USA trip

My brain is now back in gear and recovered from jet-lag (although I’m still unable to answer Jimmy’s quiz questions!) so here goes with an account of some of our holiday highlights. Well, to start with our outbound travel itinery was a bit unusual, the route being Bishop Middleham – Grimsby (!) – Manchester – New York – Las Vegas. Why Grimsby? Well as some of you may know, we’ve been after a Manchester Terrier puppy for Ross for a while. Earlier in the week a promised puppy fell through as the bitch was not pregnant but on Wednesday another puppy became available but if we were to have it then we needed to go and see it before we went on holiday. The only time to do this was on the Saturday morning so we did a detour and called in to see the puppy on our way to Manchester. I’m glad we did, the puppy was lovely and just what we were after so we ‘took the plunge’ and agreed that we’d have it when we came back. As we travelled down it got me thinking about our travels to away games as most seem to start on the A1M down to Wetherby. I’m looking forward to some more away-days this coming season, perhaps with a couple of overnighter’s, depending on when the fixtures fall. It’s off to Grimsby this coming weekend to collect Tess, our new Manchester terrier puppy. I’m sure there will be some tales to tell in the coming few weeks!

Anyway, we eventually made it over to Manchester on Saturday afternoon and even managed to call into Old Trafford for Alex (Mitton not SAF) to have a look round the shop then off to our hotel for a nights sleep before an early start at 5:30 the next morning for our flight to the USA. We got away on time and arrived in Newark airport, New Jersey where we cleared customs and picked up our internal flight for Las Vegas. We got to Las Vegas at 6 o’clock on the Sunday evening and got a taxi to our hotel, the Luxor. What a place! We checked in and spent the rest of the evening having a look around the hotel trying to keep awake till bedtime. Went to bed very tired but I woke up wide awake at 5:30am so left the rest of the family asleep and snuck out to explore. Went downstairs into the casino to find it still in full swing with games still on the go at many tables – crazy! We were in Las Vegas till Wednesday and had a great time but the highlight was our helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon on the Tuesday. Wing commander Gilligan would have been very impressed with this sortie. We were expecting the ride to be a bit bumpy but it was really smooth and very relaxing. Words can’t describe the majesty and grandeur of the Grand Canyon so I’ve posted a couple of pics. The tour cost $280 each and concluded with a tour of the strip. It was worth every penny and I’d definitely look to do something similar again. Sight-seeing by helicopter is definitely the way to do it.

On Wednesday we picked up the car (actually a 3.7 litre 4x4 Jeep Cherokee – only 18 mpg according to the computer but with ‘gas’ at £1.40 a gallon this was not a big issue) and set off for LA. We had an interesting drive across the desert (98 F) and stopped of on the way at a place called Palmdale. Next morning we set off for Santa Monica, which is a beach resort on the outskirts of LA. Had a great time there but a bit cooler than we expected (temp was in the high 60’s rather than the 70’s/80’s we’d been expecting) and also quite a few ‘dossers/beach bums’ hanging around but they were all very chilled out so no hassle. Santa Monica was where Baywatch was filmed so some very nice sights on the beach and boardwalk. We hired some bikes and rode along the promenade along to Venice Beach (see the picture below of me and my big chopper) and also visited LA and Hollywood in the car. When in LA I noticed a number of garages advertising ‘smog checks’ so couldn’t resist having my photo taken. BTW, the new Nikon digital camera was brilliant and we took over 150 pictures and a couple of video clips of the Bellagio fountains. It’s really good to be able to review then straight away and take another photo if not very good. After 6 nights in Santa Monica we returned to Las Vegas, this time doing the journey in the one day. We set off from LA at 9 am and got to Vegas for 4 pm with a stop for lunch.

Spent two nights in the Venetian, a really posh hotel which only does suites not rooms then travelled back on the Friday, arriving back in the UK at 9am on the Saturday morning. Drove home and crashed out for some kip but not before having a quick look at the Coxhoe website and enjoying the Hartlepool postings from Commander Gilling and Chief photographer Hoofer.

Overall a brilliant holiday but still pleased to be back home again. We found the people to be very friendly (if a little thick!) and the service, food and facilities were excellent. The USA is a great place to visit but I prefer living in the UK.