Cumulative miles driven: 5,660 We have not seen a "winter's day" in California since we arrived, by the sound of it this sunny and hot weather is very unusual and even though everyone is out enjoying the sun and surf what they really need here is rain. The reservoirs are dry and California is under drought conditions. The rain can hold off until at least Saturday afternoon though once we are on the aeroplane headed back towards the UK as far as I am concerned. ...

Cumulative miles driven: 5,200 Driving into San Luis Obispo was, too be honest, a little disappointing but not for where we were but for what we had likely missed. We had left Bakersfield after a coffee stop with the sun setting and heading for US-58, a fairly plain and straightish road according to the road atlas, which actually ended up as one of the most curvaceous and steep drives I have done recently. It was like driving the UK's Hardknott and Wrynose Pass...

Cumulative miles driven: 4,721 Death Valley National Park is less than a hundred miles from Las Vegas and covers an area of well over three million acres. There are around a thousand miles of paved and dirt track roads (some needing a 4x4 vehicle) to explore within the 5,000 plus square miles of this protected area. There is plenty to see and over two days we covered around 300 miles within and around the park boundaries and could have seen more given some extr...

Cumulative miles driven: 4,432 Las Vegas can be a bit of a culture shock as it is like nowhere else in the USA. In fact, it is probably like nowhere else on this planet. The scale of the big casinos sitting on 'the strip', or South Las Vegas Boulevard as it is officially known, is staggering and each one of them is busy. From the north end of 'the strip' starting with the iconic Stratosphere down to Mandalay Bay it is about a five mile walk but if you choose to...

Cumulative miles driven: 4,114 Arizona was merely a US State to pass through on our east to west trip having previously been here and as we have done the Grand Canyon what else is there really to see? We popped a couple of nights in the schedule to break the journey up, reduce what would have been another 500 plus mile drive and what a really great idea that was. Just over the New Mexico/Arizona border we called into the Petrified Forest National Park purle...