Tuesday 4 June - Thursday 6 June San Diego, California Leaving Vegas somewhat uninspired and low on enthusiasm, after discovering we had missed meeting up with the Dreyers, our poker hustling friends from back home, we flew into San Diego for a couple of nights to cleanse our palettes. With not too much/enough time to really get out teeth into SD, we traipsed up and down and down and up the popular Gaslamp District of downtown, ending up at the House of Blues...

Saturday 1 June - Monday 3 June Las Vegas Baby So we decided to drive through the Nevada desert toVegas (as if we haven't seen enough desert in our time!?) We left at the crack of dawn to avoid all the LA traffic and we managed to get there 4 hours later along with all the other weekend revellers just in time to hand our hire car in. Phew. You know how the first night is always the biggest night - well we proceeded to check into the cheesiest hotel in Vegas ...

Thursday 30 May - Friday 31 May Hollywood, LA So after much research we decided that the most central and safest spot to stay in LA would be slap bang in Hollywood. Cripes, they weren't joking when they said the traffic in LA is a nightmare. There is no point trying to drive anywhere in your car - its bumper to bumper everywhere - even on the 4-lane highways! The traffic jams did give us time to sightsee though, we sat on Santa Monica Blvd for over an hour, ...

Monday 27 May - Wednesday 29 May Driving down Highway 1 (Monterey, San Simeon, Santa Barbara) We reluctantly left Yosemite the next day as we couldn't find accommodation for an extra night and made our way west towards the coast, stopping in at Gilroy to take advantage of the Memorial Day sales at the Outlet malls. We stocked up on clothing for when we're back in Oz - got some amazing discounts on designer gear, leather jackets, handbags, shoes, brand name...

Friday 24 May - Sunday 26 May Yosemite National Park We hired a car for our next part of the trip and drove out of SF heading for Yosemite National Park, on... as luck would have it - Memorial Day weekend! Yes, so the world and his wife were doing the same thing as we were...this also meant we couldn't get our accommodation inside the park as its been booked up to a year in advance. We were very happy with the delightful hostel we found just outside the park...