First things first - happy birthday Alister. This one's a good one - big trees, big bears, big(ish) snakes and a huge creepy crawly! After Santa Barbara we headed back north east across smog filled central California and towards the adjoining National Parks of Kings Canyon and Sequoia. If you look at the map our route looks stupid but we have sort of followed the weather and our view was that this would be a drive by visit to see great spectacles before headin...

No we have not made a massive detour to Copenhagen but did have a quick lunch stop in the small Danish-American town called Solvang on our way to Santa Barbara. Solvang, meaning "Sunny Field" is an appropriate name as it was indeed very sunny. The town sports various windmills, a number of tributes to Hans Christian Andersen and some of the shop keepers wear traditional Danish costume. I felt it was all a little bit twee but a pleasant place to enjoy...

I'm back! Did you miss me? Keep on moving (don't stop) Leaving Monterey - Monday 26 September We left Monterey with plans to stop at a couple of places on our way to Cambria, a small town to the south of Big Sur (a stunning but sparsely populated coastal region). The sun was shining as we began the drive down Highway 1 on the beginning of another few days of animal magic. Once bitten twice shy Garrapata State Park - Monday 26 September 2011 Our first s...

Yosemite blew me away and regularly took my breath away - especially during the Upper Yosemite Falls climb! However, it was time to move on and start our drive down Highway 1 - sadly not in the soft top convertible that everyone recommends but a very basic and clunky Hyundai. With the iPod turned up, sun glasses at the ready and satnav programmed our next destination was Monterey Bay. We whizzed past countless fields growing a variety of produce i...

The pictures tell it all on this blog - Karen has captured Yosemite brilliantly and my limited vocabulary will probably make this special place sound like all of the other wild places we have visited. It won't stop me having a go though! The way - leaving San Francisco 19 September 2011 We had kind of agreed that it would be madness to drive in central San Francisco but somehow we had booked a car to be picked up in downtown. It was almost disastrous - Alamo ...