Nine Sleeps To Go

We're now into the single digits of the countdown to The Bonneville Run, with only 9 more sleeps to go. We have booked all the accommodation from when we leave San Jose on the 3rd of August until we depart Bakersfield after the Famoso Raceway Summer Nationals.

Along the way we'll be spending a few days in Los Angeles, checking out the Petersen Automotive Museum, the Wally Parks NHRA Museum, visiting the Moon Eyes shop and the Bobs Big Boy in Downey. We're also planning on getting to a Dodgers game while we're in town and have a few other things on the list as well.

After we leave Los Angeles, we're off towards Las Vegas, taking time out to stop in at Bakersfield and Death Valley along the way. We have hotel rooms booked in Beatty, Nevada, just a little way outside Death Valley and only a couple of miles from the Rhyolite Ghost Town, which I intend to visit around sunset and hang around to take a few night photos.

In Las Vegas, we've booked a couple of nights at the Bellagio hotel and casino, home to the famous dancing fountains. We haven't made many plans for our time in Las Vegas yet, but will sort that out a little more while we're on the road. Once we leave Las Vegas, we are spending a night in a cabin on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and then heading north to Bonneville.

The Bonneville Salt Flats are located just outside the town of West Wendover, on the border of Utah and Nevada. They are home to the fastest land based motorsport on the planet, with many world land speed records being set here. We arrive in town on the Friday of the Southern California Timing Associations SpeedWeek event.

We have hotel rooms booked in West Wendover though till Tuesday morning, which is when we say goodbye to the salt and head onwards with the road trip. We have rooms booked on the southern shores of Lake Tahoe and at historic Wawowa hotel in California's Yosemite National Park. After we leave Yosemite, we're headed onwards to Bakersfield and the Famoso Auto Club's Famoso Raceway, home to the ANRA's Summer Nationals, a huge 2 day Nostalgia drag race meeting.

After we leave Bakersfield, we're probably going to make a few things up as we go along, thats where the booked accommodation runs out for now, unless we decide to add a few nights somewhere else as well. We are planning on getting to John's Charburger in Livermore for a Friday night cruise in the weekend after Bakersfield, and there's also a GoodGuys show in Pleasanton that weekend, so we might hit that up as well. I'd also like to head back down to Santa Cruz and Monterey, and perhaps spend some more time around that area, maybe as an overnight trip during the week, instead of going back and forth each day.

While we're back in North California's Bay Area, I'd love to get to the San Francisco 49ers' preseason game against the San Diego Chargers on the 2nd of September, and there are a number of things around the San Francisco area that I'd like to see, both things we didn't know about last time and things that we went and saw last time, but I'd like to see again. We'll nut out some of those ideas over a few drinks while we're on the road and come up with some sort of game plan at a later date.

At either end of the trip, we also have a lengthy stop over in Auckland, New Zealand, between flights, and on the way across, we've booked a hire car for the day and will spend some time exploring Auckland before returning to the airport to wait for our flights to San Francisco.

5 Weeks To Go, Then 5 Weeks In The USA

We've just slipped inside the 5 week mark for The Bonneville Run. With the exception of 2 nights while we're on the road, the rooms are booked. The Cadillac has been dropped off at a San Jose workshop where it will be serviced to make sure it will survive the trip and we've been buying up as much American currency as we can get our hands on.



We've been researching fairly heavily and are adding new places to our lists of things to do and places to visit every day. We've probably got enough stuff on there now to fill our schedule quite easily, however we're still looking for more suggestions.

Two Months and Counting

It's now less than 2 months to go until we land at San Francisco International Airport (aka. SFO) at 1pm local time on the 1st of August 2010.

We've got most of our accommodation booked for the trip, in particular, all the busy places like West Wendover (the nearest accommodation to Bonneville), the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park and Death Valley are booked. We've also booked our accommodation in Culver City, Los Angeles and at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

We still need to book somewhere near Lake Tahoe, and I'm leaning towards the south end of the lake as well as somewhere in or near Bakersfield and also in Beaver in Utah.

After we get back to San Jose from Bakersfield we have a few weeks to relax and enjoy the Bay Area, and may also add a night or 2 in Santa Cruz, Monterey or maybe somewhere in the North Bay area.

More Accomodation Booked - The Grand Canyon Lodge

The latest development with our trip planning for The Bonneville Run is the booking of accommodation at the Grand Canyon Lodge, on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The Lodge is the only accommodation available inside the northern part of the Grand Canyon National Park, which is a much less tourist oriented part of the Park than the South Rim area. Our accommodation is a cabin that will sleep up to 6 people and is less than a 5 minute walk to the edge of the Canyon itself.



When I first checked the availability of rooms at the Grand Canyon Lodge, they were showing plenty of rooms available, with the exception of their cabins, which were booked out. My preference was initially for a cabin, but I gave up on that idea and was happy to book 3 separate rooms instead. Last week, I checked again with the intention of making a booking, and found the website showing the Lodge was booked out for all of August. After checking third party sites and finding rooms available, but at a much higher rate at otel.com, I emailed the Lodge to enquire about room availability and any other third party providers they worked with. The response I received gave me the names of 2 third party providers to check with, one of which was otel.com, but also informed me that there was a Pioneer Cabin available at the Lodge, and lo and behold, when I checked the website after reading the email, there was a single Pioneer Cabin booking available for all of August, on the dates we needed to be there. The next most important booking we will need to make is at Death Valley, as there are, from what I can tell, 4 places inside the Death Valley National Park where we could stay, and these are likely to sell out well in advance of our trip.

Three Months and Counting

With three months to go until we fly out on The Bonneville Run, now is the time when we wanted to be making sure most of our bigger accomodation expenses were booked. With that in mind, last night we booked a room at the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas for 2 nights of the trip. The Lakeview Deluxe room we booked would normally have cost us US$200 a night plus taxes and resort fees, but we managed to find a promotional code with a tiered discount on offer depending on how far in advance you were booking, which in our case gave us 25% off the room rate, saving us US$50 per night.

Our remaining multi-night bookings are now Los Angeles at the start of the trip and Bakersfield the weekend after we leave West Wendover. I would also like to book our room at the Grand Canyon sooner, rather than later, as there are a limited number of rooms there, in fact, it looks like we missed out on my preferred room before we'd even decided we wanted to stay there.

100 Days

Today marks 100 days until we fly out from Perth International Airport, to begin 'The Bonneville Run', including our trip to the Southern California Timing Association's Bonneville Speed Week 2010.



We still have to book our accommodation in Las Vegas and for a fair bit of the rest of the trip, but we're getting more and more things planned out every day. We now have a fairly good idea of the places we want to visit in Los Angeles and are working out the best way to make that happen without going crazy in traffic. We have chosen, but not yet booked, our accommodation in Las Vegas, and that will be coming soon.



Our current plan is to spend 2 nights in Las Vegas checking out the night life and the lights of the Strip. When we leave Las Vegas, we're heading to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which is a slightly less popular spot with the tourists than the South Rim and consequently has less options for accommodation, so we're going to have to book that pretty soon also. I'll post up more information about where we're staying in Las Vegas and elsewhere on the trip as we book it.

Yet Another Update

Well, it's been almost two weeks since the last post, and we haven't too many more plans for "The Bonneville Run" yet, but we're also almost at the point where we could sort the rest out once we land. At the moment, there are three of us going on "The Bonneville Run", and at least 8 other West Australian's that are heading to the United States at the same time. We'll be catching up with some of these guys and girls in Los Angeles, and all of them at Bonneville.



Kate and I have decided that we would like to spend at least one night in a "Wigwam Motel", and the one major thing we've done since the last update on "The Bonneville Run" is to book a room at one of these historic motels. The Wigwam Motels are part of a chain of motels that used to be spread out along the length of the historic Route 66. These days, only 3 Wigwam Motels remain, and only one of these is anywhere near where we'll be on this trip. Wigwam Motel number 7 is located in San Bernardino, on the eastern outskirts of Los Angeles, and it will be our accommodation on our last night in LA, as it will also allow us to travel outside of peak traffic times. If you're interested in staying a night at Wigwam Motel number 7, in San Bernardino, then check out their website and don't forget the discount code on their rates and reservations page.