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.....