Blogs from United States, North America - page 4774

Day 92- Monday Yesterday we flew from Colarado to LA where we were met by Connie's sister (No 6!), Cathy and her two lovely daughters, Sophia and Anna. They live south of the airport, about 30 minutes in good traffic, right near the beach ( broadly speaking , Redondo beach) . The girls, like the rest of the family are heavily into sport and , most interestingly what is known here as "Junior Lifeguards" or nippers/ surfclub in Australia. They trained, qualified and did surf patrol during the summer vacation. But they don't seem to have a Sunday morning program of weekly competitions. We had a lovely time driving and walking around the district. Overalll the feel is similar to Sydney. Lots of California bungalows, eucalypts but of course some real mansions with water views. Day ... read more

I'm finally here!! The flights were interesting, but not too bad. On the flight from Sydney to Taipei, there were a lot of kids. One that screamed most of the way and two behind me that kept kicking my seat and fighting. But overall, no dramas. I was glad to finally get off and be able to stand for longer than a couple of miutes! San Francisco was nice, although we missed our reservation at the Stinking Rose for dinner. We ended up going to Pelligrini, a really nice Italian restaurant. Its been good to see the girls again. Both Riley and Jaynin have grown up so much. Jaynin is really cute and follows me around a lot. Unfortunately Riley is at school so I don't get to see her much during the day. Paige seems ... read more

We awoke to a beautiful dawn with an expansive view over the countryside at the home of Mary and Ron.We had a busy day ahead and they needed to get down to work so we had breakfast and readied ourselves for the road. It had been a memorable stay and Gretchen had atear in her eye as we drove off towards I-66 and our first stop at Manassas. The old town is quaint although it is a shame that they let heavy vehicles down the narrow main street. It was the first time we had walked any distance since our horse riding experience of yesterday and we both still felt like we were walking a bit bandy as if we had spent the whole day on a horse!!Hope this comes right as the day progresses.Perhaps we ... read more

Crossing back into the U.S. we traveled to Hyde Park, New York located in the Hudson Valley region. We chose this town because it was home to the Culinary Institute of America. The “other CIA” is the training ground for aspiring chefs and is located on a traditional New England style college campus. We had made reservations at 3 of the 5 restaurants with students rotating into all of the positions in each restaurant. Not only was the food and service as good as any 1st class restaurant but it was fun talking to these young chefs about their plans for the future. Many were close to graduating with a 2 year Associates degree and had positions lined up for restaurants from N.Y. to Hawaii. Others wanted to continue for a Bachelors degree with hopes ... read more

Hi everyone, the Queen Mary was excellent. After a reasonably short flight (5 hours) we arrived at LAX, flight was ok except for the ignorant oriental types sitting in front of us who put there seats right back and kept blocking our view of the movie. The onboard food was good though, being a domestic flight we had to pay for our beverages though. Our room was ready on arrival, so dumped our bags and proceeded to wander around the ship then straight to the bar for drinks. Room service that night which was good, then off to bed......been a long day. 25/9 Caught te local bus to a bar (Joe Josts) in the sticks, Jac saw a T.Shirt advertising the bar in Honolulu and decided he couldn't go home without one. That was an experience ... read more