Hiya!!

Well it's 28th Dec and we have just arrived at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo (near Santa Barbra) - which is the campest hotel I have ever stayed at in my entire life!! Our themed room is called the 'Fox and Hounds' and is something straight out of an English Countryside ......

We've had an action packed couple of days really. We spent our last day in San Francisco visiting Alcatraz - which was really eery!! They had a real life criminal there who had spent time at Alcatraz for bank robbery. He was promoting his book based on his time there and as I asked him to autograph mine I thought he was going to snap and kill me!! Luckily he didn't and before I knew it we were running for the boat and managed to escape back to the mainland ........

We then picked up our hire car and headed for the mountains to our wooden cabin for some rest and relaxation ....

The setting was just like a scene straight out of the film Brokeback Mountain!! There were cowboys, rednecks, trees, sheep and everything, but unfortunately no Jake Gyllenhaal to be found!! Although I don't believe they had a hot tub in Brokeback Mountain ...

After the fun of the big city, it was quite a shock finding ourselves 100 miles from San Francisco with no internet access and no mobile phone coverage for 20 miles!! I swear I was having withdrawals .....

The scenery was beautiful and I managed to survive all the same!! A trip to a nearby outlet village helped ease the blow and ease our wallets of a few more dollars .......

We spent today heading down the coat toward LA and saw some amazing coastal scenery. However, as usual drama struck when Richard took a wrong turn and we found ourselves driving for almost 3 hours over a mountain range with next to no petrol left and nothing or no-one for miles around!! Things were extremely tense to say the least and as we watched the petrol warning light come on and the car freewheel down the mountain on nothing but vapours things came to an all time low when Richard passed wind due to the tension!! You could cut the atmosphere with a knife ..........

As luck would have it and just when we thought we were there for the night we came across the welcoming lights of a 'gas station'!! Another 2 hours later and we were at the Madonna Inn .....

Tonight is going to be stress free, watching Thelma and Louise on the telly and room service for all as we head to LA for some partying tomorrow night.

Gotta go choose something delicious from the menu

Bye for now

x