A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)

Hi Mike,

Just read your trip and look forward to the rest!

Sounds like
you had yourselves a good time

Anticipating the next instalment!


--
LadyTyger


Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Juliana L Holm wrote:
Mike Mike@com wrote:

Like you, we had trouble finding the kind of bread we were used to at home -
although in our case it was the softness of it rather than the sweetness
snip
Yes, we all complained about how soft the bread was too !

Here in Washington DC we also have some European Style bakeries wehre
you can get good bread. When I come home from a Vacation in Europe,
especially Germany, I always go through Bread Withdrawal.

Au Bon Pain has some decent french style breads
Great Harvest Bread company also has a lot.
Gourmet Supermarkets, and places like Fresh Fields/Whole Foods
have them.
Panera

I've visited most westcoast states and the Rockies, but never had
any trouble finding 'European style' bread. The Safeways etc. had
lots of brown breads. Even the smaller towns had 'my' bread.

Regards,

Jan Jongejan
Dept. Comp.Sci.,
Univ. of Groningen,
Netherlands.

Mike@com (Mike) wrote in message ...
Day 2: Up at the crack of dawn, eventually it was breakfast time,
wandered down and had breakfast, but why is nearly everything so
sweet?


Next time order bacon/eggs/hashbrowns/sourdough toast for you and the
missus and 2 sideplates so you can share with the kiddies. No sweets
involved unless you eat the jelly/jam.

Day 3: 9am. Walked around the corner from the hotel to pick up our car
at Hertz. Nice car, a Nissan, but why have a 2.5l engine? 1.6 or 1.8
would have done and would have saved on petrol/gas. It was an
automatic gearbox as expected. Only driven an automatic twice before,
both times in the US, but soon got the hang of it again. The wife has
never driven an automatic before in all her 25 years of driving so
despite me saying it's really easy she was very reluctant to drive,

Hi,

in the US there are LOTS of people who can't drive a manual of any sort.

and if you can drive a manual what is there to driving an automatic? put
it in D and go.

Day 4, Monday: Still waking up early, so we were in the village by
8:30am. We were all getting a bit fed up with American food and how
sweet it all seemed to be so we were really pleased to see bread
advertised in the village store as French bread, bought lots along
with fruit and cheese for lunch. (We normally holiday in France where
we all live on French bread, fruit and cheese.) Hopped onto the
shuttle bus and went to Happy Isles. Saw a coyote and some deer on the
way. Hiked up the Mist Trail, excellent fun, we all got soaked by
Vernal waterfall. Had lunch, the French bread was so sweet, seemed
like they'd added half a kilo of sugar to the dough. Definitely not
like bread in France!! Is there an equivalent of the UK's Trade
Descriptions Act in the US? !!

yes there is... kinda.

but "french bread" relates more to the shape of the loaf in the states.

I can get good fresh "french" bread locally but it's really nothing like
the bread I get in france... specifically the crust is lacking and it's
both lighter and sweeter.

Day 6: Checked out and then went for our final look at Yosemite.
Walked to the foot of El Capitan and then drove to Tunnel View to say
our goodbyes. I really liked San Francisco but I definitely left my
heart in Yosemite! Drove to Sequoia NP. Got lost a few times on the
myirad of roads in the main valley, swore constantly at the lack of
road signs and the appalling quality of the AAA maps -- just not up to
UK and European standards.

or US standards for that matter... the AAA maps are just throw away maps
to give you an idea of where major stuff is.

in the US the "standard" map is the Rand McNally(sp?) atlas and it's
pretty good until you get to cities then you get a local city map at the
gas station.

In the end we resorted to using a compass

I do that in europe... I've got my little flat compass tucked in my pack
with my swiss army knife on the other end of the cord.

ttyl

akia

how do the gay & hardcore porn items get posted in this group?? I will be
unsubscribing until you put better filters on these postings !!
"Mike" Mike@com wrote in message
...
Hello,

Earlier on this year I asked for help on a trip we were planning to
the west and south west US during May/June and received great help
from you guys. So, many thanks to you all, can't remember all your
names but thanks especially to Iconclast and Keith Willshaw. We had a
great time. Keep up the great work.

A shortish trip report follows! (in 2 parts)

Part 1

When: 28th May -- 11th June, 2004

Who: Mike - that's me!, the wife and our two sons aged 11 and 8.

Day 1: London Heathrow to San Francisco on Virgin. Long but good
flight, Virgin are highly recommended especially for the kids. Their
on-flight entertainment kept us all occupied. Arrived at SFO early
afternoon, then stood in a long queue at immigration as they
fingerprinted and photographed everyone. However, we all had a great
laugh at the US immigration guys' expense. After a bit of a grilling
from him he asked me what I did -- computer programmer, nice and easy
and then he made the mistake of asking my wife. She said I'm a vicar,
a priest! His jaw fell open and he completely lost it! He got all
flustered and handed us our passports and waved us through. He
completely forgot to fingerprint and photograph us!

Took a taxi to the Holiday Inn Express, Fisherman's Wharf -- nice
hotel, recommended. Took a wander around Fisherman's Wharf in the
afternoon and we all crashed out at about 8:30pm

Day 2: Up at the crack of dawn, eventually it was breakfast time,
wandered down and had breakfast, but why is nearly everything so
sweet? Saw possibly the most gross sight we had ever seen. A young man
probably in his 20s who was at least 25 - 30 stone in weight (350 -
400lb) who was waddling back from the breakfast bar holding against
his blubber a paper plate with 3 large iced doughnuts on while
stuffing his face with another doughnut. Later I saw him coming back
with a repeat load. We didn't stop to see how many times he went back
as we were no longer hungry! I know that the UK has an obesity problem
as well as the US but this nearly made us all sick! How anyone could
eat 1 doughnut for breakfast was beyond us. Our youngest son tried one
and gave up after a few bites, it was just too sickly sweet even for
him.

Walked to the start of the Powell-Mason cable car and rode it to the
end, nice and empty at 9am. Had a wander around the shops and walked
to Union Sq. Then walked to Grace Cath., nice church, lovely and cool.
Then carried on walking to the crooked street, the streets were empty,
Ok it's a bit hilly but was a bit surprised that we were about the
only people walking in that part of SF on a Saturday morning! The
wife's batteries on her digital camera had died and one of the spares
that we carried hadn't recharged properly. Disaster! Surprised to find
no shops around that area. Amazing, in Europe there's always loads of
shops around tourist areas. Walked down to Ghiradelli Sq. Brought 4
AAs for the camera, had lunch - nice clam chowder. Thought about
taking the cable car back up to Lombard Street but the queues were
enormous so we walked. After a quick photo shoot and a wander up and
down the street we walked back to Fisherman's Wharf via lots of shops
etc. Spent the evening on Fisherman's Wharf. Still partly on UK time
so we all crashed out about 9pm.

Day 3: 9am. Walked around the corner from the hotel to pick up our car
at Hertz. Nice car, a Nissan, but why have a 2.5l engine? 1.6 or 1.8
would have done and would have saved on petrol/gas. It was an
automatic gearbox as expected. Only driven an automatic twice before,
both times in the US, but soon got the hang of it again. The wife has
never driven an automatic before in all her 25 years of driving so
despite me saying it's really easy she was very reluctant to drive, in
the end I did all the driving on the trip. Good job it was a sunday
morning as the streets were empty! Drove to the Golden Gate Bridge,
stopped at the park and had a lovely walk. It was a really gorgeous
morning and the sunlight sparkled off the water. Drove over the
bridge, then around the bay and back over the next bridge and headed
out towards Yosemite. Got to Yosemite village late afternoon. It was
the sunday of the memorial weekend and it had obviously been chaos
there earlier that day, but thankfully everyone was going home as we
arrived. Stayed at El Portal for 3 nights -- Yosemite view, nice hotel
a bit expensive though for what it was.

Day 4, Monday: Still waking up early, so we were in the village by
8:30am. We were all getting a bit fed up with American food and how
sweet it all seemed to be so we were really pleased to see bread
advertised in the village store as French bread, bought lots along
with fruit and cheese for lunch. (We normally holiday in France where
we all live on French bread, fruit and cheese.) Hopped onto the
shuttle bus and went to Happy Isles. Saw a coyote and some deer on the
way. Hiked up the Mist Trail, excellent fun, we all got soaked by
Vernal waterfall. Had lunch, the French bread was so sweet, seemed
like they'd added half a kilo of sugar to the dough. Definitely not
like bread in France!! Is there an equivalent of the UK's Trade
Descriptions Act in the US? !! Then we left the tourists and carried
on up to Clark Point I think it was called and back down the JMT. Most
of the tourists just seemed to walk up and down the Mist Trail so it
was nice and peaceful on the JMT -- only "real" hikers! Ate at the
pizza barn in the village that evening after a wander around the Ansel
Adams gallery.

Day 5: After the previous day's fairly strenous 6 mile hike (at least
it was for our 8 year old son) we took it a bit easier and hiked to
Mirror Lake and then carried on up the valley another mile or 2 to the
bridge and back down the other side -- about 4 miles flat hiking.
Again we hardly saw anyone once we were past Mirror Lake. Back to the
village by early afternoon. Joined the tourists at Lower Yosemite
Falls and then we decided to drive up to Glacier Point. Great choice!
One of our highlights of the whole trip was standing up there and
looking on Half Dome in the late afternoon sun and then looking down
on the valley. Back down to the village and pizza again in Degan's
Barn -- the kids like pizza!

Day 6: Checked out and then went for our final look at Yosemite.
Walked to the foot of El Capitan and then drove to Tunnel View to say
our goodbyes. I really liked San Francisco but I definitely left my
heart in Yosemite! Drove to Sequoia NP. Got lost a few times on the
myirad of roads in the main valley, swore constantly at the lack of
road signs and the appalling quality of the AAA maps -- just not up to
UK and European standards. In the end we resorted to using a compass
to make sure we were heading roughly in the right direction!
Eventually we made it to Sequioa by mid afternoon and had a short walk
amongst the trees.

We were on our way out of Sequioa NP going down to Three Rivers when
the 2 cars ahead of us stopped in the middle of the road, What's going
on I asked? Then a very young black bear wandered out of the trees,
crossed in front of us and walked slowly along the verge towards our
car, passing only about a metre from us. Luckily mum or dad were
nowhere in sight. One of the highlights of the trip!

Stayed in Three Rivers at the Holiday Inn Express. probably the best
hotel of the whole trip, excellent value at $60 for us all, very
clean, small but good pool and included another sugar laden breakfast!

Day 7: Long day driving to Death Valley. Thankfully, I'd bought a copy
of Stephen Fry reading the latest Harry Potter book -- 28 CDs! I just
love that guy's voice and the way he brings the Harry Potter books to
life. Kept us all occupied and the CDs ran out on the last day of
trip.

Death Valley is a strange place, way too hot for me, we loaded up with
water as you guys recommended. We got there late afternoon, still
about 45 degrees (I think that's about 113F). We watched the sunset
and then had a lovely swim in the pool at Furnace Creek by starlight.
Later I turned on the cold tap in our room to clean my teeth, the
water was hot, tried the other tap that was even hotter -- wierd!

To be continued ...

Cindy & Ken wrote:
how do the gay & hardcore porn items get posted in this group?? I will be
unsubscribing until you put better filters on these postings !!


Talk to your News Provider, they're the culprits.

In all the years I've been in this group, never once have I seen porn. I've
seen garbage posts, ridiculous posts, stupid ads for resorts marquerading as
posts, but never porn. Nex