OK, proper holiday days from now on (although some of them
will still be mainly getting from A to B).
Day Three - San Diego
A whole day of seeing the sights - and what a beautiful city
to see them in. Early starts (well,
earlier than we might have chosen when being on holiday) were to be a feature
of the trip, and we were on the bus by 0830 with a local guide in tow as well
as Alex for a look around San Diego and over to Coronado where you can look
back on the downtown area. In my mind
San Diego is most famous for the Comic Convention which now covers anything
Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror not just inky pages, and we did see the Convention Centre
but there is a lot more on offer. For
instance I hadn't realised how big a naval presence there was, parts of the
historic Downtown are wonderfully Art Deco and the "Old Town" area
was gorgeous. A touch of the Old West
(down to a genuine Stagecoach in the Wells Fargo museum and chaps with big fat
cigars on the porch of a tobacconist).
We ended that part of the tour there and had lunch at a place called
O'Hungry's - good food at excellent prices, and thousands of dollars (and other
notes) signed and stuck on the walls.
Given that Alex and Art went straight in there when we reached the Old
Town we reckoned it would be reasonable, and thoroughly enjoyed it, as did a
few others from our bus. And especially
when an entire coach load of Chinese tourists arrived for their lunch and
basically took the joint over. Luckily
we had been served by then... One of our
rules for eating away from home is to try and work out where the locals go, and
failing that to at least see what the guide/driver do as they always know good
spots.
San Diego as seen from Coronado
When we were looking at things to do on the holiday, we did
consider spending the afternoon of this day at the Zoo. But it would really have needed a full day to
even begin to do justice to the amount of things on offer there (Pandas will
just have to wait for another time, or a trip to Scotchland) so we took up the
optional harbour cruise offer instead.
And were really glad that we did.
Two hours on the water which reinforced the naval presence (the tour
guide for that was ex-navy himself and knew every vessel we passed from
Aircraft Carriers down to the tiniest of Tugs and Submarines). We also got to see pelicans in the wild as
well as a bunch of sea lions just hanging around the wharves.
The rest of the afternoon we spent hanging about the
Embarcadero area, looking in shops, eating ice creams and ship-watching. I would have liked to visit the USS Midway
(aircraft carrier turned museum complete with planes) or the other ships in the
maritime museum collection, but there wasn't time and we were all beginning to
flag a little from the time difference.
There was a bit of grumbling among the group about having too much time
to wait for our transfer back to the hotel, but nobody went as far as to get a
bus or taxi earlier. And actually the
enforced hanging around gave us a chance to properly meet folks and get to know
each other - which I am sure helped with the overall enjoyment in later days.
For dinner that night Alex arranged to take us up to the
Homestyle Buffet restaurant, which did exactly what it said on the door and had
a hundred or so dishes to choose from.
All very tasty (Joan adored the coconut cream pie).
Day Four - San Diego to Scottsdale
Time to leave the coast for now and head inland and into the
desert. Our first stop was Palm Springs
which, frankly, didn't live up to expectations and was generally regarded by
all our fellow travellers as a wasted opportunity. According to Art it added about an hour and a
half of driving rather than taking a more direct line to Scottsdale which, when
added to the time spent in Palm Springs would perhaps have been more enjoyable
if we had blasted through to Scottsdale and got there three or four hours
earlier.
One trouble with an organised tour such as this is not
getting long enough in some places. You
are always on a fixed schedule with hotels expecting arrivals at certain times,
restrictions on driver hours enforcing breaks and so forth. So we only had an hour and a half to explore
the city and that wasn't enough to give us a particularly good impression. Certainly I failed to see what has attracted
the stars out from LA for all these years.
OK, it is in the desert so nice and warm, but then so are many other
places about the same distance away. The
main street was mainly places to eat and souvenir type shops which again didn't
inspire us as a destination to linger in.
Again, this could be linked to the short time available as there were a
couple of museums and galleries in sight, but no time to appreciate them properly. If we'd had a full day, or even an afternoon
in town we could have had a good look around some of the cultural bits and
perhaps got a better impression. As it
was we had a short wander up and down the road, looked at a few t-shirts and
then had an early lunch.
We had hoped to perhaps get a sandwich or something to eat
on the coach while the journey continued, giving us more time to look around,
but after about 40 minutes we hadn't found a single vendor of takeaway food of
any description so plumped for Ruby's Diner and a sit down meal (again Art and
Alex had headed in there, so we knew the food would be OK). And mine certainly was - I'm a sucker for an
all-day breakfast anyway, but this one was particularly tasty! Joan had a veggie sandwich which started out
OK, but she wasn't sure on the second half - something tasting old/rotten and
so it was left unfinished. I'm not sure
anything was really inedible or if it was just unusual flavours, but there you
go.
The rest of the afternoon was spent trundling through the
desert, with just a break at a truck stop to break up the monotony. All of which meant we didn't arrive at
Scottsdale until after five, which was a real pity.
We had a couple of nights there back in 2006 and were quite
looking forward to revisiting the Old Town.
Especially as this time our hotel was literally across the road from it,
rather than needing a bus journey.
However by the time we arrived exhaustion had set in, and by the time we
were ready to go out the shops were all shutting. As a result we just joined a couple of our
new friends and ate in the hotel. Nice
food and excellent laughs, but a shame and not what we had wanted from the day.
Day Five – Scottsdale to Flagstaff
Now that really doesn't do justice to the day as a
description! This was a day re-visiting
old haunts for Joan and I and as such was a blast. The morning stop was spent in Sedona. We only had an hour and a half or so in town
this time around, so no chance to reprise the jeep tour into the desert we took
back in 2006, but it is such a lovely little community that being limited to
the town centre hardly mattered. A
chance to see the red rocks again was tonic for the soul, and a bit of shopping
went down well too.
We had expected a diversion next, as the road through Oak
Creek Canyon had suffered a landslide earlier in the year and was closed for
repairs. But much to our joy it had been
re-opened the day before our arrival, so we were able to head north that way
after all. It is a lovely drive which we
had done southbound previously, so it was nice to see in the other direction. Beautiful wooded hillsides and some great
rock formations. We then pressed on
north, through Flagstaff and various bits of forest (spotting a couple of deer
and an Elk as we did so) and on to the Grand Canyon.
Having done the helicopter flight experience last time, we
decided to stay on the ground this time, but have more time at the rim to
explore and eat ice cream. It was a
glorious afternoon and we had a great time wandering along a bit, looking over
the edge and browsing the native artefacts in the Hopi House store. It is a bit of a cliché, but the place really
is staggeringly beautiful and just huge.
I have been to Niagara Falls four or five times now but it still catches
the heart and takes the breath away on each visit, and I suspect the Canyon is the
same. I’d love to spend a night or two
up there one day, just to see it in the dawn and dusk, and maybe catch a sunset
over the edge. Many photos were taken
that day it has to be said (including the Grand Canyon Railway and several buses,
but then it wouldn't be me without them).
Canyon, Grand variety
Our hotel in Flagstaff was also somewhere we had stayed
before, which was nice. We had a drink
with a couple of ladies from Norwich (and they asked to see my ID, which I
decided to take as a compliment at age 43) then went down to the Galaxy Diner
for dinner. OK, so we had done a diner
the day before in Palm Springs, but we had enjoyed this one last time and it is
ON route 66 so was a bit of an essential visit.
Lovely food to round off a great day (a burger in sourdough toast for
me, with proper cherry coke featuring your actual cherries).
