Ok so everyone thinks we've disappeared off the face off the earth-I guess it's about time we updated the blog! We've had a great time in the States so far, but internet resources have been scarce or ridiculously expensive so we have lots to tell……

We arrived on Thanksgiving and were collected from the airport by my Dad's Uncle and Aunt. A bit sleepy we headed straight to cousin Karin's for Thanksgiving dinner. Almost the whole family was there which was lovely as it's been a while since we had a big family meal. Thanksgiving was a lot of fun, spent mostly eating and drinking and playing games with all my cousins, most of whom I haven't seen for 7 years!

We spent five days with Karin and her children, Ryan, Shannon and Brianna in San Diego, which was great. It was so nice to stay in a house as opposed to a hostel, and the house was built by Charlie Chaplin for his mother in 1927 so it was beautiful and right on the beach! We watched dolphins from our bedroom window most mornings, including one where I almost deafened my Mum on the phone because we'd seen five swimming together!! We spent our time in San Diego walking on the beach, relaxing and visiting Downtown San Diego which was really pretty with a lovely harbour. We also discovered In and Out Burger, the home of great homemade burgers!

After five days with Karin we headed off on our roadtrip with Sara and Hans (the Swedish couple we met in Australia). We met them in Santa Monica and picked up our car which we would drive to San Fransisco over the next ten days. Our first stop on the trip had to be Las Vegas!! Jon was very excited about this one since he had never been before and being a poker addict was hoping to make his fortune! We decided months ago that Vegas would be our major treat of the trip and that we would allow ourselves some luxury accommodation since we had been in hostels for twelve weeks. Checking into Caesar's Palace we were like excited children and then to be told that all the standard suites were booked and we were being upgraded to a Deluxe suite, well we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. I think we had forgotten the feeling of a dressing gown, fluffy towels and sot cotton sheets! Mmmmmm, three nights of deep sleep - apart from the time my Mum rang me at 2am because she thought Jon and I had got married! Ha! Sorry Mum, we're still laughing about it now. Uncle Dave says you can't expect me not to do things like that given Dad's sense of humour!

We spent our days exploring the hotels in all their glory. The Venetian still has to be our favourite - the painted sky, the cobbled streets and the indoor canals - it was surreal to say the least. And guess what we spent our evenings doing? Well yes gambling but Dad, Grandma (and I am sure many others) you will be pleased to know we didn't lose our fortune, sadly we didn't win it either but hey! Jon had lots of fun playing Texas Hold'em and getting a great banter going with a French female croupier.

We left the lights and glamour of Vegas and headed to bigger and better things - The Grand Canyon! We arrived late in the evening and so checked into a Motel. As it is Low Season here the Motel Restaurant was closed so we spent the evening eating the most appealing thing the local garage had to offer - noodles and beans! This was a far cry from what we had become accustomed to over the last few days but hey, we were well and truly back into backpacker territory! The weather was terrible when we arrived, right in the middle of a storm so we were all quite concerned about what we would see then next day. Fortunately when we woke up the storm had cleared and off we went to the Canyon. On the way we started to see snow by the sides of the roads and by the time we got to the Canyon there was about 6 inches! The Grand Canyon is a spectacular sight to behold and even more spectacular in the snow, which only covered the highest point in the Canyon, with the sun streaming into the deepest parts of the Canyon. This made for some pretty spectacular photos which we will upload in the next few days.

After a few hours admiring the Grand Canyon we headed back to the Californian coast to drive up Highway 1 to San Francisco. We made three stops over three days on our way to SF: The first night we stayed just outside Santa Barbara - a beautiful seaside town with a pier and some nice shops. We spent a few hours the next morning admiring the views from the pier and got back on the road to go to our stop for the night - Monterey. The weather was bad the next morning so after discovering the Aquarium was shut we got back on the road and drove through Pebble Beach Golf Course. Apparently this was a must given that it is the golf course on Tiger Wood's PGA Tour Game that both Jon and Hans had played on their playstations. Despite being skeptical the views were spectacular, the greens with the waves crashing up to the edge and the beautiful houses were worth it, not to mention the excitement on the boys faces! We stopped at one point on the course where we could see a big commotion and discovered a whole crowd of photographers capturing surfers on 20ft waves. We found out that the group was following a US competition to find and surf the biggest waves off the coat of the US and we had just happened to turn up on a record day - this again impressed the boys! We stopped again in Santa Cruz for a food pitstop and saw more surfers on huge waves. They must have been seriously adrenaline junkies to be doing what they were doing as it looked pretty scary from where we were standing and I am sure it was even more so for them. I guess it was either that or they had a death wish!! We spent the rest of the day on a very long drive to Yosemite National Park, stopping off on the way to visit Hurst Castle a beautiful huge mansion where journalist Randulph Hurst used to entertain famous people from all over the world.

We didn't make it into Yosemite until about 10pm so it was a case of finding the least scary hostel which seemed to be the least in the middle of nowhere. Everyone was pretty chicken about staying the middle of the forest, which was made worse by Jon's recounting of films such as Hostel, Jeepers Creepers and The Wrong Turn, but as it turned out we found a nice motel and weren't murdered in our beds, hoorah!

The next day we left the motel early to make the most of our day in Yosemite. The views in the park were awesome! The most spectacular views were of Half Dome, an 87 million year old granite rock which rose over 8,000 feet above sea level and dominated all views of Yosemite Valley. On our walk around the park we visited Yosemite Falls. As it's winter here there was no water running down the falls, this only happens in the summer when the snowy on the mountains melts. Nevertheless the falls were impressive. You could see the path the water takes and the falls are so huge you can just imagine the force with which the water crashes down at. Jon decided the only manly thing to given the lack of water was to climb to the waterfall pool and shower in the trickle that remained! Let's just say he was crying like a girl afterwards! I think the climb was bigger than he expected!

After the day in Yosemite we went to San Francisco and checked into and downtown hotel. The next day the weather was bad but we drove over the golden gate bridge and took in the view of Alcatraz and the city from across the water. We then went to Pier 39 one of a number of piers in the city but the most famous amongst tourists. Pier 39 is full of tourist shops and restaurants and we took the advice of one of the flight attendants on our flight to the US and ate clam chowder from one of the pier restaurants, yummy!!! We also went to a place called Ghiradelli Square. Ghiradelli is a famous American choclatier which has its flagship store in SF. We must have spent an hour in the shop admiring the chocolate creations and debating over which hot chocolate flavour to buy!

The next day we were up early to go to Alcatraz. We took a tram to Pier 33 and boarded the boat to 'The Rock'. On the boat we bumped into James who we had traveled with in New Zealand, small world or what! Alcatraz was so much fun! We first went on a tour telling of the 14 escape attempts in the history of Alcatraz. Almost all were ingenious apart from the few spur of the moment and all ended in failure, whether by death or capture. The few that were never found were presumed to have drowned in the frigid waters, but who knows!!!

We then went on an audio tour of the prison buildings which was so good! Whilst we walked around the prison we heard stories of sieges and murders and more escapes with background sounds like jangling keys and shouting prisoners which made the whole experience more realistic! Stories of the 'Bird Man' and Al Capone had us all intrigued.

After getting off the boat we decided to go for a second helping of clam chowder and a few drinks in Bubba Gump's back on Pier 39.

For our last day in San Francisco and with the Swedes who were due to fly home that evening, we went to the Golden Gate park for a picnic, which because of the lack of downtown supermarkets turned into cheese and red wine which was perfect. The day was sunny and warm and we had a great afternoon before heading off to the airport. Hans and Sara are now home in Sweden and we flew back to LA on a dubiously small Delta flight and were met by another cousin Debbie and her family. On the way home we went to visit Debbie's daughter Alison at her halls in UCLA and went out for cookies and ice cream, yum! It was so good to see Alison since she is the closest to my age and when I was here before we had a lot of fun.

The first couple of days at Debbie's we pretty much chilled out from being constantly on the go, and managed to make time for a little bit of Christmas shopping. Tomorrow we are going Universal Studios and seeing another cousin on Thursday. Friday we are going to collect Alison from college and going for dinner and a film. Sunday will be a day with the whole family before we come home on Monday. Oh my goodness, it doesn't even seem real. No matter how many times we tell people we have been away for fourteen weeks and go home on Monday it doesn't seem real. No matter how many times I tell people I can't wait to see them (and I can't) I don't think we have got it through our heads that in less that a week we will be seeing the people we have thought about every single day since we left!!!

I guess this will be our last blog entry so maybe we should say something philosophical as opposed to anecdotal - anyone who is still reading is obviously hardcore and deserves at least that. We have had the most amazing time since we left home on the 3rd of September. We have made many friends, some I am sure will be life long and we have learnt much about the places we have been as well as ourselves. I have certainly learnt that kindness costs nothing, people are not always what they seem, and just the smallest bit of effort can be rewarding: the shortest walk can offer the most spectacular views. A quote we read before we left home said "The world is like an open book, those who do not travel read only one page". This is something that has stayed with us during the fifteen weeks away and we have tried to explore as many pages as we can. We both hope that we will be lucky enough to explore many more pages together in the future. An important related lesson is that no matter how much you save and how much you budget, you will never have enough money! Let the saving for the next trip begin!!

PS Hilary I hope you enjoyed your bedtime adventure story, sorry it has been a long time coming! Sleep tight, hope the bed bugs don't bite!