Leg, the Second: Auckland

A three hour stop over. A tiny international airport, and even tinier duty free... I must say, I was impressed with Air New Zealand... It was a very pleasant flight, especially with a tail wind weMeer informatie
Leg, the Second - Auckland

A very pleasant flight on Air New Zealand, I was very impressed. We have a three hour stop over, in tiny Auckland International, with an even tinier Duty Free... A short and sweet footprint thisMeer informatie
Preparing for take-off...

Hey there, trusty followers! The day finally dawned ( I know you are all sick off me talking about it)! We left home at 7:30 for an 11:50 flight due to some terrorist plot foiled a few days ago, andMeer informatie
The Streets of San Francisco...

So not the most pleasant flight out, but we finally made it to San Francisco...the city on the bay. The temperature is a pleasant 23 degrees, with a bit of a breeze. We picked up our rental car, aMeer informatie
Hot August Night

Tonight, after 3 hours to do 110 miles due to the traffic, we finally made our first digs at Oakdale, on the edge of Yosemite National Park. Due to the late arrival, we had to settle for Denny's forMeer informatie
Bear hunting...

An early start, we headed towards Yosemite National Park. We needed supplies so we stopped at a tinpot settlement called Grovetown. There we got our water supplies (a must, as it is so hot), and theyMeer informatie
Yosemite - now with more photos!

A few more shots around Yosemite, El Capitan, Glacier Point, Vernal Falls
Road to Nowhere...

So we started from Fresno to take the coast road back to San Francisco. At San Simeon, there's a big Elephant Seal colony...we stopped to take pics... About another 40 miles up the road, there was aMeer informatie
Leaving my heart in San Francisco

Ok, so the detour to get back was really long, and regrettably, we just did not have time to get back on the road to Monterrey - the detour added 150 miles! We had a couple of pit stops along the was,Meer informatie
This is the one in Francisco Bay...

After wandering around town for a while, the the millions of tourists around (whose bloody idea was it to come to the US in summer vacation?) we hopped a Blue & Gold ferry to Sausalito, with aMeer informatie
San Fran farewell...

A few more pics from today. I had to put the funny boat shot in...Paul was trying to capture us in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, which of course was fog bound...but this one was very entertainingMeer informatie
Wyoming, but not as i knew it!

I grew up in Wyoming. Seriously, I did. However, arriving in Jackson Hole, Wyoming I was not prepared for what I was to see... The drive from the airport was across plains, and then we hit it...theMeer informatie
The Grand Tetons on fire!

After a wander around Jackson Hole (which we must come back to in Winter), we jumped in our Subaru from Montana, and headed east towards a stunning range of mountains that were still snow capped.Meer informatie
Looking for Yogi and Boo-boo

Leaving the Grand Tetons, we drove another 95 miles to the magnificent Yellowstone National Park. Ranger Smith was there to greet us, and happily posed for a picture. This is an area of stunningMeer informatie
Waiter, there's a Bison in my soup...

We wanted wildlife, we got wildlife. No bears today, but boy did we get bison! They were close enough to us to touch (not that you'd want to -they're freaking huge!) At one point we were stuck in toMeer informatie
The Painted Canyon

Dragon's Mouth Spring & the Mud Volcano

Geysers v Geezers

Yellowstone is an amazing national park. Waterfalls, walks, rivers, geysers and mud ponds. We found wildlife, no bears yet, but all sorts of critters.
Old Faithful was two minutes out, butMeer informatie
Cross country capers

So, because Beth always had a hankering to see Mount Rushmore up close and personal, it meant an 800 km dash from Yellowstone to Keystone. It was pretty easy driving, and we had a great evening at theMeer informatie
Four Dead Presidents & Crazy Horse

An early start this morning from Keystone , we travelled the short distance to Mount Rushmore. It is a very impressive site, and you can only marvel at the engineering genius of the sculptor and theMeer informatie
If it's Friday, i must be in...?

A very early start his morning to drop off our rental car at 6 am, we headed to the airport in Jackson, Wyoming for the first leg of our jaunt today. A two hour flight to LAX, and on arrival we pickedMeer informatie
The Canyon? She was very grand...

Today was a visit to the Grand Canyon. The last time is saw it was 2009, in mid-winter after a fresh deep snowfall. It was quite different now. We walked the majority of the South Rim, and took someMeer informatie
Vegas

Two nigjts in a great apartment in Vegas, and we were able to recharge a little after our hectic schedule.
The first night we headed to the Rio resort to see Penn & Teller. They were great, asMeer informatie
North, to Alaska!

Up this morning we walked around downtown Juneau. This city, the capital of Alaska has only about 31,500 people. The economy seems to entirely revolve around the cruise ship industry. Today, thereMeer informatie
On the slow boat to Gustavus...

Today we are on a ferry heading to Gustavus and Glacier Bay. It's a four and a half hour journey and the weather is foggy and wet. Wet is normal for Juneau. They have a rain festival that goes fromMeer informatie