SUNDAY MORNING Up bright & early, (ignore the bright part,I feel totally zonked!)to get ready for  our departure from NY to Dubai at 11.20 am.  We hustled ourselves to Kennedy airport & checked in, only to find the flight delayed until 12.50!  So, here we sit op die stasie! A bacon, cheese & egg bagel (this is new York) plus a cup of coffee helped slightly,but not looking forward to a long long flight to Dubai.  However.... The last two days have been pretty hectic as we've hiked ourselves around NY doing some shopping, some sightseeing, some eating, a little sleeping, oh & a movie - Total Recall, which was good.  We really wanted to see a Broadway show, but when we went to the half price ticket office, the cheapest available seats (at HALF price) were $90 EACH - do the math....about R750, so we went to the movies instead, wouldn't u?  We managed to drag ourselves to & around Central Park on Saturday & what a great enormous leisure area that is (some photos on FB)..a very popular area for brides to have photos taken - we saw about 3 bridal parties in the time we were there.  Well, Frank & Wayne have both passed out on the airport chairs, & we still have some time to wait, but cheers from JFK!

It's now Thursday evening & we're getting ready to go to the Frisco airport to fly back to New York - a 6 hour flight at 11pm but when we land it will be 7am....if you do the math you'll see that we will be fast forwarding by 3 hours, so will have to get immediate shut eye when we take off. Friday is going to be a lo------ng day! We spent the day today doing some shopping round Frisco, hopping on & off buses & trains. We are extremely grateful for our tour guides, Kay & Way, alias the desert rats, who have been renamed the Energiser Bunnies by the Texas Ranger - all we have to do is keep them in view & walk fast to follow where they lead, it's great! Every now & then, out comes their iPad which they consult for directions & for the nearest Starbucks, then into gear& we're off again. Last night we had a great fish dinner at BubbaGumps in the Frisco Fisherman's Wharf. The whole restaurant has been themed on the movie Forrest Gump, with all his sayings - the Americans are superb at themes, they go totally OTT & it's a lot of fun.....take note Kingsgate Events Team.....it takes our motto 'GO BIG OR GO HOME' to a whole new crazy level, be prepared! (photos on my FB)

WEDNESDAY finds us on the road again,heading for San Francisco. We left Vegas early on Monday & drove for about 5 hours thru mainly desertlands to reach Los Angeles in time for a leisurely stroll!!! Strike that...it was a toe breaking route march from our hotel to Hollywood Street to see where the stars made their hand &foot imprints in cement outside the Chinese Theatre.  Hmmm, what a let down LA was, what a dump. There may well be glamorous homes somewhere in the outlying hills, but on the whole I would say it was a waste of time. We drove past the big studio lots like Universal etc, which look enormous, but had neither the time nor the bucks (about R600) to go on a tour of them.  We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for supper then hit the sack, to be up early the next morning & on the road again.  Before leaving we had a bit of a ride around just to check if LA had any redeeming features, but....NAH!  Tuesday we drove for about 5 hours, turning towards the coast, which was a welcome change of scenery...beautiful coastal drive towards Carmel, a beautiful holiday town where we'd love to have stayed for a day or two, then on to Monterey, where we had Clam chowder at Crabby Jim's Fish Restaurant, then booked into our hotel.  Will post a few photos on Facebook.... Oh, nearly forgot to mention that along the way we came across a little town where there was a curious phenomenon......well not IN the town but on the beach a few miles out of town....a community of elephant seals, like ELEPHANT seals. Check my photos on FB!

MONDAY: I forgot to mention that last Sunday we paid a visit to Alex & Linda's church with them, & had a wonderful time of fellowship with lovely friendly Americans.   Yesterday, Sunday, we visited the Hoover Dam, about an hour's drive from Vegas -it was most impressive with Mead Lake on one side then the massive dam wall with the Colorado River flowing on its way, way down there in the valley (photos on FB).  Booger was quite nervous for his photo shoot! We drove back to Vegas, parked in the MGM bldg for free, & tackled the Strip once again. We walked our feet down to stumps, exhaustingly, as there's just so much to see & so many people doing the same thing.  Some of the highlights: a volcano in front of the Mirage Hotel, that erupts once an hour! A splendiferous fountain in front of the Bellagio hotel that explodes dancing water jets like u can't believe, every 15 minutes! A pirate ship that sails in with cannon balls going off & crazy yelling pirates & singing sirens on a ghost ship - that happens every half hour!  All these were the free entertainments out on the street.  We walked thru several hotels to get to each entertainment, not to watch the people feeding their hard earned money into machines in the mostly forlorn hope of getting a little payback, but in order to get some relief from the oppressive heat, in the air conditioned casinos (& to see the sights of course!)  We were totally fascinated by the frontages & foyers of several hotels.....the Bellagio looked like you'd arrived in Italy proper....sumptuously themed, with a massive area of the ceiling covered in colorful Venetian glass flowers with lighting behind them - awesome.  Every reception desk had a massive fresh flower arrangement billowing up, then further into the hotel there was a phenomenal display that defies description! You'll have to check out the photos on FB soon!  

SUNDAY We were feeling a bit travel worn yesterday so just chilled in Mark's lovely Vegas house, Frank had a dip in the pool. Trouble is, no one goes outside an air conditioned environment unless you have to - but I married an Englishman, remember, & 'mad dogs and Englishmen go out to the midday sun!'. Ok! We did go out into the blazing sun about 4.30pm for a toddle around The Strip, along with a gazillion other humans, all in various stages of undress to counter the awful heat. We had supper at the amazing Harley Davidson Cafe, then went to see the even more amazing Cirque du Soleil show 'KA' which totally blew us away.....unfortunately they don't allow cameras into the theatre so you won't get to see any of its spectacular-ness (?) but trust me, it was wow in the extreme. We did have an attack of the giggles standing watching the Vegas world go by.....oh boy, what a place this is! Stacks of women, in all shapes & sizes, wearing short short SHORT dresses/skirts with high high HIGH heels on which they totter like cats on a hot tin roof - it was hilarious. Keren said she feels like a nun in Vegas, even though she was slightly baring one shoulder!

Gosh, a whole week has passed already, during which we have zipped around a zillion places in Scottsdale, with the Texas Ranger planning our outings. He has done such a great job, with the help of Linda, and we have been everywhere, done everything, eaten everything - all in the company of two extremely fabulous friends! They fell madly in love with Booger (everyone has) & he's been photographed muchly....we went to Rawhide, a cowboy town/entertainment place where they have gunfights & all sorts of wild west activities - Booger got in on the act & was snapped with the sheriff's finger up his l'il nose! We've been to several restaurants with different themes I.e The Cheese Factory, where they had about probably 50 different kinds of cheesecake. A cowboy style restaurant which was decorated with neckties hanging from the ceilings, thousands of ties! Apparently they have collected these by simply cutting off the ties of men arriving at the restaurant for a meal. This place also decorated the restrooms with depictions of the rear ends of cattle!! Hahaha, we found that to be hilarious! We also went to a real Mexican restaurant which has been there for about 50 years. The food was authentic Mexican as was everything there, including a Mariachi band which came over to our table to sing happy birthday to Capt.Awesome (Wayne), who they renamed Panchito - that's gonna stick, methinks....I like it! Keren's birthday the day before Wayne's was also great fun - the Rangers took us to a special restaurant called Chantilly, which was like stepping into an English country garden - everything was pretty & dainty, & we each got to choose a beautiful cup & saucer for our tea, which we drank with the pinky finger up in the air! Genuine! We then continued on to the site of the last standing missile site where we went on a tour to see an actual missile in its underground silo, along with the whole underground set up for the potential release of a missile that, if fired, could have changed the face of the earth. There were many sites like this thru out the USA in the period of the 1960s to 1980s, deterrents to the Russians, but thank the Lord they were never used, but always on standby. It's now Saturday, 28July, & we're back in Vegas in Mark's home until Monday morning, so we're chilling today & going to see Cirque de Soleil tonight. Catch up with you soon, but will post more photos on Facebook as we go along.

THURSDAY Leaving Las Vegas at 8am, we travelled for 5 hours to get to a place called Page. Lake Powell is the main feature of this town, where they've built a massive dam wall across the Glen Canyon river, from which electricity is generated for an extensive part of this area. The water is the most beautiful colour, light turquoise! We photographed everything then drove into Page to find some lunch.....As we unsuspectingly got out the car, who should come barreling along towards us but our friends from Scottsdale: Linda & the Texas Ranger, Alex! We were only expecting to see them at their home the following day, but between TeamChitt & them, they had cooked up this glorious surprise for us & had arrived the previous night, & there they were. What a reunion we had, with much rejoicing..... After a very happy lunch together, we presented ourselves to Big Chief Slow Horse, a Navajo brave, who took us on a very bumpy ride in an open passenger truck, to Antelope Canyon for a 2 hour mosey thru the most incredible canyon you could ever wish to see. The Chief told us that the canyon had been formed by great flash floods which have washed down thru the canyon over the ages, & still do so today...well, we hoped not on the day we were there or we'd have drowned! Words can't describe the beauty of the canyon, so we took zillions of photos (some on my FB page). Our next experience was to go & stand on one of the outlooks onto the Grand Canyon, looking down onto Horseshoe Bend, which was breathtaking in the extreme. Tour guide Barbie (Keren) was relieved to hand over to Tour Guide Ken (Texas Ranger Alex) who has planned the rest of our trip while in Phoenix!! He wanted us to get some perspective for our raft ride on the river the next morning, when we wd be looking UP from the river, instead of DOWN onto Horseshoe Bend.