America 2013: Day Three - November 24 | Six Flags Magic Mountain Staples Center NBA

Come on now junior take a wild ride. See can you make it on the wild ride. Don't try no shakin' on the wild ride. We just might break it on the wild ride!

- Kenny Chesney

One of the things I love most about America is the bunch of awesome people I know here, who’re great friends who go out of their way wherever they can to help make my vacation(s) awesome, be it buying a few rounds, completely changing their schedule to make sure they’re in town when I am, invites to Thanksgiving, collecting all my tickets and organising really cool experiences wherever we travel.

Like today – we headed out to Valencia, CA (about an hour’s drive from our hotel) out of the Valley, to Six Flags Magic Mountain, whose location reminds me of the distance and setting between Sydney and the old Australia’s Wonderland. The difference is, whereas Wonderland had a few big-time rides, this place is stacked with possibly the most insane collection of thrill rides on the planet. 

Knott’s Berry Farm was big, but this place is huge. Right away, you get an idea of the enormity of the rides. You drive into the parking lot, and are confronted by the twisting, intertwining track of two or three roller-coasters, and there’s the foreboding twin towers of ‘Superman: The Escape’ in the background, rising out of a tangle of other rollercoaster tracks. That’s when you know you’re either going to puke up your guts on the first ride or discover an iron constitution. There’s no middle ground at Six Flags.

Through a friend’s relative, we were gifted VIP Flash Passes which basically put us to the front of every queue for every ride in the park – the website says it cuts waiting times by 99% – bar the two newest ones, which you can add on for a small price. Not only do you get to the front, but you can ride twice in a row without getting off to re-queue. There’s nothing quite like VIP treatment, and it was ours for the day.

Pretty much every ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain is white-knuckle. There’s a roller-coaster where you’re actually ‘flying’ on your stomach (the longest and fastest of it’s kind in the world), one that has free-moving pods that spin forward and back of their own accord, one with two 160-foot loops, another where you actually stand up, a wooden coaster where you have flame blasted at you, a coaster that drops beneath ground level into a tunnel, and then there’s ‘Superman: The Escape’. On that, you go from 0 to 100mph in seven seconds straight up a 415-foot tower – backwards…with 2.5 seconds of weightlessness.

The best thing you can do is not eat very much during the day. Ride til you can’t ride anymore, and then get something to eat. It can get pretty dicey if your Johnny Rockets burger with fries and a bottle of Sprite starts to repeat on you – or worse – when you’re being flung side to side and upside down and through double corkscrews, pulling pretty heavy G-forces at sixty miles an hour.

Poor Lauryn, who hadn’t seen anything worse than Luna Park up until forty-eight hours ago, either hates me or has become a roller-coaster fanatic. If it’s the former, I’m eternally sorry. If it’s the latter…well, cous, you’re welcome. Armed with our Flash Passes, we rode til we dropped, hitting the front of every queue. There’s nothing I hate more than queuing for a ride that barely lasts two minutes, so the Flash Pass was awesome.

We’d ridden ourselves to a standstill by mid-afternoon, and drove back to downtown Los Angeles to Staples Centre – for the second night in a row. The sheet of ice the Kings and Avalanche skated on last night was covered over by the hardwood of a basketball court with gold and purple trimmings. Staples is home to two NBA franchises, the 16-time NBA champions and their cross-town rivals, the less-successful Clippers. 

Although, in recent seasons, the balance of basketball power in this city as switched around: the Clippers have enjoyed a resurgence whilst the Lakers stocks, due to injuries, trades and retirements, have somewhat diminished. Tonight, though, it was the Lake Show on fire in front of a sell-out crowd, beating the Sacramento Kings 100-86. Whenever the Lakers win and hold the other team to under 100 points

Earlier, we met up with the great Sasha Krivtsov for breakfast at Starbucks in Valencia. Sasha plays bass on NBC’s The Voice, which is the biggest music talent quest in America, and is one of the coolest people I know. He passed over a very important package which is going to make one of my friends very happy when I see her in a couple of weeks.

Something else happened tonight. There is a little-known phenomenon in Southern California that affects me on a regular basis. Nathan and toilets in this part of the world have a disagreement at least once every trip. Tonight was no different. He had successfully reached his quota of blocked toilets for the week. Room Service personnel are like a quick-strike military team whenever he’s in town. No one is safe. Trevor had to take shelter in our room whilst the unblocking happened. He’s scarred for life. I don’t blame him.

A harrowing end to an awesome day. Some pretty cool stuff happening tomorrow that’s come up suddenly…which I can’t yet talk about, but it’s gonna be pretty awesome!

America 2013: Day Two - November 23 | Universal Studios Hollywood Staples Center NHL

We are, we are the saints, we signed our life away. Doesn’t matter what you think, we’re gonna do it anyway. We are, we are the saints, one day you will confess. And pray to the Saints of Los Angeles

- Motley Crue

Did we sleep like it was going out of fashion last night/this morning, or what? After a day where we flew halfway around the world, tackled the big coasters at Knott’s Berry Farm, battled infamous LA traffic, and went to a hockey game, we were pretty much ready to collapse when we got back to the Travelodge. And we did.

Nine hours later, we all felt much, much better. The weather was better this morning, more sun than clouds and no rain, and after breakfast in the hotel’s courtyard we headed downtown towards Hollywood, and Universal Studios.

Sitting on the edge of the sprawling NBC Universal studios, Universal LA is the smallest theme park in the city, and one of the most interesting. It’s centrepiece is the Studio Tour, in which you go on a tram through all the back lots, past famous filming locations, lifting the lid on how things are done in Hollywood. For example, a small patch of grass on the edge of a road is what they use for Central Park shots. There were a few movies shooting as we went through, and, of course, the big sound stages that house CSI and The Voice are always in action.

After a fire ripped through the Universal back lot in 2008, the old King Kong experience was destroyed, so Peter Jackson’s WETA digital studio put together a new one especially for the tour. The tram you’re on drives into a tunnel, and suddenly you’re being rocked back and forth, with King Kong fighting dinosaurs and saving the trams. The reality is that you’ve hardly moved at all. The special effects are incredible. As are the ones on the ‘earthquake simulator’ where you drive into a subway station, which is then destroyed by a massive earthquake.  Attention to detail here is incredible.

The real story is that the Kong experience broke 3 times as we tried to go through it. They couldn't get it working. All we saw was a giant white screen in the tunnel. They ended up putting us on a different tram to go through the experience, and handed us some vouchers for our trouble. It extended the tour by nearly an hour and backed up the tours behind us something shocking as we tried so many times to get into the attraction as normal. It was worth it in the end!

Universal also has some great rides – The Mummy roller-coaster, Transformers 3D, The Simpsons Ride and the Jurassic Park splashdown. On Jurassic Park, you ride a big boat through the park, seeing some of the harmless dinosaurs, before an incident occurs, and a T-Rex gets loose. You’re then ‘evacuated’ by dropping from 14 storeys up down a ramp for a water splashdown. No one on our boat – and there were at least 16 people – got as wet as Nathan did. He was absolutely drenched. The rest of us, not so much!

The new Transformers 3D ride is also very cool, and The Mummy roller-coaster takes place exclusively in a dark room. It’s not as fast as anything we rode at Knott’s yesterday, but it’s pretty wild because you can’t see where you’re going. Sitting in the very front row is awesome. The Front of the Line Pass, which allows you one-time access to the head of the queue for each ride, show and attraction cost an extra $50 and it was totally worth it. Going right to the front for a ride, rather than wait half an hour, is fantastic! It’s the only way to go on a busy day.

After we'd gone through Universal, we took our chances with the Los Angeles traffic and made the relatively short trip across to the downtown area, to Staples Centre, home of the Los Angeles Lakers (NBA), Clippers (NBA) and, tonight, the Kings, 2011 Stanley Cup Champions, and perennial contenders in the NHL’s Western Conference. Two hockey games in two nights – perfect!! Tonight’s opponent was the Colorado Avalanche in from Denver.

Tonight was no different to last night. There were no goals in regulation time. Apparently our appearance is inducing goalie duels. It’s good to watch two really good goalies stone shooters again and again but, right now, I’d give just about anything for a wild 6-5 game. Unlike the fairy-tale ending at the Ducks game, with Getzlaf’s last-second overtime winner, the Colorado Avalanche scored in overtime, sending the pro-Kings fans home unhappy.

Watching the Kings is great. It’s cool that they took Lord Stanley home in 2011, but they’ve always had a passionate fan base, and a bunch of good players over the years – the greatest of all time, Wayne Gretzky, played some record-breaking seasons as a King – as well as one of the best game day experiences. Staples Centre is fantastic: the crowd is loud, and the facilities are top-notch. The only downside is some of the seedier parking lots around. Those $10 lots aren’t worth your life!

Special no-thanks to the unhelpful lady on the main concourse who wouldn’t accept our Australian identification for Trev and I to buy ourselves some Budweiser. She would only accept our passport, which, of course, we weren’t carrying. “US driver’s license or international passport only, sir,” was her stock-standard line. Our solution? Go around to the next bar, where they had no such problems. Give us a break! It’s not like we’re under-age or anything.

Another good day, despite the Kings loss, and a big one coming up tomorrow with Six Flags Magic Mountain in the day and a Lakers NBA game at night.

America 2013: Day One - November 22 | LAX Knott's Berry Farm Honda Center NHL

It’s a high school prom, it’s a Springsteen song, it’s a ride in a Chevrolet. It’s a man on the moon and fireflies in June, and kids sellin’ lemonade. It’s cities and farms, it’s open arms, one nation under god. It’s America.

- Rodney Atkins

America!

It feels like forever since January 2012, when I flew home from Los Angeles, and it’s good to be back. Southern California is at it’s typical sunny best. It wasn’t long after sunrise that we landed at LAX, which is about the second-busiest airport in America and in the top five busiest in the world, a place where you often have to take a 15-minute bus ride from one terminal to the next. If this is your first time to Los Angeles, and the airport is your first glimpse of the City of Angels, it pretty well sums up the sprawling metropolis in which you’ve just landed: it’s pretty much civilisation gone mad.

Los Angeles, famous for it’s insane urban congestion, the crazy mass of highways – stacked three and four high in some places – that crisscross the city and it’s surrounds and the smudgy layer of pollution that seems to hang permanently over the city, framed by the spectacular San Gabriel Mountains, is a strange place to visit. There isn’t a major attraction downtown, and parts of it are very seedy and dangerous, but there’s a feverish energy here, which I’ve only seen matched by New York City, and it’s addictive. Everyone’s going somewhere quickly, usually in an SUV. There must be more of those here, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. 

We had some interesting things happen at the airport before we even left Australia. There was an accident at the top of the escalator as we came into Sydney airport. Luggage, luggage trolleys, cups of coffee and ten-gallon hats (they were Texans!) went everywhere. Then, at the food court inside the terminal, we witnessed a guy looking at what were basically pornographic images. The problem was that we could all see them, too. Majorly uncomfortable.

Somehow we got checked in and under way, and after all the craziness in the terminal, it was a relief to get on the plane. I got four hours of sleep, the most of any of us.

We landed early on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. Being one of the first flights to land - we were on the ground just after six thirty - is, I think, the key to avoiding really obscene queues at Customs. We've been stuck in some bad ones over the years. Once we were welcomed into the country by the blue-shirted TSA folk, we picked up the hire car, checked into our hotel, the Travelodge LAX, and had an unhealthy breakfast at Dennys (which is connected to the hotel) and headed out to Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, about 45 minutes east of LAX.

Knott's is the oldest theme park in California, and the first one I ever went to, back in January of 2006. It opened in 1920 and was more famous in those days for Cordelia Knott's fried chicken dinners (which they still cook to this day, and are as amazingly tasty as they are rampantly unhealthy). The boysenberry has it's origins at Knott's, too. Walter Knott, a berry expert, was the first to cultivate and sell the berries in 1932. When people asked what they were called, Knott said, "Boysenberries," after their originator, Rudolph Boysen.As the berry's popularity grew, Cordelia Knott began making preserves, which ultimately made Knott's Berry Farm famous.

These days, Knott's is better known for it's white-knuckle rides - the Xcelerator, Silver Bullet, Montezooma's Revenge, Ghost Rider - and they are as good as you'll find anywhere in the world. Silver Bullet, (nearly a kilometer long, with a towering  vertical loop, cobra roll, zero-g roll, and two corkscrews) is my favourite ride in the park, closely followed by the Xcelerator, (which takes you up and over a giant upside-down U, reaching 132km/h in 2.3 seconds from a standing start.

The Southern California wether didn't help us out much today. It rained for most of the afternoon, so we left the park early and went back to our hotel to check in and get a bit of rest before we battled insane LA traffic en route to nearby Honda Centre in Anaheim, for some hockey! Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my hockey. It was so awesome to arrive in America, go to a great theme park and then to a hockey game all on our first day! Tonight, the hometown Anaheim Ducks against the Tampa Bay Lightning, from Florida.

Watching live NHL hockey for the first time in nearly two years is a rediscovery of everything that I love about the game. A big, passionate crowd, the best athletes in the game, a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, the sound of stick-to-stick passing, of skates across the ice, of a player being checked against the boards, the thunderous roar of the goal horn and all the other sights and sounds of being in an NHL arena, which separate this league from other hockey competitions around the world. 

It was the first NHL game for Lauryn and Trevor tonight, and they saw a pretty good game, too. Until an overtime loss to New Jersey on Wednesday, the Ducks hadn't been beaten at home this year - the best record in the NHL - and they ensured their home losing streak stayed at one. The game was tight, 0-0 until 5.2 seconds left in the 5-minute overtime period, when Ryan Getzlaf snuck the puck past Tampa Bay goalie Ben Bishop to spark off wild celebrations inside Honda Centre. Some great saves made by both Bishop and Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller.

Needless to say, we were all incredibly glad to get back to our hotel after a long day - two days, actually - but a hugely enjoyable one and get some sleep. Universal Studios Hollywood and more hockey tomorrow.

Great to be back, America!

The Art Briles Dilemma | Baylor Bears Texas Longhorns

In the wake of Baylor’s 41-12 throttling of Oklahoma to kick off week eleven of the college football season, news emerged that their head coach Art Briles signed a contract that will keep him in Waco for the next ten years. Of course, terms weren’t announced – they never are, not when the school in question is a private institution – but you can bet that it’s not a small offer. It will probably have been the payday to set Briles and his family up for life.

More importantly, it’s job security, which seems to be a less and less common thing in the busy world of college football. Briles is casting his lot in with Baylor at a perfect time: there’s no doubt that the school is on the way up. After Robert Griffin III’s Heisman year in 2011, we’ve seen a groundswell of support and success coming out of Waco.

Years of being the Big XII punching bag seem to be in the rear-view mirror now that Briles, who had similar success at the University of Houston, has players of the ilk of QB Bryce Petty, RB Lache Seastrunk and WR Tevin Reese doing their thing. 

Can you, with a honestly-straight face, look at me and tell me that, top-to-bottom, Baylor isn’t the most exciting team to watch at the moment? Big plays on offense, they’re rolling along nicely on defense – ask Oklahoma about that – and special teams haven’t been too shabby, either. For the first time in perhaps ever, the Bears are nationally relevant, ranked at fourth after another week featuring a few upsets and off to a 9-0 start for the first time in school history, good for tops in the Big XII conference. No wonder Briles got paid.

The dilemma, though, concerns what has happened, what is happening and what may possibly happen in the near future down in Austin, home of the University of Texas, whose Longhorns have had an up-and-down season, which many accustomed to runaway success on the gridiron as pinning on, or at least looking to pin on, veteran coach Mack Brown.

It can’t please some UT folk that, Baylor and Texas A&M, also-rans for so many years compared to the might of Longhorn football, are now making waves far beyond what UT have done recently.  The Aggies have Johnny Manziel and are taking it to the best in the SEC and Baylor are on target to break a stack of records – they’ve already broken some – thanks to a ridiculously prolific and high-scoring offense.

Briles, of course, is the architect of that offense. At Houston, he recruited Case Keenum and started that quarterback on his way to holding basically every NCAA quarterback record worth anything, and has found a similar sort of player in Bryce Petty, after RGIII shined, really spotlighting the rising Baylor program, and Nick Florence had his own share of touchdowns and passing yards last year.

Meanwhile, there’s trouble in Austin. Some there would like to see Mack Brown out the door, and he may well be forced out if Texas don’t somehow manage to get themselves into a good post-season Bowl game. Their 38-13 loss to Oklahoma State last weekend was the worst home loss for the ‘Horns since Brown took over. Just after the coach had quieted his detractors with a string of wins, they’re given fresh voice with a bad loss.

Make no mistake: Texas wants Nick Saban. Of course, they’re not alone. Every college program wants someone of Saban’s skill to head their problem. The difference is, Texas can pay big money to lure the Alabama coach down into Longhorn territory. They have boosters who’ll pay whatever it might take to get a guy like Saban wearing burnt orange.

The popular theory is that if Saban doesn’t want to go and coach in Austin, that Art Briles might be the guy next on the Longhorn radar. It would definitely be a good fall-back option for Texas, but the question is, would it be a good move for Art Briles?

I say, no. Stay where you are, Art, and don’t even think about moving!

Why? Simple. The times are changing. Right now, there is movement afoot in Texas football. It was somewhat evident in the last few years, and really glaringly obvious now: the balance of power is shifting. The Longhorns, on top for so long, are sliding. Into their place comes A&M, Baylor and even a Texas Tech unit resurgent under Kliff Kingsbury. No longer is it a certain thing that the best prospects from the state head straight down to Austin and enrol to be a Longhorn.

We’ve see homesick RB Lache Seastrunk leave Oregon and head for Baylor. A few years ago, he would’ve gone to Texas, but the Bears have turned things around and are getting legitimate athletes going there to play football because they want to, not because no one else will take them. As 5-star recruits come in, more will follow. The groundswell is on. For coaches, Waco is becoming a destination rather than another stop on the road to somewhere bigger and better. It’s a place to be, and Briles is responsible, having built a solid program that figures to only get stronger from here.

So why leave? Briles has everything he could need at Baylor: a chance for a true rags-to-riches story, a line to some serious talent, and the Bears are next year moving into the state-of-the-art Baylor Stadium, which will be amongst the best in America upon completion. Even his defense, a weak link a few years ago, is progressing nicely.

Most importantly, there is a lot more freedom and a lot less pressure on the coach of the Baylor Bears than on the coach of the Texas Longhorns. School administrators at Texas demand instant success, and there’s a giant weight of expectation coming from a rabid fan base, too. Baylor are new to success, so a few speed-bumps along the way aren’t going to provoke so much angst. 

I mean, half of Longhorn nation wanted Mack Brown out after two weeks. He might oversee a 9-win season and they’re thinking about showing him the door. Basically, in Austin, if you’re not winning your conference and challenging for a National Championship every season – okay, maybe they’re allowed a down year every now and again, but not two or three strung together – you’re on the Hot Seat. 

Yes, Texas can throw a heap of money at a coach – but those dollars come with an extraordinary amount of stress, too. On the other hand, in Waco, there’s bound to be a lot less stress. Every school wants to win, but there isn’t a ‘win now or else’ mentality yet.

Who knows what the future may bring? With the uptick of Baylor football, there’s every chance that Texas won’t be the one big-time program in the state. It’s tracking the way of there being a few programs being able to attract the top-end talent that the Lone Star State is famous for. Instead of Texas getting all but the occasional player falling though the recruiting cracks, I have a feeling that the battle between the Longhorns, Bears, Aggies and Red Raiders is going to heat up.

Briles should know by now that he doesn’t need to be in Austin to get the very best talent. He’s proven to himself – and everyone else – that he can attract legitimate five-star recruits to Waco. Why not stay there and continue the work that has already started? Keep building the program up, and you’ll soon be spoken about in the same breath as the Longhorns, the supposed big brother of Texas football: nationally relevant, and a giant television draw. It can be done, and if Briles sticks around, his name will forever be legendary around Waco.

Surely, Art, that’s going to be more rewarding than taking over a program built up by someone else?