Miles the day before yesterday: 5 miles by car to LAX, then 88 miles to Oceanside CA by train

Miles yesterday: 0

Miles today: 77 miles, to downtown San Diego and back by train

Miles to date: 5129

Where are we now? Oceanside, California, about thirty-five miles north of San Diego

Fun fact: If everybody had an ocean, across the USA. Then everybody’d be surfin’, like Californ–I–A. You’d see ‘em wearing their baggies. Huarachi sandals too. A bushy bushy blonde hairdo. Surfin’ USA.

The Last Few Day’s Events: Well, when we left you, we were in LA and the next day, by the time we had got up and driven back to the airport to drop off the car (not even on the freeways, but bad enough), we had decided that we were America-ed out, historied out, touristed out, and generally worn out. And, we were getting to feel that LA was an impossible city: it was probably over-extended when they started irrigating the desert for orange groves, long before they built trillions of houses and used fourteen times as much water irrigating the rich people’s gardens, and the freeway embankments (so the plants grow, and they aren’t washed away).

So, after dropping off the car, we got the hire company’s shuttle bus to the airport and, having been advised against our original intention of using the METRO tram system, we caught the Airport Flyer coach into downtown LA – Vikki saw the Hollywood sign in the distance – and were in time to catch the Amtrak ‘Surfliner’ train south. It took more than an hour and a half just to get out of LA, but then we went about half an hour further down the coast to our destination: the town of Oceanside (which we had picked on the basis that there were low priced motels within a couple of blocks of the beach). We popped down for an afternoon on the beach, which turned out to be ok, and so we have decided to stay put.

Yesterday we spent the day roasting ourselves on the beach (quite literally, unfortunately), where we got to watch the lifeguards, watching over a whole host of brave souls attempt to swim and body surf in a very choppy sea, and periodically doing the Baywatch sprint into the sea. At luchtime, we had two ground beef tacos and a pint of genuine Mexican 'Dos Equis' beer. A couple of hours more on the beach and, from there, we took two gyros pitas and a six pack of Dos Equis back to the motel room for a night in front of the telly and a dozen or so applications of aloe vera to our more tender bits. It was very much like being in Greece (mainly in that we went to bed looking like lobsters), and we feel we are beginning to chill out Californian style after rushing around this country at such a breakneck speed..

Still embarrassingly red today, we figured we couldn’t really go back to the beach yet, so we took a local train to the 'Old Town' in San Diego. This turned out to be one genuine hacienda, several re-located old buildings, and a series of re-constructions, all selling grand collectiones de tat. This didn't do it for us, so we negotiated the local trolley bus system into downtown San Diego. This has a financial district of modern skyscrapers and an historic 'Gaslight District', full of expensive bijou restaurants - so we bought ourselves something to read ( Douglas Coupland's J-Pod and Steven Fry's book on poetics), had a leisurely carmel iced coffee at Starbucks, and hopped on the train back to Oceanside.

Our intention, then, is to spend our remaining couple of days here in Oceanside, tidying up our tans, eating cheap food, and drinking cheap beer, before heading down to San Diego airport on Sunday. Well, we reckon you haven't experienced America till you've hung out in a Southern Californian beach town for a few days!

We'll do another posting if something unusually exciting happens - otherwise, see most of you in a week or so!

Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, downing a pint of the local brew.












A picture of me, Ted, on the beach at Oceanside CA, sporting a very fetching bushy bushy blonde hairdo, dontcha think?

Miles yesterday: 178

Miles today: 196

Miles to date: 4969

Where are we now? Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles (just south of LAX)

Where were we last night? San Luis Obispo (about half way down the coast from SF to LA)

Fun fact: Thinking up fun facts can be hard work. So today there isn't one.

Sunday’s Events: Well, we got up and gave Santa Cruz another chance, driving down in search of The Boardwalk (which we thought would be miles of planking, like a pier, but running along the beach, not out into the sea; but which turned out to be a charming, old-fashioned amusement park: so charming, old-fashioned that it often doubles in movies for the famous – but largely defunct - Coney Island amusement park, outside New York).

From there, we drove to Monterrey, where one of the major tourist attractions is Cannery Row. This is as featured in the novel by John Steinbeck (America’s George Orwell, for our older readers, who didn’t study Steinbeck at school). Only in America, would they take the setting for a major novel about the oppression of the poor sardine canners; and turn it into a shopping and holiday resort, with restaurants, boutiques, ‘art’ galleries, and hotels in all the old canning buildings, without even a museum to record the oppression of the poor old workers. That said, it was, of course, beautiful, in that way that the Americans pull off so wonderfully in the six places in the country where they are officially encouraged to get out of their cars. (We sneer, but we have participated fully, as you will hear.)

Ok, shortly after Monterrey, the really scenic bit of Highway 1 starts, and then it goes on for 100 miles. No detours, no side roads, no alternative routes. We say this because the road really does run along the cliff face where the mountains meet the sea, and it does run about 500 feet up the cliffs, and it does zig, and zag, and do hairpin bends and the road signs advise you to go at 25 mph, because you’re always only seconds from plunging over the cliff, Thelma and Louise style. It is stunningly beautiful, but we think it is literally a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience i.e. we’re never doing it again! It good to see it but not good if you suffer from vertigo, and you don’t like impatient sports cars travelling 3 feet from your rear.

Added bonuses from taking this route were that we got to see some giant redwoods, we got to see Big Sur, we got to see the fog rolling in off the sea (not too much, fortunately), and we got to see the gateway of the famous Esalen Institute where they invented counselling and most of the ‘New Age’. How did we feel about passing by Esalen? As free as a bird – see photo.

Unfortunately, the 25 mph bends, and the need to pull into ‘turnouts’ (lay-bys, to you English people) meant that we missed the 4.30 tour of Hearst Castle by minutes (Hearst Castle is the original for Zanadu in the movie Citizen Kane, not the Olivia Newton John vehicle) and so we did not get to see all the stuff that Hearst had imported from Europe to this mad castle on coastal hill, miles from anywhere. Shame. However, we drove on to San Luis Obispo, where we found a Louisiana restaurant next to our motel, so had gumbo, jambalaya, and hush puppies, and Louisiana beer, of course, while listening to ‘Pass the Dutchie’ in a zydeco style. So that worked out ok.

Today’s Events: Basically, we have driven from San Luis Obispo, down to LA, past the Madonna Inn, where every room is different; and through Malibu, where the stars really do live in beach front houses, that are built on stilts with steps down to the beach and with a four (five, if you count the central turning lane) lane highway, inches from their front doors – we know because we knocked over Sandra Bullock’s dustbin. Well, she shouldn’t have left it in the road!

We also stopped for lunch (two hot dogs and a can of coke) in the little sea-side town of Carpinteria. We chose this just by chance, but it turned out to be our fantasy Californian beach town – nothing special: just modest houses (that had been there long enough to have some trees round them), wide roads lined with palm trees, and a big long beach with local people sunbathing, swimming, surfing, or playing volley ball. If we had known of this town before, we think we would have booked a few days there.

Our original intention was to get here mid-afternoon and go to the local (Manhattan) beach but sleep caught up with us. Anyway, our plan for the rest of the day is to get some nosh in a bit, have a good sleep, drop off the car at LAX (the airport) in the early morning, catch a Mass Transit train to downtown, grab a quick bus tour of the homes of the stars, and then take an Amtrak train to San Diego, where we plan to hole up in a motel on a beach for a well-earned break, before flying back to Boston on the 26th, and back to the UK two days later.

Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, feeding the meter at Cannery Row.

A picture of me, Ted, climbing

a banana tree at Manhattan Beach, CA.

Miles today: Only 6 by taxi but 141 in our new car

Miles to date: 4595

Where are we again? Santa Cruz, on the Californian coast, 100 miles south of San Francisco

Fun fact: Curiously, the official mascot of the University of California at Santa Cruz is the Banana Slug. More self explanatory, the University of Berkeley’s official mascot is the Roach.

The Day’s Events: Well, we told you yesterday that we were hoping for a more interesting time today exploring the east bay of San Francisco; and we’re happy to report to you that we were right. (“When have you ever been wrong?” we hear you cry!)

After a less than promising start, involving wringing a free taxi out of the extremely surly motel receptionist in place of the free shuttle bus as promised on the motel’s website, we arrived at SF airport in time to pick up our new rental car. Sadly, no upgrades to a Mustang convertible this time, but we do have a perfectly serviceable Hyundai Sonata, which is good enough, we reckon.

From the airport, Malcolm navigated our way through the downtown San Francisco Interstates and on to the Back Bay Bridge, which took us over the Back Bay, logically enough, and into the Oakland area of the East Bay. Turning left, we made our way up I80 to Berkeley University, where we stopped to take a look around the Sociology department - empty on account of it being a Saturday - and around the main campus - surprisingly busy with students, prospective students, tourists, and a bunch of youngsters learning to do the Lindy Hop (see right). We very quickly decided that we rather liked Berkeley, which seemed to be the very antithesis of Harvard uptightness, and we could imagine ourselves fitting in very well there, so much so that we have begun plotting ways in which we might wangle a sabbatical year there in the not too distant future.

After that, we drove further up Interstate 80 to Richmond, specifically to dine at the Mexican restaurant that was established in 1956 by our friend Marco’s grandfather (who is the central figure in both of the pictures behind us in the photo at the top of this page - click to enlarge). Although the restaurant was sold to a Chinese family, it still operates as a Mexican place, with very tasty food, it must be said: we recommend the guacamole and the enchiladas verdes.

From there, much against Malcolm’s ‘better’ judgement, we battled the traffic, so as to cross the Bay to the north of San Francisco, just so we could drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (see right). In some ways the Golden Gate Bridge is a bit of a swizz – it is neither golden, nor is it fitted with gates; but it is a bridge, which is probably just as well since we are not particularly strong swimmers. Once across the bridge, we drove through the Golden Gate Park and through town until we could get onto the start of the famously scenic Route 1 highway (see left), making a stop at Pacifica, famed for its very long pier out into the sea (see below), and before driving the cliff road on to Santa Cruz.

We decided to stop tonight in Santa Cruz, partly on account of us having heard of it before, and partly because Malcolm’s been coping with stress by saying “Santa Cruth” over and over. There's not too much here as far as we can tell; seems to be a bit of an uppity place with lots of "noisy young people" (to quote Malcolm). However, we did find a nice place to eat and to gulp down a bottle of Californian wine this evening, and tomorrow we plan to take a wander down the pier. After that, we're on to Monterey, Esalen, Big Sur, the Hearst Castle and San Luis Obispo.

Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, outside the Students Union at Berkeley, in me birthday suit. (Well, you’ve got to try to fit in, haven’t you?)

Miles on Wednesday: 570 by train (and 2 on foot)

Miles on Thursday: About 18 on foot (and 736 by plane)

Miles today: 22 miles by train, 6 by taxi, and 5 on foot

Miles to date: 4448

Where were we on Wednesday? Denver, Colorado

Where were we on Thursday? Salt Lake City, Utah

Where are we now? San Mateo, just outside San Francisco, California

Fun fact: It is a common misconception that California is lovely and warm throughout the year. But in actual fact, even in August, it's bleedin' freezing!

The Past Three Days’ Events: Well, the last three days have so action packed that we haven’t been able to post any updates since Tuesday. So, a quick summary:

On Wednesday morning, we got up early and, since our hotel had reneged on their promise of a shuttle bus, we grabbed a taxi to Denver’s Union Station, in time for the 7.30 registration for the 8.00 train, only to discover that the train was running two hours late! (Normal for trans-continental Amtrak, we discover.) Once on board, our visible pitiful despair motivated the conductor to move a group of ladies who had grabbed six sets of double seats, which meant that we could sit together – which was just as well, as we had signed up for a 15 hour journey to Salt Lake City!

The point, of course, is that, between Denver and Salt Lake City, the train crosses the Rocky Mountains and we have to say that the journey exceeded our expectations several times over. It was fantastic – quite easily our favourite part of this trip to date. Since there are no great rivers flowing out of the Rockies towards the West, the train has to climb out of Denver by way of a series of mile wide loops, where you can look down from some impossibly tall cliff faces and see where you were ten minutes before. The first hour and a half was spent climbing until we reached the Donner Tunnel (over 11,000 feet high). From there, it’s all downhill (literally) for about 500 miles. You start off following the headwaters of the Colorado River, where it’s just a small river flowing through the forests, passing the odd ski resort. Gradually, the trees thin out and you find yourselves heading down the Colorado River Canyon (pictured, and which, we think, is an upstream version of the Grand Canyon). There’s the occasional log cabin and/or shack and the occasional bunch of people white-water rafting or fly-fishing but otherwise, pretty much nothing but a wild landscape of rocks and river. For the last phase, the train turns northwards, away from the river, and basically passes through about 200-300 miles stretch of entirely deserted desert, complete with ghost uranium mining towns from the Cold war period.

We fell asleep in the last bit, after the sun had gone down, but woke up in time to get off at Salt Lake City at 1.30 in the morning (only 2.5 hrs late). The only taxi in attendance wouldn’t take us (he wanted a longer journey), so we had to walk six blocks to our motel. We were a bit scared but SLC is probably the best American city to be walking through deserted downtown streets, across the railroad tracks, and the suchlike. Fortunately the motel had kept our room, so we were in bed and asleep by 2.30!

Thursday, then, we made ourselves get up and out by 9.30 so we could see Salt Lake City’s ‘Number One Tourist Attraction’: Temple Square, the home of the Mormons. As the guidebooks say, as soon as we were through the gates, we were picked up by an ‘Elder’ who assigned two lovely, crazed ‘Sisters’ (pictured) who took us round, sang us a song, and were generally charmingly wholesome, but not too bright. Once they had reassured us (or the other Americans on the tour) that it was the same Jesus Christ (but of the Latter Day Saints), we were trusted to go round by ourselves. So, we went to an organ recital in the famous Mormon Tabernacle, had lunch in one of Brigham Young’s homes, watched all the couples from a group wedding pouring out of the temple (better make that ‘mass’ wedding, but we’re not too sure), watched an hour and half documentary (in the best Hallmark style) on the life of Joseph Smith, etc. There is so much to say: they’re doubly or trebly American, the Temple is like Disneyland (inspired Disneyland?), they have the best marketing in the world, they are incredibly welcoming, in a frighteningly ‘wholesome’ sort of way, and they won’t answer any questions on the content of their religion, only tell you that Jesus, once he was resurrected, came to America (where else?) and that we need a reconstruction of Christianity because we have ‘fallen away’, and so forth. Malcolm had fun in their history museum, after the guide had said that Jesus had come to America to minister to one of lost tribes of Israel that had come to America. He couldn’t stop himself from saying that his grandmother had believed that the British were one of lost tribes of Israel. To her credit, the guide was not thrown by this but, following the logic that there are enough lost tribes of Israel for every nation to be a ‘chosen people’, she simply said that God moves in mysterious ways, and gave Vikki a copy of the book of Mormon.

Anyway, eventually, we were American religion/pioneered/historied out and so set off to the airport in plenty of time to sink some Salt Lake City beer before getting on the plane. Unfortunately, the plane had two aborted attempts at taking off, before we were made to disembark and wait for a plane coming in from San Diego to take us instead. (We’ve given up reporting on the state of Malcolm’s stomach lining.) Eventually, we got to San Francisco, worryingly 2.5 hours late again. (Not counting Pacific Seaside Time or whatever it’s called). Once again, the motel reneged on its promise of a shuttle bus so we got a taxi to the Comfort Inn, San Mateo and were in bed well past midnight again.

Unsurprisingly then, we were in no rush to get up this morning, but, eventually, sometime after midday, we got a taxi to the first station on one of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) metro/underground lines into downtown San Francisco. We have to say that San Francisco has turned out to be our least favourite city to date, and by quite a big margin. The setting is gorgeous, all hills and sea views but there’s pretty much nothing to look at in the town, aside from bougie-bougie midtown complexes, and a million and one tat shops as you approach the ugly, car-park-heavy, pigeon-poop-stained harbour front, known as ‘Fisherman’s Wharf’. The only beautiful thing that we found was the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill, built after some rich woman donated a bunch of money in her will, with the express wish that it be used to make the city look a little prettier. Inside the Coit Tower, we found a huge queue of people waiting to take the elevator to the viewing platform at the top, not one of them paying a blind bit of notice to the wonderful Soviet Realist style murals on every wall, painted during the Depression and depicting the subtle and not-so-subtle afflictions of industrial ‘progress’. We thought these were great, and they more-or-less sustained us during our aborted attempt to get a micro-brew at the (not so micro) brewery on the harbour front, where we were scuppered by the balcony being closed off and the staff there being decidedly uninterested in our presence.

So, we thought, hey, let’s head back towards home via the cable cars, probably one of the most well-known of San Francisco’s offerings and the only trams to be pulled along by a rope underneath the ground outside Llandudno (as far as we know). Looks like fun, we thought. Well, we could have jumped on a flight to Llandudno and used theirs in the time it would have taken to get on a San Francisco cable car. For some reason it took them 15 minutes to start each car going, and the queue was about 8 cable cars full of people deep when we joined it. We can only imagine that the cable car people can get away with a two-hour minimum wait, and a $5 journey price, on account of the fact that it’s a 2 mile walk back to the metro up a 1:2 gradient set of hills. Well you probably thought we weren’t fit enough to even contemplate doing this on foot, but by god we did! So we climbed the hills, beating the cable cars back to the Metro, and got a train and taxi back to the hotel where we sit writing to you now fortified by a six pack of Budweiser (sorry Rod) and a packet of Skittles Sours.

San Francisco, then, was something of a disappointment (although we do concede that it was a lot scarier 30 years ago, when Malcolm was here last). However, we are much more optimistic about tomorrow, when we’ll be picking up another hire car and heading across the bay to snoop around Berkeley and to have lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Richmond that used to be owned by our friend Marco’s grandfather.

The more eagle-eyed among you will no doubt have noticed that we have skipped stop number 12 on our itinerary – Nevada. We hope you're not too disappointed. If you are, it's going to be horrible to have to tell you we're thinking of skipping the Grand Canyon, too, in favour of a few days on a San Diego beach...


Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, enjoying a view of the Rockies from the train.

A picture of me, Ted, going to San Francisco with some flour in me hair. (Have I got this right?)

Miles today: 797 by air, and 25 by bus

Miles to date: 3142

Where are we again? Denver, Colorado

Fun fact: Few people realise that Colorado is the only US state to share a border with every single one of the other 49 states that make up the USA. It is more commonly known, of course, that Colorado has fabulous surf.

The Day’s Events: Well, this morning we had to get up at some godforsaken time and forego our free hotel breakfast so as to get ourselves over to St Louis International Airport for a 7.30am flight to Denver. Two hours later, as we were coming into land, it became very clear that we weren’t in Kansas anymore, but in serious Prairie and Mountain country (see photo above). Colorado, it seems, is big, and pretty much unpopulated except for Denver where (Wikipedia tells us) more than two-thirds of the state’s 4.3 million population live. Probably more surprising, given its location, is that Colorado has one of the highest percentages of Hispanic residents of all the US states; this we also learned from Wikipedia, and it explains why we ended up having Mexican food for both lunch today and dinner today (washed down with Singletrack Ale and Coors respectively, both local brews.)

And that is probably all we have to report today; we were so tired from our early start and travel that it was all we could do to venture into downtown to pick up our Amtrak tickets for tomorrow’s journey to Salt Lake City. So since late afternoon we have been holed up in the Ramada Inn (see right - attractively situated, don’t you think?), where we have just about managed to wash some clothes, and to book travel and accommodation for the next few days of our trip. We plan to get an early night because we have an early start tomorrow: we’ll be boarding the California Zephyr train at 8am for a 15 hour ride to Salt Lake City, travelling right through (over? around?) the Rocky Mountains (where, curiously enough, the residents are mainly of British extraction). Exciting eh?! Well, to bed now, so tarra a bit.


Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, feeling so tired from getting up early this morning that it’s all I can do to sort out Malcolm and Vikki’s route for tomorrow before having an early night.

Miles on Sunday: 227

Miles today: 75 (by car, and another 40 or so by public transport)

Miles to date: 2320

Where were we Sunday morning? Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee

Where were we Sunday night? Ste. Genevieve, 50 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri

Where are we now? Drury’s Inn Hotel, St Louis Airport

Fun fact: Visitors to Elvis’s Memphis home, Graceland, often remark on how much smaller the house is than they had expected it to be. But then they probably had in mind how the house looked on TV in the mid-1970s, when it was carrying an extra 100 lbs and was prone to wearing rather unflattering white spandex pantsuits.

Sunday’s Events: OK, so we got up early, and travelled two blocks west and six blocks south, down Elvis Presley Boulevard, to the Graceland car park. This cost us our last six bucks of cash. We then picked up our tickets for the 10.38 a.m. tour and joined the assembled masses. Talk about pilgrimages – we could have been at Lourdes. Every crazy in the whole of America was there, particularly since this was ‘Elvis Week’, a bit like Holy Week, leading up to his death on the 16th. For such a Protestant country, this was a big idolatrous binge, and you could be forgiven for thinking that Elvis had died for your sins! Since we were on holy ground, everyone felt free to talk to us – mainly to learn how many times we had been to Graceland before, and whether we had travelled from England especially for Elvis Week. Sadly, we were a great disappointment to them, we feel, except we made one guy who looked like Elvis very happy with our photo request (see above).

So, we queued for an hour to get into a shuttle bus (electric powered, like a milk float), to travel across the road, to go through those musical note motif gates, and to be dropped at the front door. It was rammed. It was more rammed than the cave at Bethlehem on Christmas Eve! All you could do was shuffle round just behind the person in front of you, and wait for the next photo opportunity. So we shuffled into the sitting room, the dining room, the kitchen, the basement bar and games room, the Jungle Room. All the rooms in the house retained their original 70s décor, including the famous three TVs, and the guns and sheriff’s badges collections. They wouldn’t let anyone upstairs (which is very worrying after you’ve seen downstairs). However, we did get to see Vernon’s office and to walk through all the outhouses containing all his gold records (quite a few) and all his outfits (also quite a few). Don’t worry, Fiona, we have as many photos as we could take.

This took about two hours, and by then, we had had enough, especially Vikki who suddenly felt like an atheist at a Billy Graham rally. Malcolm, however, is convinced that touching Elvis’s wall to ceiling shag pile has cured his verucca, and any other diseases he didn’t even know he had.

Anyway, from there, four hours hard driving across the Mississippi (which we couldn’t see from the bridge), across into Arkansas (flat), turn right, and up the I-55 into Missouri. We think this means we have now left the south behind us. Last night, we stopped in Sainte Genevieve, an historic French settlement by the banks of the Mississippi. We decided that we couldn’t manage to go a further 100 miles beyond St Louis in order to see Hannibal (hometown of Mark Twain and setting for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn) so we would do Ste Genevieve instead. This turned out to be a good choice, probably one of the few unspoilt small towns left on the Mississippi, even if we did have to do B&B (as a one-nite-only break from budget motels) and make conversation with the landlady, and mind the antiques. What’s more, their wireless internet wouldn’t talk to our computer, so we couldn’t post our Elvis blog entry!

Monday’s events: Up early, again, and along the levee and across the railroad tracks to a little ferry across the Mississippi. This was the business, so we both dipped our fingers or toes in and made a wish.

From there, hammered it up I-55 to St Louis and round the suburban motorways to the airport, where we dropped off the bags at the hotel and the car at the car rental place. (In that order – smart, eh?) We then got the shuttle bus to the airport, the mass transit (more a railway than an underground) into St Louis waterfront, where we got to see the famous St Louis Arch (The gateway to the West). Malcolm was disappointed because he had thought that it was a McDonalds arch and couldn’t understand why it was silver not gold, and why there was only one of them. Seriously, though, it is both enormous and impressive.

St Louis is another American city trying to re-generate its downtown (which started dropping off after the Gold Rush of 1849) but it seems to have forgotten to install an ‘historic’ trolley bus system! We also managed to get in a ‘steamboat’ ride on the Mississippi. This was good but we were a little disappointed that the wooden blades on the back weren’t really powering the vessel. The Mississippi is a serious waterway, full of tiny tugs with 14,000 horsepower engines, pushing (not pulling) up to 12 gigantic barges upstream, against a current that makes the Thames look like a tiny backwater.

Anyway, we are now in our hotel room and happy hour starts in 10 minutes and, better still, we get three free drinks. We have to start early because we have to be up at 5.00 am tomorrow to check in at the airport at 5.30 for a 7.30 flight to Denver, from where we will hopefully tell you more. So, tara a bit!

Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Your Teddy Bear Ted, at Elvis’s pad. (Wearing me Elvis T-shirt; Ah-thank-you-very-much.)

Miles today: 320

Miles to date: 2018

Where are we again? Just outside Memphis, Tennessee

Fun fact: Tennessee has more firework warehouses than anywhere else in the world. No, we can't fathom why either.

The Day’s Events: Today has mostly been about travel. Either because we were in a new time zone, or because we found that last night we were in a ‘dry’ county and so couldn’t get a drink; we woke up early and zipped up the I 24 towards Nashville, past their Parthenon (!?), and onto the I 40 West towards Memphis, which is where we are now at – in a Knights Inn motel, opposite the airport.

So, today, we have replicated much of the manifest destiny of the American people i.e. we struggled to climb up the mountains of the Appalachian chain, out of the original 13 colonies, but eventually, just like the early settlers, we found a gap (sadly not the Cumberland Gap, but quite close). This also meant that we were on the most sharply curving Interstate in the US, but also one of the most scenic – all wooded mountains and dammed sections of the Tennessee River. Once we had descended, we were in the start of the farming country and, now, we have temporarily stopped at the banks of the Mississippi, and are wondering whether to ‘light out for the territories’.

We were a bit tired when we got here so Vikki took a nap while Malcolm tried to look ahead for hotels in St Louis, where we abandon the car; Denver, where we have to catch an 08.05 train; and Salt lake City, where we arrive at 11.00 at night.

So, not the most eventful of days, but we are adding to our collection of American motel chains, and we finally ate lunch at an American KFC – which is much nicer than an English KFC: you get a quarter of chicken, a bowl of coleslaw, mashed potatoes and gravy, and what they call variously milk or butter biscuits, which turn out to be scones- all for $4.59. Needless to say, we couldn’t eat it all.

Tonight we popped out, looking for an eatery that served alcohol, and, after three or four false starts, we lucked upon a nearby Holiday Inn ‘Select’ where we had a few drinks (see photo, above) – Jack Daniels (Vikki), Southern Comfort (also Vikki), Heineken (Malcolm) and Bud (both) – and some classic southern nosh – a southwestern grilled chicken cobb salad (Malcolm), and a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich (Vikki), that latter widely acknowledged to be a favourite of the King himself.

Speaking of the King, we’re excited to tell you that we’re booked on the 10.18am tour of Graceland tomorrow morning (all together now: Ah-huh-huh, hu, whoa yeah!), before we motor on to St Louis. Tell you all about it tomorrow.


Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, a bit worse for wear after one too many Jack Daniels.

Miles today: 163

Miles to date: 1698

Where are we again? Monteagle township, in the Sequatchie Valley, just west of Chattanooga, Tennessee

Fun fact: The ladybug is Tennessee’s state insect, along with the firefly. (?!).

The Day’s Events: We travelled on towards Atlanta first thing this morning, taking the I75 northwards for about 30 miles. Malcolm navigated us off the Interstate, into downtown Atlanta, and straight into the car park of the Martin Luther King Junior Birth House and Museum in the ‘Sweet Auburn’ section of Atlanta. The MLK museum was extremely well put together and incredibly powerful. The displays started off with an account of the rise of the ‘Jim Crow’ system of segregation after the Unionists’ attempt to ‘Reconstruct’ the South broke down. They covered the long slow rise of the Civil Rights movement, Ghandi’s influence on it, and its eventual partial successes. This focussed on MLK but was as much a story of everyday people who had had enough. We were very moved but a bit disappointed that we were two of only five white people there. However, it was nice to see three generation African-American families, school parties, and Youth careers trips all touring.

Anyway, from there, we went back on I75 North, through the very centre of Atlanta where it became the biggest and scariest road we have seen in America so far, extremely busy, and with as many 80 foot trucks as cars. At one point, Vikki was driving on a highway where three major motorways merged, with no less than eight lanes of traffic (sixteen if you count the ones going in the opposite direction). It goes without saying that our hearts were in our mouths for most of this drive, and Malcolm swears that gastric acid has eaten up half his stomach lining.

However, we eventually chugged on up to Chattanooga (Choo Choo!), where we stopped to look at the Tennessee River and the old Union Station. Chattanooga has tried to revitalise its downtown by building two big aquaria (fresh and sea water), turning the old Union station into a hotel and museum (you can sleep in the old railroad cars) and by encouraging the usual bijou chocolate shops and eateries in old warehouse buildings. But it has the most beautiful position in a valley below the tree-lined Tennessee Mountains.

Anyway, from there we drove out towards Nashville about 10 miles, crossing into Central Standard Time and stopping at America’s Best Value Motel, where we used the hour we had gained to have a swim (in the motel pool, pictured above). We’re off in a minute to get some fried chicken and a glass or two of Jack Daniels.

Y’all have a good day now.!

Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Train Driver Ted, heading north on the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Miles yesterday: 6 (plus about 35 in a circle)

Miles today: 360

Miles to date: 1535

States to date: 8 (MA, DC, MD, WV, VA, NC, SC, GA) Yes, we know that DC is not a state.

Where are we again? Locust Grove, just short of Atlanta, Georgia

Fun fact: Few people realise that the state of Georgia is not actually a real place, but a typeface copyrighted by Microsoft TM.

The Day’s Events: Well, yesterday, we left the Masters Inn, intact, and drove into historic downtown Charleston, for the start of our ‘Gone with the Wind’ tour of the Old South. Parked the car on the Old Battery, from where we could see Fort Sumter, the place where the South Carolinians started the Civil War. The Historic Downtown is full of the townhouses of the Colonial and Ante-Bellum plantation owners. We walked around, grabbed a coffee, and went on a tour of the Anderson-Middleton House. This was full of period furniture and, as ever with National Landmarks, the tour guides were thrown by us being British, and the poor American tourists from Little Rock got a raw deal, while we were expected to opine on Wedgwood basalt ware (of which we know nothing). This was a beautiful house, with a beautiful view and we learned from Mary Margaret, our tour guide, that ‘slavery was an ugly institution’.

Encouraged by this, we travelled up SC Route 61 to see the Middleton plantation. What can you say? Only one wing of the plantation house – the others having been burnt down by the Unionists, possibly because the owner signed the Secession document (we got to see a copy) and, if we heard right, was Vice President of the Confederacy or Governor of South Carolina or similar. But the position was beautiful (on a bluff overlooking the river), the gardens were beautiful, as were the horses standing in the shade under the spreading live (evergreen) oaks, and the little wooden chapel over the spring house with all the ceramic bottles filling with water in the shade. All so beautiful that you could forget that it was all made possible by slavery.

And, even though they had preserved the woodwork shops and the stables, all they had to show that there were ever any slaves was one hut where some of the loyal slaves stayed on with the family after the Civil War. Did we say that the Foundation that preserves it is headed by the current generation of the same family? Did we say that Malcolm was wearing his Lee Scratch Perry ‘Emperor of Life’ T-shirt, throughout? We even went on the tour of the house, where we were told that we would get the history of the furniture, not of the plantation, or of the plantation system. (However, we did get to see a very small rice paddy.) Have we said that, in the South, it’s the fashion to call ‘executive’ housing developments ‘Such and such Plantation’?

Anyway, doing all that in the 100 degree plus heat had taken it out of us, so we drove back to Charleston and took a Motel 6 on the edge of town. Here, although they had promised a dataport in every room, they only had dial up (if you took the lead out of the telephone), hence we couldn’t do a posting last night. Instead, Malcolm got a haircut, we grabbed a Mexican meal, and a couple of Margaritas, and went to bed.

Ok, so this morning, we drove down Highway 17, crossed the State line and into Georgia and then navigated our way to the historic downtown area of Savannah. Here, we took the trolley tour, because it was about 106 degrees. This was bigger but very similar to Charleston, except that, in their orientation video, they say that they never intended to have slavery, they were always religiously tolerant, welcoming a group of Jewish settlers back in the 1600s, etc, etc. These places seem to have entered the post-modern tourist economy, where all the cotton warehouses have been converted into up-market family restaurants that look just the same as the ones on the Isle of Wight, UK. The good news is that the whole of the South seems to have entered the post-modern air-conditioned economy where everyone works in logistics, arranging for stuff produced in China to reach shopping malls and outlet centers.

Unfortunately, we missed the Moon River brewery but we saw Johnny Mercer’s Grammy or Oscar or whatever, and we have come to realise that ‘Moon River, wider than a mile’ is not an exaggeration in terms of South Carolina rivers.

Anyway, mid-afternoon, we set off up Interstate 16 and then I-75 and arrived outside Atlanta, checked into a Ramada Inn, got Vikki a haircut, and are sitting here, drinking Stone Mill Pale Ale, which we picked up thinking it was brewed in Georgia, but it turns out it’s from New Hampshire – wot a swizz.

We’re off again tomorrow to take a look around Atlanta, and will be heading west through Birmingham, Alabama, en route to Memphis, Tennessee. Thanks, by the way, to all those of you who have posted some top quality suggestions for driving tunes. Keep ‘em coming!


Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, arriving back at Teddington Plantation to find that the damned Yankees have burned the place down!

Thankfully, the woods are still there.

Miles today: 170

Miles to date: 1169

Where are we again? Charleston, South Carolina

Fun fact: Few people realise that South Carolina is, in fact, located due north of North Carolina. It is common knowledge, however, that South Carolinians just love to recycle jokes.

The Day’s Events: This morning we got up fairly early and cruised down south on highway 17 with the top down, heading for the beach, of course. So, 60 miles later, we took a left, and crossed the Intra-Coastal waterway and on to Ocean Island Beach, one of the many sandbank islands, protecting the swamps for which the Carolinas are famous. We had hoped for a deserted beach, with a shady tree and a little bar (like in Greece) but what we got was an entire town, with streets full of holiday homes, retirement homes, and rental cottages, and only one spot where as a day-tripper you could park the car and go to the beach. So we took it.

Our reward was the sight of a flight of ten pelicans (unfortunately, we couldn’t get the camera out fast enough to photograph them), and a very beautiful wooden pier (which was moving slow enough that even we managed a few pictures). Armed with our newly purchased sunbathing mats, and a new pair of sunglasses for Malcolm whose old pair had fallen to pieces in his hands the morning we left for this trip, we claimed our spot on the beach and wriggled into our bathing suits, trying not to get arrested for indecent exposure. It was bad enough that Malcolm was the only Frenchman on the beach (i.e. wearing Speedos, rather than shorts to the knee.) All good clean fun but, since it was 100 degrees hot, after an hour of sunbathing we felt that we had had enough sun for the moment.. So, after a last dip in the sea to cool off (warm water but scarily large waves), we headed off again towards Charleston, stopping on the way at a classic roadside dinner just like the ones you see in the movies for eggs over easy and jugs of sweet iced tea.

After a while we crossed the state line into South Carolina and trundled down Highway 17, through the tropical storm showers for about a hundred more miles until we got to the outer ring of Charleston. We’ve checked into a classic budget motel (think Psycho); we’ve put the clothes in the wash, and we’ve just been across the Highway to a ‘Sticky Fingers’ restaurant for that Southern classic dish: the mountain of spare ribs (see above). This, with a 23-ounce glass of the locally brewed Yuengling lager, means we are too stuffed to write any more.

Ted’s Photo Blog
A picture of me, Ted, soaking up a few rays despite having forgotten to pack me swimming trunks.

Miles today: 347

Miles to date: 999 (!)

Where are we again? Wilmington, North Carolina

Fun fact: Few people realise that North Carolina is, in fact, located due south of South Carolina. The first map ever made of the USA contained numerous typographical errors, including a transposition of the ‘NC’ and ‘SC’ denotations for the two Carolinas; they have been confused for one another ever since.

The Day’s Events: After complementary breakfast in the Comfort Inn, Vikki drove 347 miles down I64E, I95S, and I40E, past Richmond and across the state line into North (query?) Carolina. We stopped twice, once for milkshakes, and once for gas, both in little roadside places in the middle of nowhere, where we might as well have been from Mars as from England.

We have holed up in the Econo-Lodge (!) just outside Wilmington. The good news is that a room in this Econo-Lodge is only $50, and it even has an outside swimming pool, which we used the moment we arrived before getting a taxi into ‘historic’ downtown Wilmington where we took the harbour walk alongside the Cape Fear river, past the steam boats and the tugs, before turning into the Pilot House restaurant and bar. This, we swear, is the restaurant where Joey was a waitress in Dawson’s Creek. She wasn’t there today (something about a welcome party for Posh and Becks in LA), but we did get served by a dead ringer for the character Jack. We picked the authentic southern dishes: shrimp with grits (Vikki) and catfish with collard greens (Malcolm) – possibly the best meals we’ve had in our lives.

Back in our room now, with a Coca Cola (Vikki) and a Mr Pibb (Malcolm). Planning to watch half an hour’s telly before going to sleep, getting up early tomorrow, and heading for those famous North (query??) Carolina beaches. Predicted temperature for tomorrow? 103 degrees!





Ted's Photo Blog
A picture of me, Ted, and me Ford Mustang Convertible. Nice, innit?

Miles yesterday: 42

Destination yesterday: Ellicott City (near Baltimore), Maryland

Miles today: 216

Miles to date: 652

Where are we again? Charlottesville (near Richmond), Virginia

Fun fact: You all know that car license plates in the USA display the State’s motto: in Massachusetts, for example, they all say ‘The Spirit of America’; in New York they all say ‘The Empire State’. But our personal favourite is the Virginia State motto which, proudly displayed on all its cars, reads: ‘Smoking Makes You Look Cool’.

What we’ve been up to: Well, yesterday morning was our last day in DC, and so, after breakfast in the hotel (which, due to some mix-up, turned out to be free) we headed off with our luggage to the Foggy Bottom Metro station. We were on our way to Ronald Reagan Airport to pick up our rental car, but we decided to make two brief stops on the way: first, to visit Arlington National Cemetery, burial place of JFK and RFK, as well as thousands and thousands of America’s war dead, and second, to take a peek at the Pentagon. Because of the heat and the weight of our luggage, we only managed to stay about 10 minutes at the Cemetery; at the Pentagon, we stayed only 5, basically because Vikki took a photo of the ‘Pentagon’ sign inside the Metro which immediately prompted an announcement over the tannoy to the effect that “the person that just took that photo had better erase it right now, or else we’ll start getting Guantanamo on your ass.” So we got out of there pretty fast, and made our way to the Budget rental car counter where, to Vikki’s delight, we found they had upgraded us from the cheap old banger we had pre-booked to a red Ford Mustang convertible. Nice!

So, off we drove to Ellicott City, an old mill town a little outside of Baltimore, to visit Joan and her mother Kay (see photo, above) who had so kindly offered to put us up. Joan has quite an amazing house: a huge white wooden thing built c.1850 and situated at the crest of a hill on 12 acres of (admittedly impenetrable) woodland. They took us out to dinner (our treat) at a restaurant on what appeared to be a business park about 20 miles away, where they introduced us to the fine art of eating crabs in the Maryland style. We had a dozen small ones, steamed, and coated in some spicy/salty seasoning; and boy was it messy! Let it suffice to say that there’s a reason they cover your table with brown parcel paper and give you a bib. It was good fun though, and very tasty. After that we went back to see Kay’s home – an apartment in a 2,200- person retirement village! – before heading back to Joan’s for a go on her porch rocking chairs, and then to bed.

Today, we were up bright and early, conscious of the fact that we ought to get going before Joan had to go and pick up her mother and take her to church. After Joan had showed us how to take the top down on the car, we headed off at about 9.30, went up through Maryland, into a small part of West Virginia, and out into the northern tip of Virginia so as to reach The Skyline Drive, along the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (a.k.a. ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine’). This is a federal parkway, built as a job creation scheme in the Great Depression and, on this road, you can stop off every few miles for spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. It was all very green and pretty; but the fact that the 70 mile stretch we drove is composed entirely of hairpin bends meant it was pretty slow going.

All this wiggling about has meant that we haven’t quite made it to Richmond today as we had originally planned. However, we did manage to fit in a visit to Thomas Jefferson’s house at Monticello (including the ruins of the slave quarters – which they seemed to find hard to explain!). Anyway, right now we’re holed up in a Comfort Inn just outside Charlottesville (home of the University of Virginia) with a six-pack of Dominion Ale and a Domino’s Pizza Delivery. So the only bad thing is that we’re about 50 miles WNW of Richmond – which means 50 more miles on the way to Wilmington, North Carolina, our destination for tomorrow.

'Til then.

Ted's photo blog

A picture of me, Ted, kicking back with a beer and planning tomorrow's route to Wilmington.

Miles today: 7 (in a big circle!)

Miles to date: 394

Where are we again? Washington DC, still.

Fun fact: A common misconception about the White House is that it is painted white as a symbol of the nation’s purity of intent. In fact, it was first painted purple, but had to be painted white to cover up the scorch marks after the British attempted to burn it to the ground in 1814.

The Day’s Events: Ok, after a good night’s sleep, we booked tomorrow’s hire car and a flight from St Louis to Salt Lake City – so we’ve made a definite commitment to doing the next bit. Then at about 10.30 we set off, in our shorts and flip-flops, to do the town! So, we went to the White House – George wasn’t there, and they wouldn’t let us in without the personal word of the British ambassador, but we did bump into Bill Clinton (see above). From there, we walked all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol (i.e. Congress) – a long way but we got to see the FBI Headquarters and lots of other impressive federal government buildings. They wouldn’t let us into any of these either, but we did get to go inside the Supreme Court building, into the Court itself, and into the Library of Congress. We also managed to cram in the American Botanical Gardens, and the National Museum of Art, but by then it was after six o’clock and we were exhausted, so we walked back along Virginia Avenue, picking up a six-pack of Bud and some Jamaican meat patties on the way back to the hotel.

We’re going to chill out tonight but we hope to see the Vietnam Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Pentagon on our way to pick up the hire car at the airport tomorrow. We have decided that Washington DC is one of our favourite places in America, and that we would like to come again and do it properly, but maybe in Spring or Autumn rather than when it’s in the 90s and really sticky.

All in all, we’re having quite a good time.


Ted's photo blog

A picture of me, Ted, on guard at the White House.

A picture of me, Secret Agent Ted, about to...well I can't tell you, cos then I'd have to kill you.

Miles today: 394

Miles to date: 394

Where are we again? Washington DC

Fun fact: A common misconception about the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC (pictured right) is that it offers a faithful likeness of the man himself. But in actual fact, Lincoln was not twenty feet tall while seated. It is true, however, that he did have a bit of a penchant for very tall hats.

The Day’s Events: After very little sleep last night because of a Squeeze concert (not to mention a moderate-to-severe case of nervous excitement) we got up at 5am this morning to make the 9am flight to DC. After checking in our bags at our DC hotel, we wandered off into the blistering heat (a good 90 degrees) towards the Lincoln Memorial. As you can tell from the photo, we were not feeling quite capable of doing much more after this, so we trundled back to the hotel (via the pretty impressive Korean War, WWII, and George Washington Memorials) for a few hours of air conditioned kip. We’ve since ventured back out as far as the Froggy Bottom Pub round the corner for a pizza and a pint, but we are truly knackered and must go to bed now if we are to get in a full 12 hours of sight-seeing tomorrow.

Despite doing little today, we can tell you that our first impressions of DC are very favourable. It seems an attractive and safe place, and the people are extremely friendly; we have had more exchanges of pleasantries and smiles with random strangers here today than in the whole of the last 11 months spent in Boston.

Off to a good start, we reckon.

On that note, we'll leave you with...

Ted's Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, on the flight to DC.

Our Itinerary!

Welcome to our blog! We hope you'll come back regularly to see our daily posts as we travel across the US. We'll keep 'em short, we promise. But to get you started, we wanted to share with you our itinerary; the map above shows you where to find all the fancy places we mention.

0. Starting out from Boston, we'll be catching an early morning flight on August 2nd to our first destination...

1. Washington D.C.: We'll be staying in DC for two nights, and will aim to pack in visits to as many of the sights as we can. Top of our list are The Whitehouse, Capitol Hill, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln/Jefferson/FDR Memorials, the National Art Gallery, the Pentagon, and (if Vikki can persuade Malcolm into it) the FBI's headquarters (well, they've listened in on so many of our phone calls it'd be rude of us not to drop in while we're in town).

2. Baltimore, Maryland, is our second stop. Actually we’re not going right into Baltimore, because we’ve watched season one of The Wire and Baltimore is scary! We're actually going to a place called Ellicott City, a little outside of Baltimore, where we'll be meeting up with the sister and mother of the husband of the professor Vikki's been working with at Harvard (confusing, isn't it?). You'll remember we met these people at Christmas time when we went to Vikki's professor's house for dinner. At the time they very kindly made an open invitation for us to visit them; no doubt they are regretting it now, as they've got to entertain us for the evening and put us up for the night on August 4th.

3. Richmond, Virgina, is stop three. We'll set off bright and early for Richmond on August 5th, arriving in time for lunch before taking a look at some of the sites of the early colonies (Jamestown, Williamsburg, Yorktown), and possibly also George Washington's old stomping ground, 'Mount Vernon'.

4. Wilmington, N. Carolina, is next up, on August 6th. We selected this more or less entirely on the grounds that Dawson's Creek was filmed there. Mind you, so was the movie Cape Fear, but we're pretending that we don't know that. Not entirely sure yet what we'll be seeing or doing there; maybe we'll just find a bar on the coast with a little wooden jetty that we can dangle our legs over while we sing the Dawson's Creek theme song (All together now: "Doo Doo, Doo Doo Doo, I don't wanna wait...".) One intriguing potential stop along the way is Roanoke Island, where in 1585 the first English settlement in the US was established, and where very soon after it disappeared without a trace. Hmmmm.

5. Charleston, S. Carolina is our destination on August 7th; and, yes, we will be attempting to do the Charleston while we're there. In between dances, we'll also be visiting some of the old plantations, and the Fort Sumter National Monument, site of the first shots fired in the Civil War. We'll probably spend two nights in Charleston before heading on to...

6. Savannah, Georgia on August 9th for a two-night stay. Savannah is apparently one of the most beautiful places you could imagine, so our main aim while we’re there will be to kick back and relax, drink plenty of sugary iced tea, eat chicken-fried steak and hominy grits, and wander round the town looking at the old mansion houses.

7. Atlanta, Georgia will be our next destination on August 11th. Well, actually our destination will be Memphis, but it’s a bit of a long drive from Savannah, and Atlanta is about halfway between. We don’t know too much about Atlanta, except that Dr King was born and is buried there, but this we think is a good reason to visit, albeit on the way to somewhere else. Having said that, we may get tempted to go to Birmingham, Alabama instead, for the equally good reason that it’s Birmingham innit? It would also mean that we could notch up two more states if we were sneaky and cut through the top corner of Mississippi on the way to…

8. Memphis, Tennessee, birthplace of Elvis and of Justin Timberlake. On the menu: Graceland, Sun Studio, the Rock’n’Soul Museum, and deep-fried Mars bars. Also the National Civil Rights Museum, housed literally in the motel where Dr King was assassinated.

9. St Louis, Missouri, is where we’ll be by about lunchtime on August 13th. Well, we should actually be there by about an hour before lunchtime, since we’ll have crossed our first US time zone the previous day (spooky, eh?!). Might drive on to Hamilton in the afternoon to see Mark Twain’s boyhood home, and to try out a few fence-painting scams before bedtime.

10. Denver, Colorado, will be our destination on August 14th. It’s rather a long way from St Louis – you’d have to drive about three million miles through Kansas and into the next time zone for starters – so we’re going to go by ‘plane. Things to do in Denver when you’re still living include, erm, well there’s the ‘unsinkable Molly Brown’ house and the Six Flags water park. Maybe we’ll have to take a trip out of town to Boulder, or to Fairplay (aka South Park), or to the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum on the wonderfully named Lookout Mountain (conveniently situated next to the Coors brewing plant).

11. Salt Lake City, Utah, will be our next stop; we’ll be taking the Amtrak train right through the Rocky Mountains to get there (choo! choo!). It’ll take us the best part of a day, but it’ll be well worth it. Once we get there, we’ll make our way over to Donny and Marie’s place for a welcome dinner. Not really; we vowed we’d never visit them again after the way they behaved the last time. What we will definitely do, though, is visit the Mormon Tabernacle; then we’ll try to find somewhere that will serve us a stiff drink.

12. Reno, Nevada, the poor (but much more fun) relation of Las Vegas, is where we’ll stop next on August 16th. After turning our watches back yet another hour, and calling Vikki’s mom to wish her a Happy Birthday, we’ll hit the casinos. Well, it’s either that or get divorced. Or get married. These are the three things to do in Reno. Perhaps we’ll get a divorce in the morning, go put $5 worth of pennies in the slot machines at lunchtime, and marry each other again around teatime (you can view our Wedding Gift list at: http://www.letsgetdivorcedandremarrythesamedaysopeoplewillhavetobuyuspresents.com.

13. San Francisco, California, here we come on August 17th. We will, of course, be sure to wear some flowers in our hair. While we’re there we’ll take a look at the Golden Gate bridge, and nip across to Oakland (in daylight – it’s a bit like Baltimore we reckon) to have a snoop around Berkeley. From there we’ll take a very leisurely drive south along coastal road, Route 1, stopping overnight at places that take our fancy, and generally dawdling over to…

14. Los Angeles, California, some time around the 19th/20th of August. We plan to spend just an afternoon in LA; all we really want to do there is go round on one of those open-top buses where they point out the celebs houses to you, and have a quick gawp at the Hollywood sign. Once these musts are ticked off the list, we’ll be heading off again, either by car or train, to…

15. The Grand Canyon, Nevada. ‘Nuff said.

16. San Diego, California, is next on the 22nd August or thereabouts. We hope to have a day or two on the beach there, and we’ll by flying back from there to Boston on the 26th August. But not before the daytrip to…

17. Tijuana, Mexico. Margaritas triple para todos! (Loose translation: Triple Margaritas all round!)

Exhausted already? Us too. So go and have a lie down, and come back to our blog tomorrow for the first exciting instalment of Malcolm and Vikki: On the Road!

V&M :-)