San Diego, California

San Diego was a wonderful choice for the final leg of Adam's parents' jam-packed ten day journey with us.  Lynne and Geoff had booked into a nice hotel for their final three nights before their flight back to the UK.  We drove through San Diego downtown to drop them off at their hotel on the harbourside, receiving the same funny looks as we always do from passers-by when driving through a city centre in Winnie.

The closest RV park we could find to their hotel was in the Mission Bay area about seven miles away.  We arrived just in time to watch the sunset on Mission Bay which was beautiful.  The RV park had fairly good transport links to the Old Town, albeit a mile walk to the bus stop - trainers on!

We arranged to meet up the next day in the Old Town San Diego Historic State Park.  The State Park has attempted to recreate the Old Town as it existed during the Mexican and early American periods, from its settlement in 1821, through 1872 when it lost its dominant position to Downtown San Diego.  It is a beautiful quaint area of town full of restaurants, shops, museums and historic buildings, houses and beautiful gardens.  Lynne and I took the opportunity to do some obligatory girlie shopping, browsing the clothes and trinket stores, much to the disdain of the men in our company.  Jewelry, sombrero's and leather cowboy clothing all had to be investigated extensively, as did the colourful scarves, poncho tops and tribal dresses.

Adam surprised me by doing a bit of shopping for once.  Even after failing to negotiate any discount off a nice leather wallet, he made the purchase anyway.  Although exactly what he needs a new wallet for I don't know.... any money he owns is usually tucked away safely in my purse!

Next, we headed to a Mexican restaurant in the Old town to refuel; you can imagine how Adam's eyes lit up when he spotted the ridiculously large beer glasses in the window.  No need to further debate where we should eat!  Well after all that splashing out on a new wallet I think he really needed a drink. I was actually surprised when he only ordered a half yard of ale.  I had to ask him if he was OK or feeling ill or something - far too reserved for him especially when a full yard was available.  It was only lunchtime, I suppose. 

Lynne and Geoff had managed to acquire two free day tickets for the trolley tour by heroically enduring a few hours of a timeshare type sales presentation. Naturally they were only really interested in the free tickets, so politely turned down the million pound apartments - a bit hasty don't you think!  We bought two more tickets between us all for the highly recommended San Diego Trolley Tour.

Unfortunately we got off to a bit of a bad start with our first tour trolley driver.  The four of us took the few remaining seats on the back seats of the open sided trolley.  It was a beautiful day so no problem with a bit of fresh air coming in, at least until he set off down the freeway at 60 miles per hour!  The whole point of the tour was that it was guided and narrated by the driver, but none of us could hear a word he was saying due the 60mph winds taking our breath away and generally whipping us in the face.

As the trolley came to a halt at a set of traffic lights, I took the initiative and opportunity to stand up to unhook and release the plastic weather sheet to save us all from the battering of the wind.  Suddenly, the driver turned around to look straight at me, announcing over his microphone (which was now working loud and clear with the vehicle stationary): "You need to leave that alone, it's very expensive!".

The other passengers all turned around also to see what expensive item I was tampering with. Yes, that's it, it's just a cheap looking plastic window.  By then, I had actually already managed to unhook it without causing any "expensive" tears or rips, but he still ordered me to put it back as it was.  All attempts to explain that we couldn't hear anything due to the wind was met with equal curt arrogance, offering no further explanation as to why I was breaking the rules.  There was certainly no mention of it being due to any concerns for my health or safety within the vehicle or anything similar.  He simply barked that his microphone was turned up fully and that we should be able to hear just fine, which we could when we weren't hurtling down the highway.  At this point I had pretty much lost interest in anything he had to say, especially his awful jokes and terrible attempts at singing.  Adam was fuming and did a magnificent job of showing the driver up to be the rude idiot that he was.  Although sadly some of his best sarcasm was lost in translation.

We got off the trolley soon after, all looking a little more disheveled than when we got on!  We accidentally disembarked one stop sooner than we had originally intended, but there was no way we were hailing the same bus driver to let us get back on!  Anyhow, this gave us the opportunity to explore much of the length of the affluent island resort city of Coronado.

Coronado lies on a peninsular connected to the mainland by a ten mile strip of sand.  We walked about ten blocks across the island past pristine luxury houses and streets, enjoying the warm sunshine on our backs.  "The Village", as the locals refer to it, is the center of Coronado with numerous prestigious restaurants and shops.  We were pretty thirsty after after our unanticipated stroll and our unexpected run-in on the trolley. Somehow by luck we found ourselves in a sunny beer garden waiting for cocktails, so the day was redeemed from there on in!

That evening we headed back out to the Old Town Historic State Park to the Hacienda De Las Rosas - a wine and beer tasting shop...yes more drinking!  I had read quite a few slightly negative reviews of some of their white and red wines, but the beers sounded generally OK, and the price and atmosphere promised to made up for the negatives.  With this information I braved the wine tasting, whilst everyone else went for beer.

After my first sniff and sip of wine I could confirm that they had definitely made the right decision!  Dishwater and vinegar comes to mind. I never realized it was possible to get wine SO wrong, and I am really no connoisseur!  The only wine I enjoyed was a warm Christmas mulled wine which they called their Sangria.  The generous samples of beer were washed down easily, so I gathered help from Adam to help with my wine - being the gentleman that he is he happily obliged.  Despite the sour aftertaste of my vino, the hour we spent in the warm and friendly atmosphere was very pleasant and enjoyable, and the beers received very positive reviews from the others.

The next day we all met up on Mission Boulevard near Mission Beach outside a bicycle hire shop.  We went into the shop with our discount vouchers and picked up two bikes for Lynne and Geoff.  A bright pink one for Lynne, and a black one for Geoff (he was, of course, disappointed he couldn't have a matching pink one...).  Suddenly, as Lynne starts rolling off down the street, she notices that the handle bars are a bit wider and different than a normal bike, not to mention there's no brake levers on the handle bars!  Back into the shop we all go to find out what kind of death machines had been palmed off onto us. I know we got a discount, but surely brakes are a fairly critical component?

They are apparently called cruiser bikes, and you simply have to pedal backwards to stop - simple as that!  Well, I'm certainly glad I didn't have to ride one.  In less than 10 minutes, with only a few squeals from Lynne, they both soon got the hang of it and started showing off!

The weather wasn't the best that day, with a few light showers here and there, but that did not deter us one bit from cycling all the way around Mission Bay.  I'm not sure exactly how many miles it was because we did a bit of extra exploring too, but it was probably over 10 miles around and more like 16 miles by the time we got back to the RV park.  It was a lot of fun though and we saw some superb beach front houses as well as an old and slightly shabby part of town.

After a few hours of recuperation and resting our achy legs, we met up again for a final farewell meal at a Mexican restaurant in the Old Town.  We had scoped it out the previous evening when we did our wine tasting.  It looked so inviting, with outside dining around several real flame patio heaters and the promise of a live Mexican band.  We were not disappointed - the food was fantastic and the drinks flowed freely once again; just as they always do with the Williams's!  My mother-in-law to be is probably a bad influence, which is just a fine match for my family.  As the evening came to a close, we said our slightly tearful goodbyes at the bus station as we said "Adios" for another 5 months.  But all in all very happy times ;)

We only really saw a very small portion of the city in the two full days that we had, but what we saw we absolutely loved. I didn't really have any expectations, high or otherwise of San Diego, but it is definitely somewhere we would love to go back to.  We spent a couple more days there being pikey staying for free in a public car park yards away from the RV park which we had previously just stayed at for $50 or more a night.

Happily, we also spent my birthday in San Diego.  Breakfast started off well as you can see, with pain-au-chocolat with dark chocolate dip, fresh fruit and bubbles!  Later Adam treated me to a day at a local health club resort with spa and massage -  which was lush!

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Los Angeles, California (Part 1)

It was tough leaving behind the liberation of cruising the wide open desert and watching Navajo horsemen gallop through Monument Valley at sunset.  But at least we could look forward to getting our deckchairs out on the I-5 and working on our tans while waiting for the traffic to move, and watching police helicopters chase car-jackers through the projects of South Central.  For it was time to head to LA!

It was going to take us two solid days of driving to get there, so we decided to make it more interesting by diverting onto the old Route 66 for a while.  Despite its historic pop culture significance, there's not a whole lot going on along there any more, but we stopped for a while at Williams, Arizona, the last Route 66 town to be bypassed by the new Interstate 40 when it was built in the early 80s.

It's a haven of the nostalgia and spirit of Route 66's heyday, with classic diners, quirky hotels and shops and classic cars lining the streets.

The next day we reached the outskirts of LA with our usual impeccable timing.  The one thing I always said I did not want to do was drive the RV through LA in rush hour, especially anywhere near the airport.  Well, good news!  It was about 5:30PM and the only half-decent RV park we could find was right across town, just over the road from LAX.  Awesome!

LA seems to be the only city in the USA where driving tests are optional.  I think they must use it for population control or something.  After about the tenth time someone cut me off, passed me on the wrong side or tried to merge with the freeway / motorway in front of me at 20mph, I started realising why people think guns are a good idea in this country.

Still, we made it in one piece.  I was pretty confident I hadn't lost the back end of the coach at any point as I could still hear the clink of the wine bottle hitting my Mum's glass every so often!  And despite our proximity to the airport, there wasn't much plane noise so we all got a decent night's sleep.

We only had one full day in LA before heading down to San Diego for the final part of my parents' trip, so we had a lot of ground to cover.  We hired a car and headed straight for Hollywood.  It was only a Dodge Avenger or something (bog-standard mid-size type affair) but, considering I'd been driving a glorified school bus for the last eight months, it felt like the Batmobile to me.  It didn't take me long to set about evening the score by cutting people off, undertaking and generally driving like a nob.  Hypocritical?  Maybe.  Satisfying?  Definitely.  Deal with it!

We parked up somewhere along Hollywood Boulevard and began star-spotting on the walk of fame.  If you've never been to Hollywood, trust me: the image you probably have in your head is much better than the real deal.  It's a dump.  Nearby Beverley Hills, Bel Air and the Hollywood Hills are incredible but down here in reality, not so much.  I'm convinced they put the walk of fame there to make sure you keep your eyes on the floor rather than looking at your surroundings.

The best thing about this place is knowing that they won't give a star to Kim Kardashian, but this legend's got one:

Sharon and I ate at a pizzeria in Hollywood once and she said she'd spotted cockroaches on the way back from the bathroom.  Unfortunately I was halfway through my pizza by then; I knew black olives weren't supposed to have legs though!

This time we dragged my Mum and Dad to In N Out Burger, figuring at least we'd probably all die of heart attacks instead of e-coli poisoning.  After devouring 12 burgers between us, I pointed the car in the direction of the Hollywood Hills and let my belly do the steering.

A jaunt around this end of town is a must for any delusional soul planning what to do with their millions when they eventually become a rock god, superstar DJ or third-rate reality TV star.  Plenty of architectural eye-candy around here.

I'm not sure who lives at this one but I'm guessing someone famous; there was a 10ft stone mask on the wall and a zoo of metal animals on the front porch.  Hardly suggests an introverted personality!

Great views of the city from this lookout too:

Not a famous person in sight though.  That's the second time Scarlett Johansson has stood me up now.  Thought I might at least get a glimpse of Leonardo DiCaprio giving himself a pep-talk in front of his trophy cabinet ready for the Oscars.

We drove on past Beverley Hills and onto Santa Monica Boulevard, heading for the beach.

Santa Monica beach is one of the nicer ones in the LA area.  It's at least a couple of miles long so plenty of space to stretch your legs and put a short but significant distance between you and city life.

We strolled along it for a while towards the historic pier and then headed inland for some shopping.

The sun was retreating before long so we jumped back in the car and headed for the Griffith Observatory.  Looking south from Griffith Park into the Los Angeles basin, this is one of the best places to get one of those iconic hillside views of the metropolis below.  You can see the entire city and all the way to the ocean, plus of course the Hollywood sign on the opposite hill.

Incredible at night; the photos don't really do it justice.  Inside the observatory there's also a planetarium and tons of interesting, interactive exhibits for kids and adults.  And it's free!

Our stomachs were calling again by this point so we fled the hills and headed for the nearest restaurant we could find where large, exoskeletoned insects were not on the menu.
Having just about scratched the surface of LA, we got our heads down after a few medicinal beers and got ready to depart for San Diego.  Sharon and I would return to LA a week or so later though, so I will cover that in a separate post.

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Monument Valley, Utah

Monument Valley is one of the most iconic and majestic landmarks in the American West.  Huge red monoliths, deep in colour and immense in stature, tower over the otherwise sparse sandy plains of the Navajo Tribal Park between Arizona and Utah.

It's been immortalised countless times on film, from classic John Wayne movies like "Stagecoach" and more modern favourites like "Forrest Gump", to small screen ventures like "Doctor Who", and a whole host of TV commercials.

Our journey started about four hours south-west as we departed the Grand Canyon and began ploughing our way through the heart of the Old West.  In searing heat I bravely led our group as we carved a pathway through the punishing desert terrain of Arizona (by which I mean I switched on the air-con and followed US-160 East for a while, admiring the scenery).

It was my Dad's turn to get into the swing of "trailer trash" life today.  We stopped at a gas station and after I'd re-fuelled I found him wandering the forecourt, halfway through his first Budweiser of the day.  If the cops had driven past, he probably would have just raised the can to them and said "Cheers!", before crushing it on his head or something.  That's the spirit!

Back on the road, it wasn't long before we started to see some dramatic figures permeating the hitherto relatively smooth landscape.  We weren't there yet but you could be forgiven for thinking that you were:  The mesas that interrupt the terrain at this point resemble unfinished, but nonetheless impressive, prototypes of the final article.

There's no mistaking it when you do eventually see it though.  Huge, rusty red pinnacles of rock fill your field of vision all the way up the short road leading from the main highway to the valley.  I say "rusty" literally, as the glowing red colour comes from iron oxide deposits.

It's not really a valley in the most common sense of the word.  It's a vast, flat basin from where the red siltstone buttes protrude, some standing 1000 feet, casting long shadows on the basin floor.

The whole Navajo Tribal Park belongs to the Navajo Nation.  The area is effectively the Native American equivalent of a National Park.  The legend states that a fierce debate took place under a tree to decide whether outsiders should be allowed to visit the area.  On the one hand, designating the area as a Tribal Park would offer the land some protection from being developed on, and bring much needed funds to the population. On the other hand, it is seen as sacred land that shouldn't be interfered with or trampled by tourists.

Obviously the proponents of establishing the park won the argument in the end.  The land is still viewed as sacrosanct though; in fact the Navajo Nation website includes an unusual warning on its front page:

"DO NOT desecrate Navajo lands and violate the trust of Navajo people by discarding cremated human remains on tribal property."

We paid our $5 to enter the park and, after a quick check to make sure no-one was carrying any unauthorised urns, headed for the viewpoint at the visitor centre for some incredible panoramic vistas.

The Arizona / Utah border runs right down the middle of the valley and from the lookout you can see several dirt tracks meandering between the rock formations.  Some of these can be driven by the public (although no chance in our RV!).  Others are not accessible to the public without a guide.  

The Navajo offer jeep tours along the Valley Drive to see the areas that can't be seen from the lookout point.  After a bit of negotiation, we managed to get on one of these tours for a reasonable price.

We bundled into a big modified truck and set off down the dirt road.

I could already sense that this was going to be an experience to remember.  This thing clunked and creaked like the bed springs at a pay-by-the-hour motel as we sped over the rocks and potholes along the trail.  I remember wondering how the hell it managed to keep going when ours seems to have a nervous breakdown at the mere sight of a speed bump.

To be honest, the white-knuckle ride was worth the price of the tour on its own.  The amazing scenery was a bonus!

"West Mitten Butte", on the right:

"Elephant Butte", which I think is the one they put a Jeep on top of (as in, actually air-lifted it and dropped it on top!) for a commercial:

"Three Sisters", eroded remnants of a narrow ridge extending south from "Mitchell Mesa":

"Camel  Butte":

No sign of Phillip Schofield at this one:

"Yei Bi Chei" and "Totem Pole":

They definitely missed an opportunity by naming this one "The Thumb":

We were about half way around the fifteen mile loop of the valley when the truck started stalling and spluttering.  Our driver, who turned out to be a bit of a character, said "I'm not surprised, there's no fuel or oil in it!".  Excellent, seven miles to cover on vapour!

"Don't worry, it's mostly downhill on the way back, just rock back and forth - that usually gets it going!". 

Now, two words in that sentence bothered me immediately:  Firstly the word "mostly", with reference to how much downhill there was; and secondly the word "usually", implying that this is a regular occurrence.

Nevertheless, the four of us, plus two random German women who had ended up on the same tour as us, did as instructed and sure enough the cantankerous Jeep started up again.  This process was repeated several times over the next couple of miles.  As the sun started to disappear behind the horizon, the driver said: "Well at least if we have to spend the night out here, we'll get a great view of the stars".  We all laughed in the back, but his laughter was conspicuously absent.

On one of our increasingly infrequent bursts of engine power, we managed to get enough speed up to cruise a few miles to the base of the hill leading back to the visitor centre.  This was where our "mostly downhill" ended and there was about as much chance of us driving up there as there is of me turning vegan.  We jumped out and started walking and luckily our driver managed to get word back to his boss via another driver that we needed picking up.

When we eventually got back, our poor driver looked slightly confused as we handed him a generous tip, but we all agreed it was the best laugh we'd had in ages so well worth it.

On the way in, we'd spotted a small and very basic "RV park" just down the road from the visitor centre, also owned by the Navajo.  It was in a prime location just on the edge of the valley so we stayed there for the night under the watchful eye of the stone towers.  And we had a slightly more comfortable view of the stars than we would have if we'd been stuck out in the desert, each hugging a wheel of that truck for warmth.  Those of us who are able to get up at silly o'clock in the morning also had an amazing view of the sunrise over the valley the next day.

Funnily enough, our driver showed up at the camp the following morning to say hello, looking quite merry.  He made it clear that he'd put our tips to good use at the pub the night before - fair play to him!  Although by the look of him, he'd managed to stretch his bar tab well into the morning.  As we said goodbye to him, I wasn't sure whether to be glad that he had the day off and wouldn't be driving anyone around the valley trail, or concerned that he'd just jumped into the driving seat of his own truck and headed off in the direction of the nearest town...

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Grand Canyon, Arizona

The long drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon was my parents' first taste of life on the road in the RV.  Mum seemed to settle into it particularly quickly.  Having claimed a spot next to the window where she could watch like a true lady of leisure as the outside world flew by, it wasn't long before she mastered the fine art of pouring a glass of wine while the RV bounced and swerved its way around the potholes of the Great American Freeway.

Although travelling with us, they weren't staying with us in the RV at this point, so after a solid six hour slog we dropped them off at their hotel near the entrance to the Grand Canyon, went to find our campground and met up again the following morning.

The Grand Canyon is a national park like any other that we've visited, basically meaning that it's all enclosed within a specific, marked (and obviously, in this case, huge) protected area.  There's a loop road that takes you to many points of interest within the park boundary, with a couple of gates leading in and out.

The Grand Canyon park area is divided into two: the north rim and south rim.  Bear in mind that we're talking about a 277 mile-long, 18 mile wide hole in the ground here, so you can't just decide which side you want to visit when you get there.  The north rim is usually closed through winter anyway - the higher elevation leads to much more snowfall - so we already knew we were heading for the south.

We parked in one of the visitor centre car parks and jumped on a shuttle bus that would take us seven miles along the south rim to the "Hermit's Rest" viewpoint, stopping at several others along the way.

Our first stop was Trailview Overlook, our first real chance to gawp at the overwhelming spectacle of sheer scale before us.  This is also the starting point for the Bright Angel trail which descends 3000 ft into the canyon.  It's a fair trek (12 mile round trip) so we didn't attempt it in the time that we had, deciding instead to try and see more of the upper edge of the rim.

We walked on to Maricopa Point and The Powell Memorial, the latter commemorating Major John Powell and his crew's exploratory expeditions down the Colorado River in the late 19th century.

Onto Hopi Point, with some more amazing views across to the north rim.  This is one of the most popular viewpoints for watching the sun rise and set because of its wide vistas.

Mohave Point gave us our first glimpse of the Colorado River way below:

Forged over time by a combination of water and wind erosion, continental drift and other factors, the Canyon is basically a geologist's wet dream.  Its walls expose several layers and eras of perfectly preserved ancient rock, some dating back over a billion years.  The Abyss viewpoint provides an almost vertical view down into the basin.

We stopped at a few more imaginatively-christened lookout points, alternating between using the shuttle and walking, before reaching our final destination, Hermit's Rest.  Time to grab a coffee before heading back to the RV.

At the risk of sounding blasé about something that's devoted millions of years to securing its place as one of the seven wonders of the world, by the time we reached Hermit's Rest I kind of felt like I'd seen more than enough!  Don't get me wrong, this is one epic hole in the ground and it's incredible to be able to look back in time by gazing into that huge chasm.  But as someone who would probably tend to describe the rocky canyon walls as "red" and "grey", rather than "Paleozoic" and "Precambian", I struggled to see much variation in the sights at each respective viewpoint.  I was much more captivated by the almost alien colours and shapes on display at Bryce Canyon, for example.

I suppose I'm probably missing the point - you can't reasonably expect a single entity of this magnitude to look all that different at each end of a mere seven mile stretch. If I went back I would definitely tackle the Bright Angel trail.  I hear the views are great and heading down into the canyon would obviously offer a much different perspective.  I imagine sunrise or sunset over the canyon would also be an impressive thing to witness!

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