Leaving San Francisco No time for breakfast today! We woke and packed in a whirlwind before hiking to Hertz en masse to claim our hire car. And what a car it was! A silver automatic Lincoln Town Car with a steering column shift. Woo! Driving on the wrong side of the road in a foreign city, without directions, in a car as long as the A team lying head to toe, with the same handling characteristics as a giant Chorizo! Good job the SatNav (that we said we didn’t want and hadn’t paid for) worked. Final thoughts on San Francisco Well, [View Full Entry]

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Jack’s Birthday We awoke gradually - surprisingly , Jack last. Once he was reminded that today was his birthday, we spent the next hour opening prezzies and cards and preparing for the day’s adventures. The first obstacle was breakfast: the option chosen was (of course) our final visit to Lori’s diner, where we all decided to go for the ‘tall stack’ (three) buttermilk pancakes that set us up for most of the day. Cable car For the first part of the day, Jack wanted to catch one of the traditional cable cars up and down Powell street t [View Full Entry]

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Slummin’ it .. or trying to! We all came to gradually this morning - Annabel first, then Mark and eventually the kids by around 8:30, so we all felt quite rested. Just as well... Today was nominated washing day, so we hoisted our laundry out of the suitcases. Sorted it into equal sized mountains and staggered out to find the Laundromat a block away. It was all a very civilised affair, which the kids loved because it meant they had some dedicated Nintendo time whilst the adults did the requisite chores. The industrial grade washing machines and tumblers had done the [View Full Entry]

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On the streets of San Francisco After being processed by SFO airport, we fell out onto the sidewalk and were scooped up into a black Lincoln towncar by a Turkish (I think) driver who knew how to type an address into a SatNav. No criticism due there though, he delivered us promptly and in a timely fashion at the front steps of the Beresford Hotel in Sutter St. First impressions of SF were that it is more built up than I (Mark) had assumed, and also that there are far more steep streets than I was prepared for. We checked into [View Full Entry]

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Right then, where were we... We woke up after another night of unbroken sleep-thanks Jack! Whilst Annabel launched herself into the singularly female task of packing, the men (or at least Man and Jack), went off to retrieve the traditional Vegas breakfast of fruit cups and Banana Nut loaf from Starbuck’s. We decamped successfully, checked out at the foyer and were taken to the airport by the world’s least talkative taxi driver. Given the current security constraints, we got to our departure gate family quickly and passed the time consuming hot dogs and blogging (the [View Full Entry]

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We woke late on our second day in Vegas (hurrah we are now all past our jet lag at last). After a leisurely start we headed off on the bus to the Las Vegas Outlet Centre to buy a suitcase. We’d always thought that we would need to buy another case but not that we’d need it this soon. It appears that although our three suitcases were ok weight wise for the BA flights they were too heavy for the United Airlines flights. Luckily the nice lady at the Denver UA desk let us fly without charging us for overweight baggage [View Full Entry]

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Sunday - arrival in Las Vegas After an uneventful flight we arrived in Las Vegas. A quick taxi ride later and we were at the Excalibur Hotel where we will be staying for the next three nights. We got collared as soon as we walked in by the touts who get you cheap show tickets in exchange for a presentation on a time-share. As we really wanted to see one of the more child-friendly shows but didn't really have the spare dosh for it we decided to take them up on their offer. So we booked 4 tickets for Lance Burton, [View Full Entry]

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Final thoughts on Colorado So... We got up fairly early (but not as early as Rob and Helen, who went to work - har har), fed ourselves (read that as stole food), and unpacked and re-packed all our belongings in a more rational way. Rob arrived and dutifully took us to the airport, regaling us on the way with anecdotes like 'an avalanche killed a skier there' and 'an avalanche killed another skier over there' and ... well, you get the theme! Ellie had a squeeze (pocket of air) in her ear as we descended in altitude, but on the brighter [View Full Entry]

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Saturday - mooching in the morning Woke up fairly early - Helen and Rob had already gone to work, so we were left to our own devices and decided to take the Honda (CRV) into Winter Park to look at the local shops and practice driving on the right whilst we were in still in a quiet(ish) area. The drive into town went OK, if you don't count not being able to start the vehicle in the first place (clutch in!), missing a turning and realising a little too late what the function of the turning lane was.. We wandered around [View Full Entry]

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Off for a walk Whilst Helen was at work this morning the rest of us drove off to Devil's Thumb Park (at around 10,000 feet). On the way we encountered some lumberjacks and were held up for a few minutes whilst they effortlessly moved three trees from out of the middle of the road with a big grabby crane thing (that's the technical term for it!). There we tracked Moose (there's a moose loose aboot this hoose) by following tracks and scats (that's poo to you guys back home) but unfortunately we didn't get to see any moose just a couple [View Full Entry]

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