Hurrah for Hilo! Wednesday 8th October 2008, 10.30 a.m. Yesterday morning our flight left Honolulu at 9.20 a.m. and by 10.05 we were banking sharply down over crystal clear seas, fringed by rain forest to the old town of Hilo on the east coast of Hawaii, otherwise known as Big Island. We got off the plane in high humidity and heat at a pretty little one-storey airport planted with tropical flowers and surrounded by palm and banyan trees and we just knew that this was going to be good! Hilo is known as one of the wettest places on earth. It rains roughly two out of every three days; warm rain, cleansing rain, life-giving rain and we love the green lushness of it all. This is Hawaii, unspoilt and friendly. We have been here just twenty ... read more

Pearl Harbour Saturday 4th October 2008 Pearl Harbour was worth the hour and a quarter bus ride. It was quite moving. We did feel a bit regimented by the US Navy personnel who take visitors out to the Arizona monument. One cannot take anything on the tour and drinking, even water, is FORBIDDEN, in respect to the thousand plus crew whose bodies were never recovered from the wreckage!!!??? However, the memorial is a sobering and fitting tribute to those poor souls and the documentary film pays due tribute to the genius (as well as the horror) of the Japanese attack, probably the most successful air attack in WW2. One thing bothered me greatly, however and that is that oil is still seen escaping from one of the hatchways of the wreck (which lies in very shallow ... read more

City by the Bay: San Francisco Tuesday 30th September 2008 We are in a plane flying at about 34,000 feet towards Honolulu airport, Hawaii. We didn’t leave our hearts in San Francisco (like Tony Bennett in the famous old song) but we did love it! It is a city with a lot of heart and soul and a distinct ambience all of its own. We have been to so many towns over the last month that all look the same, which we called “Anyplace USA”; same shops in the same malls, with the same freeways running through, where once Main Street used to be and thus with the hearts ripped right out of them. San Francisco has everything going for it, great location in a beautiful bay, 19th century “Victorian’ houses in beautiful pastel colours, big ... read more

Groveland and Yosemite 22nd September 2008 Groveland is an old gold mining town, twenty three miles east of the Yosemite National Park in the Stanislaus Forest. It is one of the old “Forty Niner’s towns” with most of the original buildings intact, including the saloon and hotels still used as such. We got here three nights ago and are staying another three, camping. It is absolutely freezing at night, not surprising at this altitude in the mountains, but we are cosy enough in our rented tent and the surrounding pinewoods are beautiful. The first two nights were noisy, the little town had its annual “49ers Festival” (some pretty good live music) so last night we slept like logs to make up for it! Yesterday was our first visit to Yosemite itself and, like most tourists, we ... read more

Back to California 16th September 2008 We have just spent two days driving back to California across the desert. Sunday’s drive took us from Flagstaff to Barstow and yesterday from Barstow to Lake Isabella. The drive to Barstow was fairly monotonous; desert, desert and more desert. Yesterday however was more interesting. We avoided the freeway and drove firstly across yet more desert and then found ourselves in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada with trees, instead of cactus and rivers instead of dried up beds, which we call “ramblas’ in Spain but here they are called “washes”, e.g. Coyote Wash, Walsh Wash etc. Lake Isabella is in a lovely location, in a valley by an icy blue lake. It is also, however, Hicksville (like so many small towns in the States). Finding somewhere to stay wasn’t ... read more