California – Summer 2012

Our senses have been acclimatised and we have been Vegased! We saw a show “O” at the Bellagio on Saturday night – absolutely amazing. I have little idea what the story was but the show was fantastic. How they did all that, with the stage and the water- breathtaking. Even more so as we were […]

So we left the beauty and peaceful surroundings of the Grand Canyon yesterday and set off for Las Vegas. It was just over a 4 hour journey through the desert. As we passed the Hoover Dam on the way we stopped off. We had a tour of the power plant. It’s so vast it is […]

So we rose ridiculously early and left the California behind and on Monday flew to Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a great flight and lasted all of 45 mins. No sooner had we landed than we left and drove into Arizona and to the Grand Canyon. The high temperatures of Vegas soon dropped as we […]

After doing the decent thing and speaking to the boys first thing in the morning (for us) and mid afternoon (for them) we had to spend the day recovering and relaxing from the fact that David was last dressed on Wednesday, allegedly, and Jonathan has mowed the lawn, watered the flowers and done a Sainsburys […]

Yesterday we arrived in Santa Monica and after checking in walked down to the beach. We resisted the urge to demonstrate our prowess on “muscle beach” but watched the locals on the rings. Was impressed by the “shortie” that made a sand mountain to climb on so she could reach- that would have been me! […]

An early start and we set off down route 1, the pacific highway. It was so early it was still misty and reached the giddy heights of an English summer day! It’s a beautiful drive – we passed schools of elephant seals basking on a beach by the side of the road. Whilst the scenery […]

So we left Yosemite and marvelled at its tranquility. We drove southwest through California and saw vast groves of trees – growing almonds and pistachio. We’ve never seen those before. I was reminded of the Mediterranean and Israel as there were stalls by the side of the road selling these nuts and cherries, strawberries, oranges, […]

So we finished off in San Francisco – got our photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the bay. We picked up our car and just under 4 hours later we were in Yosemite national park. It was an easy drive and we didn’t get lost coming out of San Francisco thanks to Agnes […]

So yesterday I mentioned how much cooler San Francisco was and indeed at times on the bus near the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman’s Wharf we were shivering in the breeze. Big oops – we still caught the sun, a bit too much (don’t tell the kids we were so irresponsible). Change of plan today […]

Well despite that being our longest flight ever, it was fantastic. Even more amazing was that our luggage last seen at Manchester airport also successfully negotiated its transfer and made it too! We made it to our hotel and arrived about 16:30 local time. What a lovely hotel – look up its history online – […]