Today was very dark and overcast this morning, the locals were talking about two storms one heading up from the south and another coming from the north and both converging over California! Well when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping! So we headed down to Venice as scheduled and hit the surf dude shops and boutiques. Hallelujah that the pound is so strong…We bought some unusual items including some wicked hoody tops, tattoo leggings, and 2 hats for me… The rain then started to come down in earnest, actually that’s probably an understatement it starting hammering [View Full Entry]

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Las Vegas was easier to leave than we were led to believe, we anticipated mega queues at check-out but the hotel was relatively quiet. We picked up our Sebring convertible and headed to Victorville. The scenery was absolutely stunning, wide open desert plains stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction and snow topped craggy mountains formed an amazing backdrop. Unfortunately the photos I took while we were driving just don’t do it justice. We spent the night in Victorville, a typical desert one horse town, although popular with snowboarders apparently so I’m sure i [View Full Entry]

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Happy New Year! And what a start! New Year’s eve we decided to eat late afternoon as Vegas was absolutely heaving, we soon discovered that we weren’t the only ones and all the restaurants were rammed. They estimated that an additional 300,000 visitors descended on the strip and it certainly looked like it, and they were all wearing these odd little plastic top hats or plastic “happy new year” tiaras! We started our celebrations at 2.00 pm Cyprus time, again at 3.00 pm Spanish time, and of course 4.00 pm UK time so we were somewhat merry by midnight here! We [View Full Entry]

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Well the alarm went off at 5.15 which is still the middle of the night in my book; we meandered our way through the casino which still contained numerous gamblers and red eyed folk seeking their fortunes; not sure whether they’d just arrived or been there or all night… Bill (who I accidentally called Bob a few times…but he didn’t seem to mind) arrived in our Hummer early which was a good job seeing as the weather was perishing; then off to the Venetian to collect 3 more passengers, who luckily for us turned out to be Greek and not Chinese. [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday was quite a chilled day starting with a good lie-in, mind you we were up until 3.00 watching the complete series of “I Love New York” an extremely trashy but strangely compulsive dating show on TV. We went up the strip for a change and visited the Mirage, Treasure Island and the Venetian; they all seem to merge into one after a while and they certainly all sound the same with the continuous tinkering of the bells from the slot machines. The main mission for the day was to purchase, our tickets for the Grand Canyon trip. We decided on [View Full Entry]

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Christmas eve was spent quite quietly in the Cleopatra barge over a few gins and vodkas. The bartender was quite obnoxious and kept interrupting our conversation with what he thought were witty anecdotes, but we didn’t let him spoil our night. We had a quick flutter on the slots (I’m still $4.50 up and Andy is $2.00 down - but then we’re hardly high rollers spending only a couple of dollars a night.) We left c. 10.30 p.m. to make some Christmas day phone calls, unfortunately we couldn’t get a line using our phone card, and international lines were engaged, sorry [View Full Entry]

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Arrived quite late last night after another run-in with United Airlines - remind me never ever to fly with them ever again! Well we thought things weren’t too bad only a 90 minute delay, then we discovered we had to fly via Denver, wait there for an hour pick up new passengers and then head off to the Sin city. In Denver there was a lot of pandemonium as loads of passengers missed their connecting flights, or were in a rush; still not a problem for us or so we thought. I began to get a bit worried when we were [View Full Entry]

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Well it’s our last night in New Orleans and although another chapter in our travels opens tomorrow New Orleans has certainly made its mark on both of us and perhaps we can be audacious and use Rupert Brooke’s words and say “If I should die, think only this of me; that there’s a corner of New Orleans, that is forever England” well the two stools at the end of the bar at the Kerry anyway! Today I bought a New Orleans Fire-fighters calendar… phwoarrr I only bought it because it contributes to the city homeless appeal and Mr July who sold [View Full Entry]

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I think this blog is fast becoming a bit of a cuisine critique of Louisiana… AA Gill eat your heart out! Last night we went to the Alpine and dined on a splendid feast of smoked duck and spicy barbecue ribs (sorry mum but the photo’s just didn’t do it justice) our young server seemed rather new to the job and kept apologising every two minutes (in a wonderful country southern drawl) even though everything was absolutely fine. We guessed his family were on a nearby table because when we gave him a slightly over the odds $10 tip he went [View Full Entry]

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Last night was warm and balmy and very pleasant as we headed out for supper (steak for Andy and salmon for me served with dirty rice and mixed squashes and sautéed vegetables) the food tasted good but we did have to wait a while. We decided to plump for cocktails this evening Andy choosing a spicy Louisiana bloody Mary (a rainforest in a glass as described by our server) and a pink lemonade for me… yes it was made with vodka before you ask! Of course we ended up in the Kerry where tonight’s music was supplied by a bluesy sounding [View Full Entry]

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