Ey 'up. We're back, jetlagged and happy. Some of you may be asking what we have brought back ? About half a stone and an extra four inches around the middle, by 'eck, those Yanks don't half like to eat. As is usual when Mrs YS and myself are on holiday, we don't do laid back and lazy, for two weeks we have assiduously explored Las Vegas, New Orleans and New York, we have tried wherever possible to immerse ourselves in the culture, food, and of course wine, of our hosts, we have searched out every interesting thing we could in the short span of time we had in the three cities (and beyond). I will provide more piccis and scribblings over the next few weeks, but here is a photographic sampler of our tour...... The dancing fountains of Bellagio, Las Vegas, they're fountains, they dance, it is most pretty. Big skies over Arizona, which is flat, for hundreds of miles, and then some. Las Vegas Veterans Day Parade, like our Rememberance Day Parades, except that people actually take part and turn out to watch, in their tens of thousands. Oooh spooky, tombs of dead folks in Lafayette No.1, New Orleans. Anne Rice's house in the Garden, New Orleans, but by the signs, she's moving out. From the front this just looks like a large house, from the other side it looks like a mid size hotel with grounds, Lestat must have done alright for her. The Seven Sisters Voodoo Shrine, Algiers, New Orleans. The Hoover Dam. Mr and Mrs YS, she's thinking "Just because we're on holiday, you could shave at least once a week." Caverns of light, New York. Ground Zero, New York. The kitchen at the excellent, and cheap, M&B - New York. Times Square, New York. View from the top of the Empire State Building, looking across to the Chrysler Building and the Hudson River.