Dallas

What a long drive! It took us 6 1/2 hours to get here and that was going 70mph (120kmph) on a two lane road. We had to swap cars in Memphis because our convertible started to leak when we went through some heavy rain so we are now in a Jeep Cherokee. Dallas is huge! We stayed in a hotel out of town and met some really nice people . We also visited Southfork ranch where a TV programme was filmed years ago. 

We decided to only stay one night in Dallas because the weather looks a little crazy up the road towards Oklahoma City and storms are forecast. 

Memphis - day 2

Today we visited Graceland in the morning and were lucky enough to get there really early to beat the crowds. A huge property with some interesting history of Elvis Presley's life. We wandered through his house and used iPads to watch and listen to his history and stories about his family. 

After some lunch we found Sun Studios. It was packed with people and we would have had to wait over an hour to get on a tour. We had a look around and headed back to downtown. I have always been really interested in two very famous men, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King jnr. We found the Lorraine Hotel where he was killed in 1968. It's now the National Civil Rights Museum. I was really impressed with the place and learnt heaps. I also felt really sad there too about how people have been treated and this still happens here in many ways. 

Tomorrow we head to Dallas. 

Memphis

We arrived today from Nashville to find it is Memphis in May and Barbeque day. This means the place is full of tourists .and locals having a great time downtown by the great river, the Mississippi. So amazing! The music and the smell of food is everywhere. We met two really neat ladies and they pointed us in the right direction to see Beale St. It's very famous for music, music history and fun. We slowly wandered down through Beale St looking at all the really interesting shops and people. Tomorrow we are off to see Graceland, Sun Studios and Heartbreak Hotel. 

We did get to spend some time in The Music Hall of Fame in Nashville yesterday and that was awesome. Here are a couple of pictures from today. Oh, and we had a really big thunder, lightning and rain storm today too. 

Nashville

We have arrived in Nashville with the 4.30pm traffic! Yuck! Here is what we drove down here and we have this for the  next eight days. 

It does go very well on four lane freeways. It is the same car as Bumblebee in The Transformers! Will take some photos around Nashville tomorrow. 

Indianapolis

We arrived very early on Tuesday and had showers and a change of clothes before heading into Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We picked up our pit and garage passes and headed into the pits. We met lots of really friendly people and saw all the Indy cars in the garages. After checking out some of the garages we walked through a tunnel and out onto the  pit wall past all the pit boxes. We took heaps of photos and watched a couple of cars do some laps. Indy cars are really fast, loud and not very big. The cars were going about 365kph. That's very fast. We saw AJ Foyt on a buggy, he has won the Indy 500 4 times. We met and talked to Pancho Carter and he's been racing sprint cars, midgets and Indy cars. After wandering around for a while Jim took us to check out the driver's motor homes hoping to meet Scott Dixon. We found his bus driver and while we were talking to him Scott bounced out of his bus into a buggy and headed for the track so we knew he was going out soon. We walked back through the garages and went shopping at the merchandise place. Jim bought us a couple of replica Indy cars and that was really cool. We then headed into the grandstand to have a look for just a little while. Jim came and got us and said to unpack the cars and Scott might autograph them for us so that's what we did. Guess what! 

We found him. He stopped and chatted to us and signed the cars. He was really friendly and we are hoping to see him again when we get back here in the 22nd. Big day and so much happened. 

Day 3

I'm not sure ruma iwa is watching the blog, feel free to post a comment team. We went for a drive today to Anaheim which is where we found Disneyland, Downtown Disney & the Disneyland Hotel. We found Downtown Disney and went into this. 

We thought this was a great place and lots of kids were making Lego things in here. 

Then we headed to Long Beach for a look. Here is our car.

Long Beach 

Day 2 in LA

A very long day today checking out the sunny sights. We took a tour around Hollywood and famous people's houses this morning and saw some amazing homes. We also went to Venice Beach, a very busy place on a Sunday! We managed to drive through part of down town LA, luckily not busy because it was Sunday! Now it's time to get some rest before another long day tomorrow. We fly to Indianapolis late tomorrow night. I hope you are all doing heaps of fantastic work for Mrs Thoms. I will try to post some photos next time of the famous homes. 

Here are a couple of stars. 

Los Angeles

We found the Santa Monica pier and had some shrimp at Bubba Gumps. An amazing place with lots of Forest Gump pictures and souvenirs. Forest ran from the east coast of the states to the other & he reached the pier and turned around and ran home again. We are off to see the homes of some famous people today and the Hollywood sign. Hope you are all having heaps of fun working on your fairy tales. 

One more week

This time next week I will be feeling rather excited about leaving New Zealand for my holiday. I hope you will follow the blog and think of some questions for us to find answers for. We will post some photos of interesting things we find along the way when we can get internet. 

 

Eleven weeks to go

Hi boys and girls,
I'm off to the United States of America on the 9th May this year with my friend Dale. We are going to keep you updated along the way. 😃
Please comment with any questions for us to answer. We hope to add some photos too.