Hello peepes! Writing this from our hotel room in Las Vegas. We are staying at the Luxor hotel which looks like a giant pyrsmid! We've been travelling around the west coast for just over a week and already we have been to California, Arizona, Utah and now Nevada. We flow from Rarotonga to LA and picked up our hire car. Then we headed for San Diego for a very quick look. After this we got on with our tour proper and headed for Joshua Tree National Park. Its a cool place - very desert like - with lots of huge boulders, mountains and (surprise) Joshua Trees. We have decided to go camping over here which is great cos it means we can stay in the national parks. It was very exciting camping in the desert - there was hardly anyone there! From J.Tree we headed to the Grand Canyon. This was totally excellent! The canyon is so big - over 10 miles wide + a mile deep + its also realy long! The views from the top are just amazing! We did a good days hiking along the top and got lots of good views + pitures. Plus we got to see Condors, which was really cool. After the Grand Canoyon we took a long drive up to Arches National Park (via Monument valley, which was just like being in a wild west film!). Arches is great - crazy sandstone arches carved by the wind + other funky rock formations. We did some nice hikes around here too, and were camping by the Colorado river, which was fun. After Arches we went to Zion National Park. This is probably our best place so far - the scenary is really beautiful. Its in a big canyon, carved by the Virgin river, and theres excellent hikes up to steep sides to great look out points. We did a really cool walk here which involved walking along a thin bit of rock with shear drops wither side into the canyon below - amazing, but a little scary at times! This morning we drove to Vegas, where we are now. We have looked up + down the strip. Its kind of wierd here, but an interesting place. We have still got a few weeks in america to go so will update the website again soon... also hopefully with some pictures! Thats all for now! Dean + Helen