Surf's up Dude!

The morning's activity was work-shadowing Ronan.Following an intense conference call at 8.30am, we broke for coffee then loaded surf boards onto the roof of his car and headed for the beach. 23C, cloudless sky…..again….. Ronan selected a break called Pipes at Cardiff Beach. This spot was just along the beach from where Endless Summer was filmed. It was also near the location of a recent great white attack. Gulp! On arrival, we donned our wetsuits by the side of the road, waxed our boards and walked down to the beach.As if the 3 ft faces were not intimidating enough, "Warchild" was waiting for us in the break! Ronan gave me a few pointers and we joined the crowds (3 retirees and 2 bored housewives) in the waves. Caught some waves and even managed to stand up and get a few good rides. If conditions had been this easy all those times I'd tried surfing in Cornwall I'd be an expert by now! I heard one of the old boys saying he was still surfing at 64 so there's plenty of time….

As we showered on top of the cliffs we watched whale water spouts in the distance and a pod of dolphins swimming amongst the surfers. Ronan admitted that going back to live in Twickenham would be difficult….

Packed our bags and headed out to lunch at a cool restaurant on the beach with Ronan and Lindi. It was sad saying goodbye to them.We had such a good time in San Diego and they were amazing hosts. A great start to our trip and we fell in love with their lives - so perfect!

Fear and Loathing on interstate 15

Set off on our road trip to Vegas! Annelise navigating because she conveniently left her driving licence at home (yes, that includes our shared driving around New Zealand!How long does DHL take?). The mountains got higher, the vegetation sparser and even the traffic reduced to a convoy of semi's and cars with cruise control set at 80, all heading for Vegas. Stopped at some kind of hicks-ville retail park which had every fast food chain known to man. Opted for a large mocha and filled up the Mustang again. With gas at $2.20 a gallon why wouldn't one drive a 4.6litre V8? Carried on through a pitch black desert highway towards a distant glow. I have to say that when we came over the final pass and saw the urban illuminations as far as the eye could see, we were just amazed that such a huge metropolis existed to service gambling!

Finding your hotel in Vegas is easy: look for the name in the sky and drive in the general direction. Checked in at the Wynn Encore and dropping the words "40th birthday" at reception secured an upgrade to a suite on the 59th floor. See photo album for the view. It was 9pm so time for dinner and a few hands of blackjack. Took us a little while to find an empty $10 table…..we adopted the duffers who have never gambled approach. A friendly croupier explained the rules and promptly relieved me of $40. We then hit a winning streak and moved on to roulette to fritter away Lisa P's $50 birthday present. A couple of drinks later and Annelise was becoming a prime candidate for the Lymington chapter of Gamblers Anonymous. Came back to the room with a couple of $100 chips and felt quite smug…..