No more f%#king Roller Coasters!!!

{Obligatory cheesey photo}

Well, it was bound to happen eventually I suppose... Our bodies have had their limit of high speed, great heights, multiple spins and flips that roller coasters can provide. Today we drove out to Six Flags Magic Mountain, which is now my favouritest ever theme park! Again we got there on opening time and purchased VIP entries which meant we didn't queue for a single ride. Also meant we could do quite a bit of damage to ourselves in the five hours we were there.


Our all-time favourite X - this starts off with you reclined back as you ascend backwards before flipping you every which way so that at times you are hurtling forward then double-flipped somehow so that even though the train continues in the same direction so you are now facing forward – quite a head spin and a great ride. Others included Tatsu which has you laying face down in a harness so when you ride it’s like you are flying; Viper which is just bloody fast and furious with a few loops also; Scream which has you standing as you hurtle and fly around and Goliath which starts at an enormous height and gains great speeds (both of us nearly blacking out at one point!). Others included Revolution, Colussus, Batman, The Riddler’s Revenge and more. Needless to say, we have finally both been cured of this incessant desire to ride roller coasters!

Day of travelling....

Key West to Los Angeles via Miami is a big day of travel. After a brief sleep in (following the previous nights shenanigans with said Drag Queens) we went for our final stroll around Key West admiring the architecture of the homes there.

Then Sally was loaded up again, for the final time, and we headed for the overseas highway again. We stopped at Bahia Honda State Park for some photos and would have loved to gone for a swim - water was so inviting - but the idea of travelling the rest of the way without a decent shower was a turn off. Oh, and we had no towels with us anyway.

Stopped for some outlet shopping back in southern Florida (bitterly disappointed!) then hit Miami Airport - yet another huge construction site! Said good-bye to Sally, she served us well, then checked in. Was offered an ugrade to First Class for a small fee and couldn't resist it... And certainly didn't regret it - five and a half hours of first class comfort and bliss! Arrived in LA on time, about 9pm, collected our next rental car (which you'll notice will probably not get another mention henceforth!!) and easily found our gorgeous home for the next five days in West Hollywood.

Key West Sights

We jumped on the Old Town Trolley Tour to learn more about Key West and visit more of the sights including the southernmost point of the contiguous 48 states (actually the military land just to the west is further south but not accessible to civilian tourists). Contrary to whats written on the buoy, its actually 98 statute miles to Cuba at the closet point.





Things we learned about Key West:

• It's original Spanish name was "Cayo Heuso" or Bone Island due to it being littered with remains from an Indian battlefield
• It's closer to Havana, Cuba than Miami (about half the distance)
• Key West declared independence from the US in 1982 and named itself the Conch Republic. The US has never officially challenged this.
• Locals are own as Conchs (pronounced "conks")
• Pan American Airlines was founded here to fly visitors to Cuba
• Has almost doubled in size with landfill
• Has been home to many artists and writers, most notably Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams

After the Trolley Tour we walked over to the Ernest Hemingway House which is maintained mostly how he left it in 1939. 47 cats reside at the house, all supposedly descendants of Hemingway's cat Snowball. The cats are "polydactyl" which means most have extra toes (check out the paws in the photo).

What a Drag!

Duval Street is the centre of nightlife in Key West and there is a thriving gay community.

The pictures speak for themselves. What else can we say but...what goes on in Key West, stays in Key West!

Key West Sunset

Two words Kimmy....Pretty!!

SoBe to the Keys

We were a little slower waking up this morning after last nights festivities. As the sun was out we checked out the beach before breakfast. That's the Atlantic Ocean in the pics, a whole different ocean!!



Back to the hotel to pack, check out and retrieve Sally from Valet Parking ($20, thank you!). We headed south on US 1 towards our next stop, Key West, the most southerly point of the continental US. Our route took us through downtown Miami which looked like one giant construction site. Everywhere you looked there were new apartment buildings (condos) being built. There would have to of have been in excess of 50 in various states of construction.

Leaving the mainland, first stop was Key Largo (yes that one). Roughly 100 miles and 42 bridges (including a seven mile bridge!) later we arrived in Key West, the southernmost settlement in the continental US. The old town has beautifully restored 19th Century wooden buildings, most now valued in the millions (in the 1970's you could have picked one up for $1).



As Key West is quite compact we went for a walk around town, encountering some of the 2000 feral chickens, before heading back to the hotel to freshen up for the nightly sunset celebrations, the sunsets here are supposed to be special.

This Is Miami

This morning we packed up Sally (the Mustang) and headed south to Miami. We were planning to stop along the way to check out some of the beachside cities like Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The weather had other plans and we encountered near torrential rain shortly after leaving Orlando.

In keeping with one of our motto's "when it rains, go shopping", we located the Aventura Mall just north of Miami. Time to purchase some more Abercrombie & Fitch (one can never have too much) and underwear at stupidly cheap prices at Bloomingdales.

After safely stowing the shopping bags in Sally, it was a short drive to South Miami Beach (or just "SoBe") and our hotel on Ocean Drive. South Beach has the world's largest concentration of Art Deco buildings and is simply stunning. Ocean Drive is lined with Art Deco hotels on one side and parks and the beach on the other side. The hotels are even more beautiful at night as most are lit with colourful neon lights.



We checked into our hotel (The Beacon) and went for a stroll. Ocean Drive reminded us of the Esplanade in Cairns (only a hell of a lot cooler). Thankfully the rain had stopped. We found a dodgy little gay bar called the Palace and had a few beers. After dinner at a restaurant along Ocean Drive we went back to the Palace to see the drag show. It was refeshing to see that Brisbane is not the only place blessed with really bad drag.


As we headed back to the hotel, we experienced Wet Willy's. Now get your minds out of the gutter, Wet Willy's is a bar (and surprisingly not a gay one). I had been to one in Savannah, Georgia on a previous trip. They serve (extremely) alcoholic slushy drinks. Mine was aptly named "Attitude Adjustment". Things get a little blurry after that but we made it safely back to the hotel.

Kennedy Space Center

This morning our trusty Mustang (Sally) took us to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. At the Visitor Center you can watch a couple of 3-D IMAX films, feel what a shuttle launch feels like (um, sort of) in the new Shuttle Launch Experience, wander the Rocket Garden and shop for sexy orange spacesuits (ask and we'll show you when we get back).

For me (that's Brad) the best part is the bus tour which takes you around the facility to the shuttle launch pads, the Vehicle Assembly Building, the Landing Strip and up close and personal with a huge Saturn V rocket. I think Ben may have been a little bored but he came around in the end (ok so I'm a geek but you knew that!).

Florida Fashion - EOB

End of Blog

Universal Orlando

It was Monday when we made an early start for Universal Orlando Theme Parks with the intention of doing Islands of Adventure only (there is Universal Orlando just next door). We arrived right on opening time and bought a two-park one-day VIP pass which enabled us to jump all the lines to all the attractions at both parks - definitely the way to go, even though a few extra bucks. Initially the Islands of Adventure was very quiet (we figured we were in before all the tourist and hotel buses) and we managed to complete five rides in ninety minutes. (Cast your memory back to Cedar Point - five roller coasters in five hours!!)

However, one of the rides we went on was the Rip Saw Falls (which had a warning sign: "You will get wet on this ride".... yeah, right, like whatever....) which resulted in the two of us (Ben more so as he was in front) being soaked through and through (I'm talking soaked undies and a drenching wet passport, which funnily enough I no longer carry when going on wet rides at theme parks). Fortunately the weather in Florida is similar to home in Summer and it wasn't long before we both dried out. After completing all the rides and attractions at Islands of Adventure we moved on to Universal Orlando and breezed through all the great attractions there.

By far and away our favourite rides were the Hulk Roller Coaster and the Spiderman 4D ride. After a long exhausting day in the sun, we headed home for an easy dinner and early to bed.

Goodbye New York....Hello Orlando!!

All good things must come to an end and alas, our time in New York ends this morning.

Our flight to Orlando, Florida was scheduled to leave at 9.05am. Being sensible travellers we got up a 5.15am and made it to the airport by 6.30am.....or so we thought.

Someone (who shall remain unmentioned, huh Ben?) managed to somehow set the clock forward one hour so we actually got up at 4am and arrived at the airport at 5.30am. It was a long wait for the flight and the airport was freezing!!!!

Taking off from LaGuardia airport we flew down the west side of Manhattan for some great last views of this amazing city.



An easy 2.5 hour flight down to an overcast Orlando. We picked up our hire car, a Mustang Convertable no less, we almost feel butch!!



We had planned to hit a theme park this afternoon but decided a rest day was more important.

Spring Awakening

Our week of Broadway theatre draws to a close with Spring Awakening, the Tony award winning rock musical based on a contraversial 1891 German play by Frank Wedekind.

Quite a confronting show dealing with the sexual awakening of a group of teenagers in a small german town but a refreshing change from some of the huge productions we had seen this week.

New York - Day 6

Our mad week in New York is taking it's toll so we decided to have a fairly quiet day.

First up, Behind the Emerald Curtain, a behind the scenes look at Wicked (the show we saw on Tuesday).

A short subway ride up to 161st Street to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium and our luck with the weather ran out. It was raining quite heavily, we needed baseball tickets and we were exhausted so we decided to bail and head back downtown.

We thought we'd better fly the (rainbow) flag and check out Chelsea, New York's gayest area. Think Oxford Street in Sydney but cooler. Time for a quick shop and a beer before a pre-show rest (did I mention we're tired??)