26th and 27th February - Yosemite National Park We stayed at a place called 'Yosemite Bug', a small 'resort' that's about a 40 minute drive from Yosemite Valley. We got there in the pitch black on the first night after being dropped off by our guide Dave / 'Shaggy'. Trekked up a few steps to our 'tent cabin' to find that not only was it the size of a garden shed, but LITERALLY a garden shed. It was also covered in litter, freezing cold and had dirty bed linen ...

21st - 25th February - San Francisco Made it to San Fran the next day after another 8 hour bus trip. Hostel is right in the middle of downtown which is a top location, although unfortunately there were about 1,000 French kids staying there the first night which was agony. Sarah had to restrain me from irrevocably ending Anglo-French relations with a mass killing. Asked to move rooms the next morning as we'd been given the short straw and were sandwiched b...

18th and 19th February - Portland Greyhound got us in a bit later than planned (predictably), but we still had time to wander round our new neighbourhood in the rain and cloud. First stop was the barber's (well, 'hairstylists') to get my outrageous barnet sorted out. Panicked slightly when the woman started off by giving me a bowl cut, but worked out well in the end - Portland will be in ginger wigs for the next decade at least. Got given a free mini burrito...

16th and 17th February - Seattle US border immigration actually turned out to be a breeze and they even had a sense of humour - absolute miracle and no sign of glass toilets anywhere, result. The Greyhound bus we got (got a 6 week pass as too skint to hire a car) did break down a minute into the US though so we got into Seattle 2 hours late. We couldn't get off the bus due to overkeen US security ('I will not hesitate to use fatal force' e.t.c.) so a bit of a...

9th - 11th February - Banff Headed from Jasper to Banff, making a quick stop at beautiful Lake Louise on the way. We walked across the frozen solid lake and had a good look at some of the amazing ice sculptures. The lake was so thickly frozen that people were ice skating and playing ice hockey on it. The surroundings were a bit like Narnia - unbelievably pretty and we even saw a few people going for a sleigh ride. No-one offered us any Turkish Delight though - ...