Driving in the States is pretty easy, most of the time, but getting into LA was tricky. The freeways can be difficult to fathom, as the exits can be on the left or right, and if you're in the wrong lane, you're stuffed. It's worse than in the UK, Aussie, or Canada, too, 'cos if you end up in the wrong neighbourhood here, you could be in serious trouble! We only got lost a couple of times when we were looking for Santa Monica, and didn't stray into the 'hood, so w...

South again, on HWY 1, from San Simeon to Santa Barbara, we've hooked the iPod up now, so we can stop listening to George Benson, after the tenth repeat, it was getting a bit boring! Eating sensibly here is difficult, and longer we're in the States, the tighter our clothes are becoming. We realised, one day last week, that our 'fruit and veg' intake that day had been one glass of orange juice, and a dill pickle inserted in a beef sandwich! We'd eaten at a rib'n'...

The reason we stayed at San Simeon was mainly to visit Hearst Castle, the famous home of publishing millionaire William Randolph Hearst. It was built between 1919 and 1947, on the top of a hill overlooking the pacific. No expense was spared, and as Hearst was obsessed by European art and architecture, the result was a bit like a Footballer's house on steroids! The guide kept saying 'this piece is 600 years old, and it's from Europe', but it's bloody ugly, and it ...

We drove south from Monterey to San Simeon along US HWY 1, grooving to smooth jazz, courtesy of the George Benson CD we'd just bought. We had to make a huge detour inland, because the coast road was blocked due to a landslide, but before we turned inland we spotted whales off the coast of Big Sur! We followed the detour up into the mountains, and then through the middle of a huge US Army base. We were slack-jawed at the number of armoured trucks painted in 'deser...

The transfer to the car-hire place was great, cruising the streets of San Francisco, to a soundtrack of cool jazz courtesy of the bus driver. Collecting our hire car was unexpectedly easy, too, given how hard it had been in Canada, where the same company had been useless. The 'Lewis Carroll' themed B&B (as opposed to the 'Andy Carroll' themed British pub next door) we'd booked turned out to be another cracker. We joined the other guests for 'wine and canapé...