Travel to Ojai was likely to take a few hours so we got up in reasonable time and finished off what we left yesterday. Remarkably, the kids volunteered spontaneously to clear up, and even banned us from the RV while they did it. They did a cracking job, and by the time I'd done my necessary shop for toilet chemicals (oh yeah we're top campers now - at least while there are full hookups!) we were ready to go. A last dip for refreshment then we were OFF to see the ...

An earlier start, as we had to be ready for our trip to Sequoia. Our driver, Paul, was the nicest, open chatty fella we'd met yet, and he promised us a talkative day on our bus. Turns out he's married to a brummie. There were just 9 of us on our 21 seater so plenty of room to swap sides and grab photos (and stay away from each other!) we had a really nice trip but it was slightly marred by a couple of our companions - the couple from Liverpool were nice but all o...

Foregoing breakfast in the cold Californian mist we stayed in the RV for eggs (boiled and fried have replaced revueltos style - there's no way we're trying to wash scrambled egg pans in the tiny sink.) Then we decided to head into Monterey and experience the beach later (when the sun had made an appearance). Parking the RV in town wasn't a problem as they have special areas in car parks, then we walked into town to do a little retail. Monterey is a charming town...

Day 1 usa Morning! Sadly we didn't get much of a chance to recover our sleep - we awoke early as Derry had been asleep for a long time on the plane and in customary fashion her stirring awoke Finn and me (Alan) as we were sharing the room. The other girls also awoke reasonably early. We made potentially the wrong choice by having the highly priced (but very large!) hotel breakfast (we subsequently discovered there was a great diner virtually next door which fed ...