elkins

We've arrived at our final destination on our USA trip and are staying in the marina area of San Diego. Our hotel has two seals in a pool (fortunately not the swimming pool) that they have adopted after they were found along the San Diego coast and were unable to fend for themselves. I've attached some photos to this blog of one of the seals (called Billy). This evening we took a stroll along San Diego's Mission beach which is a 5 minute walk from the hotel and is a good place to watch the sun go down. When we returned to the hotel, we were able to watch the daily San Diego 'sea-world' fireworks from our balcony and so also added some photos to this blog entry. Tomorrow we're going to visit the San Diego ... read more

Nicky and I got up at 4.45am this morning (Sunday) to go on our sunrise tour around Monument Valley. When the alarm went off we wondered whether it was going to be worth the effort; however we soon realised it most definitely was. I don't have time to label each of the 20 photos attached, but they generally speak for themselves. This blog entry follows quite closely behind the Bryce Canyon entry that was posted a few hours ago - those photos are worth looking at if you haven't seen them already. As prevbiously mentioned, we may not have internet access over the next couple of days whilst we're in the Grand Canyon and so we may not be able to post. We are taking a helicopter trip while we're there which Nicky is really looking ... read more

Yesterday (Friday) we left Las Vegas and drove to Bryce Canyon. I've attached to this entry some additional photos from Las Vegas including some photos we took on the way to Bryce Canyon. Bryce Canyon National Park is a national park located in southwestern Utah. Despite its name, it's not a canyon but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by frost weathering and stream erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks. The rim at Bryce varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet. The hotel we are staying was built in the style of log cabins and has various stuffed animals around the hotel and shop. I've attached one photo to this blog entry showing what looks like ... read more

Sorry for the lack of updates. We didn't have internet access whilst we were in Yosemite and have only just acquired it now we have arrived in Las Vegas. We left San Francisco on Monday and on our way out of the city, we drove down the famous winding Lombard street that has been in various films etc. Our hotel was located just outside of the Yosemite national park entrance and had a great view of the Merced river that flows through the park. The park covers over 3000 square km with numerous peaks and valleys providing spectacular views. We went rafting down the river and were able to enjoy the views whilst drifting on the water. The flow was generally slow moving, although it did get a little more lively at some points which was ... read more

During our day in San Francisco, we took a hop-on and hop-off bus tour around the city and across the Golden Gate bridge. Whilst the city was bathed in sunshine, the bridge was largely covered in fog (as you can see in the photo). We were sat on the top deck of the open top bus and to say it was windy crossing the bridge would be an understatement. Our tour guide told us that the bridge can swing 27 feet and flex 10 feet under a heavy load - I think with the wind we experienced, we must have used up much of the spare engineering capacity. It was nice to have gone over it; however it wasn't anything to write home about (so to speak). For lunch we ate at Boudin's in the Fisherman's ... read more