Best.Holiday.Ever
Back in the UK. Meh
I wish we'd had the time & the money to just keep travelling around the US...
It was... awesome
We arrived at San Francisco on the Saturday, after a night at the Hilton at Heathrow, followed by an early 10 hour flight to SFO (too early to travel to Heathrow on the Saturday morning, hence the hotel).
San Francisco was brilliant. Spent four nights there, saw loads of stuff (including Alcatraz & the Golden Gate Bridge). Amazing city, & somewhere I'd love to live. The hotel (Chancellor) gave us wine, champagne, & chocolates.
The drive South down California's Pacific Coast (mostly via California Highway 1 aka the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) aka Scenic Highway 1) was gorgeous... the coast, mountains, state parks/beaches/reserves, Los Padres National Forest,
Big Sur, etc. Spent a night at Monterey, then Cambria, then Santa Barbara.
Monterey seemed really nice - didn't see much of it though.
Cambria was nice too, but too small & remote for somewhere I'd want to stay very long. On the way from Cambria to Santa Barbara we saw
Hearst Castle.
Santa Barbara was lovely, & like SF was somewhere I'd happily live (although I preferred SF). Like SF, the hotel gave us a little something (champagne, plus a "Congratulations!" banner).
After Santa Barbara, we then drove to Los Angeles. We stayed in LA for 4 nights.
LA was strange. Some nice bits, some tacky bits. We did have a good time there, seeing Hollywood, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, La Brea Tar Pits, & Griffith Park Observatory, plus hired a couple of push bikes & cycled from Santa Monica beach to Venice beach & back.
From LA, we drove through the
Mojave Desert to
Death Valley (the hottest, driest, & lowest place in North America, & the location of the highest temperature ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere). Stunning. [And very hot...]. Before hitting
Death Valley, we saw the
Calico Ghost Town, along with
Boron.
After a night in Death Valley, we drove around the area a bit more, seeing more of the Death Valley National Park (including Badwater Basin), and then set off for Las Vegas in Nevada.
Vegas was very strange. Stayed there 4 nights. Even more tacky than LA (much more so), & seemed basically to be an Adult Theme Park (Dilli would love it - Vegas has the highest number of rather busty ladies I have ever seen anywhere).
We saw the hotels/casinos on "
The Strip" (some fancy, some unbelievably tacky & cheesy), and also visited the
Atomic Testing Museum (very interesting), & the nearby
Hoover Dam (massive!).
The highlight of Vegas was actually an organised day trip to the
Grand Canyon (South Rim) in Arizona. Stunning, amazing, breathtaking, etc... Words & photos do not do it justice, you really need to see it... and then just stare in wonder...
We left Vegas on Monday afternoon...9 1/2 hour flight back to Gatwick, 8 hour time difference...Very tired on Tuesday.
Got back home on Tuesday afternoon (which as far as my body was concerned was Tuesday morning...). Back at work for Wednesday & today, & thankfully have a nice handy Easter break now.
Final mileage we clocked up on the car was around 1500 (not including the
Grand Canyon trip as that was in a minibus), in a little Yaris that wasn't always too keen on some of the more steep/twisty/gravelly roads in some places lol.
Glad to be home, but... I want to go back.
The only things I don't miss are the tipping, the strange thin American toilet roll, & the scarily enormous "cars".
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