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.

WEDNESDAY We were so blessed to be given freebies once again, to do the BigBus tour of Vegas, and had a great time being shown & talked thru the city with all the gory details of who did what & where they did it. The gals who do the commentary on the tours are so friendly & full of humorous tidbits & they just loved having Booger on board. We got a bit stuck at one of the hop on hop off stops....why? Because the bus dropped us at a Fashion Outlet & we shopped for THREE HOURS...girls in 7th heaven, guys bored to death but very generously tolerant. We continued on the tour & took photos on the bus of the 'Welcome to Vegas' sign, then paid a visit to the Pawn Shop of Tv fame, also walking past several wedding chapels, which are popular in Vegas. As we were passing one of them, a starry eyed couple came spilling out the door...she had on a white dress & carried a little posy, & he had on a white shirt & black tie with shorts & trainers!! I assumed from that, that the photos were taken from waist high?

Life has been pretty hectic since my last post, with no time to catch up on the blog, or on sleep,actually! That's what you get when you go on holiday with two sparky 33 year olds. So, to get up to speed I'll do it in separate posts starting with: TUESDAY Death Valley was looooooong, hot & arduous to say the very least. We thought of pinning Boogers paws together to represent prayer for the trek thru, but instead pinned both paws up to his ears to represent 'hallelujah, we made it thru!'. Enough about Booger - he's TeamChitt's conversation point, we're only The grand monkeys! Next stop LAS VEGAS. I heard a new spin on the Vegas line: What happens in Vegas stays on Facebook! We arrived in Vegas just after 6pm & checked into our hotel, the Golden Nugget, a fabulous hotel with great accommodation and everything glitzy & happening. We just had time to freshen up then meet Mark, a friend of a friend who is a professional poker player & has a house in Vegas. He met us outside the hotel with his convertible Mustang (goodbye hairstyle) & took us on a whirlwind drive thru the Strip where we saw all the nightlights of Vegas....what a sight!!! We went mad taking photos of everything we saw. What a crazy place that comes to life only when the sun goes down, and then it goes totally berserk/frantic/nutcase mad! (sorry about all the !!s, but what else can one do but !!!!!) Mark took us to a very fancy Texas-in-Brazil restaurant where you fill your plate with all kinds of veggies, salads, mushrooms & deli-type buffet food, then back at your table you are visited by waiters bearing every conceivable kind of barbecued meat on big kabob irons, and they serve you exactly how much you want. It was amazing! After another mad dash thru downtown Vegas with all the lights, Mark dropped us off at our hotel, but although we were exhausted & it was late, we still had to have a walkabout to get a look at Vegas by night - we saw some very strange people, wild bands pumping out music(?) and people in stage costumes and well, Vegas at night! Guys, this is still planet earth, but only just recognizable as such.....

It's now Monday afternoon & we have done some mileage since my last post, having travelled from Frisco all the way to the Yosemite National Park on Sunday. We had quite a way to go once in Yosemite, as we are spending two nights at Mammoth Lakes, the other side of the park. If you check out my photos on Facebook, you will understand why they named this area Mammoth......the mountains are, well, mammoth! We got in rather late last night and had a late supper at a Mexican restaurant: tacos, quesadillas, burritos with chipotle sauce - yarriva yarriva! Our waiter was the real thing and a wonderful salesman, he could sell snow to an Eskimo, I reckon! Anyway, this morning, we caught a hop on hop off shuttle bus up into the mountains where we saw the most breathtaking scenery, & walked another thousand miles & back to see the beautiful Rainbow Falls- no kidding, there was a real rainbow across the waterfall. This park is so incredibly organized to cope with the multitudes - most of their tourists come here in winter for ski sports & one can imagine how amazing it must be when everything is covered with snow. However, we will definitely give that a miss in the light of some of the info fed to us on the bus, like an avalanche which cut a swathe through the forest about 20 meters wide. We also saw hundreds of enormous trees which had been ripped out of the ground by a frightening cyclone two years ago. Note to self: don't visit Yosemite in winter!! Stay home!!

Saturday evening in San Mateo.....after a very hectic day, just chilling till bedtime. This morning we were on our way by car to the biggest fattest breakfast you've ever seen at the Lighthouse restaurant just over the Frisco bridge, in Sausalito. This had been recommended to us by the Texas Ranger, & boy, Alex, you were right! That breakfast basically saw us thru the entire day. Chris & Halla were leading the way in their car, & took us on a very scenic drive to the famous Napa Valley. Very reminiscent of our wine route in Cape Town. We covered about 300 miles in all, over very twisty turny roads, so much like parts of our Garden route, with mountain on one side & sea on the other, cliffs & all. Booger is now able to express his thoughts & feelings: he has a whiteboard which you will see when Wayne gets his photos uploaded.

Friday in Frisco: we decided to have a little time out this morning to catch up with ourselves. TeamChitt fetched the hire car at lunchtime, so now we have wheels. Dear sweet Halla insisted on kitting us girls out with warm sweaters and jackets before we left for our ride on the famous Frisco cable car (previously referred to by me as a streetcar) - she knew what we didn't I.e. that we would have to wait in a queue for nearly an hour in what turned out to be really really cold weather. However, we toughed it out & had the ride, which was fun as you will see from the photos of the antics Booger & Keren got up to along the way! Halla's husband Chris arrived from Washington DC, where he is running the Big Bus Company, & it was great to meet him & spend time in his company, hearing some very interesting stories from his wide experiences & travels. He took us to a real American Diner for a wonderful dinner, followed by a surprise visit to Club Fugazi where the musical theatre 'Beach Blanket Babylon' was showing. What a fun filled show - the nearest thing I can compare it to is the type that the Barnyard Theatre puts on, but with a lot more & very representative of the OTT lifestyle of Frisco. So now it's Saturday morning & we are getting geared up for a day out with tour guide Chris leading the way.....but that will be the subject of the blog for tomorrow....

Oh I could walk a thousand miles.....remember that song? That's how I've been feeling since our arrival in San Francisco! But in fact, we were treated to a wonderful trip on the hop-on hop-off Big Bus which took us all round Frisco & across the famous Golden Gate bridge. We ended the trip at the equally famous Fisherman's Wharf where we had a slap-up meal of freshly cooked cod & chips...YUM! Today, Thursday, we had a booking for a ferry trip across Frisco Bay to Alcatraz - what an experience. As in the case of the Big Bus trip, we each had a pair of earphones with the tour audio directing us thru the whole experience. We took many photos which will soon be loaded onto FB or Wayne's photo web site. Our afternoon ended with another mosey thru Fisherman's Wharf (which is definitely NOT as tasteful or interesting as our Cape Town waterfront) where we had the most delish Clam Chowder with sourdough...WOW! Very good but not quite measuring up to Riana's Tuna Chowder!! We have 3 more days in Frisco, & will then be heading out in a hired car for new pastures. Before ending this blog, I have to say that the weather in Frisco has been quite cold - not much warmer than the CT winter weather! Fortunately there's been no rain & lots of sunshine,but there's a very unpredictable element to the elements in Frisco...a sneaky mist creeps in which makes things very cool - I really should have brought more warm clothing! I have been warned that I will soon be eating my words as we are heading into much hotter territory on Sunday, so I will be grumbling my way thru the heat.... Tomorrow we're probably going to have a ride on the famous Frisco streetcar, & Keren intends to fulfill a long-cherished desire to hang off the side like they do in the movies. I promise we will photograph it!

It's 6am on Wednesday 11th July in San Mateo......why would I, on holiday, be awake at 6am, you may be wondering..... Yesterday we took a (lo--------ng)walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, a most impressive construction, & one of the things to do when in NYC, judging from the steady stream of tourists big & small. So interesting to people-watch, as well as scenery....we saw a young bride & her new husband following their photographer on the way to have wedding photos taken t'other side of the Hudson River. Then there was the lady standing alone with tears streaming down her face.... Fortunately she was soon joined by her family who began hugging her in a comforting way - hmmm, leaves one wondering about her sad memory connection. We had to be back at the hotel by 4.30pm to get our luggage & taxi it to the airport where we boarded a plane for San Francisco - we endured a 6 hour flight, losing 3 hours along the time zone, & were met by TeamChitt's lovely friend, Halla Crompton, who had an equally lovely taxi-man friend, who ferried us to the Crompton's home in San Mateo where we spent what was left of the night in a very comfortable bed, but now it's 6am on Wednesday..... So, putting gritty eyes aside, we're rising to attack the day in San Fran, cameras charged, sore feet rubbed & prayed over! Halla is taking us on a mosey round her city & I think it's going to be fun. Bye.....

Day two in the Big Apple: I believe that we're to expect some strange sights when we arrive in San Francisco tomorrow night - but I have to tell u that we saw a few close rivals today in Manhattan I.e. the Naked Cowboy in Times Square.....well he wasn't actually naked, he was sporting 1. A Stetson 2. Cowboy boots 3. White jocks 4. A guitar. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for you guys, I didn't get to get a photo of him as it must've been his coffee break & he wandered off into the setting sun! Times Square is a sight worth seeing. Wow! The electricity bill for all those ginormous neon signs must be horrific - Eskom would fold in a day!! It is situated in the broadway/theatre neighborhood & is one of the most popular places for the great unwashed to visit and gawk! Actually I could quite happily have got myself a seat & parked off there just watching the passing parade for at least a whole afternoon. There was a band playing, and of course music always draws a crowd, so the whole thing was most entertaining. The other weird, as in weird/strange sight we saw was a man begging on the street with a card that said "I need money for weed - I am a weed smoker" .... Full points for honesty, dontcha think! This morning we paid a visit to the Rockefeller Centre (when I say paid, I mean more than just going there - it cost!) the reason for the visit was that we were able to view & photograph the Empire State Building from the top of the R Centre....our clever kids researched that point.....& while talking about them, Keren & Wayne, I must give you the photobucket link for Wayne's photos of our trip so far: www.photobucket.com/albums/hh167/Emaculate 2008/USA2012 If you click on that link, you will see photos of our wanderings & now is a good time to introduce you to K & W's monkey called Booger! He goes everywhere we go & makes a lot of friends for us, especially among the young at heart. We've both been snapping away with our cameras but need to buy an adaptor to be able to load our photos onto my iPad....so watch this space. As already mentioned, we're off to San Francisco tomorrow - much as I hate the thought of getting on another plane, we face a 6 hour flight leaving New York at about 7pm, & once again our inner clocks are going to be messed with as there's a 3 hour time difference. But I am looking forward to SF - have heard so much about it. Before we go, however, we will have a few hours tomorrow to experience more of NY city so I will update this blog probably from San Francisco. Bye peeps!

Okay, so here's our very first blog and we've been in NooYork since about 9am Sunday morning......it's quite weird trying to figure out time across the time zone but all I want to say about that is.....yesterday must have been the LONGEST day of our lives! We knew it was going to be hot here, but it hasn't been too bad so far- except we've come from winter in Cape Town, so I guess the shock to the system is to be expected! The highlight of the first day was taking a ride on the Staten Island ferry - big orange ferry that takes a gazillion peeps at a time & it's free! For the guys that live on Staten Island, (& it's BIG) it's a ride home but for tourists, it's a joyride & when u get there u get off, turn right & get onto the next ferry to go back to Manhattan! Now I know that sounds like gobbledygook but the main purpose is to get close to have a gawk at the Statue of Liberty! So we did & to be honest, she is rather dwarfed by the wide vista around her - but she is nevertheless impressive as u will see when I upload the photos. Oh, I forgot to mention that before doing the ferry ride we went to a little deli for a bacon roll - you see those typical American delis in movies where they have a stupendous selection of deli foods....well that's exactly what it was like.....crammed full of freshly prepared delicious foods! We LIKED that! Our trip to the ferry involved walking to Grand Central station, which is massive. We took the underground subway & found it to be just as dirty, crammed & sweaty as the London underground system....guess its an international thang. On our way back to the hotel we're staying in, we walked past the Ground Zero site - it would have been great to go inside & see the memorial park but apparently you have to apply for visitors visas by Internet & of course there was a massive queue to get in, so we just had a walk thru the Visitors souvenir shop (which was also crammed full of tourists). Well that's it for the first day - gotta get moving to start Day Two of our big adventure with this Desert Rats....so happy Monday all & speak to you soon.