I'm halfway through my tour around western parts of the US and it's going really well. So far we've been to Big Sur, San Francisco and Las Vegas. In San Francisco we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, but most of the time the bridge was covered in mist so we couldn't see it very well from the land. In the evening we went on a "sunset" cruise in the harbour but we couldn't see the sunset either. But we did sail right past Alcatraz, which looked incredible and much more menacing than I thought it did. I spent a day walking around SF doing all the sights - the curviest street in the world and Fisherman's Warf, riding a cable car, and avoiding all the crazy people.

Vegas is mental and crazy but lots of fun. It's around 45 degrees celcius, and all the restaurants and bars blow cold mist out into the street, which lasts about a nano second. We've done some of the casino displays at night but there is still much more to see - we've been here a day already and not even done half of the strip.

I have a really good tour group, and we're travelling in a stretch 4wd with a trailer attaached, rather than in a minibus that has to be loaded up each day. There is a lot of driving but it's well worth it, and our driver let us walk across the state line from California to Nevada yesterday :)