At last...lots and lots of photos!

My first sunset in America - May 12th looking across the Atlantic with Hannah from the Maine coast near Portland. Bar Harbour, Jordans breakfast of Blueberry pancakes and maple syrup! Acadia National Park, Maine. Jordan Pond and the Bubbles behind (Hannah being daft!) Acadia National Park - Maine Acadia National Park, Maine. Cadillac Mountain view across the Atlantic from Mount Desert Island Acadia National Park, Otter Cliffs on Mount Desert Island. Me and Hannah Our 'Thelma and Louise' luxury vehicle! Bar Harbour Wonder View motel, Bar Harbour Maine My New England breakfast at Jeannies - Bar Harbour, Maine Camden, Maine on our way back to Yarmouth Hannah enjoying the food at Moody's diner, Maine. Boston - view from top of Bunker Hill Monument - over 700 steps! Fanueil Hall Boston My swanky Boston hotel! The Freedom Trail in Boston Where everybody knows your name! Boston common city skyline Poor Roly! scared of the lobster... Steamed lobster for my last supper with the Klepinger's - It's still alive! tasted good though! My 'hotel' in Maine! The Klepinger family home, Yarmouth. Going Lobster Mad in Portland, Maine Portland Lighthouse - Atlantic Ocean - Cornwall in the distance somewhere! New York city tour bus Lunch near the Brooklyn Bridge Strawberry Fields forever... Central Park tribute to John Lennon Boat trip around Ellis Island and statue of Liberty Statue of Liberty - bit of a grey day! Ground Zero New York Times Square Top of the Rockerfeller Centre, Looking at the Empire State building - going there next! That's the Empire state building behind me! Great Views! Top of the Empire State! Empire state building at night - raining hard! My hotel New York, Astor on the Park, Upper West side Central Park View from Central Park Our trek across America starts here - Jazz Hostel, Upper West Side, Central Park New York My bedroom for the next 28 days! Niagara Falls - crossing into Canada just for a few hours! Niagara Falls - water on my lens! Maid of the Mist, Niagara Falls Niagara Falls! OHIO, IDAHO, WISCONSIN, MINESSOTA all the farms look the same! Cleveland, OHIO 90 degrees and humid! Cleveland, OHIO The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Chicago Skyline - beautful city! Chicago 'Cloud City' mirror sculpture called The Bean Chicago - me at The Bean Chicago, view from SEARS tower, tallest building in USA. Chicago, view from the Hancock Tower Baseball Game, Chicago - Go Sox! ( I did enjoy it really!) Chicago at night from the Baseball stadium Loading our bags before leaving Chicago (Dan on the roof) The Mississipi The Great American Prairie - a typical farm The Badlands of South Dakota Viewpoint over the Badlands Badlands Ranch:Inside the Crazy lodge - some of my travelling pals. Badlands Ranch - our crazy lodge is on the right! Me and 'Lightening' look out over the Badlands of South Dakota Mount Rushmore, The Black Hills, South Dakota Crazy Horse Monument, Thunderhead Mountain, The Black Hills of South Dakota. 50 years on and only the head is finished.. how long before it's completed???? Buffalo and horns on our van - Custer State Park, Black Hills South Dakota Our Log Cabin, Custer State Park in the Black Hills South Dakota. Deadwood,Black Hills South Dakota, Saloon #10 where Wild Bill Hickok was shot during a poker game. Devil's Tower, Wyoming Crossing the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming - snow in June! Yellowstone National Park Geo Thernmal craters, Yellowstone Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone Mammoth Springs, Yellowstone. Buffalo.. Bison.. Tatanka... Yellowstone National Park GRIZZLY!!!! (right in the middle, honestly!) Yellowstone. Hiking Mount Washburn, snow in June! Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Phew! I made it! The Summit of Mount Washburn 10,000 ft Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The Teton granite mountains, Wyoming Cheeky Chipmunk! Above Jenny Lake, Teton National Park, Wyoming. Jackson, Wyoming - the arch is made of Antlers! The Mormon Church, Salt Lake City Utah - didn't see any Osmonds though... It's BIG.. it's Salty... The Great Salt Lake... Salt Lake City Utah. Bonneville Salt Flats - Utah, site of many world Land Speed Records 500 miles of nothing! The Nevada Desert from Salt Lake City to Reno. Reno, Nevada. Get Married, Get divorced, Gamble your life away.. nothing else to do there - except maybe an 'All you can eat buffet!' Mono Lake, California Walking the volcano rim, Mono Lake 8000 ft above sea level. Paddling down the Merced River, Yosemite National Park - 'Half Dome' behind. Campsite at Yosemite National Park Can you spot the British tent! San Francisco! 4000 miles across the USA to the Pacific! San Francisco Skyline from the top of the Coit Tower. Aren't you a little short to be a Stormtrooper? A windy boat trip around San Franciso Bay - Alcatraz Island Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park TIOGA PASS leaving Yosemite National Park, California. almost 10,000 ft above sea level. Death Valley - Badwater Basin - 282ft below sea level. Vegas at Night... Las Vegas - or is it New York??? Get your Kicks on Route 66!!! at Seligman, Arizona. Crossing Miles and Miles of the Mojave Desert.... London Bridge across the Colorado River at Lake Havasu City. The Pacific! Venice Beach LA - 5 weeks and 4500 miles after leaving the East Coast and the Atlantic Ocean in Maine. Life is like a box of chocolates... at Santa Monica Pier - Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. HOLLYWOOD!!!! Hollywood Boulevard walk of fame... Hollywood Hall of Fame - George Clooney's hands and feet!

American Diary # 19 Los Angeles

June 15th LOS ANGELES An early start from camp - lots more driving. We hit the road and crossed back into California, stopping on the way to see the plants and wildlife at JOSHUA TREE national park. The Mojave and Colorado deserts meet here and offer different ecology, but the highlights are the trees (remember the U2 album) which look like loo brushes on the end of stumpy branches. We took a short hike here to see the animals, but the AP's chattering scared everything away! It was god to get out though. Getting to LA we hit heavy traffic and made straight for the sea. VENICE Beach is known for it's freaks and rollerblading superbabes and body builders. Walking the strip we saw them all! with time to spare some of us took our towels onto the Baywatch beach and enjoyed the pacific ocean (a lot like Bude) before joining the van again and taking a short trip up the coast to Santa Monica. Here we stopped at the BUBBA GUMP restaurant (see the movie Forest Gumo for the scene on Santa Monica Pier)for dinner before eventually arriving at our LAX airport Holiday Inn. Thank the lord for a soft bed and hotel room! It was a good week though. June 16th This morning I dined at a local cafe on muffin and yoghurt with an apple 'to go'. Good to have healthy food again. Then Pia drove us on a site seeing tour of the highlights of LA starting with HOLLYWOOD. Stopping for photos of the famous sign, then onto Hollywood Boulevard for photos at the famous Chinese theatre (where the stars put their feet and hands in the cement). I put my hand into the George Clooney hand print (he was here last week for Oceans 13) and took photos of the rest - best one for me was Star Wars from 1977, including C3P0 and R2D2 footprints! Next door is the OSCARS location inside the KODAK theatre which was nothing more than something to take a picture off. There are shops, but nothing I was interested in. The sidealk along Hollywood Blvd is lined with the names of people in a golden star - I spotted Bugs Bunny, Whinnie the Pooh, Kermit the Frog as well as some human stars too - no sign of anyone famous in person though. Next stop was Beverly Hills for some home spotting - we pulled outside Ozzy Osbourne's Tom Cruises, and the Beverly Hills Hotel, but didn't see anyone. after that we cruised down Rodeo Drive and then a very long journey in traffic back to the hotel. Tomorrow I will spend the day by the hotel pool (too much traffic to get anywhere by taxi) then fly to Seattle on Monday morning. Hope all is well in Blighty - or wherever you are reading this from! BFN

American Diary # 18 Lake Havasu

June 14th Left camp at 7.30am and leaving stuff on the van a group of us took a trail down into the canyon to experience it's depths. In this heat, people die (really) so we had only 3 hours to use. Not enough to get anywhere near the bottom, so we settled for the Kaibab Trail to 'Oo ah' point. This took 40 mins going down to a steep precipice above the canyon - truly incredible - and then an hour coming back up on steep and dusty ground. Well worth the effort. You need more time to fully appreciate the canyon, so I think I'll be back. Driving through Arizona we touched on the Mojave Desert and arrived at Lake HAvasu City. This is the location for the LONDON BRIDGE which was sinking and shipped to the USA and rebuilt. It stands across the Colorada and hase the Union Flag and stars and stripes on both sides. It's a great setting and with temperatures over 100 degrees I wanted to jump into the water. We just stopped for photos then continued on to our campsite on the river side at dusk, perfect for a swim in the cool waters. The group was becoming more familiar and we actually had a good laugh and a swim before bed time around 11pm. So hot we could hardly sleep.

American Diary # 17 Grand Canyon

June 13th - Grand Canyon and Kipper's Birthday! Left Vegas and to cut a long blog short, we drove for ages and crossed into Arizona. We stopped at Laughlin for a driving permit (not far from Hoover Dam) and Colorado River winding through a barren desert area. Strange to see patches of green grass and new housing, fuelled by the fresh water supply and local jobs in the hydro electric industry. At some point we stopped on ROUTE 66 and a place called Seligman, where the PIXAR movie 'CARS' was based. It's a great film, "If you get the chance , I highly recommend it... it is so choice" (direct quote from another movie, guess which one?). Anyway, I bought some tacky souvenirs from the museum and barber shop (famous) and took some photos. The shop owner told me about the BBC visit last year with Blue Peter, he even has a badge proudly displayed in the shop. Stopping for groceries in WILLIAMS we saw some British firemen from Portsmouth who were taking part in a transameric cycle challenge, West to East Coast in 10 days. I gave them all my loose change for the childrens hospitals, and wished them luck. After more driving, we arrived in a forested area near to the Grand Canyon and had achieved 7000ft without noticing. Myself, Chris and Nicole took a helicopter ride over the Canyon at 6pm just as the sun was starting to drop and gave us some amazing colours and shapes in the rocks strata below. With 'Jurassic Park' music in our chopper headphones it was a spectacular experience and I can't use enough words to describe it. Again ... I highly recommend it. The AP's watched an IMAX thing, which can't have been anything like as good, but they got free sticky stars and were happy. Camp was on hard dry ground near the Canyon edge, and after pitching tents we drove to a viewpoint for the sunset around 8pm. This too was amazing, and as we left there were over 50 astronomers set up in the car park offering free looks at the stars. After dinner ( I cooked) I persuaded a few people to come back with me to the telescopes by walking along the dark roads and we got to see some cool stuff. Big dipper ( Plough) North star, Jupiter and it's moons, Venus, Ring Nebula, Dumb bellNebula and Whirlpool Nebula, also Scorpio, Polaris, a constellation called M13 in Hercules (whatever) and some other stuff I forget. The Mily Way was bright and there were a few meterorite showers thrown in for good measure. Almost got lost in the dark getting back to camp but a brilliant evening.