So leaving the area around San Fran we headed into the Yosemite national park. Which has the most amazing array of monoliths in the world. Huge stone escarpments loom menacingly and beggar belief as you drive in. It´s hard to grasp just how huge they are until you see a speck half way up that is a climber 2 days into a climb of a rock face. It is also famous for it´s waterfalls although we were once again there in dry season so no torrents on view really. and i lost track of the number of times i heard americans say " ahh your leaving they turn the water on in 5 minutes.. ho ho ho "

it was beautiful though so we went on a hike to a falls that did have some water running in it and felt virtuous for being back on the walking trail and out of a car for a few minutes. about 90 minutes to be exact and then back in our PT cruiser which were overly abundant, and off towards vegas , stopping the night in Fresno.

up early next morning and heading across the mohave desert to the city of dreams , Viva LAs Vegas, Vegas Baby yeah. in fact on pretty much every photo we upload you can add the words Baby yeah to the caption. (whitehouse baby yeah etc!)

the mohave radio station had constant traffic updates as the road south of where we were was getting closed all the time due to smoke from wildfires.. little did we know then that was the start of something much bigger.

we got to my old stomping ground the Imperial Palace at about 4 and were parked chekced in and out on the strip before 5. the hotel couldn´t be better placed just up from treasure island, just down from bellagio and just opposite Caesars palace. and in the rooms at the back, a plush double for less than 25 quid, god bless the pound this year!

Jennifer had become vaguely obsessed with the concept of an all you can eat buffet so having planned only 2 nights in vegas we toured the famous casino´s, including Paris and the venetian checking out the all you can eat fare.

after wat ching the necessary fountain show at bellagio which was even better than i remember, we plumped for the flamingo, not in homage to sinatra but becuase they appeared to have the largest selection of sugar free deserts for jennifer to abuse. so in we went and stuffed ourselves silly on (jennifer) seafood) and (me) meat products. 70 minutes later we were ready to go and pick out 3 deserts each, and do the taste test. they were all rather good. we sinned eating dairy but the desire for cheesecake was overwhelming )esp as you´d pay 4 quid a slice in england)

then it was time to roll back to our casino for a spot of gambling. Jennifer whinced as i changed a fifty at our table but she needn´t have as two hours later our balance was still fifty so we turned in for the night. We actually played on an electronic screen adjacent to tables manned by lookilikies of famous singing stars who then take it in turns to perform a song on a podium amidst the gambling mayhem. Shakira was forever hi fiving us for picking teh right numbers, and got a big cheer for doing a good impersonation on stage a few minutes later.

Next day it was time for a spot of souvenier shopping and a little wander to look at the all you can eat lunch offerings )she hadn´t been satiated by just one,,, oh no!

we picked up a few odds and ends and when hunger struck we returned to our own palace for the buffet which turned out to be very good despite being the cheapest and having if possible a greater selection of sugar free´s.... we were stuffed!

to walk it off we went to caesars palace forum for a spot of window shopping. There are a lot of memorabilia shops in the US and though much pricier than the uk they do have some really great stuff for not that much. If you were rich you could pick up shirts worn by elvis, steve mcqueens jacket, john lennons guitar and all sorts of film star stuff for a few hundred quid upwards.

alas that was all slightly out of our budget so we window shopped and then headed to the play boy shop as jennifer likes a lot of there jewellery and stuff.

they also had a lot of books on sale, like the celebrities of playboy with Pamela Anderson Gracing the front cover. we decided against purchase of the book and turned as jennifer was discussing the merits of jogging bottoms and walked slap bang into the REAL Pamela anderson. She was in vegas as a celebrity assistant to one of the magicians playing there. It was quite a surprise and kind of ironic we´d meet in that shop, anyway we became firm friends over a latte and expect to be christmasing with her this year..

not really our american luck was about to run out. I should have bought the book and got Pammie to sign it with a photo and slapped it on Ebay for a hundred quid. but we ended up going our seperate ways.

nothing was bought that afternoon so we changed for dinner and went to see the Sirens show at treasure island which was lots of fun and pyrotechnics and sinking boats like always .

then over to Harrah´s to try there buffet. i was still pretty full from lunch but jennifer managed to foist another mass of seafood into her stomach and a few (6) deserts for good measure.

feeling slightly exhausted we managed to lose 20 dollars at the table that night and only got hi fived by madonna and mariah carey, till elvis came out and took all our cash.

bed. interrupted as during the night some of the prawns jennifer thought she had eaten made a late bid for freedom and escaped her tummy. Exit plans from vegas were put on hold as food poisoning took over. we were lucky enough to be able to keep our room and jennifer spent the day resting and watching TV whilst i did pretty much likewise before succumbing to a pizza and a quick gamble which finally netted us a profit, which was possibly only retained when the system crashed and i was forced to walk away with my takings.

the next day we checked out and drove long and hard to the grand canyon which is awesome every time you see it, nothing can do it justice you just have to go. a lot of photho´s later we were back in the car having to drive all the way back to tuscon to drop the car back having lost the day to food poisoning.

we made and and dropped the car had some sleep and decided to head into mexico straight away.

it wasn´t straightforward though as our hostel gave us a bum steer and we ended up at the greyhound bus station that didnt´run to mexico! brilliant. luckily we met a brit abroad who was from Chelsea and clearly fairly minted, he had just ordered a cab and kindly dropped us at the right bus station for no extra charge! good man!

finally right bus and to the boarded Sancho.... next episode

once upon a time in Mexico.....