America!

A recap on our trip so far as I have had a few hiccoughs with blog.
We arrived in Dallas Fort Worth and thence to Steve and Anne's delightful home in Colleyville. Saturday was St Patricks Day and the Stockyards were full of people in green drinking green beer - they say that it has a noticeable effect on your pee! We visited the largest Honky Tonk bar in the world (beer acceptable) then in the evening a real rodeo. The cowboys were very skilled and the bull riding was particularly impressive.

Next day Sunday we went to the Dallas Arboretum which,considering the climate is very impressive and was in full spring colour. It was so different to European planting that I had real problems identifying many of the plants.
In the evening we had drinks with local Texas friends of Steve and Anne, all really nice people even if they do say Y'all rather a lot. A wonderful evening and many thanks to our kind hosts.

On the 18th we flew up to Phoenix and picked the car to drive to Marilyns place at Cave Creek; thank heavans for GPS....... Once we had arrived at her glorious ranch we had a walk in the Sagwara forest, once again my interest was pricked, literally by the profusion of cacti and other desert flowers. As we rambled along we were brought up short by a rattle and yes, it was a rattlesnake guarding the path. We took a couple of photos with zoom and beat a hasty retreat.
Next day we drove up to the Grand Canyon - I drove the Mustang! Wonderful! The landscape through Sedona and then across prairie and desert is huge and wonderful; it changes so fast with rock and vegetation changing colour at each turn of the road - far from dull. Then the Canyon. What can you say, it is awe inspiring but I think that as the images of it are so well known that one expects what you see. Well woth a visit and a really good lunch at the Tocama Lodge with an excellent Ale. The beer has been a delight provided that you avoid the aweful " Lites".

Many, many thanks to Marilyn for her kind hospitality and I really hope that she and Mark will visit us the next time that they are following the Tour de France
Onward! From Flagstaff we drove down to Havasu Lake City to see the old London Bridge crossing an arm of the lake. It is really bizarre but quite appealing. The place was full of inebriated teenaged Spring Breakers who were generally very polite and rather sweet. From Havasu we followed the Colorado south and then cut across real desert from Parker to Palm Springs.I loved the desert, flowering cacti, eye watering distances and mountains but after three hours driving we were glad to reach civilisation and a hotel. Palm Springs is undoubtedly brash but along the main streets, quite charming.

This morning we had an easy drive through California to arrive at James and Annie's near San Diego. So far California definitely gets  the thumbs up.