31 August 2010 - Auckland

Arrived here fairly early this morning - weather is overcast and there were a couple of showers. However, our good luck with the weather continued once we went ashore - it stayed cloudy but didn't rain on us at all.

Again, we didn't do any specific touring around here - we've been to Auckland twice before and have seen the things we really wanted to see. We went for a walk to some markets where I got a lovely jumper half price because the shop is closing down. Also got another tshirt for Adam - we've bought him three which just about doubles his tshirt supplies!

Came back on board to discover that the average age on board has plummetted. About 300 people got off the ship here, and the vast majority of them had done most or all of the cruise and were definitely way over retirement age. Another 300-odd passengers have joined the ship though, and most of them are much younger. I presume that some of them are just doing the 2 days to Sydney and some are continuing on the Dawn's next cruise - 28 days around Australia. Regardless, it's amazing the number of people our age and younger that we're now seeing on board.

We have now sailed out of Auckland and we're on the final trip back to Sydney. We've had an excellent time, and I'm really sad it's coming to an end.

30 August 2010 - rocking and rolling!

Not much to say today.

The promised waves arrived overnight. Didn't have a good night's sleep as I was woken quite a few times when the ship banged into a wave - each time it sounded like we'd hit a rock and the whole ship shook. The rest of the time it was rocking and rolling like crazy.

The waves were still like that right through to this evening - I've lived on Travacalm tablets today! Funny thing is, the ones that are meant to contain caffeine to help you *not* succumb to the 'drowsiness' side-effects make me go to sleep, but the ones without the caffeine don't have that effect on me.

I didn't have much for breakfast or lunch, but we managed to get to dinner - which was good, as four of our table-mates are leaving us tomorrow in Auckland.

Not much more to say; the captain promises that we'll soon be sheltered from these waves by the NZ coast, so hopefully he's right and I'll be able to get some sleep!

29 August 2010 - across the ILD

We crossed the International Date Line, and lost 28 August as a result. We're now on the same day as Australia and New Zealand - basically on NZ time at the moment - and sadly that means closer to the end of the cruise :-(

We went out on deck last night to listen to a Beatles tribute band. These guys originally came on board at Southampton, and were meant to get off a couple of days later at Dublin. However, when the ship couldn't get into Dublin they ended up staying on board for more than a week extra, until they got to Boston. And, they were so popular that the Dawn Princess picked them up again in Pago Pago. They're not bad - we sat out on deck through the whole show and we may go and see them again tonight in the theatre.

I had my third personal training session yesterday - Fiona is a lovely girl who made me work hard; just what I wanted although today I've got plenty of aching muscles as a result :-)

Tonight is our third and last formal night. Don't know if we'll be doing the dress-up thing though - we've eaten in the formal dining room a lot more than we thought we would because our table companions are all lovely people, but we still need to check the menu first - and for some reason it wasn't out this morning when we went to breakfast (usually it's all printed and on display)

I'm really enjoying the cruise but I'm also looking forward to getting home. Of course I'm missing Adam, but I also want to be able to watch some decent TV shows, look at the internet whenever I want to for less than$15 per hour(!) and also to eat some plain food. The food is lovely, but there are a few little things that you can't get that I'm really missing. I'm also desperately missing the chance to soak in the bath - to my surprise almost all the hotels on the land part of our holiday had bathtubs, but of course you don't get a bathtub on the cruise unless you pay for a suite - way out of our price range!

We saw a whale yesterday afternoon - they announced over the intercom that we were coming up on it. It was quite a small one and not far enough out of the water to take any decent photos, but they're always good to see.

So far the weather on the cruise has been beautiful. The last three ports we were in - Pago Pago, Moorea and Papeete - rain was forecast but not a bit fell on us (although there was always rain in the distance). And, the highest that the seas have gotten to is a metre or so. However, this isn't going to continue - as we get closer to New Zealand we're expecting to get caught up in the remains of a low pressure system which the Captain says will give us some rain and big waves. Good thing I've still got some seasickness tablets left!

26 August 2010 - Pago Pago

Another island paradise!

We arrived here early this morning and again, didn't bother with a ship's tour, we just walked around and of course, did some shopping!

You can still see the impact of the tsunami here - there are quite a few blocks of land where there apparently used to be buildings that were just wiped clean. In the photo that Paul is in, we are standing beside the Pago Plaza, a small shopping centre which is still being repaired. The tsunami came up to the second floor of the Pago Plaza building, so almost certainly affected most of the buildings in the background of the photo.

This afternoon though, we're letting geekishness take control. Internet access on the ship is hellishly expensive - the cheapest package is $250 (AU) for 1000 minutes - $15 per hour, and the download speed isn't quite as slow as dial-up, but not a lot better. On shore here there's a company offering access for $10 per day, and we've both signed up for a $10 package and are planning to spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on all the stuff we've been missing over the last few weeks!

23 August 2010 - Moorea

What a beautiful place!

Words just can't explain, and my pictures don't do it justice either, it is simply astoundingly pretty!

Paul and I went on a tour that was advertised as a 4WD safari. They sat us in the back of what was basically a ute with bench seats and a canvas roof, and off we went. The first place we went was a hair-raising ride up a mountain - the road was through a farm and it was partly cement and partly gravel, and really really steep and winding. Not to mention, the driver was having trouble with either the gears or the 4WD mechanism, and at a couple of points I started hoping our travel insurance was as good as they promised! And, at the end, there was about a 300 foot pathway to walk up, even steeper than the road. However, once we got there, the view was just spectacular - as I said, photos simply don't do it justice. Then, we went to quite a few other places, all through the most beautiful scenery you could imagine. We saw a pineapple farm where they grow lots of other fruit as well, a school where they also have a shop where they sell pineapple jams and juices, a marai (a sacred place of the Polynesian people before they all converted to Christianity), the Le Belvedere lookout where we could see the two big bays on the north side of the island - Cooks Bay where the cruise ship Paul Gaugin was anchored and d'Opunohu Bay where the Dawn Princess anchored. Just beautiful.

Came back and blew some of our excess francs (see yesterday's post!) on a dress and a shirt - lord only knows how I'm going to fit everything into my suitcase!

Then, just lazed around the ship until it was time to leave.

Paul got a dose of the sun and didn't come to dinner tonight, but I went because their famous French Onion Soup was on the menu and I wasn't going to miss that!

22 August 2010 - Papeete

We didn't have any formal tour booked for Papeete, we planned to just wander around.

Being a Sunday, many of the shops were shut, but some opened and the locals put on a sort of festival as well with dancing and all sorts of displays.

I don't quite know what to say about Papeete.

I know that we only saw a very small part of the city (and we didn't get anywhere near the main tourist beaches) but what we saw contained some really confusing contradictions. There are a fair few new buildings, and a lot of new-looking infrastructure - for example a really nice park running around the port area, including some toilet blocks that were pretty enough to take pictures of, and what appears to be a new Port Authority building under construction. And, some obviously new and expensive houses being built as well.

Clearly they're attempting to attract tourists to the area.

But, at the same time, there were many signs of a poor economy - bags of garbage in the streets, roads in fairly poor shape, and a number of buildings that are obviously still used for accommodation even though they're in really poor condition. One had an apartment that was almost completely burned out - and it didn't look like recent damage - but all the other apartments around it were obviously still in use.

Unlike Hawaii, I didn't see anything that would make me want to come back. People who have been here before say that Moorea - tomorrow's destination - is a much prettier place, so we'll see.

One thing, we'll have plenty of money to spend tomorrow. The local currency is French Polynesian francs; most places will also take US dollars, but not Australian money. Anyway, we went to the ATM early in the day and got enough cash to get us through the day, and ended up with about $3 worth of francs left in coins when we were all done spending money. However, when we got back to the ship, we realised that we'll also need cash tomorrow in Moorea, so we decided to go back out and get another few thousand francs - maybe $60 or $70 dollars worth. Anyway, suffice it to say that the zero's threw us, and instead of the 7,000 francs we thought we were getting, we're now the proud owners of 70,000 francs - about $800 worth! Fortunately they'll buy francs back from us on the ship, so we will be able to trade it back for Australian dollars, but, how embarassing!

21 August - back in the Southern Hemisphere`

We crossed the Equator the day before yesterday, and almost immediately we've noticed the days getting shorter - all of a sudden it's dark by the time we leave the dining room in the evening.

We've done very little of note over the last few days - basically having a real holiday.

I did the Excel course and I learned a bunch of new things, so that's all good.

I started off today feeling fine, but got seasick again (!) around lunchtime. However, I took some drugs and went to my PT session anyway - did lots of boxing and now I feel somewhat better.

Nothing much else to say - we're looking forward to Papeete tomorrow, although the weather forecast is that it's likely to be raining :-(

17 August 2010 - at sea and reporting on Honolulu

Back at sea after a day ashore in Honolulu yesterday. What a beautiful place! The first photo above is from our cabin balcony - it's basically overlooking an industrial area and it still looks nice!

First thing we did was a bus tour - we went over the USS Missouri and then to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial. Both really interesting and in the case of the memorial, really moving as well.

One thing that I didn't really expect - I've been looking at maps of Pearl Harbor and reading about the attack for years, but actually being there gives a perspective that no amount of photographs or movies can give you.

When we were in Phoenix, we saw an anchor that was recovered from the USS Arizona; here at Pearl Harbor we saw the other one on display - picture is above. Didn't really sink in until the man beside us said that he'd seen the other one and then we realised that we had too.

There are a couple of other things that we didn't get to see because of the usual lack of time - there's a submarine (the Bowfin) that you can go onto, and also some displays of military aircraft. They're also in the middle of building a brand new visitor's centre, due to open on 7 December this year.

On the trip back the bus driver / tour guide showed us a bunch of other places, all of which you could clearly spend a stack of time looking at.

Once we got back, Paul and I went for a walk. The first place we stopped at was a chemist shop in a little mall which seemed to be having some sort of a disturbance - there were policemen and cameras everywhere and I was more than a bit disconcerted. Turns out, they were filming on location for the new Hawaii 5-O movie!

Then, Paul managed to find the 'real' Hawaiian shirts that were on his shopping list. We were at a shopping centre in the Aloha Tower which is clearly designed for tourists, and clearly really suffering from the economic downturn - there were very few people there and almost every shop we walked into we were almost mugged by shop-keepers wanting us to buy things.

After that, Paul went back to the ship and I continued walking along to Ala Moana beach - but I was looking for shops, not the beach! I spent some time window-shopping, bought some real Hawaiian honey - which we'll have to eat on board of course - and then made my way back to the ship and crashed.

One other minor surprise - something that I had unconsciously noticed all day but that didn't really sink in until last night - although Hawaii is part of the USA, American accents (at least where we were) were almost unheard - the vast majority of accents (apart from the Aussie and Kiwi accents of most of our fellow cruisers) are Hawaiian.

All things considered, Hawaii has now moved from my list of 'places I didn't really want to go to' (apart from Pearl Harbor which I had always wanted to see) to my list of 'places I want to come back to'. I didn't even get to see Waikiki Beach at sunset and that alone is meant to be worth the trip. This is turning into a really expensive holiday!

Woke up this morning feeling quite unwell - no actual physical symptoms apart from almost complete exhaustion even though I'd slept for about 8 hours - I even had to cancel my PT session I had booked for today! The lady at the spa said that the air pressure often gets to people; I think it might be a combination of that plus a bit too much sun and a bit of dehydration yesterday plus caffeine withdrawal - I didn't have a single coffee or diet coke yesterday. We've now just had lunch and I'm actually sitting up in the cabin for the first time today, so hopefully I'm getting over whatever it was.

We're now in the middle of day one of 5 days at sea before we get to Tahiti.

I'm going to do a computer course tomorrow - they claim to be teaching Excel, and any help I can get with Excel will be a good thing!

14 August - on the way to Honolulu

This is now our third full day on board, all sea days.

Basically, we're having an excellent time doing very little. We've wandered around all the shops and bought a few things, eaten too much food, gone to a few lectures, watched a couple of movies and generally done as little as possible.

One new experience though - last night was Formal Night and for the first time on a cruise we actually dressed up in our fancy clothes and went along to the dinner. We had our photos taken at the table and afterwards as well - we'll go and look at them later and see what exorbitant prices they're planning to charge (we don't have to buy them of course)

I also did a personal training session today - usually at home I only do a half hour, so the hour nearly killed me, but I really needed it!

Not much else to say, this is really just lazy time :-)

11 and 12 August - on the Dawn Princess

We got to the cruise terminal at around 10:30, knowing that check-in time wasn't officially until 1pm.

Turns out that they would have let us board pretty much straight away except that there was some problem with getting the previous passengers disembarked. Judging by the smell around the elevators where we eventually boarded, I'd say the problem wasn't so much with disembarking passengers and was more about a broken sewage pipe. Anyway, they let us check in, gave us our cruise cards and then told us we could either wait in the terminal or go for a walk and come back at 12:30. We went for a walk and once we found our way out - which was a real challenge! - we discovered a very nice walkway called the 'Cruise Ship Promenade' which eventually led to the Los Angeles Maritime Museum and then further along to 'Ports'O'Call' which is basically a restaurant area. Paul got some nice photos but I'm probably not going to try to upload them over this internet connection.

By the time we got back it was around 1pm, and we got on board.

First impressions - cabin seems to be smaller than on the Diamond or Star Princesses; the balcony is definitely a tiny one like on the Pacific Jewel rather than the big Caribe balcony ones on the Diamond and Star. However, it will all be quite comfortable.

We did the usual wander of the ship and found all of the important places - where to eat, where to buy stuff!

There's no AnyTime dining yet on Dawn, it's all the old-fashioned Traditional thing where you're allocated a table for the entire cruise. We're sitting with three sisters from Scotland (as opposed to the three sisters from Ireland who were on the Cosmos tour!) plus two other couples. All very nice people - they all boarded in Southhampton although one of the sisters lives on the Gold Coast. Dinner was lovely, but I'll weigh a ton if I eat there every night!

After dinner we just wandered around a little more and then crashed - I think the early mornings on the bus trip are all catching up with us. I managed to lose my camera but someone handed it in so I got it back - not a clever start!

I won't be posting every day now - not just because we're at sea and therefore it'll be 'lazed around all day' but because the internet access is so slooow and so expensive. We bought the dearest package of minutes we could and it was still 25cents per minute. Standard Pay As You Go acess is 75 cents a minute!

10 August 2010 - another day that never ends

Just back from the baseball game - Angels beat the Royals 3-1.

The actual game was nowhere near as exciting as the one we came to in 2002, but the overall entertainment spectacle was just as good. There's something happening every minute, either on or off the field - or both! - basically the fun never ends.

Had a great time, but since we've now been awake for 18 hours I think that now we can just crash in readiness for finally joining the cruise tomorrow :-)

10 August 2010 - back to Los Angeles

Up way before dawn to catch a flight back to Los Angeles. Wow, what an experience!

Because we went for pick-up a little earlier than we needed, of course the shuttle arrived early. No problem, off to the airport.

Outside they have kerbside check-in, but we figured we couldn't use that because we hadn't actually been able to do online check-in (no printer).

Anyway, we went inside and got in line. It took us (well me anyway) a while to work out what was going on. There were 8 or 10 'self service' check-in machines - you wait in line for one to be free, and you use it to both check in and pay for your luggage (no free luggage on American Airlines, or on most actually, I think Southwest is the only airline that still allows a free checked bag). Then, once you've done that, you wait for one of the counter staff to walk to your spot and take your luggage.

It was simply chaotic! People just kept showing up late - at least three people missed a flight to Miami while we were waiting in that queue and they kept pulling people to the front of the line because they'd miss other flights. Why on earth you'd arrive at the airport less than two hours before your flight is a mystery to me.

Most people who serve customers here seem to be really polite but every now and then you come across the 'crabby lady' and she was live and well here - she was yelling at people to take their turn and that she wasn't ready to serve them yet (mind you, she was probably also the most efficient one there!).

Anyway, we finally checked ourselves in, and then went through security. They take it much more seriously here - jackets, shoes and belts are *all* removed, and the the '3 oz liquid' thing that only applies to us on international flights also applies here on domestic ones. They also insist on some form of scannable ID, which *wasn't* made clear on any of the dozens of instructional signs we got to read while waiting in the huge security queue. And, needless to say, ACT driver's licences don't scan under their equipment. So, everyone in the queue got to glare at us while we dragged out our passports. Oops.

And, I got another new experience - after getting fingerprinted for the first time on entry to the US, here I got frisked for the first time - I presume I don't actually look like a terrorist and that it was therefore a random thing, but I had to stand in this big glass cage (yes open all around) while this security lady frisked me down. It was quite a serious frisking and I was really quite bemused, mostly because the guy didn't say what was going on; he just pointed me towards this glass box and let me stand there until the security lady showed up.

Once we got upstairs, no real dramas. There was actual food - ie fresh fruit - on sale in the little cafeteria near our gate, and the flight was quite comfortable. We paid extra for Group1 boarding and I don't know if it's because of that, or the Qantas club thing (they're in the same alliance) or just good luck, but we got three seats to share between the two of us again, which is always more comfortable.

Arriving at LAX was another surprise - there was basically no-one there. Most people on our flight obviously hadn't checked bags, so by the time we got to the carousel to pick up our bags there were like two other people there. Outside, same thing, very few people compared to when we arrived back in July. We're thinking it was just a time of day thing - business travellers would all have gone earlier and it was still a bit early in the day for tourists to arrive.

Our shuttle was on time and he got us out here to Anaheim without too much drama. In my opinion, in the 'Super Shuttle' vs 'Prime Time Shuttle' wars, it's Prime Time every time.

We were also really lucky that the Marriott let us into our room at 11am even though their official check-in time is 1pm at the earliest.

Paul has now gone off to try to buy some gaming / painting stuff and I'm going to finish up doing the washing and then I'm going to wander off and do some shopping too.

Later:

Washing is all done and I've just got back from 'The Block' - a big shopping centre a bit less than 2 miles down the road. Of course I walked - not so many strange looks here as in Studio City, but the footpaths (sorry, sidewalks) are still almost completely empty.

I got what I was after - a pair of Teva shoes that cost me $37 here - at home I've seen the same ones for well over $100. So, I'm pleased!

Don't know yet if Paul got what he was after - he's on his way home as I type :-)

9 August 2010 - San Francisco

Got up early this morning to get ready for a big day.

First thing we got picked up and taken to a tour company office down at Fisherman's Wharf, and then we went on our 'Muir Woods and Sausalito' tour.

Muir Woods basically has lots of coastal redwood trees - glorious tall trees in a lovely (mostly) quiet forest. Today's pictures are obviously from there - some grown-up redwoods and a tiny baby one. Spent about an hour there looking around then off to Sausalito which is a nice little city across the bay from San Francisco. The bus driver suggested that if we wanted to we could get a ferry back to SF, and we decided to do this when we realised that the ferry would drop us off much closer to where we wanted to be.

So, dropped off at the ferry terminal at the end of wharf street, and we walked up to number 575 which is where the Australian Consulate is. They were getting a steady stream of Aussies wanting to vote - which of course is why we were there. So, we've now done our civic duty.We spoke to 4 other people in the building outside of the consulate, and they all instantly identified us as Australians and said so to us. Mind you it's not a real surprise, we're deliberately cultivating the 'tourist' look!

Then, we came back to the diner across the street from the hotel - Lori's Diner, all set up in 1950's style. Food as usual for restaurants here - excellent, but far too much of it!

Then, back to our room to pick up a box of souvenirs and books to be posted home. Stood in line at UPS for about 20 minutes, but it's all sent now - so that's about 5 kilos less that we have to fit into our luggage tonight!

Then, we went for a long long walk to Union Square, through the Westfield Centre, back around a couple of extra streets and including two Border's stores.

Finally got home a few minutes ago and I'm exhausted - I'm pretty sure we got our planned 5 ks of walking done today :-)

8 August 2010 - San Francisco

San Francisco is an amazing place and we don't get anywhere near enough time here.

Today we started the day with breakfast at Sears Fine Food which is just across the road from the hotel. They've been open since 1938 and their specialty is pancakes - you get 18 of them on a plate with maple syrup and butter, and if you like, you get bacon or sausages as well. I couldn't face that much food - I had granola with fresh fruit and even then I couldn't get even half-way through the serve. The fruit was just beautiful. Paul had oatmeal with raisins and he managed to eat it all - just!

Then, back to the hotel to pick up our stuff and off to Alcatraz! This was a 'free' inclusion on the tour (although of course you've got to suspect that it was simply included in the price). Anyway, first you jump on a little ship (although not really tiny, it holds a couple of hundred people) and get taken across the bay. Then you get out at Alcatraz island where they give you a little talk before sending you off to look at everything. What we didn't realise was that today was the 75th anniversary of it opening as a prison - so they had all sorts of one-off talks and lectures from ex-staff and a couple of ex-prisoners too.

Going around the cell-blocks, they give you an audio device with recorded commentary so you really do get to understand what went on.

Overall, quite an interesting trip. For example, I hadn't realised that Alcatraz was a military base before it became a prison - at one point there were over 100 guns stationed on the island.

Then, after that, we went back to Fisherman's Wharf - we ended up spending about 4 hours there before coming back to the hotel. It was incredibly crowded, with so many choices of places to eat and things to see. One really interesting thing was a museum of all sorts of coin-operated stuff - from really old pianolas and moving dioramas to more modern pinball machines. It was simply fascinating. We also - of course - bought more souvenirs and I got the jumper I promised myself.

If we'd had more time, we could have gone through both an old submarine and a WWII Liberty Ship - the liberty ship was rescued and refurbished back in the 70's and still does cruises around the bay once every couple of months.

Fisherman's Wharf is only about 5 miles away from the hotel, but even on Sunday afternoon it took 40 minutes for the bus to get through the traffic and back to the hotel. I fell asleep and Paul let me snore on - he's in so much trouble :-)

Afterwards, we went out for another walk, this time to Chinatown which is just down the road and round the corner from here. All sorts of dodgy and not so dodgy stores - we spent quite a bit of time there too, and again, too much money.

After that huge breakfast and a big lunch at Fisherman's Wharf, we're just nibbling on a couple of bagels for dinner. American's just don't understand portion sizes at all!

Today's pictures are at Alcatraz, of course.

7 August 2010 - on to San Francisco

Left Sedona this morning, no more trouble with the bus so that's good news.

Linda told us a lot about the Gold Rush today, because we were travelling through gold country.

Since we were going into the state capital Sacramento, we also got to hear a little about state politics, all quite interesting actually.

Sacramento is a nice place, very small even say by comparison with Canberra. We have around 320,000 people while Sacramento has about 470,000 - but California's population is almost twice Australia's. We got to spend some time in Old Sacramento, which is a real old area of town complete with wooden sidewalks etc. And, this isn't rebuilt stuff, it's legitimate old buildings.

Then, on to San Francisco. It's Saturday but the traffic in was still really slow and once we got into San Francisco we could have walked faster. From a distance the Golden Gate bridge was fog-free, but once we got there the fog had settled in. Still got some nice pictures though.

Paul and I weren't going to go to the farewell dinner tonight, but we've changed our minds, not so much for dinner but because there's more sight-seeing later. We need to pretty much go now, so I'll add more to this later if I get a chance.

OK, continued much later. Dinner was nice but again the traffic getting there and leaving was appalling. We were supposed to go to this little shopping area after dinner - and we did, but by the time we got there almost everything was closed. However, we've each got a $10 discount voucher for the shops there, and we'll be back in that area tomorrow and the next day so I'm sure we'll get a chance to use them.

Then we went to this island out in the bay - again, appalling traffic until we got to the holdup - what we'd call an RBT station, but which Linda claims never to have seen before in Sand Francisco. Anyway, this island has a lovely view back across to the city and we got to take some night time photos.

Back at the hotel quite late, but at least we don't have to be up early to leave our bags out tomorrow!

The hotel here has a very grand lobby including a fully costumed up Beefeater standing out the front. However, the rooms are all very very small. They have one good thing - you can opt *not* to have maid service in the room, and if you do, they leave you a $10 voucher that you can spend anywhere in the hotel. Apparently it makes the breakfast prices in the restaurant almost acceptable :-)

Also, again, there's a bath! Yay! In fact, I'm off to have a bath now.....

6 August 2010 - Yosemite National Park

Drama with the bus this morning - we all got out there at the appointed time only to find our suitcases still waiting to be stowed and the scary sight of a repair truck beside the bus, still at the back of the parking lot.

We eventually got away about two hours late. There was talk of having to get a replacement bus, but in the end the driver and the tow truck man managed to fix it with a lot of help over the phone - it was actually a computer problem.

On the way, we stopped at a lovely little place called Oakhurst in the Sierra Nevadas and I think we decided that it wins over Sedona as the right place to retire to!

Anyway, we got to Yosemite and got to spend the planned amount of time there, we were just late arriving in Sonora, which is no great problem.

Yosemite National Park = spectacular, awesome, any of those sorts of words apply!

I've added some photos of:

El Capitan - the biggest granite outcrop in the world - that's the last of the pictures above; El Capitan is the huge outcrop on the left,

The Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls - it's really hard to get a picture of the scale here, so to put it into perspective - just the lower falls are higher than the Niagara Falls!

Half Dome Rock - really popular hiking and climbing destination

I've also posted a picture of Paul's feet beside the tiny wall around the edge of this spectacular viewing point we stopped at - that wall is all that's there to stop you from going over the edge. The very first picture shows where you'd fall if you happened to trip over the edge - the cars on the road below are just tiny little ants and it's almost straight down. We noticed this at the Grand Canyon too - in the most litigious place on earth, basically non-existent fences around cliffs that would have enormous protective stuff in place in Australia!

Big excitement on the trip while leaving Yosemite was a sighting of a bear - unfortunately those on our side of the bus didn't get a chance to see it.

Off to bed soon to rest up for the big trip into San Francisco tomorrow!

5 August 2010 - driving to Tulare

Not much to say today.

First part of the day was spent driving across the desert - although the style of desert changed occasionally, it was still desert. The only time I even thought about taking a photo was when we went past an aeroplane graveyard, but turns out the batteries in my camera were flat. Again. It's a new camera and it's small and easy to use but wow, does it chew through batteries!

Eventually, after we got back into California, it got a little less like desert, but there still wasn't a lot to see.

Lunch stop was at Barstow - we ate at a nice restaurant after a quick look around some shops.

Had a mid-afternoon stop at a small farm outlet where we bought some fresh grapes and peaches - all eaten now, they were lovely! Then, on to Tulare where we're staying the night.

The big discovery of the night has been a fast food chain that does some actual non-greasy food. It's called Long John Silver's - they do seafood and some chicken, and most of their stuff is deep-fried and greasy as you'd expect from an american fast food place. However, we both had a grilled fish platter - mine was two small pieces of grilled american salmon on rice, some steamed vegetables, a cob of real sweet corn and a breadstick. And, it was totally delicious, particularly for a fast food outlet - it sounds boring but the rice and vegetables had some really nice spicy-but-not-too-spicy flavouring added. I hadn't heard of them before today but I looked them up and they're one of the bigger franchises around.

Anyway, as I said, not much to say. We've got an early start tomorrow - looking forward to Yosemite Park!

Forgot to mention - tonight's hotel is a Best Western - nice and comfortable and the *free* internet actually works. Still at 100% when it comes to baths - this room has a bath too! I also got in a chance to do some laundry and while I was waiting got to spend 20 minutes exercising in their little gym which is conveniently right beside the laundry. That's the first real exercise I've done this trip, but we've done an awful lot of walking and my clothes all still fit so I'm assuming that I haven't gained too much weight :-)

5 August 2010 - more about Las Vegas

It's 7am on 5 August and we're leaving LV this morning.

We had hoped to do a show last night, but both of us - despite serious attempts to drink stacks of water etc - got too much sun yesterday morning and just crashed after lunchtime. One show I'd have really been tempted by is Australia's own Human Nature who have been performing here at the place where we're staying for quite some time now. Unfortunately they're not here just now - they're away only for a few days, but we missed them.

Anyway, we had dinner at the buffet here in the Imperial Palace - very nice - $18.99 each and there was soup, salads, mexican and chinese food, seafood, lots of desserts (although in the typical american fashion, they managed to look nice and taste nowhere near as good). For $39.99 you can buy a 24 hour all you can eat buffet pass which is good for all seven of the associated casino buffets!

Then once it got darkish, we went out onto the Strip - with thousands of other tourists! - to just look at the sights.

Saw the Bellagio fountains - they're just spectacular. Thought about waiting to see the volcano at the Mirage but it didn't seem to be worth the effort - to get a decent view we'd have had to wait for ages and the crowds were just huge. We ended up catching the very end of it at one point, but not enough to think that we'd missed much.

The most amazing thing is the shopping malls. We went through the Fashion Square shopping mall which is just gigantic, but most of the newer casinos have their own shopping areas within the casino and some of them are just astounding. I'd love to have had time to go through the Venetian's again - we just walked and walked and the shops never stopped! And of course the Venetian has the gondolas and the artificial daytime look and feel to it - it's done amazingly well.

May not post again today - the Tour Director says it's a 'repositioning cruise' day - just a day to get from Nevada back to California with not a lot happening. Will have to wait and see, because sometimes interesting things just happen anyway!

4 August 2010 - Las Vegas

Didn't get a chance to post anything last night because the internet service here failed. The last few places the internet access has been free and quite reliable - here it costs real money and it failed last night and didn't get fixed until this morning sometime.

Two stops on the trip into Las Vegas. The first was at a place called Seligman which is full of old 50's and Route 66 memorabilia. The second was in Kingman where we got to do something that was obviously on the list of quite a few of us - we went into a Walmart. Pretty much what I expected - picture a combination of a gigantic KMart and Woolies grocery store with a bunch of extra little shops as well. Oh, and that 'People of Walmart' website - yep, some of those people were there!

Got into Las Vegas around 3:30, went up to our room and then down to the casino here (we're at the Imperial Palace) where we turned $8 into $70. Nice start. Of course it has all since vanished, but that's fine :-)

What I hadn't realised though was that people can - and do - smoke almost everywhere here, which isn't so good.

Anyway, we went to dinner and a show called 'The Rat Pack is Back' - basically about Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jnr. Not bad - the guy doing the Dean Martin role was particularly good.

Then we went into Fremont Street and got to see the light show - spectacular! When we left there at about 10:40pm it was still 98 degrees.

Up early this morning so I could do my Hoover Dam tour. It was quite good apart from the heat! (which left me with a filthy headache that I've just managed to drug out of existence) and the fact that I could have spent a lot longer looking in the souvenir shop but we were on a strict time schedule and had to leave. The picture above was a surprise to me - they're building a new road to bypass the dam (which at the moment is still used as a highway) and the bridge is just spectacular, even in comparison with the dam.

3 August - a few random thoughts

I'm sitting in the hotel room in Flagstaff - it's around 7:30 am. We're all packed up and ready to go, but the bus doesn't leave until 8:30

As I said yesterday, we're off to Las Vegas today. We go to see a dinner and show tonight, and then have a full day tomorrow and tomorrow night before we leave the next morning. The Tour Director is going to give us a list of places to go, things to see etc - although it seems to me that you could probably spend a week within the block our hotel is on and still not see everything in that small part of Las Vegas, let alone the whole place.

Just as an example - I was thinking of seeing a Cirque Du Soleil show - apparently there are seven different ones on in Vegas at the moment!

I've just realised that I haven't been writing very much about the hotels we're staying in, and I want to be able to look back on this and remember, so maybe I should do a bit of a catch-up.

Los Angeles - the Sportsmen's Lodge Hotel. Just a normal hotel room, quite nice and with a balcony overlooking the pool. It's quite a well-known hotel, gets recommended a lot on travel websites, and we were quite happy there. Strikes me though that they are trading a lot on their name and history, and that they really do need to do some restoration and repair work around the hotel fairly soon now. Room service = really expensive!

Scottsdale: Hospitality Suites Resort. This is a newer, all suites resort. Nice and comfortable. Didn't need to deal with the front desk or other staff at all of course because the tour director checks us all in. They have a happy hour every night - free drinks of any sort for 2 hours down around the pool. And, free breakfast in their restaurant which was truly appreciated. Although on the second day I made the mistake of having French Toast because I thought some hot food might help me feel better. I didn't realise that to Americans, French Toast is sweetened, fried in lots of butter, covered in sugar after it's cooked, and served with more butter and maple syrup. That's my idea of a dessert, not breakfast.

Flagstaff: The Drury Inn. Wow, this one is lovely. Another all suites place, caters mostly to business people so it's not close to anything really exciting but we don't have any real time to spend here anyway. Another one with a happy hour every night, and also free hot food every night and free breakfast every morning. I stuck to cereal this time though!

Overall comment - the real surprise so far has been that all three rooms have had refrigerators (we stayed in some fairly fancy hotels on our last visit here and I don't think any of them did!) Also, all three have had actual bathtubs, which has been a godsend for me -when I'm sick I like to have a nice long soak and I've been able to do that in all three places so far.

On to other things - Paul and I have both had a cold. Really I shouldn't be surprised, I rarely get sick but I've caught some sort of nasty cold or flu every time I've left Australia. Paul is mostly over his, but I'm not - I've lost most of my voice today :-( However, as a result I've learned that they're nowhere near as fussy about selling cold and flu medication here as they are at home - you can buy stuff here from the supermarket that would be chemist only stuff at home.

2 August 2010 - Sedona, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff

Got up early early this morning to be in the restaurant for breakfast by about 6:15am. I got a bit worried during breakfast that maybe the time-zones had changed and we were running late, but of course we weren't. Linda our Tour Director explained that Arizona doesn't do daylight saving, so in winter time there's an hour difference between Los Angeles and Phoenix, but in summertime they're on the same time.

We were all on the bus on time - first place we went was Sedona. It's a beautiful, charming place (although I spent too much money there, of course). The second picture above is Sedona.

Then, on to the Grand Canyon. Paul and I did a helicopter ride over the canyon. It's an astounding and beautiful view - although unfortunately with the glare of the sun, most of the photos I took are full of reflections of my clothes. Afterwards we all met back at the South Rim of the canyon for more sightseeing - and money-spending.

I bought two pieces of jewellery today - both contemporary Hopi Indian designs. I got a bracelet and a ring, both very nice (well, I think they are anyway).

Tonight we're spending the night in Flagstaff before moving on to Las Vegas tomorrow!

1 August 2010 - Scottsdale and Phoenix

First up today we went to Scottsdale's Old Town and wandered through there - basically just a tourist trap I guess, but lots of shops desperate for trade because this is totally their non-tourist season. Normally it would have been well over 100 degrees today, but it was actually really nice - no more than the high 80's I think, and overcast enough to make it feel cooler without being too muggy.

Then we went to Phoenix and had a look at the state Capitol building and the memorial park across the road - very nice. Today's photos are the Navajo Code Talkers Memorial from that park. All the government and business buildings and the parks are maintained beautifully - I have no idea how they manage to keep everything so green in such a dry climate. To me, after living with drought for so long in Canberra, it just seems irresponsible to waste water like that, but I have to say the results are stunningly beautiful.

Finally, on to the IM Heard Museum - this is a beautiful place dedicated to American Indian culture and art. I could easily have bought home one or two sculptures. Easy that is except for the price - $1700 and $4230 respectively!

31 July 2010 - on the road to Phoenix Arizona

Scottsdale Arizona actually, but I had never heard of Scottsdale until we booked this trip. It's right beside Phoenix, basically part of the same big metropolis. By the way, the picture isn't Scottsdale, it's Palm Springs!

Anyway, we started the day in Los Angeles - they picked up our suitcases at 7am and we had to be on the bus at 8am. This was our first real chance to meet our fellow travellers. As I gathered would be the case, most are from England. Three other Australians - all from Victoria - a few Americans, two South Africans, two from Wales, and a Canadian. Two of the Ozzies are a couple from a farm (I gather) in Victoria - and they're having a grand holiday - an Alaska cruise, a Cosmos tour around the Rockies and that part of Canada, this tour, and then over to the east coast for another one. Quite a few of the English people are on their second Cosmos tour in a row as well. So far, a nice bunch of people. I was a little surprised by the age range though. I thought it would be mostly oldies like us - and there's a fair few of us - but there are also some younger (like, in their twenties) girls and guys, and quite a few teenagers travelling with parents. Youngest is about 13.

We headed off to Beverley Hills - which we just drove through - and then Hollywood which we had a chance of a quick look around on foot. Not enough time for any official tours, and to be honest I don't think I missed all that much. To me it was the kind of place where I could have done lots of things if I was there for a while, but that I wouldn't go out of my way to see.

After that, we went to Palm Springs where we stopped for lunch. Just to give you an idea of how enormous the portion sizes are here - I had a half-size Waldorf Salad. The Tour Director said that a full size one would be too big for anybody and boy was she right - it was delicious but I only got about a third of the way through the halfsize one! It was hot in Palm Springs - about 100 degrees F today, which felt pretty hot to me but is nowhere near as hot as it gets there.

Next was basically 5 hours of freeway through the desert to Scottsdale. Not much exciting to look at along the way. It's apparently rainy season in Arizona - the tour director said that they get between 2.5 and 4 inches of rain a year, almost all in August. I still don't think there's a huge risk that I'll actually get rained on.

First impressions of the tour - Tour Director is a nice lady who seems prepared to go out of her way to help, within the confines of her company rules of course which - like on a cruise - are always encouraging you to spend money. The bus driver is from somewhere else in the USA and I don't think he had ever been to LA before, so he had a bit of a challenge but nostly managed okay. Nice comfortable bus. There won't be any fights over seats as they basically decide where each couple/ group will sit each day.

All good so far apart from the fact that I'm definitely catching a cold - hope it's not as nasty as the one I caught the only other time I was here. That one actually turned out to be a flu in the end, I got post-viral syndrome afterwards which took about 6 months to recover from, and in the process discovered that I have leukaemia :-( This one can't be that bad!!