Leaving LA.....tomorrow

Hi everyone

We've just got back to our room on our last night in Los Angeles and we'll be on our way home to sunny(!) Bolton tomorrow.

We got to LA on Tuesday and checked in to the Hollywood B&B which is on Hollywood Boulevard. Although we'd read a description of the guest house when we made our booking we didn't really know what to expect. We found Hollywood Boulevard with no problem but then were sent on a detour as the road was blocked due to some film premiere event - and, inevitably, we got lost...again! We did find our way back to Hollywood Boulevard (on the other side of the theatres) and realised that this was a street with 2 identities! At one end are the theatres, cinemas, the Walk of Fame, gift shops, restaurants, lots of look-alikes hoping to earn a few dollars posing for photos and loads of tourists. At the other end (where we found our guest house) the road is very peaceful and is lined by some very lovely and unusual properties - it is mainly residential and clearly is home to some very wealthy people!
Our host, Nina, was outside our B&B as we drove up and she opened the electric gates to let us in to park. The house is, to say the least, unusual but is very, very comfortable and we've enjoyed it here very much. We have a good sized room and a private terrace overlooking the pool. Nina is clearly very arty and creative and I don't think there are many undecorated surfaces in the property! I have attached a few photos (front door, pool area, terrace, the headboard of our bed, a decorated tree in the lounge...!) but none of them do justice to the place - it is lovely!

Anyway, we've also been out and about over the last few days.
On Wednesday we went to the Getty Centre which is the most beautiful, elegant place (photo attached) filled with mega-riches including famous paintings by Van Gogh and Monet, French furniture from before the revolution and sculptures both ancient and modern. The architect responsible for the buildings has done an amazing job and no expense has been spared - we were told, by one of the 500 volunteer guides(!), that this is the wealthiest museum in the world and we can certainly believe it!

We drove to Griffith Park and made our way up to the highest point to visit the observatory. The views of the city from up there are fantastic! This is a massive city and stretches in every direction as far as the eye can see. We also had a good view of the Hollywood sign which is high on the hills above the city. There is plenty of greenery around, though - especially in the posh areas where the megastars and millionaires have their homes! The observatory is another great facility (photo attached) and we had timed our visit to start in the late afternoon which meant we'd have the opportunity to get to look through one of the huge telescopes once it had gone dark. We saw all the exhibits in the observatory and then saw a show in the planetarium (both Mart and me fell asleep briefly at different times!). Once we'd had something to eat it was time to join the queue to climb a step ladder to look through the massive telescope which was now sticking out through the observatory roof and was pointing at Jupiter - brilliant experience!

On Thursday we went to Disneyland which is around 30 miles out of LA in Anaheim. The roads here aren't too bad but the roadsigns leave a lot to be desired (we got lost again briefly on the way home)and the drivers are speed maniacs - its quite a hairy experience sometimes! Disneyland was great - busy, but we didn't have to queue for much at all. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and left after a nice meal at around 9pm.

Today we've spent a few hours down the road (well...it is about a mile-and-a-half down the road) on Hollywood Boulevard mixing with the stars (lookalikes) and looking at names and footprints on the Walk of Fame. We had an ice-cream float at an old fashioned soda fountain and took photos of the famous Chinese theatre (attached) along with thousands of other tourists.
This evening we walked down to Sunset Boulevard (which is just the next road along and runs parallel to Hollywood Blvd) and specifically to the bit of the Boulevard known as Sunset Strip and went to the House of Blues for a meal (very nice too!). We'd had a walk to Sunset Strip on our first night in LA but, not really knowing where to go, we ended up in a bar/restaurant called the Saddle Ranch. It was fairly quiet when we walked in but it soon got much busier with groups of people wanting to get on a karaoke stage and yet more gangs eager to try out the bucking bronco in the middle of the restaurant! It was packed, really noisy and good fun...but we felt tired just watching people!

We will be leaving here around 11am tomorrow. It should take around an hour to drive back to the airport and then we have to return our hire car. Our flight is around 3.30pm and we should be back in Manchester by noon on Sunday. I'm sure we'll be exhausted but we've had a great trip - hope you've enjoyed it too!

So...until our next trip, take care!

D&M
xx

Viva Las Vegas....as they say

Hola Everybody

I'm typing this from our final stopping place on this holiday - we are in the middle of Hollywood, Los Angeles.
But we'll catch up with Hollywood when we've had more chance to look around a little...this bit of the blog is about Las Vegas which we left this morning.

I really don't know where to start with Vegas...
Firstly, it is intense. It is big, brash, noisy and trashy. But it is also peaceful, elegant, relaxing and very impressive! It seems strange that a place can be both classy and trashy or noisy and peaceful but Vegas manages it - you just need to pick the places you want to spend your time.
Our hotel was very impressive and luxurious - our room was fabulous and the rest of the hotel had several pools, restaurants and lounge areas where we could get away from the noise and bustle outside. However, we were also linked to the main MGM Grand hotel which had a huge casino with thousands of slot machines and loads of people in various states of excitement or drunkenness! It also had world class restaurants, several theatres (Liza Minelli in one of them; AC/DC appearing in another soon) and we managed to join a crowd of around 13000 people to watch an ice hockey match in the arena...in the hotel! Massive!!!
The Vegas strip itself was, by turns, full of sleazy, trashy shops and people or spacious and full of expensive designer shops and world class hotels.
I can't really begin to explain about the various hotels in this blog - there are whole guide books out there devoted to the topic! - but, suffice it to say that we were generally impressed. We ate huge amounts, walked for miles (although we were experiencing temperatures of over 100 degrees outside we could usually find a route to walk in air conditioned comfort or by using escalators, moving walkways and elevators!) and spent a lot of money in the various casinos. We did come away with a small profit though so we didn't do too badly!
Whilst we were in LV we took a drive out to the Hoover Dam (about 30 miles outside the city). It was an impressive place and was VERY hot again.

As I've said, I can't begin to give an accurate picture of what we experienced in LV so I'll just leave you with a bunch of photos - hope you find them interesting and can get some feel of what we got up to and saw in and around LV (I know it looks like I've attached photos of New York, Paris and Venice but they are all hotels on the Strip - honestly!)....enjoy!

We are off to see the Griffith Observatory, the Hollywood sign and the Getty Museum tomorrow (all being well) but I have stuff to tell you about our first night on Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Strip and will have some great photos of our latest accommodation....watch this space!

Take care - we'll be back soon.

D&M
xx

Tahoe, Independence and beyond...

Hello everybody

I am typing this from our very luxurious suite in the Signature at MGM, Las Vegas...but more of this place later.

Since leaving San Francisco we have had 2 overnight stops. The distance between stops isn't too extreme so we always have plenty of time to find our accommodation, check in and then get out to explore our surroundings and have a relaxed meal.
We first drove to South Lake Tahoe. Once we'd managed to find our way out of SF it was an easy drive inland with the temperatures again climbing all the way. The landscape changed as we headed into real "cowboy" country, following some of the route used by the Pony Express, and passing through towns that wouldn't look out of place in a western movie!
We arrived at South Lake Tahoe and found our accommodation - The Paradice Motel. I did wonder about the spelling of the motel's name but then discovered it was definitely deliberate. S Lake Tahoe is on the state line between California and Nevada and, due to some laws governing gambling (Nevada allows it but California doesn't), a short walk down the street sees the architecture change dramatically! On the California side of the street the buildings are pretty, wooden and very healthy and wholesome looking (lots of hiking, skiing, fishing, biking, etc in the area); the Nevada side of the street is crammed with multi-story glass and neon casinos, bars and restaurants - what a contrast! (Have tried to show the difference on a pic attached but not sure I've captured the weirdness!) We went for a walk around the healthy bit of town before heading for the casinos in Nevada. The size of these places has to be seen to be believed but, believe me, they're HUGE! We wandered around the slot machines and gaming tables for a while and then headed up to the 18th floor to the restaurant. This particular casino (Harrah's) offer a huge buffet on their top floor and we were lucky enough to get a window seat with great sunset views over Lake Tahoe - very spectacular and beautiful.
Back at our motel (after spending far too many dollars on slot machines on the way out of the casino!) and a good night's sleep before the next leg of the journey.

After a healthy breakfast (at a cafe on the California side of the border!) we headed off towards our next stop. We were now driving south and were aiming for a little place called Independence. We knew the place was unlikely to be a tourist trap (we only chose to stop there as it was around the halfway point of the journey between Tahoe and Las Vegas) but we were still surprised by what we found.
Independence is a very small place on the edge of the desert. It is really a bunch of houses and a couple of shops gathered around the main route through but it is very small. We found our motel (it was called Ray's Den) and checked in with Linda, the very pleasant and laid-back owner. Our room was pretty basic but had TV, microwave, fridge and air conditioning and was spotlessly clean (and we had only paid around £40 for the night!). We headed out to find some food and were told that there were only 3 places to eat in "town" - there was fast food (a Subway attached to the petrol station), medium food (at a bar called Hooligan's) and slow food (at a rather out-of-place French bistro!). As we were hungry but not desperate we opted for medium food at Hooligan's - and what a strange place it was!
The building was quite attractive and really stood out on the rather shabby main street but inside was a different matter. The place was virtually empty and was quite sparsely furnished. It looked as though someone had tried to open a sports bar here (there were lots of large TV screens around the place...but only one was switched on!) and quite a big space but hardly any furniture and even less people! The waitress who took our order was severely lacking in any social skills (stroppy mare!) but it wasn't really surprising if she had to spend much of her time here. We ordered steaks and waited to see what happened. The only other customer in the place was a chap eating a pizza and reading a book - but the pizza looked very good.
Our steaks arrived and they turned out to be very good indeed! Even though the waitress was pretty rubbish we left a decent tip - more out of sympathy rather than anything else!
We walked back to our motel in complete darkness - no nightlife here!
We were woken up next morning by a huge road-roller right outside the motel - the whole building was shaking! The town is just getting pavements and street lights(!) and they were obviously keen to get on with the work! Linda had provided a bit of breakfast (muffins, yoghurt and orange juice) which made our £40 per night seem good value. Then we were off again....this time heading for Las Vegas.

This leg of the journey took us right across Death Valley and boy, was it hot! The roads were very easy to drive on - clear, long, wide and straight - and the miles ticked by quickly. We stopped at a place called Stovepipe Wells which was at the lowest point of the desert. Their thermometer showed the temperature in the shade as well over 100 degrees (see pic) and we bought ice creams like good tourists should!
The journey was really interesting though - cowboy towns, desert cacti, secret military bases with huge satellite dishes, etc. Martin had to keep his wits about him as there were some suicidal little desert creatures (like gerbils but with bigger ears) that kept jumping out in front of the car! They all survived due to a bit of nifty driving on Martin's part.

We eventually arrived at Las Vegas, which loomed up weirdly out of the desert, looking a bit like the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz! We found our hotel with only a small amount of shouting due to the inevitable getting lost (again!) but we were soon calmed by the valet taking our car away and being checked in to a mega-luxurious suite....fantastic! (have attached some pics).
We spent last evening in the MGM hotel and casino which is attached to our hotel by a covered moving walkway (we are in the posher bit of the MGM!). The place is massive - it is like a town inside a building! There are numerous restaurants, several theatres, loads of shops and miles and miles of slots and gaming tables. The place was very busy - Friday night in Vegas is BUSY, baby! - but there was still space to move about and watch the big bets!
The hotel/casino is also home to a huge 17,000 seater arena (where they hold the boxing and other sporting events) and we've bought tickets to get in there tonight to see a pre-season ice hockey game (LA Kings v Colorado Avalanche). Should be a great experience but not sure how the players will perform as we saw most of them at the gaming tables last night surrounded by pretty girls and avid fans!

So....we haven't yet made it out of the hotel (Martin thinks you could spend a whole weekend in here and still not do everything!). We are off out soon to explore The Strip and get inside some of the other hotels/casinos - but we'll be stopping by the lion enclosure in our hotel lobby first to see the famous lions (honestly....this place is sooooo unbelieveable!).
Will update with more Las Vegas stuff soon.....

Hope you're still enjoying the blog but I will carry on regardless.....

Take care

D&M
xx

So...that was San Francisco...

Hola everyone

We've just spent our last full day in San Francisco and have enjoyed our time here very much. Today has been unspectacular in a way - we revisited the city centre (following yesterday's whistlestop tour) and had a look at some of the glitzy buildings and shops. Shopping isn't really a favourite pastime for either of us so it was more a sightseeing exercise than any serious shopping. We did, however, find our way onto the roof of the Macy's store in Union Square because this is where we knew we'd find The Cheesecake Factory!
The Cheesecake Factory is a very snazzy place that has a rooftop terrace with great views across Union Square towards even more expensive shops (see pic). However, after elbowing a few locals out of the way so that we could take our pictures, we chose to eat inside. I ordered some raspberry and white chocolate thing (see pic) and Martin chose something equally rich but, to be honest, I get the shakes now when I even think about the place! The cake was just HUGE and very, very rich. It was a complete overload of sugar and cream for me and I gave up after eating almost half of my cake. Martin managed to eat all of his and made a valiant effort to get through some of my leftovers but even he was defeated and we left quite a sizeable chunk of cake uneaten on my plate. All I wanted, after attempting my cake, was a piece of cheese or a crust of bread - I would have tried anything savoury in an effort to cancel out the sweetness...eurgh! It was a very good piece of cheesecake but it was about 4 times too big for me....I'm still having little shudders when I think about it!
Anyway, we had a very chilled out day wandering around the city, looking up at the buildings and enjoying some more lovely weather.

We ate our evening meal in Little Italy which is an area just along the road from our hotel and were glad to get in somewhere to sit down as we'd just climbed up one of the steepest hills we'd ever been up! It was all in order to look down on the famous crooked street which is just a couple of blocks behind our hotel (see pic). We joined a bunch of other breathless tourists at the top of the hill; we all took pictures, got our breath back and then walked down the hill again....!

We're back at the hotel now. We've chucked our stuff into cases and will be ready to check out after we've been out to find breakfast. It looks as though we drive out of San Francisco (towards Lake Tahoe) over the Golden Gate Bridge so let's hope the fog that's currently hanging over the bay has lifted by tomorrow otherwise we could end up anywhere!

We've enjoyed San Francisco. It is a pretty laid back place with plenty of touristy stuff (mainly around Fisherman's Wharf) and a very impressive city centre. It is elegant and very attractive but all in an undramatic way - it seems to be a place that just gets on with things, doesn't make a huge song and dance about it but still enjoys itself. It's a good place!

Off to South Lake Tahoe tomorrow and then south to Independence the day after. Will update the blog when I can but I'll leave you now with some pics of SF....enjoy.

Hope you'll be back here in a day or so...

Take care

D&M
xx

We've made it to San Francisco...at last.

Hola Everybody

We are in San Francisco now - here is the story of our journey and of the last couple of days we've spent in the city so far (I've attached a bunch of photos which, again, are unfortunately arranged in a very random order! Hope you can work out which photo relates to specific parts of the text.).

Saturday
We left Pismo Beach after a great breakfast with hoardes of people who were at the hotel for a wedding. It was misty/foggy again - I hope things cleared up before the service! We drove north and were fascinated by the massive changes in temperatures depending on where we were and what direction we were travelling in. Whilst we were on the coast the temp was around 65 degrees but, as soon as the road turned and headed inland, the temps soared to the mid-90s - then back down again as the coast came back into view! Not far out of Pismo was a "tourist" sign on the road showing a "vista point" where we were supposed to be able to spot seals. Martin screeched to a halt (at my insistance!) and we got out the binoculars hoping to spot some wildlife. We soon saw seals playing/fighting in the water - which was great - and then went for a short walk further along the beach. There was a huge seal just flopped on the sand, flicking sand over himself and rolling about! A quick look round and we spotted another, then another and then hundreds of them all lying together and on top of each other in a quiet cove further along the beach (I've tried to attach a pic of one of the seals on the beach but I suspect it won't show very much!). Amazing sight!
We drove on and made a short stop at a place called Gorda. It was shrouded in fog but, we were told, less than half a mile inland the temperature had reached 100 degrees - very weird (Pic of Gorda in the mist attached).
We made another stop at Monterey (famous for its jazz festival I think) and spotted a couple of the strangest signs we've ever seen - one was a very long-winded way to say "Don't eat raccoon poo" and the other...well....we just can't even begin to guess - see pics.
We eventually made it to San Francisco after just a little of the inevitable getting lost once we hit the city streets. But it wasn't too painful and we checked in to our room with no problems. The room is much smaller than the ones at our previous hotels (it's only ONE room for a start - we were beginning to get used to suites of rooms!) but it is really nicely furnished with a huge flat screen TV on the wall facing the massive bed. The room is still a good size for a city centre hotel and we're in a great location - close to plenty of toursity stuff including the very twisty street everyone recognises and the cable cars, and we can also hear the fog horns on ships in the bay. We set out for a short walk and a very good meal in the Little Italy area of SF then sleep.

Sunday
The hotel doesn't serve breakfast so we headed off to find some. We are staying on Columbus Ave and all the streets off here are the really steep ones that we all imagine when we think of SF, but our walk was pretty much on the flat. We found a great cafe called Pelegrino's who serve eggs, bacon, sausages, etc and the most enormous waffles we've ever seen! There was a big bloke in the cafe who had ordered a waffle but the waffle won easily - he could only get through half of it! We settled for omelettes and orange juice and set off to explore.
We found that we are only a couple of blocks from the area called Fisherman's Wharf - loads of shops, bars, restaurants, etc - but we passed on by and headed out to the park and the harbour. We walked for a fair few miles before turning back and making tracks for a shop called Ghirardelli's - famous for chocolate! We both had ice creams with fresh fruit and chocolate sauce (see pic - which is, I admit, a little deceiving...the ice cream really isn't as big as it looks in the pic - it's just in the foreground...honest!) - delicious!
We then wandered to the far end of Fisherman's Wharf and walked out to a huge tourist called Pier 39 - more shops, eating places, etc but it also has a huge colony of resident seals! There were hundreds (maybe more) of them all lying around on rafts tethered in the wharf (see pic) - they looked fantastic but they didn't smell as good. They were great to see though.
We had been seeing the island of Alcatraz for much of the day across the short stretch of water (when it wasn't covered in fog!) but we were taking the evening tour across the bay to see the prison up close. We got on our boat and sailed at 6.45pm...sailing into the fog. The prison is the most desolate, bleak place but we had a great trip with a short guided tour followed by a self guided section using headsets for an audio tour before being given a short demo of all the cell doors being slammed shut by the warders - very creepy and atmospheric! (see pics) We got back to shore by 10pm and wandered back to the hotel - shattered again (we're getting old, you know...).

Monday
Breakfast again at the same cafe then headed to a local pick-up point for a bus tour. We were being taken across the Golden Gate Bridge and to other key sites around the bay area. It was again very warm and sunny...until we hit the bridge. The temperatures dropped, the wind whipped up and the fog descended meaning we couldn't see a thing! Once on the other side of the bridge the fog disappeared again and the sun was allowed through - this place isn't called Fog City for nothing! We endured the cold and fog again on the way back across the bridge and then emerged again into the sunshine...very strange.
We then headed back to Pier 39 to treat ourselves to something we'd spotted yesterday - a trip on the Rocket Boat! It is a huge powerboat which takes passengers out into the bay and then flings them around at ridiculous speeds, getting them wet and seasick whilst blasting their eardrums with loud rock music! We were among the first people onboard and got seats near the front - it was fantastic! We didn't get wet really but we had a great time(see pic) and saw some new views of the city into the bargain - when we weren't screaming or laughing!
Lunch was at an old style American diner called Johnny Rockett's - burgers and hot dogs fit the bill nicely.
We were heading back along the wharf when we were surprised by a talking bush - well, it was a shouting bush really! A bloke (called Greg, I believe) seems to hide himself in a bit of shrubbery he's nicked from someone's garden or the park and then jumps out, shouting at unsuspecting passers-by! What's even more weird is that we were told this guy manages to earn $70,000 a year doing this - we must be doing something wrong!
We took a second bus tour this evening to see the city "downtown". SF is a very beautiful and elegant city but isn't too easy to navigate around for strangers. We are planning to head back to the centre tomorrow to see what we can find...watch this space...

Will be back with more stuff in a couple of days or so if you're still interested.
See you then!

Take care

D&M
xx