USA the west coast

We made to USA, hooray, hooray,

After we were frisked when we arrived in Chicago, then missed our flight because of delays in the air before Chicago,we discovered that our flight was cancelled along with many others because of bad weather in the southern states. Tension mounted as we sat and waited to find if we would get a seat on the next flight or we would be stranded in Chicago without our luggage for the night. With over a hundred people on the wait list, Chris was relieved when our names were called, BUT WHERE'S DREW. "Yes, Mrs Dunlop you can board now but if your husband isn't here you will have to go without him", said the flight attendant.
After a few moments panic, Drew shows up with some Mcdonalds fries and a thick shake, which almost cost him his life, but as fate would have it, we made the flight and didn't feel too sorry for the 100 passengers left behind and stranded at the airport.

Finally, we made it to LA after about 28 hours travelling from Madrid, and then started to organise ourselves for the U.S leg of the travelling Dilburies adventures.

Finding a campervan took about 4 days, but eventually, we discovered EL Van, a '94 GMC Vandura, a small camper, with all the luxuries of home, except trivial items like a stove, a table, a loo or a shower. Obviously, these minor inconveniences would present no problem during the next 6 months, so the deal was done. El Van (or Ellie as Chris likes to call him, even his/(her) sex is in question) was duly driven to San Diego by way of a beautiful state park at San Clemente. In San Diego we made the mistake of stopping at a red light and after some 10-15 seconds at this intersection we were joined, rather abruptly (I'd guess at about 20 MPH) by a fellow motorist in her sedan, whereby she caused some slight modifications to the appearance and general health of El Van. You will, I hope, be pleased to know that, we, the occupants of El Van did not suffer from the same or any other form of modification to our health.

Undaunted, we proceeded to spend a few days in San Diego, visiting the wonderful San Diego zoo, 2 panel beaters and Tijuana. The highlights were, as you'd expect, the zoo and our walk over the border into Tijuana (the 1.5 hour queue to get back across into USA aside).

From San Diego we returned to LA and the same motel where we stayed for our 1st 5 night in US, and no it was not just because of the free champagne during happy hour from 4-6 pm. (Don't tell them but that's really 2 hours).

During our time in LA we did some of the tourist things like drive along Sunset Blvd, visit Venice Beach, Muscle Beach (where of course, we really looked just like everyone else), Santa Monica and the pier. One thing that really impressed us was the friendliness and the politeness of all the locals we met. Even the motorists are polite.In a suburban street, if you look like you're going to step onto the pavement (that's bitumen for all you Aussies) they slow down and even stop to wave you across the road.

We had afew obstacles to overcome in registering the van. These were overcome by using the L.A. backpackers address as our home address (with the cooperation of the front desk staff) and a few non disclosures i.e. where we were travelling to and the fact that we were not intending to get Calafornian licences which they were very keen for us to obtain. So off north we travelled, after purchasing the necessary items to be ultra coumfortable, eg. chairs,a table, a gas stove, pots, crockery, you get the idea.

We drove up the west coast until we turned to go to San Fransisco. The scenery was spectacular, as expected, but Drew nearly had heart failure when I was driving. I don't know why, I did not hit anything. We stayed in scenic State parks and loved the freedom of the journey. Mothers day was a highlight as we spent the lunch hours at Pier 39 eating a superb lunch and watching the seals, then off to Napa Valley.

The wineries, scenery and parks we stayed at were fun. Two days in both Napa and Sonoma Valleys were not enough but you cannot spend all your time walking in nature reserves and sampling wines - well we could, but we had places to go and people to see.

We drove back to the coast and through redwood country, camping at the state parks and walking through the forrests until we were put off by the ranger telling us that a wild cat had attacked a man recently and there were signs up to that affect so we packed up and headed north, over the boarder to Oregon where the beaches are even more spectacular that California and the forrests and rivers bigger - wow -
We ventured inland to see Crator Lake, and we were very lucky to see it in clear, sunny weather .
On the way back to the coast we went through waterfall country with more, beautiful, big rivers and forrests.

Over the border to Washington State.