Holiday (Part 2 - West Coast)

On April 7th, we left Las Vegas, and headed to Los Angeles. On the way we went to Calico Ghost town and had fun wandering round, and going down the old gold mines (and popping into the quilting shop where I chatted to a quilting cowboy!)At Los Angeles, we wanted to see the Hollywood sign, and so found our way to the Griffith Observatory, which had great views over the city too.

We got to Venice beach just in time for sunset, and found that our room had been upgraded to an apartment - which led out right onto the beach!We spent the morning of April 8th wandering round Venice beach, and enjoying the roof terrace of our hotel.Setting off up the coast.After staying for a night at San Simeon, we spent April 9th continuing our drive up the coast towards San Francisco. Scott knew of somewhere to stop off and see elephant seals. View from the roof terrace where we had lunch.

We stopped for a 'nice little walk', at one point along the coast. There was a route with 2 choices, and we planned on doing the shorter walk. We kept walking though, and never found a sign or anything to mark the end of the short route, so we just kept going... finished 3 hours later, with blisters, sunburn, and having climbed the equivalent height of Snowdon!The top at last! Fab views over the Pacific. And then the climb back down (we started at the sea!)

Having a well deserved rest on a couple of beaches, before driving to our retro 50's hotel in San Francisco. We spent 10th April in San Francisco (with Scott pushing me up hills for a fair bit of it.)Lombard Street! Scott was keen to drive down it the next day. We got the boat over to Alcatraz, and took the tour around - very interesting.

The view walking back to our hotel.11th April was our long drive day - we left San Francisco and stopped the night at Elko, Nevada.

It was also the day with the worst weather - perfect timing!We passed through some places with pretty deep snow around. More wonderful mountains.More big long old roads (and Scott and I playing the ABC game with naming American cities...) Started off April 12th with snow! Carried on our drive back to Utah.

Scott wanted to stop off and see the salt flats where they do land speed records. We drove down this cool road surrounded by salt that just ran out in the middle of nowhere!

We also visited Bingham mine (and was in time to see an explosion) before heading back to Salt Lake City, where we dropped off the car, went to Deseret book, had a meal, then spent the late evening in our hotel's swimming pool, sauna and hot tub!