A big day on foot today - had a bit of a sleep in mainly due to the two hour time zone change over the last two days. I could not get to sleep before midnight and ended up waking at 8:00am despite my best efforts to be at brekky by 7:00am.

So after a quick meal I went to the park information office and got some information on the longer hikes that I could do in a day. I decided on a 9.6 mile hike that ascends about 1500ft, it started in one valley on a trail called the Laguna Meadow Trail which went about 3.3 miles, I then took a 1.8 mile trail the took to great views of the Green Creek Valley (destroyed by fire in 1989 and recovering nicely) before heading onto the Pinnacles trial which lead me down into another valley before crossing into another valley to get back to lodge.

It took about four and half hours to do, I was going to do another 3.8 mile hike, but the rain started getting heavier towards the end of the first hike and never really let up again. It drizzled on and off for most of the first hike, but it was not too bad, but it was more consistent at the end. It was probably all for the best as I realised it was the 31st October in Australia and it was the last day I could do my e-Tax.

Tomorrow the plan is to the 3.8 mile hike in the morning before I have to check out. I will only do this hike if it not raining as part of this walk is the views you get into some other valleys.

I will then start my two day trek to past Houston, I have decide to take one of the smaller highways rather than the bigs ones to enjoy the view more.

So not as big a drive today making it to the Big Bend National Park with plenty of time to go for a short walk and watch the sunset, though with another time zone change I lost another hour.

It was quite a good drive with the country side change quite a lot through the drive, there was some very strange art work on the way (I assume that's what it was) with a small Prada shop in the middle of no where.

The drove in was amazing and am staying in a place called the Basin, this is starting point of all the walks and I have a very busy day planned with a 10 mile walk. It is a combination of three walks, so if it gets too much a can cut it down by basically turning off.

Had a big day on the road today, it will be the biggest of any of the days driving. In total I did 563 miles which is a bit of 900kms. Not the most ideal way to spend the day, but it needed to be done so I could do the whole drive into the Big Bend National Park and hopefully get a walk in before dinner.

I had a terrible nights sleep last night, had these crazy dreams about people breaking into my and take my stuff. You think it was scary, but once I mention that the person attacking me was pretending to be a big cat and when I fought back I could not hurt them because they had a cardboard box on their head. The dream all worked out in the end, they got caught and deported back to England - don't ask me, it was just a crazy dream.

So I left Kingman around 9:30 after getting a good American breakfast into me, but I really can't handle how they do their bacon. Took about four to get to Eloy where there is an indoor skydiving center, though I did stop quite a few times to take photos. Since it had been a while since I had jumped and never been in a wind tunnel I thought it best to just go through the beginner training than just jump in there and see what happened.

I did 2 x 2 minute sessions which was a lot of fun, but all up took an hour out of my day. So I hit the road again and got to Las Cruces in New Mexico around 8:30. But now I have crossed into central mountain time and it was actually 9:30. Got a very hotel room tonight and best of all they have a laundry, so I have done all my washing before bed - though I was very upset to find I have lost a sock.

After a couple of days of letting hair down in Vegas with the other guys from the conference (Tyler came down from LA as well) we parted ways with everyone heading home. So the road trip part of my holiday has finally started, though I did not get too far today.

I stopped off at the Hoover Dam which is only about an , since I was there I did a tour of the place. The photos don't do the size any justice. I then kept heading south and then turned off to go see the Grand Canyon. Once I had to turn of the highway the drive got pretty slow, they doing the road up and the 30 miles was on rough dirt roads.

I went to the Skywalk, which is counter levered walk way that hangs over the side of the canyon and has a glass floor. It is pretty freaky, unfortunately they want let you take a camera out with you (they have their own photographers and want you to pay for their photo's).

By the time I left the sun had set and had to drive about another 90 minutes to get to Kingman, the town I decided to stay in for night. I am staying in a old highway hotel right on Route 66, it is nice and cheap, but really just picked it for the big sign they have out the front.

The conference is finally over and it is time to get the blog up and running. So here is a breakdown of what I have been up to in the last week.

I left Melbourne last Thursday morning, flying to Sydney to get a connecting flight to LA. Work sent me Premium Economy, so it was a very comfortable flight. The only downside was that I had seen most of the movies showing on the flight. So a few drinks and I was ready for a sleep anyway.

Landing in LA I was all ready for the long wait through US Immigration, but when I got to the line there was only two people ahead of me and I was out within 10 minutes. Got a shuttle bus to the Hostel just off Hollywood Boulevard. So due to the time difference it was still Thursday morning.

Did not get up to much for the rest of the day, just walked down the Boulevard to the Chinese Theatre and checked out the area. It is a pretty run down area and no way as nice as I expected. For the rest of the day I just hung out at the hostel recovering from the flight. I had dinner and drinks at the hostel.

After a good sleep I took the hostel walking tour to Beverly Hills. A few of the places we went past was Elvis's LA home, where Michael Jackson died and the Playboy Mansion.

Tyler a guy I worked with at Hydro now lives in LA, so he came to stay at the hostel for a couple of nights (he lives a bit out of the city for us to stay there. After a few drinks catching up we went back to the hostel for a BBQ dinner. We then went to see a UK house band call Disclosure. We then went y to the Roxbury Night club.

On Saturday went to Universal studios to do all the rides and a backstage tour. After the big night we weren't feeling too flash after some of the 3D rides, but we made it through and it was quite cool doing the backstage tour. That night Tyler organized Ice hockey tickets to see the LA Lakers, great seat just behind the dug out area (not really sure what it is called).

On Sunday I went and picked up my rental car and started the drive to Vegas, I got out of LA pretty easily once I got on the freeway it was a breeze. It was pretty cool driving through the dessert, but I have a lot more of this to do in the coming week.

Once in Vegas I settled into my hotel room which is cool and waited for Ricky and Tony (my coworkers) to turn up. We went out and got dinner and put our plan down for the coming week. I won't go into too much detail about the conference other than saying it was very long days and I learnt a lot. The evenings were filled with socializing and drinking and last night the band Imagine Dragons played.

So the conference is now officially over and I am going to spend today and tomorrow in Vegas and then starts he big drive that will finish in New Orleans after about eight days. Tyler is coming to Vegas for the weekend, so we will hang out for a couple of days doing a bit of shopping and partying.