Tuesday saw Jo & I board another tour bus to napa & sonoma to sample some grape juice It was an 8.30 start and incidentally while waiting for the bus to leave we saw 3 crazy people swimming in the ocean - despite glorious sunshine it was about 3oC outside!! It was a 2 hour drive trhough pretty countryside to the first vineyard in napa - the Madonna estate. We got to sample a couple of whites & then some reds, all very nice. We then headed to the Sut...

Today Jo & I were up early (5am!!) to head off to Yosemite. I remember this from geography class, it's the oldest or biggest or busiest national park or something like that.....it's like the peak district only as with everything in america its bigger! After picking everyone up we drove across the bay bridge - a double decker suspension bridge just as impressive as the golden gate bridge. We drove through hours of fog until we hit the sierra mountains. Here t...

So yesterday we had quite a chilled day. After breakfast we caught a cable car up a big hill to union square & wandered round some shops. We then caught a tram back to fishermans wharf where we had soup in a bread bowl for lunch (it's famous apparently). We then wandered round the shops (mainly food shops) on pier 39 before boarding the boat to Alcatraz. Alcatraz is a famous prison (apparently - tho I'd never heard of it but I don watch enough films with badd...

So after breakfast we caught the open top hop on hop off bus from just outside the hotel. The bus went along the sea front, up & down some hills and along to the Golden Gate Bridge. Jo & I got off to walk the 1.7miles over it. We learnt there was enough cable to go round the world 3 times, and it is painted 'international orange' -the gift shop even sells the same paint for Americans to paint the houses with! It was a glorious winters day, really sunny wi...

Well after a stressful night of packing random items of clothes which would shock trinny & susanna if worn together Jo & I headed to the airport...who knew you had to apply for a visa online before you could check in? So it was off to the Internet cafe before checking in with only minutes to spare. We then headed straight for the gate, boarded our double decker plane and made ourselves comfy while we waited an hour for them to find a pilot....and then the...