Driving the Pacific Coast Highway 7-8/11/05 We drove to Monterey and spent the afternoon prodding fishes at the aquarium. They had a decorator crab which was decorated with Hallowe'en coloured wool (orange and black, supplied by the aquarium staff). In a couple of weeks, they said they were going to change the wool to red and green for Christmas. Penguins! Sea Otters! The aquarium had them all, some on an exchange visit from New Orleans while their home is being rebuilt. There was also a deep sea display with enormous Tuna and Sunfish (which look plain weird, they seem to only [View Full Entry]

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Hallowe'en in Castro After we got to San Francisco we parked the car and went into a cafe for liquid refreshment and to get our bearings before looking for a place to sleep. As we were drinking our coffees the other customer in the cafe suddenly asked "Where are you guys from?" "Britain" we told her, thinking we would then get something along the lines of "Oh, England, I went there, whereabouts are you from?" Instead she carried on with "Are you looking for somewhere to go this evening? Somewhere exotic, fun, whacky, stupendous, erotic, exciting, unusual and completely unique?" We [View Full Entry]

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Death Valley 28/10/05 We headed back into California via Las Vegas (managed to drive straight past it this time!) and drove into Death Valley. The temperature was 82F (and no, I don't know what that is in real money) and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We saw loads of cyclists, it's like they were there to taunt us. Apparently there is a ride tomorrow, out of Death Valley into Nevada and back via the northern end of the valley - grrrrr, not fair, wanna get back on my bike, sob. We heard a very interesting talk on weather conditions [View Full Entry]

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Into Utah 24-25/10/05 We drove into Utah, heading towards Bryce Canyon. I don't know what I was expecting, but everybody is exceedingly friendly and children are incredibly quiet (is it Mogadon?). We ate in a pizzeria in Logan which was full of kids from the very small (a few weeks old) to late teenage and all that we could hear was quiet conversation - WIERD! Even the stroppy teenagers smile at strangers. Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park 26-27/10/05 The story is that Ebenezer Bryce looked into the canyon and said "That's one hell of a place to lose a cow" [View Full Entry]

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Lake Tahoe 17-18/10/05 We drove as far as Tahoe City on Lake Tahoe and stopped overnight. The next morning we hiked up Eagle Rock to take in the views and try out the new lens. There was a fire over the other side of the lake which had been burning for a couple of days, and you could see a thin layer of smoke spreading out across the lake. We chatted for a while to a couple called Tammy and Terry (encouraging them to take the trip to the Amazon that they had always dreamed about) before heading back down into [View Full Entry]

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14-17/10/05 Mountain View, CA We travelled over the Sierra Nevada to Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay area to visit Tom and Julia. Vernon and Tom were flatmates when both were doing PhDs at Bangor University, but as with so many friendships we haven't seen each other for years. On Friday we went to Amici's for a pizza and were treated to free entertainment when a customer collapsed on the floor, he seemed to recover, stood up, left the building and promptly collapsed again. The staff called 911 and two fire tenders turned up with a paramedic on board. We [View Full Entry]

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Sorry this has taken so long to post, we are experiencing computer difficulties, first we couldn't access the website, then we couldn't upload photos. 05/10/05 Lone Pine We spent the morning in Bishop sorting out Hospital paperwork and checking e-mail in the library. When we left the library I had a parking ticket for "parking more than 18 inches from the kerb" since I was parked on the left side of the road facing in the wrong direction. We went to the Police station to see if we could pay the fine (and also to check if there were any other [View Full Entry]

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02-03/10/05 Eight wheels to Long Beach We headed south out of Bishop on the 395 and drove to Ridgecrest, where Carol, Rita and Mikayla were staying after a family wedding. We met quite a few of Rita's relatives and spent an hour or so chatting about our trip and the crash before we kidnapped Carol and made her navigate us to Long Beach. We spent the evening talking over news, old and new, and generally putting the world to rights. Carol and I did our degrees together in Portsmouth, England and Carol pointed out that it was probably twenty years ago [View Full Entry]

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Hello everybody, first of all thanks for all your comments and e-mails wishing us a speedy recovery, they have been very much appreciated. We are getting better by the day; whoever stole my marbles has returned them pretty much as they were, the only changes are that I have a much clearer head (none of the old junk in there at the moment) and I have a tendency to hiccup now - hopefully that one will clear up! Vernon is still in pain from his cracked ribs, but it has improved to a dull ache unless he forgets and tries to [View Full Entry]

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Here's the one you've all been waiting for... 18/09/05 Bishop CA We set off early as we had a long distance to cover, made good progress, reaching Coaldale by 11 am, our biker friend was correct it is nothing but derelict buildings, the main reason it gets a mention on maps is because it is at the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 95. We turned onto the 6 and continued on our way. We had planned to stop at Coaldale for lunch, but as the riding was easy we pressed on, stopping at about 12.30pm for energy bars and Gatorade [View Full Entry]

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