Don't Shoot Me, I Only Work Here

Lake Havasu Lake Havasu is an artificially created lake based around London Bridge in the centre of the resort. It is popular with Moorhen. Really popular. Sometimes you see big signs on fences that say thing like "Private, go away, secret, you're not wanted here", that sort of thing. Sometimes I just get the urge to see what is beyond these sort of signs, quite often I find that people just want to keep the really pretty views all for themselves. Lake Havasu Golf Club, if you've chosen to live in the middle of a desert, you may as well build a putting green on you front lawn. Discount for cash buyer.

London Bridge - Lake Havasu We arrived at Lake Havasu at dusk, found ourselves a nice motel then went out for dinner. The Lake Havasu Lights Festival was just begining. That's London Bridge, the focal point around which the resort was created.

Yuma to Lake Havasu In the morning we visited the gaol at Yuma, whihc is about the only touristy thing to do in town. We had read that there was a historic town centre, but a lot of the shops and restaurants were closed / deserted. The reception staff at the hotel laughed when we told them we were on holiday, they couldn't understand why anyone would want to visit Yuma, but they were very friendly and helpful and found us a really nice family run Mexican restaurant to eat at. Pigeons flying over Yuma rail bridge, with the road bridge just behind. Outside Yuma, in addition to the vast cattle fattening sheds, there are miles and miles of lettuce fields, they stretch along the road side as far as the eye can see. No rain seems to fall here, but they grow the most water hungry plants there are. The road, this was a driving holiday after all so we saw quite a lot of this view. Much of Arizona is flat as a pancake, but hills and mountains rise up out of the plain just like kids draw mountains, big steep peaks with no foothills. The scenery in the hills and mountains is stunning and the camera never really seems to capture the stark beauty your eyes can see. Suddenly amidst the desert, a lake and a river with miles of rushes crowding its banks and shallows. We set off from Yuma with the iea of staying at Quartzsite, but this turned out to be miles upon mile of mobile homes and big camper vans, a petrol station and three fast food outlets, so we pressed on Northwards to Lake Havasu. I love this hill, it looks like the peak from Close Encounters.

Yuma Yuma, close to the Mexican border, wasn't the most picturesque place we visited. In fact, this was the high point of our afternoon there, that and getting age checked at the Yuma branch of TGI Fridays. Note for any particularly stupid waiting on staff, I am 40, even with the best will in the world I don't look anything like 21. I'm at the sort of age when getting age checked is actually offensive, especially as the moronic waitress wouldn't let me buy a beer until I'd shown her my passport.

The Largest Bag Of Crisps Ever Seen The standard size American crisp packet, about the size of a child's sleeping bag. It's got a 'Buy 2 for a $ less offer', which is useful because then you've got some cheap pillows. The Americans do like their supersizes, a hint for Europeans travelling in the USA, don't ever ask for a large soft drink, they are roughly the size of a jacuzzi.

Arizona - Sonoma Desert Museum Desert Museum Website After beautiful Sedona we hit the road again and drove South to parched, sun baked Sedona. It's not a cactus, but I forget what it is, spiky though. The landscape, semi-scrub desert with lots of cowboy film cacti. A hummingbird, they are really fast, I seem to have lots of photographs of blurry green streaks at the edge of the frame, this one is the closest I got to getting one in good focus. ....and some more plants that I have forgotten the name of.... It was a good day out, I would recommend it to anyone in and around Sonoma.

Sedona When we were in Flagstaff, Arizona, people kept telling us to visit Sedona, they said it was really beautiful, so we did, and it was. We stayed in a nice motel with really nice rooms and it only cost about £25 / $50 because we had to go and see a timeshare presantation the next morning. In addition they gave us $40 of food / shopping vouchers which we could spend at restaurants in town and a free pass to the Christmas Lights Fayre. I had no intention of buying a timeshare so to get dinner and a room for that price was well worth it. The picture above was the view from our bedroom's balcony, pretty stunning ? This is the main street of pretty / touristy Sedona. Is is a wonderfully attractive place but does suffer slightly from an overabundance of timeshare / jeep tour sellers all trying to entice you in. Mrs YS with some strange piggy statues, these were by a local artist and based on Javelinas which are a kind of Peccary, or small pig like beastie. We had thought that while dining on the rim of the Grand Canyon that we were at the restaurant with the best view in America, but we thought that this was even more beautiful. These wonderful iron ore stained mountainous outcrops rise up all around Sedona which nestles in the midst of them. I went walking of course, as was described here in "Mad Dogs, Englishmen, Shit". We had already driven through some pretty remarkable landscapes, but I just had to get out on foot here, it was wonderful. You get much more from the land by walking on it. I dare say the bumpy, dusty jeep tours were a barrel of laughs, but you don't get the same feel for a place when roaring around in a motor vehicle. I walked up to the base of this formation before turning for home. After my hike I sat in the outdoor jacuzzi with a book, a couple of cans of lager and my camera to hand as the sun began to set. I could hear the gentle buzz of voices from the restaurant, and the happy shrieks of children made soft by distance, the warm water whirled softly around me and I did think that life really doesn't get much better then this.

Why You Should Visit Kingman Well, I'm buggered if I can think of a reason. The guidebook says that Kingman has a population similar to that of Ilkley, around 11,000, but they all appear to live in semi-permanent mobile homes, after driving around for a while it would appear that the only 'proper' buildings are the endless row of fast food joints that crowd the main road, it's a hole. Later on in our journey we learn that residents of other Arizona towns refer to Kingman as the 'Armpit of Arizona'. So last night we stayed in the awesome MGM Grand in Las Vegas, tonight we're holed in the small and smelly AAA Motel, it is cheap though, and that is the only good thing you can say about it. In the evening we eat at a diner in the 'old town' (I have underpants older than most of white America) where our cheap and filling 3 course meal gets served all at once, bizarre. I also make the mistake of trying a local beverage, root beer, Oh good grief no ! You know when you wash your mouth out at the dentist ? That's what root beer tastes like. Kingman really was poor, we didn't like the room and felt none too secure in it, so in the small hours of the next morning as we lay awake in the dark chatting, we decided to move on. We had a quick coffee at the truck stop opposite, and then drive off into the Arizona dawn. There are warning signs constantly along the roads pointing out the dangers of deer and elk, we saw a few deer off in the distance in the dawn light, but no sign of the imposing elk.

Grand Canyon West Rim & Skybridge This was out view for most of the 20 or miles of rough road leading to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. Mrs YS thought it was hilarious, she threw our 4WD around corners at speeds that had me grabbing for the handholds and muttering/whimpering "I am about to die". Every vehicle raised huge clouds of dust which hung in the air for ages, despite being almost blinded by this, Mrs YS did at no point find it important to slow down, indeed she spent most of the journey laughing like a raving maniac. This is the skybridge, it projects out over a vertical face of the Grand Canyon, beneath my feet is a clear glass floor so you can see the sphincter tightening 4,000ft drop. After a few minutes I feel slightly happier, but I'm still holding on. The guides on the bridge are busy telling you that it could hold a number of fully laden 747's, but I'll still grip the handrail if it's all the same with you. The Grand Canyon is stunning, it almost defies description, and photos just can't capture the immense, overwhelming grandeur of the place. This is the charmingly named Guano Point, if you can see the pylon down there in the Canyon, that's where miners used to go down on a cable to mine guano from the bat caves on the other side. Life and limb risked to mine bat crap, which was made into explosives and mascara. A Hualapia Indian performs a traditional dance in costume, I like that outfit. Meg, a huge Joshua Tree, and our enormous Dodge Durango which took us for hundreds upon hundreds of miles around Arizona And Nevada.

Las Vegas The dancing fountains in front of the Bellagio Hotel, these are really good, Mrs YS loves them. Ceiling detail in the Bellagio. I think this might be my favourite pic of the trip, it's a bit abstract, some metallic pillars and the i-pod advert playing on giant screens taking at an odd angle. If you get out of bed early in the morning in Las Vegas, you might just get to see the Las Vegas Police Department official jogging squad.

Last Day Well, it's our last day here in the USA, we have had a fabulous time, we've eaten our way around Arizona and Nevada, chilled in the mountains and roasted in the desert, it's been great. Lake Havasu was ok, but not great. We stood and took photos of London Bridge, watched the ducks for a while and had our Thanksgiving dinner there at the strange Hillbillies & Barbellies, can't complain about the price, but the dinner wasn't great. After Lake Havasu we moved on Northwards again with an idea to stay in Quartzsite or Oatman. Quartzsite turned out to be the world's largest gypsy camp, thousands of ginat RV's parked in endless rows all with little stalls in front selling all manner of low value tat to each other, and the dining possibilities looked liked McDonald's for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oatman was a fun diversion for a couple of hours, we saw a cowboy fight in the street and looked at the (semi) wild donkeys, or burros, that freely roam the streets, but again, places to stay and eat looked rather limited so we pushed on again for the remainder of the day, past dreadful Kingman (sorry if any readers live in Kingman, but your town really is the arse end of beyond) and back into Las Vegas in the evening. We checked back in to the MGM Grand, and for some reason we got upgraded and received a rather posh little suite with a fantastically comfortable bed. There is even a built in tv in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and a phone in the toilet, I'm sure that you dear reader, much like me, always nedd to make urgent phone calls whilst having a crap, or not. We dined rather better here, dinner at Wolfgang Puck's, Meg had a giant steak and I had the biggest piece of succulent char-grilled calves liver, really good.\ Last night we went to the circus, 'O' at Bellagio. To call it a circus is to underestimate the show, event, happening, call it what you will. It takes place on a rising and falling stage within a vast tank of water with lights, smoke and effects and dozens of athletic dancers, swimmers and high wire artists. The show is in constant motion, sections of the stage rise and sink in the pool so that where a dozen divers were vaulting into the water moments ago, now a parade of running men in red uniforms pound by on the hard surface, then it sinks again and a house rises up, a pirate ship descends from the ceiling, a parade of shrieking ballerinas appear from within the audience. Everything happens at once so your eye is constantly drawn from point to point in the non stop action, it was deeply impressive, I've never seen choreography anything like it. We're going out tonight for one last good dinner, then it's off to the airport in the morning for the first of our two flights, to Chicago and from there back to Manchester. We have both taking loads of photos so I'll be posting those when I get home, I hope everyone is ok, see you all soon, YS.

Down On The Border Mexico is only a few miles away, the weather last night was sweltering, still in the mid 70's close to midnight, Wednesday has dawned sunny but very windy indeed. A lot of the roads around here have large signs proclaiming "Warning : blowing dust area", we could be in for an interesting day's travel then. When we were at the desert museum, one of the staff said that Arizona is removing groundwater five times faster than rain falls, so for each million gallons that fall, five million gallons are used, this is surely leading to some kind of environmental disaster in the not too distant future. On the drive here you pass through hundreds of miles of scrub and cactus spotted hills, the rivers and washes contain nothing but sun baked stones, water seems only a distant memory, and then, whoosh, everything turns green. "Welcome to Green Hills Golf Course", way out here, or suddenly there are vast green fields being irrigated by enormous rolling sprayers, or fattening farms containing tens of thousands of cattle (which you can usually smell from miles away). It seems insane to have this sort of false greenery in what is a desert area. How are these dry southern states going to cope ? Thanksgiving is also approaching rapidly. This is the celebration enjoyed by many Americans to remember the generosity of the native people towards the first settlers who were slowley starving to death. The Indians brought them food and sustenance, in return the settlers stole their country, nice exchange. To be serious though, the native American tribes lived in tune with the land, they hunted and grew what they could and moved on to wetter parts if drought struck them. There are so many more people now though, chewing and drinking their way through the area's natural resources. This is fairly similar to what we saw on Spain's 'Golf Coast', golf courses, hotels, restaurants and their supporting industries springing up in areas which are naturally unsuitable for them. We plan on moving half way to Lake Havasu today, but first we might try and get a new sat nav, the one that came with the car dies yesterday. It's easy enough navigating between cities but I must admit the sat nav is a blessing when you're in an unfamiiar town.

90 In The Shade Yeehaw and all that, people here wear 10 gallon with no sense of irony, we're in baking hot Tuscon, way down in the South of Arizona, not so far from the Mexican border. Our travel plans, which have been fairly fluid, have changed again, it looks like we're not going to bother with a day trip to Mexico, but instead we are going to travel North again to Lake Havasu. This is a resort town where an enterprisng American bought London bridge and had it shipped over here and assembled, locals mocked him for two reasons........ 1) He may well habe thought that he was buying the rather impressive Tower Bridge, London bridge is actually a bit dull. 2) There is no river in Lake Havasu large enough for the bridge to cross. Undeterred by this, he built a river as well. Tuscon is hot, really hot, the temperature hovered at just under 90 all day yesterday as we wandered slowley around the Sonora Desert Museum. This was excellent value, 12 dollars and we spent almost the full day there seeing the various exhibitions, zoo and cactus gardens. Last night we dined at Jonathan's Cork, which had great write ups in all the Tuscon food press, but was rather average in reality. I have a last minute travel update from my wife, we're heading West ward to Yuma on the Mexican border. I'mreally enjoying this freefooted approach to holidaying, it suits us both rather well. We are getting to see and lots of stuff, but in no particular timeframe when we've wanted to move on, we move, when we can't be bothered, we book another night.

Mad Dogs, Englishmen, Shit From pretty Flagstaff we headed up into the mountains to ven more beautiful Sonoma A pretty if rather touristy little town nestled into some of the most stunning mountain scenery I have ever seen. The red mountains of Sonoma (stained by iron ores) rise up in steep weathered peaks all around the town, which itself sits in a green and leafy valley bottom with a river in it. The Grand Canyon is spectacular, but the views from here are almost too beautiful to describe. We found a really nice room for 20 quid ! 9as long as we went to the time share expo the next day), plus wegot 50 dollars in meal voushers and a free pass to the festival of Christmas lights, we didn't buy a timehsare so we've had a really good deal here. In the middle of the afternoon, with the temperature in the mid 70's, I went for a hike, I passed a number of signs displaying pictures of the local wildlife, tortoises - good, little pig things - good, snakes - not so good, scorpions - not very good at all, mountain lions - bloody hell, really ? Anyway, off I set, I crossed the river by means of a fallen tree and wandered off into counryside that rapidly became dense, spiky, almost impenetrable scrub, then I found a bit of a trail, and then I saw it, the turd. Now I'm not usually frightened of shit, you tend to see a lot of shit when you're outhiking, cows, rabbits, sheep, all produce copious amouts of shit and distribute it liberally across the landscape. /this though, it was large, more like that of a large dog, or more worryingly, very large cat, it had lots of fur in it, and little bones. Pretty much like the spoor of something that killed small furry things for dinner. I turned for home, back to the river, ducks arn't all that dangerous.

How (not) To Eat Ok then Yanks, you need a lesson in table manners. 1) How to use a knife and fork.....hold the knife in your right hand (or in your left if you're cack handed), the fork in your left, hold them as you would a pencil with the haft in the palm of your hand. DO NOT hold them upright in clenched fists and then turn your fist over to cut your dinner, it makes you look like a caveman. Next, cut up your food with a sawing motion, pin the food with your fork, cut with the knife (see, that's why they give you knives at dinner !). There is now no need to put down your knife, swap your fork into your right hand and use that to pick up your mouthful of food, but that's what folk do, then transfer the fork back to the left hand, pick up the knife and start all over again. Honestly, it's simpler and more efficient the way us Europeans do it, and it looks smarter as well. 2) How to serve a three course meal. Many main courses, particularly in diners, come with a free soup, and you may have ordered a starter as well. How I would like this served is..... Soup (or starter if you must), then a decent pause whilst I eat my soup. Starter (or soup, hey ho), then a decent pause whilst I eat my starter. Main course, then, well you've got the idea. What often seems to happen is this.... "Hey buddy, here's your soup, and your starter, and Dave's just behind me bringing your entree, have you thought about dessert and coffee yet ?" We had a all our courses at once last night and it hardly fit on the bloody table. You might think from all this moaning that I'm having a crap time, but no, it's just the opposite, we're having a fantastic time, and to balance up the moans above I'd like to point out some nice things. 1) The Yanks are really friendly, really really friendly. They shout greetings at you from across the shop / bar / restaurant as you enter, they like to chat about why you're here (they all think we're Australian though until we tell them otherwise) and they sound like they mean it. 2) The Yanks are very polite indeed, everyone here in Flagstaff is really nice, when they wish you a good day, or say that they hope you have a great evening, it really sounds as if they mean it. I've been to New York, where some people manage to make "Have a nice day" sound like "I hope you die soon" but here, you can't help but say "Cheers mate, that's nice of you", and then they all say "You're welcome". Flagstaff - Arizona, home to nice, well mannered people, even if they can't use cutlery.

Driving Arizona It's Thursday, so it must be Flagstaff. We stayed 3 nights in Vegas (and dined at Emiril's which was excellent) then on Wednesday we got up early and set off across country. We had decided on a rough itinery before we set off, but we also said that we wouldn't stick absolutely to it if something more interesting came up, or just if we couldn't be bothered. On our first day of travelling we went to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon to do the Skywalk, this is a scrotum tightening walk out onto a glass floored loop bridge which sits 4,000 feet above the floor of the canyon. Yes, you can see all the way down, between your feet. Yes, I was frightened, but I still did it. In fact once I'd made the initial slow shuffle out onto the bridge I got almost used to it and had a little stroll back and forth across the chasm. I'll post some photos when I get home, but the Grand Canyon is hugely impressive, it's worthy of pretty much any superlative you want to throw at it. The road in to the West Rim is 20 miles of rough dirt track, we have a giant Durango 4WD, Mrs YS was driving and laughing like a wild thing, and yes, I was frightened. Meg thought this was better than the cnayon, she just loved skidding our car/tank around wide corners and throwing up huge clouds of dust in our wake. After the canyon, we headed for Kingman, which looked alright in our guide book, but in reality appears to be a giant trailer park with a population of 35,000. We stayed in a very cheap motel which cost us about 20 quid, the best thing about that room was that it was cheap. In the diner & shop opposite there were a number of refugees from Jerry Springer arguing loudly and aggresively and with much public swearing, great, free entertainment. Today we have ploughed on and up, we're at over 6,500ft here in Flagstaff. The desert, scrub and prairie has given way to steep rocky hills, larger mountains and green pine forests everywhere. There is an 'historic old town' in Flagstaff, for Americans, this means anything built before 1950, they look rather non-plussed when I tell them that my home town was built by the Romans. We plan on staying here a couple of nights, then moving on South with the eventual aim of spending a day over the border in Mexico. I'm also doing my bit to confuse the Yanks by wearing a t-shirt which reads "The best test of a democracy is the freedom of it's critics", and it's in French. This gets the wholesome patriotic American in two ways, it's in French, the language of cheese eating surrender monkeys, and it appears that I might be criticising their government, which if they care to ask me, I am. I like to spread a little anarchy and confusion if I can.

Viva Las Vegas Hello folks, here we are in madcap, bonkers, wildly over the top Las Vegas. We flew the first leg of our trip (Manchester to Chicago) with BMI in Business/1st Class, I am very impressed. For the people (much like ourselves until yesterday) who have never been able to enter the rarified strata of 1st Class, it goes like this.... 1st - 18 fully reclining (as in into a bed) seats in acres of space Economy - 348 seats in just enough space to accomodate 200 seats comfortably 1st - Waitress service with pre-flight champagne Economy - A complimentary mint served by hassled stewardess 1st - A 3 course lunch, chosen from a full a la carte menu, served on real plates with real knives and forks. I went for Loch Fyne smoked salmon, rack of lamb with rosemary gravy and a cheeseboard, accompanied by a 1998 Haut Medoc and a glas of 20 year old Port, very nice indeed. Economy - A 3 course meal that fits into a plastic tray and tastes much the same, served with a plastic cup of Chateau de Cheap Vin de Rouge which is rather oddly chilled. 1st - Afternoon tea, a election of fresh sandwiches (oh dear, smoked salmon again!) plus small cakes with fresh strawberries and clotted cream, on a proper plate, tea served in a real china cup. Economy - something nasty in clingfilm plus luke warm tea in a paper cup. It was nice, I mean really nice. I'd fly this way all the time if I could afford it. Our changeover at Chicago was a little fraught, with only an hour in between landing and taking off we had to clear customs (remembering not to tick the boxes marked "are you an international terorist / nazi / communist / follower of Cthulu"), then oddly we had to retrieve our own luggage and take it to the next check in, that wasn't what I'd call good service, then clear security again where the polite but totally enormous security bloke made me remove my watch, belt, trainers and all pocket contents, we ended up running through the airport with me carrying half my clothes and trying not to let my trousers fall down. We're here though, and we're very happy to be away from work for a couple of weeks. We have hired an SUV (in Britain this woulf be a 4WD, here it is something approaching the size of a school bus) and will be setting off touring Arizona on Wednesday. We had a typically large American breakfast this morning, an eat all you can buffet for 13 dollars, we bought our holiday cash at 1.90 dollars to the pound so our spending power feels good, the breakfast was fantastic. Mrs YS is at this moment sat in front of one of the millions of slot machines inside the cavernous MGM Casino, I lost 15 dollars this morning and that's probably my gambling over with for holiday. I've been out walking along The Strip for a couple of hours to shed some of the thousands of calories of breakfast I have consumed, fending off the ticket touts pushing cards for tours, shows and prostitutes, it's a bit more lively than Ilkley.