (or a straw, or a brown bag). So, while the rest of hte patrons in this swank little bar stared at me, I proceeded to get tanked on malt liquor. What a start, drinking in this hip bohemian bar out of a 1.2 L bottle.

Within that period, i slept about 3 hours, so we were all on struggle st yesterday... At each others throats, snappy and generally being sandy. That was punctuated by periods of amazement and joy that we'd finally made it over here.

I've only been here one day, but i'll explain what i think LA is like. As you're leaving the airport, it's quite ghetto. We were driving to our hostel for the night, thinking we had better get guns asap, just to keep upright. Suddenly, when you cross from one suburb to the other, it's like a switch is thrown, and it becomes beautiful. So, you'll be walking down the street, checking out these amazing boutique shops, and suddenly it'll be a dilapitated, rough looking street. It's almost like they have these invisible lines down, with some blocks getting funding, and other blocks getting screwed. I'm about 20 mins from home right now, and hte walk was great, with the only weird thing being that i only passed a half dozen people on the way. The roads are packed, and the sidewalks are dead. All the people you see are dressed really cool: they're all casual, but even the kids look cooler than me.

Shopping here is obscene. We went to a mall yesterday, and everything is really cheap. Shoes that are $AU 180 back home are about $60 here. T shirts, caps, jeans... you name it, it's as cheap as chips. We were in an upmarket mall, so I imagine it'll be even cheaper when we hit the ghetto malls/walmarts. We've got a few hours to kill today before and after we get the RV, so we're going to drive up into 90210, down into the valley, see the Hollywood sign, and generally pretend we're tourists.

Food is cheap: $5 for a six pack of beer, meals are around that price as well. Food is tasty, and I can already feel my arteries clogging. Seriously, no surprise there are a heap of fat bastards in this country.

The phone situation is weird: you can't just walk into anywhere and get a SIM card- most phones here are locked into contracts. Today is monday, so i'm hoping more stores will be open, and i'll get a SIM card. Once i've done that, i'll call the people I said I would: I promise!

The other guys will be getting up now, so i'll head back, and keep causing more trouble!

Love youse all (except the people I hate... you know who you are. bastards.)

Dave

ps: this blog thing doesn't have a spell checker, so when I suck, i'm sorry.

EDIT: i'll add a photo of the drinks... seriously, 40s suck.

First Post

G'day all,

Welcome to my travel blog. The reason i'm keeping a blog is that i want to get photos and amazing stories out about the Drive After Five. I hope you believe that... I swear it's not because I'm too lazy to email everyone, and too retarded to remember to email everyone.

Hopefully i'll be updating on a regular basis, which sounds promising when you're sitting at home in Australia, however when I'm out on the road, causing havoc (as is to be expected on the DA5) I can't promise anything. So prepare to be disappointed, and hope to be thrilled. When you get the average of the two (consistent mediocrity) you'll probably understand what i'm aiming to achieve.

For those who aren't in the know I'll give you a list of the fellow "characters" that are coming on the DA5, and later I'll show where we plan to be arrested each day.

Kiernan Dorney:
Role on DA5: MiC of surly behaviour.
Super Power: Consistent Silence, and extreme sarcasm.

Kiernan's main job on this trip is to make us all look more manly... By wearing what he normally does (his mum's clothes from the 70s, super tight UCLA tops). After spending the year in the US, it will be his job to show us the way on the West Coast. I can't wait for his tips on eating the best Tacos. And no, that wasn't a euphemism.

Liam Erby:
Role on DA5: Hardest man on the trip.
Super Power: Dropping the C Bomb at a moments notice, tough stickers and common sense.

Liam not only looks like a hard man, but sounds and smells like a tough man. His man musk will kill a deer from 30ft, no foolin. Liam is the man who makes all our retarded schemes come to life, as he actually has useful skills that apply to the real world. Handy with the tools, and experienced at maneuvering big vehicles (and I wasn't just talking about the wagon he is dragin') he is the one that will keep us alive in the US.

Mathew Freeman
Role on DA5: MiC of Finance
Super Powers: Closing cases, using his Blackberry, getting a sweet pump, wearing tight T shirts.

Matt is one of the beautiful people- amazing arms, tight t shirts showing off the rippling body, 8 pack and more, he is more than just a pretty face however. As a member of the cut throat financial world (and therefore, addicted to Charlie by association) Matt is a Financial juggernaut, and will keep us from all blowing our cash in Vegas. Which may still happen, but at least we can blame Matt.

James "Mac" Shine
Role on DA5: Murse
Super Powers: Forcing others to like his music, best beard on the trip, giving everyone else his allergies.

Mac, as a recently approved doctor, will be looking after our physical wellbeing on the trip. Although the rest of us are unsure of why we need daily DREs, and why he does them with his tongue, we're grateful for his tender care. Voted* most likely to shoot someone, his perchance for guns has us all terrified. The only chance all of us come back with all our limbs is if Mac loses both trigger fingers in a freak accident sometime soon. Mac is a huge proponent of Naked Tuesdays, and the creator of the famed (and much maligned, although vital) Dump Tickets. A driving force behind the DA5, and huge football fan, he is already stretching so as to be able to have sex with the entire Penn State Football team. At one time.

Greg Wernecke
Role on DA5: Surgeon, Master Hunter, Diplomat from Canadia.
Super Powers: Steady hands, disapproving gaze, ability to destroy bottles of scotch with only his mind. And mouth.

Greg has been preparing for the DA5 with a sabbatical to his native country of Canadia. His love for Loonies and Toonies has been well documented elsewhere. If anyone tears a ligament, or has to have a slug removed (if you shoot me Mac i'm going to ringlet you into oblivion), Greg will be the first in line to be inside us. In a medical way, not in the Dorney way. Greg's other skill on the DA5 is his innate ability to be the identical twin of Jeff Garcia. Hopefully, bouncers will be enamored by his tales of scrambling, erratic throwing, and "smelling like a rat" and will let us into the VIP area. Greg is a vital cog in the DA5 as he is a stone cold killer: if there are any deer that need to be shot (and I assume there will be), ol' Wernesize will be the one to take them down.

That concludes the brief wrap up of the zany characters that will keep getting me out of trouble/keeping me in trouble (delete as applicable)

SO, bookmark this page, and check back every so often, as I'll try and get photos, stories, and maybe even a guest writer on board. You can leave comments after each post, but remember my Mum will be reading these (hey Ma!) so keep them clean.

xoxo

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