Todos los fotos

Back on eastern time!

Well, as usual, a whole lot has happened since we last wrote...

Our one night stay at the Paris hotel in Vegas was awesome! Nick and Dominique hooked us up with tickets to the Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love show at The Mirage which was totally indescribable. We also lounged by the swanky pool and gambled on slots in the Bellagio and the Paris. To our dismay, we made nothing back, but we only gambled about $15. The next day we set out on a red-eye flight to St. Martin in the French West Indies for our week-long sailing trip with Zach's family.

Joined by Zach's parents and his two brothers and their girlfriends, we sailed through the Carribbean, making stops at Anguilla, St. Barth, Ile Fourche, and Tintamaree. The water was warm and crystal clear, and sometimes filled with baracuda and sea turtles! We sailed, swam, snorkeled, hiked, relaxed, and did a little shopping. The trip felt so luxurious compared to the camping/sleeping in the car, and showering every 4 or 5 days which we've become so accustomed to, so thanks Micky and Bobbie for the pimped out excursion! However, I should mention that the humidity in the Carribbean during this time of year is no joke, and without A/C on board, getting a full night's sleep was, well...difficult and wet more often than not. As the rest of the crew headed to the airport to return to their careers and responsibilities, Zach and I headed to our one-night stay at a beautiful resort hotel in Orient Bay, to enjoy one last night in St. Martin together. Oh, and MTV's Bill Bellamy was everywhere! He was on St. Barth walking through the same streets as us, and then days later, he was sitting on the beach in St. Martin, five chairs away from us. Zach and I were getting pretty sick of all these celebrities following us around.

We flew back into Vegas, praying the whole way that our car was still where we left it, and it was! We stayed the night in a hotel off the strip, and then woke up early the next morning to start making our way back east. We drove for three days on I-40 east, stopping to sleep in Albuquerque and Little Rock, before we finally made it back to North Carolina! Now we're relaxing at Zach's family's lake house for the weekend, doing laundry, taking showers, and recharging our batteries. Eventually we'll make it back up north to Maryland, but until then, we'll be sorting out wedding details and putting off reality down here.

See you all soon!

~Zach & Nicole

Wow! It's been a while since we've found ourselves in front of a computer. But here we are in Pahrump, Nevada, 67 miles north of Las Vegas! We'll do our best to fill in the past 2 and a half weeks, because we've seen and done a whole lot...

We got a little too comfortable in Seattle, thanks to our amazing hosts Sasha and Tessa, and spent about a week just lounging, eating, running, and visiting Zach's AT friends Nick and Rachel. After leaving Seattle, we headed south to Portland, Oregon (which was an awesome city!), and then slowly worked our way down the Oregon coastline along US-101, camping at beach state parks. The Oregon coast was beautiful, and pretty much looked like New England beaches, except they were about 15 degrees cooler. Zach bought a kite in Newport and that replaced me as his new best friend for most of Oregon.

Once we reached California we camped and hiked through Redwood National Park, and then booked it to San Francisco! We spent the most beautiful day of our trip so far in Sausalito, hanging out at marinas and checking out boats. We toured San Fran by bike, along the bay, and scored a free bottle of wine and some local figs. Next we headed for Yosemite National Park in western California, which was Zach's favorite park. There were raging waterfalls, huge granite walls, cascading green rivers, quiet lagoons, and domes all over the place that provided awesome views of the park. Plus, we saw another black bear, ran into Sasha's friend Heather and got a free dinner and place to stay for a night (thanks Heather!), and hiked parts of the Pacific Crest Trail and the John Muir Trail.

Getting anxious to get to Vegas for our luxurious one night stay at the Paris, thanks to Nick and Dominique, we hightailed it to the desert AKA hell. If you want to know what it feels like to drive through Death Valley on June 30th at 2 pm at an elevation of -290 feet, turn the oven to about 200 degrees and climb inside. Seriously. We sweated for about 4 hours straight, because Zach insisted we leave the AC off and put the windows down to prevent the car from overheating. The wind was gusting at about 15 mph, but don't mistake this for a cool breeze...it felt like a blowdryer set on high hitting you in waves. You get the point.

Now we've got one more day of this infernal heat before heading to Las Vegas, and then St.Maarten for our sailing trip with Zach's family! We hope all is well back home. We're having trouble uploading all of our photos from the last 2 weeks, but hopefully we'll get that taken care of in Vegas tomorrow. Stay tuned...

~Nicole & Zach