Was a bit of a shock coming back to a big city - funny how quickly you get used to less populated areas!San Fran is a nice city. It feels a bit like Brighton - with it's arty types; liberal-minded peeps; flamboyant gays; and of course, the homeless (of which there seemed to be a lot) - but bigger. It's certainly got bigger bloody hills - which are a great way of getting fit (and a way of limiting the damage caused by weeks of eating out in America)!Plus it doesn'...

It was hard to believe that in the space of a few hours drive, we had gone from unbearably hot, dry desert.....to cool, lush green, mountains (with small pockets of snow)!What a beautiful place this is! It's also so easy (if a little slow), to get to all the main attractions. You don't even have to walk anywhere if you don't want to.....in true American style, you can simply drive everywhere!It's also pretty busy this time of year, but thankfully there are fewer ...

What can one say about Death Valley other than it's HOT! DAMN HOT! According to the temp gauge in our car, it peaked at 122°F (that's 50°C)!!(It is officially the hottest place I have ever been to, ladies and gentlemen! So there)!It is also rather windy, but instead of cooling things down, the wind simply makes things worse!The only way to escape the heat (other than stay in your air-conditioned room or car) is to go up. So we did, to Dante's View where you can...

One more night here - we just can't get enough of the place!!Wandered around MGM (and looked at the lions there - relatives of the original MGM lion no less), Excalibur and The Luxor. We also had our first and only go at Blackjack (well, Ali did, I just watched)!We lost!There goes my hope of winning back the cost of this trip!b*****.(I did manage to win $87 - from a $2 bet - on the slot machines. And yep, you guessed it, I lost that too)!!!

A quaint little town an hour or so away from the Grand Canyon, that cashes in on the fact that it is on the historic Route 66. Still, it's a lot cooler than Vegas as it's much higher up. Which was nice.We treated ourselves to a helicopter flight over the canyon which was good...but also rather scary. Now, I'm not usually a nervous flyer, but this helicopter was all over the place (due to the thermals coming up from the valley you see)!I won't be rushing to do tha...