Strange day... Got up early to head the 60 miles north to the Grand Canyon. Got about 30 miles up the road and thought I had returned to Scotland - grey skies, torrential rain, high winds! Stopped at a gas station for a serious confab. Decided that GC in the rain might be a major disappointment, what with zero visibility and all. It will be for another time. Was quite surprised by the weather as most of Arizona looks like it's never seen rain. So we went of...

Left Ludlow early and made our way along a big stretch of Route 66. Stopped in Amboy at Roy's Cafe for a soda and some photos. On we went to our last stop in California, Needles where we had a coffee in the Wagon Wheel Saloon. Crossed into Arizona and found a nice stop in Kingman. The guy in the tourist info suggested we go to Williams so we did. We climbed to about 6000ft elevation to get there but were pleased we did. Williams (probably named after you Pen...

A very exciting day. Left our hotel on Sunset about half 7 and took a bus, a metro and a walk to get to Eagle Riders bike rental. Bought helmets, signed the papers and were taken out to see 'the hog'. A big ol' silver Electraglide. Packed it up and hit the freeways, on a mission to get out of Los Angeles. Despite my best planning we managed to take a wrong turn at every opportunity. But my trusty driver managed to get us back on track. Rolled on past San Bernar...

Reached about as far west as we're going to get. Took the bus to Santa Monica (very brave if you've seen the film Speed). Found the end point of Route 66 and then, like true brits abroad, went for a little paddle in the Pacific Ocean next to Santa Monica Pier. We took another bus to Venice Beach, and took in some of the sights: musclemen, rollerskating buskers and the like. Enjoyed a wee ice-cream before a very slow bus journey back through the la traffic, se...

Would have loved to stay in San Diego longer but the comic-book convention was coming to town, doubling the hotel prices, so we had to go. We booked on to the Greyhound to Long Beach. That sounded like a nice simple 2 1/2 hour jaunt up the coast. Ok, but then we hit the traffic. Our driver decided to take a different route but got lost going into Long Beach. After a very bumpy 4 hours we got off the bus and found our hotel. Took a bit of a stroll around the ...