American Wildlife

As anyone who has ever read this blog will realise, I love nature, wildlife both flora and fauna. In fact one of my earliest memories was thumbing through the nature section at the back of the AA drivers manual. I couldnt tell you what seven times nine was but my god I could tell you the difference between your tufted vetch and your common knapweed!

So it seems apt that on this last blog for the 2007 holiday I write a list of all the wildlife I can recall seeing while I was in California.

muir woods
moose
blue jay
chipmunk
ladybugs
black tailed deer
elephant seal
sea lions of pier 39
woodpecker (maybe the Ladder-backed?)
turkey
Californian condor
butterfly
American white ibis
Californian Ground Squirrel
mule deer

20 years after the Great Storm!

It's hard to believe that it's 20 years ago I bought my first house - how do I remember? Because nine weeks later the great storm hit and we had no water, no power and the fences had fallen down so how to keep two dogs in the graden!

It was a nightmare. We tried to get to work but being 22 miles away from work and in the epi-centre of the storm we shouldnt have bothered. It took seven hours to get to work and then of course we were told to go home (dont forget this was in the days before internet access and mobile phones - hard to believe eh?) It was a true nightmare and now whenever there is a lot of wind and rain in the night I cant sleep because I think that another storm is on it's way!

our last night in LA

This is our last day in the US and to be honest we are both ready to go home and in my case I cant wait to see and hug Harvey. For our last evening we went to the Napa Rose (Suzette's recommendation). This is a restaurant within the Disney complex next to the Calif adventure theme park. I wasnt ready for the shock of just how up-market this part of Anaheim has become. This wasnt or isnt the old Anaheim I was used to. The hotel is incredibly decadent and the restaurant was wonderful. Decorated on the Rennie Macintosh style it oozed quality but without being pretentious. The wine was the best I've probably ever had and the food was second to none. I had the most amazing pork chop with braised red cabbage and pear puree and Alan had the most amazing steak. I could get used to this kind of quality! Alan be warned ;)

...and so back to the bar

after a day out in the Californian Adventure we went back to the bar at our hotel to have a meal and a few nightcaps with Suzette and Lori. The last time we will see these guys for a while - even though we will keep in contact by email.

Californian Adventure

So we got up at about 10am and get this - it was raining!! Yes, it does rain in LA and this is proof! But it had stopped about an hour later and the sky was blue and it was warm which was good because we were in Disneylands next door neighbour the Californian Adventure. We visited this park when it first opened in 2001 and this is our first return. It's nowhere near as fun for us as Disneyland but is still a very good day out. I would say it's more for the adrenalin junkie which we are certainly not but even so we still enjoyed a couple of really good rides as well as some typical sea front fun fair games - I even won a couple of prizes!



The other difference with this park from it's neighour is that it serves alcohol. In fact it apart from a micro-brewery stand it also has wine tasting which seems hugely popular.

We then spent the evening in Downtown Disney where there were some superb halloween costumes (which is so popular in the US) .

....there's more

A hat is for every occasion!

Ever since I lived in Kingston as a kid, I've always been drawn over to the hat department of any store - in that case it was BHS. i simply love trying on hats. So off course when you go to a shop that only sells hats and then find other shops in Disneyland that also only sell hats what can I do? It's a compulsion.....

Complete Slob Day

So tired after yesterday, couldnt do anything, just read, did a bit of shopping and slobbed out - gotta get our strength back for another round of walking and rides tomorrow in the Californian Adventure! Cant wait!

and so onto our annual pilgrimage......

...... Disneyland! Advertised as the 'Happiest Place on Earth' but also a Mecca for people watching. I swear I saw a sumo wrestling mother there today amongst many other weird and truly wonderful. God knows we have our own set of weirdos in the UK but this place is people spotting at a premium (didn't I say that in last years blog?)

Anyway, onto the real reason to visit Disneyland - the rides. Sadly, our favourite ride ( Indiana Jones) has now shut for maintenance which threw us both as we always run over to that ride to start our day. The other disappointment was that the Splash Mountain ride closed while we were queuing up - I've only riden this twice because it always seems to break down!

The other rides we took in were The Haunted Mansion, The Matterhorn (3 times), Buzz Lightyear (see picture - twice), Star Tours, Snow White (what a waste of time!), Roger Rabbit, Pirates of the Caribbean and last but not least the Finding Nemo exhibit which is the old submarine ride (name escapes me) that's been re-furbed. When it re-opened last month there was a 3.5 hour waiting - we waited an hour as it's so popular (most other rides today were only about 20-40 mins) so was it worth it? Not sure. It's good, it's popular but it's only OK - perhaps I'm too old for this particular ride :0

I believe this is my seventh visit to Disneyland (eight if you count Orlando) and I think it's Alan's sixth (plus two visits for him to Orlando) and do we ever get bored of it? Do we hell - in fact we're off to the Californian Adventure on Friday (that's if we get over today - I'm knackered!) to get some more ooooh's and wooooh's and you never know I may even be pursuaded to ride the roller coaster :)

Off to the bar now for a couple of nightcaps - although I think I may fall asleep on with my drink in my hand - it's been a long day!

Did the earth move for you?

I didnt feel a thing! We are sitting in the bar at the Hotel (now known as the Anaheim Maingate - thereby hangs another tale) and we realise that while we were in Long Beach there was an earthquake!!! Yes, an earthquake! 3.1 on the richter scale!! As I said - neither of us felt a thing!!