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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
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 ... |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
"Mike" Mike@com wrote in message ... Hello, Hi. snip Arrived at SFO early afternoon, then stood in a long queue at immigration as they fingerprinted and photographed everyone. I'm curious -- how long were you made to wait? I'm not particularly happy with the way we are treating our foreign guests. 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! Good for you! snip 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, That's Lombard. You were very close to where I live. 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 shops don't open until 10:00, and you were in a residential neighborhood. If you'd walked three blocks south to Polk, you'd have seen lots of people visiting the various coffee shops and markets. 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. You were just in the wrong part. Where you were is called Russian Hill, and is a somewhat tony residential area. Amazing, in Europe there's always loads of shops around tourist areas. One of my pet peeves. San Francisco has tourist areas, but Russian Hill isn't one of them (though it is nice to look at the Edwardian homes which dot the area). We live within ear shot of the Hyde street cable car line which, most people forget, is part of the SF municipal transport system. During the week, residents (myself included) use it for transportation to work downtown. On the weekends, however, it is taken over by tourists who, evidently, think it is a thrill ride equal to amusement park rollercoasters. On Friday and Saturday nights, we always hear tourists screaming as the cable car comes down Hyde from Lombard, and the passes Chestnut on the way to Bay. 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. The trick is to walk up two blocks to the next cable car stop. No queue. snip I hope you and your family had a nice time. |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
"The trick is to walk up two blocks to the next cable car stop. No queue."
I posted the same a couple of years ago and got lambasted by a San Francisco resident who was most peeved that I (another tourist Brit) had rumbled his "solution"!:-) -- ***** *****The "return to" address embedded in this mail is wrong as an antispam measure. Please address new mails or replies to edwarddotharrison1atbtinternetdotcom replacing dot with a . and at with an @***** ***** |
#4
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
"Graham Harrison" wrote in message ... "The trick is to walk up two blocks to the next cable car stop. No queue." I posted the same a couple of years ago and got lambasted by a San Francisco resident who was most peeved that I (another tourist Brit) had rumbled his "solution"!:-) Ooops. You're right -- I should have kept my mouth shut! -- ***** *****The "return to" address embedded in this mail is wrong as an antispam measure. Please address new mails or replies to edwarddotharrison1atbtinternetdotcom replacing dot with a . and at with an @***** ***** |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 02:55:39 GMT, "PTRAVEL"
wrote: Arrived at SFO early afternoon, then stood in a long queue at immigration as they fingerprinted and photographed everyone. I'm curious -- how long were you made to wait? I'm not particularly happy with the way we are treating our foreign guests. Unfortunately we got into the wrong queue, our guy was taking ages to process people and I suppose it took him about an hour and a half to process us and the 8 or so groups of people ahead of us in the queue. We could see our suitcases going round and round on the carousel behind him and by the time we got through ours were the only bags left!! Still, we didn't mind too much -- we were on holiday! 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! Good for you! Yes, he obviously hadn't come across a female priest before and for some reason it really surprised him especially as we had 2 kids. He even asked our youngest whether we were his parents, our son gave him a really black look and said "yes, of course we were"! I'll tell you about our experiences flying out of LA in another message! That's Lombard. You were very close to where I live. Looked a very nice area to live in. I'm not a city person myself although I did live in London for 8 years during the 1980s, but I really liked SF -- one of the best cities I've ever visited. 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 shops don't open until 10:00, and you were in a residential neighborhood. If you'd walked three blocks south to Polk, you'd have seen lots of people visiting the various coffee shops and markets. I think it was about noon by the time we got to Lombard. 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. The trick is to walk up two blocks to the next cable car stop. No queue. We didn't mind, we'd had our cable car ride earlier and we're all very keen walkers -- that was one of the main reasons for this trip, to go and do some hiking in some of the national parks, so the SF hills posed few problems for us! I hope you and your family had a nice time. We certainly did! Cheers Mike |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
Mike,
I was interested to read your trip report, having myself just completed an 11 week US trip with my wife and kids aged 10 and 11. I wrote various reports from the cities and places we visited for family and friends - maybe I should knock it into shape and post some of it here...I also am grateful for the many helpful tips I got from members of this group. It was a very useful resource in planning the trip. One comment really surprised me - the bit about finding it difficult to adjust to driving an automatic car. Surely it would be the other way around? A driver used to an automatic would have real trouble with a manual... I would have thought driving on the other side of the road would be the tricky part - certainly it took me a little while to get used to it, and my wife would only drive on the highways, not around the cities. I know in Britain and Europe manual transmissions are probably still the norm. Here in Australia probably it is about 2/3 automatic - not as much as the USA where it's something like 90%. 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 that was the thing. We'd buy 'French Breadsticks' or 'Italian Rolls' in the stores only to find they were soft and soggy like those dinner rolls. If you look around a bit you can generally find something close to the real thing - if a baguette is labelled as a 'Crunchy French Baguette' as opposed to simply a 'baguette', then it will be more like what you are probably used to. This does not apply to NYC where you can visit the many delis and find all kinds of wonderful breads, cheeses etc. The other funny thing was the fact that the cheese is often orange rather than yellow. At a buffet in Vegas early in the trip, my kids scooped a whole heap of it onto their plates from the salad bar, thinking it was shredded carrot! Generally we would just ask for 'Swiss' when cheese was involved and it was fine. Anyway, these issues are minor in the scheme of things and we had an absolutely wonderful time. The American people were invariably kind and helpful and we'll have many fond memories for years to come. Missing it already... Kind regards, Dom "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 ... |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
"Mike" Mike@com wrote in message ... On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 02:55:39 GMT, "PTRAVEL" wrote: Arrived at SFO early afternoon, then stood in a long queue at immigration as they fingerprinted and photographed everyone. I'm curious -- how long were you made to wait? I'm not particularly happy with the way we are treating our foreign guests. Unfortunately we got into the wrong queue, our guy was taking ages to process people and I suppose it took him about an hour and a half to process us and the 8 or so groups of people ahead of us in the queue. We could see our suitcases going round and round on the carousel behind him and by the time we got through ours were the only bags left!! Still, we didn't mind too much -- we were on holiday! 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! Good for you! Yes, he obviously hadn't come across a female priest before and for some reason it really surprised him especially as we had 2 kids. He even asked our youngest whether we were his parents, our son gave him a really black look and said "yes, of course we were"! I'll tell you about our experiences flying out of LA in another message! That's Lombard. You were very close to where I live. Looked a very nice area to live in. I'm not a city person myself although I did live in London for 8 years during the 1980s, but I really liked SF -- one of the best cities I've ever visited. 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 shops don't open until 10:00, and you were in a residential neighborhood. If you'd walked three blocks south to Polk, you'd have seen lots of people visiting the various coffee shops and markets. I think it was about noon by the time we got to Lombard. 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. The trick is to walk up two blocks to the next cable car stop. No queue. We didn't mind, we'd had our cable car ride earlier and we're all very keen walkers -- that was one of the main reasons for this trip, to go and do some hiking in some of the national parks, so the SF hills posed few problems for us! I hope you and your family had a nice time. We certainly did! Cheers Mike Well good that you didn't mind! I just came back from the Southwest too. We even stayed at the same Holiday Inn Express Three Rivers as you and I would recommend it too. Very nice people running the place also. In regards to the security issue, I had to catch a connection between Toronto and Denver and the lines were horrible. Atleast they were calling forward people who had connections within the hour. This was only happening after you picked up a bag that had been on terminal transfer carousels. I waited 45 minutes for a bag to come between terminals. It only took me ten minutes to cross. Next time I will tow my bag directly with me! We almost missed our flight out and thank goodness they were extremely efficient in Denver and got our bags onto our San Diego flight in the nik of time! It still irks me that we had to go through US immigration within Canada... Going home in Toronto we had just an hour between flights. Thank goodness our Denver flight arrived 15 minutes early. We decided we could wait for the next morning for our bags to arrive in Halifax if need be and started the process of changing terminals. Not even several uniformed ground staff could direct us to the right bus stop...we were at that time atleast 20 people trying to make this transfer - all connecting on different flights. Finally we got to the right stop and waited and waited for the bus to arrive..(purportedly very fast service). It arrives and we get to the other terminal. This time Canadian Customs and Immigration doesn't use the same process. No calling ahead of those with impending connections..just stand in line and pray you don't miss your flight. We got through in due process and then got to the other side looking for our Gate Number to be posted. We go to the gate and sit and wait with about 10 other people...it's boarding time ...no airline staff..no other passengers. People go check the gate postings again...finally somebody shows up to say we are at the wrong gate - the wrong gate number had been posted. They have held the plane for us and as I look out the window from my seat I see my bag being the last one loaded on the plane! PHEW!! I travel a lot and yes, there can be glitches but the new services in Toronto are terrible. I always B**ch about Heathrow...Terminal 3 ..but I will give it a reprieve for a brief period. Denver ranks as efficient as Schipol in Amsterdam or Kastrup in Copenhagen. As far as the US security issues I find it all a bit overkill. The fact that I can't lock my suitcase while travelling through the states is a bit disconcerting. I am sure they can come up with better systems for this. The customs/immigration line up issue needs much closer attention to efficiency. We will see how things will improve. So glad you had a great trip. I agree about your comment on AAA maps and the signage for Sequoia NP...also the sugar coated breakfasts etc. We loved Zion NP too. We were down in San Diego for a conference and loved that city. Also, spent time in Vegas and had a bit of fun. Loved The Blue Man Group. toodles HeatherM |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
Mike@com (Mike) wrote in message ...
Pity you didn't find decent food in San Francisco - one of the best eating cities in the world. Keep in mind, you were in very middle class hotels & sad to say, but differences between healthy food eating patterns & demand for high quality food between the middle & upper class are huge in the US. |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 12:41:54 GMT, "Dominic Kelly"
wrote: Mike, I was interested to read your trip report, having myself just completed an 11 week US trip with my wife and kids aged 10 and 11. I wrote various reports from the cities and places we visited for family and friends - maybe I should knock it into shape and post some of it here...I also am grateful for the many helpful tips I got from members of this group. It was a very useful resource in planning the trip. I agree! One comment really surprised me - the bit about finding it difficult to adjust to driving an automatic car. Surely it would be the other way around? A driver used to an automatic would have real trouble with a manual... I would have thought driving on the other side of the road would be the tricky part - certainly it took me a little while to get used to it, and my wife would only drive on the highways, not around the cities. I know in Britain and Europe manual transmissions are probably still the norm. Here in Australia probably it is about 2/3 automatic - not as much as the USA where it's something like 90%. I found it no problem, other than grabbing the door handle occasionally to "change gear" when the car hadn't guessed that I wanted to change! Over in Britain, most cars are manual gearboxes. I suppose we just prefer the better response and control it gives us while driving. The main people who drive automatics are generally, the old, infirm, physically handicapped, and fat, lazy BMW-driving executives! ;-) I think the wife was just a bit scared of driving with the stearing wheel on the "wrong" side of the car along with driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Once back in the UK, we were driving home up the M1 and I pulled into a service station to get some petrol. I completely forgot that I was in 5th gear and driving a manual and I stalled the car pulling in to the petrol station!! 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 that was the thing. We'd buy 'French Breadsticks' or 'Italian Rolls' in the stores only to find they were soft and soggy like those dinner rolls. If you look around a bit you can generally find something close to the real thing - if a baguette is labelled as a 'Crunchy French Baguette' as opposed to simply a 'baguette', then it will be more like what you are probably used to. This does not apply to NYC where you can visit the many delis and find all kinds of wonderful breads, cheeses etc. Yes, we all complained about how soft the bread was too ! I think we were stopping in quite small towns and so choice was limited. The other funny thing was the fact that the cheese is often orange rather than yellow. At a buffet in Vegas early in the trip, my kids scooped a whole heap of it onto their plates from the salad bar, thinking it was shredded carrot! Generally we would just ask for 'Swiss' when cheese was involved and it was fine. Anyway, these issues are minor in the scheme of things and we had an absolutely wonderful time. The American people were invariably kind and helpful and we'll have many fond memories for years to come. Missing it already... I agree, we're all missing it and the kids are pushing hard to go to Florida next so we can compare the Disney parks there with Anaheim and Paris!! Kind regards, Dom Cheers Mike |
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A British Trip Report to California/Utah/Arizona Part 1 (and thanks!)
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 that was the thing. We'd buy 'French Breadsticks' or 'Italian Rolls' in the stores only to find they were soft and soggy like those dinner rolls. If you look around a bit you can generally find something close to the real thing - if a baguette is labelled as a 'Crunchy French Baguette' as opposed to simply a 'baguette', then it will be more like what you are probably used to. This does not apply to NYC where you can visit the many delis and find all kinds of wonderful breads, cheeses etc. 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 Also look for smaller local places, Julie -- Julie ********** Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm |
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