(Claire) We have now left the yacht to travel a little further around the USA before we leave for the UK. Our initial plan was to island hop around the Pacific to get home. This proved to be quit difficult. We could only really go to one island before straight home and that did not sound like the kind of adventure we had in mind. So…….one night after a couple of mojitos, Bruce and I came up with our alternate plan. We will go the other way around the world to get home! I have some very good friends in the UK and Bruce has family in Wales so we will go to visit these people for a couple of weeks, then stop off in Thailand for some sun before visiting my brother in Sydney. This means we can enjoy a bit more time away from home and still have an adventure.
So, now you are up to date! Before we leave the USA we are doing a short circuit of California and flying to New York before departing for the UK.We arrived here today after the drive back for Las Vegas. We are staying at a hotel close to the airport as our flight leaves at 6.30am tomorrow for NY. That means we need to be at the airport at 4.30am……..Ahhhh! We went on a limo tour of the sights of LA this afternoon. We visited Hollywood and the Hollywood sign, Beverley Hills and Rodeo Drive on the tour. The Hollywood sign used to say Hollywoodland, but an earthquake took care of that. The land part dropped off during the earthquake and was never replaced! We then went down into Hollywood which was particularly interesting today as the Oscars were on last night. The Oscar statue as still out the front of Kodak Theatre and the red curtains were in piles on the floor. A small patch of red carpet was left for people like us to stand on and feel famous for a minute. We were walking where the rich and beautiful had been hours before! But there were lots of other people there too so we were only a couple in the crowd.
We continued down Hollywood Drive to look at the stars on the footpath. These included the expected people, but also stars like Snow White and Winney the Pooh! I really did not think cartoon characters would have stars in the pavement. We then reached a pizza place with a pizza in the window maybe over 1 meter in diameter! We had to have a piece of the ‘party size’ pizza! It fed 2 of us easily.
We went back to our pick up place for the limo outside Madame Tussuad's wax museum. Bruce stood next to Samuel L Jackson’s wax version. I think they are the same height!
Our tour continued through Beverley Hills where the driver pointed out some well established trees including fully grown orange trees with fruit and mature palm trees. He said the week before, these trees did not exist! The owner had them planted next to his newly built home. Probably costing in excess of $1million US!
Rodeo Drive looked beautiful, but I really could not have gone into any of the shops so it was good to drive past. All the shop fronts are very glamorous and I would have felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman had I gone in! Here are some of the shops….but all the big brands were there.
Tonight we are headed to the rooftop bar of the hotel for a quite drink to sedate us before our early night and even earlier morning!
(Bruce) Well we are sitting in JFK airport waiting to fly to Heathrow via Dublin on Aer Lingus. We have had a good time here in the United States of America! We drove from Newport Beach to San Diego last Friday and spent the night there. We found some really good little Italian deli’s in San Diego. We had a really good meal in the Little Italy district, every Italian meal we have had in the US so far has been outstanding. We drove 450 miles to Las Vegas on Saturday and spent two nights there on the way to Vegas we drove through a shadow in the Valley of Death, actually Death Valley but it doesn’t roll of the tongue quite same. Vegas was not really what I had expected it to be. We drove up and down the strip – it was pretty amazing. But on entering the casinos I felt somewhat disappointed, every casino is kind of like a big mall with a different theme. Not the ‘Ritz and Glitz’ I had imagined, so on our second day we decided to go for a drive around the desert. We ended up on some snow covered mountain at 4500 feet and a temperature of 39 degrees Fahrenheit. We turned around and headed to Red rock valley and then onto the Valley of Fire – some awesome scenery. As it was getting late in the afternoon I decided to head to he Hoover dam. We drove for some time then it got dark and started raining. Not ideal for our first time into the American wilderness. We eventually got to Hoover dam, drove over it and in to Arizona stayed for around three minutes and turned around. We got home to our accommodation around 2030 after driving in torrential rain at 75 miles an hour on a six lane freeway – it was an experience!
We left Vegas and headed back to Newport Beach to drop of the rental car and head to LA. We spent an afternoon in LA being chauffeur driven around in a black Lincoln town car. LA to New York was a six hour flight that we got up a 0345 to make. Slept most of the way but when I woke up and looked out the window all I could see (from 37,000 feet) was snow covered flatlands. New York turned out to be quite cool but the best place we have visited in the USA yet. New Yorkers seem to be genuinely friendlier than the locals of the other cities we have been to. We have seen a lot of the city in three days, even saw the Black Eyed Peas performing in Time Square (for free thank you city of New York).
We are now in little old England which I can say has turned on the good weather for our arrival! they had a two month high the day we arrived of .... ten I think it got to twelve yesterday but that is not so bad as there were areas in central park (NewYork) that were still covered by a foot of snow! I thought this trip was going to be bikinis and cocktails instead its been beanies and hot chocolates! (I am sure you can feel my disapointment!) any way the bikini should be reveiled when we arrive in Bankock, hopefully it wont be covered by riot gear as the locals gear up for anti government protests! (this could be fun also) .... however I am in hope of hot weather somewhere! I heard today that it is nice and warm at home right now. I will attempt to upload some photos next havent had much luck with this! bye for now or should I say 'Tally ho old boy time to chase some foxes - fetch the hounds will you butler!'
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