Last few days have been spent sampling the shopping malls. Sue has been buying headphones and this involved extensive (endless) market research. I rather fancied the big screen TVs which are about half the price of the UK. Unfortunately they would not fit for in our suitcases. Today we went to a car and Wild West museum. Lots of beautiful vintage cars. Interesting facts discovered about the west today: Wild Bill Buffalo Hicocks called because he slaughtered th...

The clocks went forward last night so one less hour in bed. We will also experience this again in the UK at the end of the month. We all drove down to Monterey which is nearly a hundred miles from Livermore and visited the Monterey Bay aquarium. This was excellent as always, particularly the albatross they had. Its wings had been damaged as a baby and cannot fly properly. They are enormous birds and look like a giant sea gull. The sea otters were very cute and m...

We rented bikes and went on a tour of vineyards in the area, there are over 60! We liked the wine in the second vineyard we visited called Murrieta's Well. Maybe it was because by the time you sample your sixth glass all wine tastes good. Cycling back afterwards was harder work.

An American nostalgia day with Jenny and Vic started with all American breakfasts and after a walk into the nearby valley we drove to San Francisco. Lunch was mega ice cream sundaes in The Giradelli Square chocolate factory followed by a walk around the harbour front including Fisherman's wharf and Pier 39. Sue and Jenny stopped to have their photos taken with Jonny Depp and the royal family. As the sun set we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and took photos f...

Arrived safely in California after a few scares on the way. The flight to Dallas was uneventful until we tried to land, the visibility was very poor and the pilot had to abort the first landing at 400 feet and go around again. Fortunately second time round was fine. We had a 6 hour wait for the flight to San Jose so decided to see if we could get an earlier flight. A snow storm was coming to Dallas in the afternoon so we were put on standby for an earlier flight....