USA 2019 - Week 6, Dallas to Perth

We're currently in the Qantas lounge at Sydney airport waiting for our flight home to Perth. We missed our connecting flight because Sydney international airport is an absolute joke; I actually can't believe how unorganised it is, and am embarrassed that this might be people's first impression of Australia.

We got off our flight wondering what the huge crowds of people were, turns out they were waiting at kiosks to get a card for the ePassport lines, but apparently it's too hard to put a sign or have someone to help direct people. The guy next to us asked the single Sydney airport representative if there was anything he could do since his flight was in 30minutes, and he got the reply "sorry mate, everyone here is in the same boat"... what the hell Sydney! Not impressed at all, but all's well that ends well since we're on the next flight home. Rant over!

Since we have a little bit of time I thought I'd look back on highlights of the whirlwind 6 week holiday (expertly planned by Andrew as always):

• Week 1: 
• Breweries galore in Denver (Oskar Blues, Great Divide, Falling Rock), walking to the bus stop in -20degree weather
• Skiing in Vail (Mountain Standard), Beaver Creek (cookies and s'mores!), seeing Yvonne and meeting Eduardo
• The Arches park at Moab, possibly better than the Grand Canyon 
• Week 2:
• Peering through the windows at the Immersive office in Salt Lake City, and visiting some more breweries
• Skiing at Park City, getting confident with blues and trying some blacks
• The Bellagio fountains, Picasso, and Cirque du Soleil in Vegas, and seeing a coyote near the Grand Canyon
• The roller coasters at Magic Mountain
• Week 3:
• Double waterfalls and seeing a bobcat at Yosemite
• Seeing the ice hockey team come out of a giant shark at the Shark Tank in San Jose
• Too little time in San Francisco; dim sum, fortune cookies, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Fisherman's Warf, Lombard Street, definitely need to go back!
• Dinner at Mission Inn, Clint Eastwood's restaurant at Carmel by the Sea
• Hearst Castle, Santa Barbara Pier, Malibu, Santa Monica Pier, all on the way to LA
• The Griffith Observatory,  Getty Museum, the Ace Hotel, and taco trucks in LA
• Week 4:
• The gorgeous river walk in San Antonio, the Alamo (still no 100% sure what it is), Smitty's Market BBQ in Lockheart
• Whole Foods (Perth needs one), Franklin's BBQ, the bat bridge, Rainey street and a beautiful run around the river in the very liveable Austin
• Catfish at Prejean's, Pealander Z at The Blue Moon hostel, and the swamp tour in Lafayette
• Sazeracs, beignets, food (Compere Lapin) and music (Kermit!) on Bourbon and French Street in the party city of New Orleans (the highlight of the trip for me)
• Week 5:
• Whale sharks at the Atlanta aquarium, and chopping at the Atlanta Braves game
• The quaint service at Lexington BBQ
• Willow Winds Cabins in Asheville, breweries, hiking to waterfalls, and watching Andrew slide down sliding rock, and thanking god he decided to skip turtleback falls 
• The surprisingly amazing Dollywood (lightning rod!)
• The Sunsphere (aka the wigsphere) in Knoxville
• Prince's Hot Chicken, best fried chicken ever, worst experience for the next couple of days
• Week 6:
• Boot scooting and flag waving to live music in Nashville, the tabasco number 8 at Dickel's distillery and biscuits at Loveless cafe
• The view of the arch in Saint Louis, and eating too much at the Cardinal's vs. Dodgers game in the Cardinal's club
• Joe's BBQ, Tikicat, and Royals vs. Mariner's game in Kansas City
• Definitely NOT Sydney airport!

What a holiday, I can't believe it's over already. I wonder what's next?

USA 2019 - Week 6, Kansas City

Yesterday we drove from Saint Louis to Kansas City, stopping at Joe's Kansas City Barbecue for lunch and a fuel stop, and then a drink at Tikicat.

Joe's barbecue was another great bbq experience. I got the Z Man (a brisket burger) and Andrew got the ribs and burnt ends dinner, yum! The barbecue sauce was the highlight, and it was really cool filling up at Joe's (it's still a working fuel station, good price too!).







Tikicat is the best rated tiki bar in the US, and we decided that having such an acclaimed tiki bar in Kansas City of all places made it worth a visit. It was really cute, smaller than we expected but decked out perfectly and the drinks were fantastic too; wish we had a bit more time to enjoy a couple more!









Last night was Kansas City Royals vs. Seattle Mariners at the pretty Kansas City stadium. After waiting in line for way longer than necessary (the people at the back of the line would have maybe seen the end of the game!), we got some cheap seat tickets (that we didn't sit in), then sat far back in the outfield near the fountains which gave a really good perspective of the game. Since it was a quiet game we also walked around and sat behind the catcher for the bottom of the 9th to get another view of the stadium.











We're just getting ready for our long drive to Dallas and our flight home :( What an amazing trip, I can't believe how quickly it's all gone!

USA 2019 - Week 6, Nashville to Saint Louis

We spent our second day in Nashville with a visit to Dickel's Distillery, and dinner at Loveless Cafe.

Dickels is a great little distillery about 1.5h out of Nashville, and we decided to go here instead of one of the bigger ones as a bit of a change. Since we were the only people to arrive at 2:30pm, we got a private tour of the facility which uses all the original methods to make their Tennessee style whiskey.









The tasting was really fun; my palette for whiskey is still not very good so it's great to taste a variety one after the other to help distinguish the tastes. Our favourite was number 8, but we can get that back home so we bought a couple of little bottles of the Tabasco barrel aged Number 8, it was surprisingly delicious for a gimmicky drink!





Loveless Cafe was gorgeous, and the food was fantastic. We ate too much again, even though we got a "to go" box. I definitely payed for the 3.5 biscuits I ate...







Yesterday we drove to Saint Louis. Our Hyatt room has a really cool view of the arch, we watched barges float by for ages before heading out to Busch Stadium for the Cardinals vs. Dodgers game.





Andrew splurged for the "green seats" which got us into the Cardinal's Club with unlimited food and drinks, and we definitely made the most of it. It was a really great game, and Andrew was star struck with all the players he got to see close up, so cool!

USA 2019 - Week 5, Nashville

Yesterday we drove from Knoxville to Nashville after visiting the fabulous Sunsphere, which the Simpsons taught me is probably filled with thousands and thousands of unsold wigs.



On the way to Nashville we stopped at Prince's Hot Chicken for our first taste of southern fried chicken and oh my GOD it was incredible! We got the medium after reading that extra hot is not really intended to be eaten, and even still it was borderline on being slightly too hot. I enjoyed it so much, I was scrambling for more chicken of the bones which is something that usually grosses me out, but it was that good!









Last night we caught the 20 minute Uber into town (the accommodation was so full up we only got a hotel quite far out of town, and Andrew did amazingly to even manage that!) to Lower Broadway, the honkey tonk part of town. We went to Tootsies, The Stage, Acme Feed and Seed, and Rock Bottom (for more fried catfish and chicken) where we enjoyed some amazing country music complete with bar dancing, flag waving, and terrible beer.











We had a really fun night, but it was a late one, partly because we waited for the crazy Uber surge pricing to come back down to a more reasonable unreasonable price, but that meant we had the chance to have a lovely conversation with a Nashville local at a bus stop while taking shelter from the rain. The Uber drive home was also pretty interesting; we'll always wonder what the full story was about the driver's childhood home being et up by a tornado (we only got a hint of what happened, it clearly traumatised her beyond wanting to offer the full story).

USA 2019 - Week 5, Asheville and Dollywood

Yesterday we slept in then went hiking in Pisgah forrest near Asheville, we really lucked out and got some beautiful weather!

We first went to Sliding Rock (no hiking yet, just near the car park) where there were a couple of people braving the cold waters, and only one father and son team sliding from mid-way down the rock. Andrew showed everyone how it's done and slid from the top, twice! I put my hand in the water and noped right back up to the viewing platform.





Next was Looking Glass falls (still no hiking yet) which was a really pretty waterfall right near Sliding Rock.





We then drove about 1.5h to Rainbow Falls, which also has Turtleback Falls (aka Umbrella Falls) which is another place that people slide off the rocks down into the river. This one is a bit more dangerous; there's never lifeguards and there's signs everywhere saying that the risk of getting swept over from Turtleback Falls (the small slide) to Rainbow Falls (the fucking massive waterfall of doom) is very real.







The hike to Rainbow falls was really nice, and we definitely got our exercise in. The falls were beautiful and powerful, and were my favourite falls we've seen so far in the US. The warnings were quite scary though...







We hiked the extra 0.5 mile up to Turtleback Falls where Andrew spent a good while considering whether to slide or not. He noticed that the water level was way higher than any youtube videos of people doing the slide, and also there was no one doing it, and pretty much no one else around at all so thank GOD he decided not to do it. He's pretty bummed about it, but I literally cried with relief.





We rewarded ourselves with a tasting paddle and duck fat fries at the absolutely massive Sierra Nevada brewery.







This morning we said a heartfelt goodbye to Andrew's Attic at Willow Winds Cabins in Asheville (if you're ever in that part of the world, you must stay there), and made our way to Dollywood. Our drive began with a quest for dramamine for Andrew so that he could enjoy all the types of roller coasters. It really worked! He felt drowsy, but none of the roller coaster symptoms, I'm really impressed.



Dollywood was a wonderful park, similar to Port Avendtura in Spain; the theme was so well done but not tacky at all, and the roller coaster selection was seriously impressive.



Our favourite was the launch roller coaster, Lighting Rod, and we also went on Mystery Mine, Wild Eagle (this is the kind Andrew would usually avoid but was fine on!), Thunderhead, Tennessee Tornado, and Blazing Fury (more like a ghost train). Lunch at Granny Ogle's Ham and Beans was delicious, and we also enjoyed joining in with the drumming in the Drumstruck show, and seeing the bald eagle in the Wings of America show.







I remember when Andrew first mentioned Dollywood and we thought it was a funny concept, but then slowly realised this was actually a park worth going to. We've now escalated to saying that it's an absolute must do when in Tennessee, worth going out of your way for!





We're now in Knoxville for one night before heading off to Nashville, trying to get the motivation to get a drink at the rooftop bar (but it felt so good taking our shoes off...)