Despite the weather not always behaving itself, we had a wonderful time. We visited Southern California and Southern Arizona and for those of you who have not visited these places, I hope this will give you a taste of this part of the world. I have not put links into a lot of the places we visited as Southern California is the most densely interneted place on earth. If you want to find out more fire up Yahoo or Alta Vista and get them yourself.
Our flight out to Los Angeles was, to put it mildly, difficult, but we eventually arrived just after midnight local time. We spent a few days getting over the jetlag and meeting up with old friends of mine from FileNet Corporation and eating lots of food, including at my favourite restaurant Claim Jumper just off the 405 Freeway at the corner of Brookhurst Avenue and Talbert in Fountain Valley. You need a hearty appetite when you eat here.
If you like shopping, this place is for you, South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. Total turnover of this shopping complex is reputed to be more than $1 billion per year. Parking your car isn't a problem here, there are more than 10 000 parking spaces.
We took the kids for a day to Knotts Berry Farm, a theme park in Buena Park. It was fun even if Andrew decided he didn't enjoy the "Boomerang" roller coaster
After a few days, we headed east to Phoenix in Arizona. I wanted to
meet a friend of mine who looks after the
World War One Document Archive
. We had dinner with Jane at a rather upmarket diner in Phoenix.
The next day we planned to head north to see The Meteor Crater outside Winslow, spend a few days at the Grand Canyon and then head north through Monument Valley into the Utah Canyonlands before returning to Southern California via Nevada, San Francisco and the Pacific Coast Highway. It, alas was not to be. As we headed north on Arizona State Road 87, as we were approaching the mountains, we could see that they were covered by thick black storm clouds. The car radio then chirped up to tell us that 3 feet (nearly a metre) of snow had fallen on Flagstaff, west of Winslow and directly on our route to the Grand Canyon. Nothing left to do but U-turn and head south into the Arizona Desert.
For those of you who believe deserts consist of sand and a bit of rock, The Arizona Desert will be a surprise to you. The Arizona Desert has a lot of plant and animal life.
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Andrew and Catherine pose amongst typical desert scenery
The temperature in the summer can rise to over 50C (122F) but in the
spring, the temperature is much more pleasant. We drove down to
Tucson and went to visit Saguarro National Park. Lone giant Saguarro
Cacti are not the norm here. This is a veritable forest of cacti.
Later that Day, we drove to Old Tucson Studios, west of Tucson. It
was here they filmed such old favourites as the "High
Chapperal", it is now a theme park since the demise of the
Cowboy genre. We stayed the night at a motel in Tucson and woke the
next day to rain. We then decided to visit Colossal Cave, East of
Tucson, This is a dry cave with some romantic history to it. Don't go
expecting to see flawless displays of calcite. Outlaws used this cave
as a hideout in the 19th Century and being trigger happy, they spent
their time taking pot shots at the stalactites. It's not difficult to
find bullet holes in the more accessible formations. For those of you
interested, Colossal Cave is signposted from the Interstate 10
Freeway Exit 279 East of Tucson.
The weather picture north had changed, for the worst, so we decided to head back to Southern California. We drove along Interstate 10 and Interstate 8 to Gila Bend and stayed the night there. The next day, we drove the 300 odd miles to San Diego. Interstate 8 passes though some very interesting scenery. About an hour east of San Diego is a range of hills that look as though they consist solely of boulders - house size boulders that is. The builders of this road have my highest respect. This could not have been easy country to work in.
We did all the touristy things in San Diego for the next few days. The Old Town Trolley Tours is an interesting and informative tour of this lovely city. San Diego Zoo claims to be the biggest in the world. I for one doubt that very strongly. Our own Chester Zoo here in the UK is in my humble opinion larger than SDZ. Despite that, I found it a mix of the good and the not so good. The polar bear and hippopotamus enclosures are first class for both the animals and the spectators but I thought the lion enclosure was very small, especially for the big cats. We didn't visit SeaWorld this time as we had been there before on a previous visit. After three days, we drove back to Orange County.
We had a couple of days just lounging around recovering from the driving we had done before we set of for Disneyland in Anaheim. We went the first day with a very good friend of ours Susan and one of her daughters. Her local knowledge pointed us straight to the Indian Jones Adventure as soon as the park gates opened at 9am. This ride was new to us as it hadn't been built last time we were there. The queue was 30 minutes even at that time of day but all I can say is that Disneyland have made waiting an art form. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't been on it but IMHO this is one of the best rides in Southern California. We stayed that day until 7pm. We left early as we had bought a five day pass. This pass entitles the holder to get into the park 90 minutes early and our second day was the early day - 6-30 am through the gates.
5-15am rise, leave motel at 6pm for the 10 mile drive to Disneyland. It was lovely, No queues for Indiana Jones, Space Mountain or Star Tours. Breakfast with the characters gave us lots of photo opportunities, some you can see below.
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The following two pictures were not taken by me, does it show?
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The five days at Disneyland eventually came to an end and its ending signalled the terrible prospect of returning home. We had two days to do some last minute shopping before we had to head off to LAX. Our last evening was spent with our friend Susan at, where else, Claim Jumpers.
Our journey to LAX Airport during the rush hour was uneventful and our journey home was not as bad as our journey out. We arrived back in the UK at 9am on Thursday 18th April, 1997.
To finish off, We had a wonderful time, met friends old and new and despite everything not going to plan, we will be going back again soon. I hope you have enjoyed this little story produced in great haste. Any comments can be mailed to me by clicking here
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