We’re both really looking forward to NZ and OZ as its more ‘new territory’. 

So for the next 48hrs or so we wont be upset if you dont check our site!!

And it has 3 microbreweries, of which two were visited by us!

We stayed in a 3* hotel near downtown, which we got on Hotwire.com for cheaper than the local hostels or campsites!  And they ran a free shuttle bus into town at our request!  Liked that bit, esp as it dropped off at the Greyhound station within 13mins!

Friday night  we went to the Pyramid BrewPub on K Street, where we were given a free tour and tasting.  Two opposites here:  The tour was short and not that indepth – the tasting was very comprehensive and thorough!! 

One of the good things about sitting at the bar is you inevitably get chatting

Us with darin & John

 to random people.  We met Darin & John – taking a 2-day break from the wives! – who were keen on the local brews; and we went from there to the Sacramento’s Music in the Park event of free live bands.  We’re all pretty sure that the bands were good, but we were waylaid by the ‘beer tent’  (less Tent, more Stall!)

Saturday earned us a fairly decent lie-in, so having forfieted breakfast -

Nice-house, not Whitehouse!

 Continental, so therefore not truely a breakfast!! – and we decided to walk around the Old Town, the Waterfront and the Capitol Hill areas.  All very beautiful, esp Capitol Hill part as its city admin building is very ‘presidential’; so from there we ventured to the downtown mall which is home to the River City Brewing Co.!  More good local beer repleat with good 1/2lb burger!  We had dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack…a chain, but good fun and good value seafood.

Sun-day was spent on the Greyhound to San Fran (2.5hrs) where we met up with Robin.  That’s today already!!    Flying at 9pm local tomorrow (Monday) arriving in Auckland in the wee hours on Wednesday.

Its a shame, but we feel obliged to help local businesses!!  More info and pix to follow.  4pm local time, so time for the local!

As today (our 1oth Anniv.) is represented by TIN  (thanks as always to Jane’s mum and dad for the info), we have bought a TINcan of peaches which we are going to give to the first homeless person we see.    Peace and Love to all.

Laurelwood BrewPub

And by killing time we mean a light lunch of olives, meat and cheeses at a brewpub; followed by a stroll around the rather jolly nice ‘up-town’ part of Portland.  Got a nice village-y feel, with small shops, couple of corner pubs, restaurants and coffee shops.  A lot of the houses here are from the late 19th Century (Ancient history!) and are prob the nicest we’ve seen.  Here are a couple of pix to show you… 

Seattle was a cool little place – bearing in mind we were only there for 2nights in the hostel, we got an immediate feal for the town.  The hostel was very good (Green Tortoise) and we met some fun, and some dull, peeps; as well as a hard-core Tuesday night Scrabble pub visit!!

Now in Portland, Oregon for just a night Aug 4th), this is little more than a hotel (no ‘S’ ! ) stopover.  Although today is Aug 4th we celebrated our our Tenth (and ‘tin’) wedding anniversary today.  Tomorrow is THE day, but we will be spending it on an overnight Greyhound bus from Portland to Sacremento, Calif.; so we decided this year to be 24H early!  And why not?  Wedding Anniversaries happen usually only once pa.! –  Its ours afterall!!

NEW PIX???      There havent been many new pix for a while – mainly cos we havent been that good at uploading; and partly because there has been less to photograph!       We we’re hoping to get some sort of view of the ‘out of place’ Aurora Borealis last night and tonight, but the inevinitable city lights put paid to that…Found a BrewPub instead! — Good steak!

San Jose airport is where we are with 3hours til our flight to Calgary to stay with JT for the next few weeks.  Fairly cheap ‘local’ flight but SJC has fewer facilities than Southampton Int’l Airport!!  A  BK, Sports Bar (sorted!) and paper shop should be enough to keep us entertained from half2 til 5pm boarding!!

We had a wicked time with Robin and Tamara – bless ‘em for putting us up – and got to see a lot of really cool places, esp Yosemite & Lake Tahoe and the Morgan Hill bars and pubs!  If anybody is heading out this way then Yosemite is not to be missed…more impressive than the Grand Canyon even! 

Whilst in Canadia we hope to get to see atleast one of the great lakes, depending on distance, aswell as Vancouver, Victoria and ofcourse the whole of the Calgary Stampedes:  Party town!    If anybody is heading out to the west side of Canada let us know…we could meet up!

Great guy. With cheese!

You guys may have watched a thrill-less One All Draw, but the game we saw in an American bar here was a stunning 3-1 England Win!!  Well atleast thats what we hoped for.  And should have played for. 

We thinks that Capello doesn’t actually know his players ‘cos some of those dudes were well out of position…And I know, I’ve often played footy out of position! 

Took the pub by storm!!

Day One we kind of wandered around, did a couple of short hikes to lower waterfalls and took loads of pix.      Day Two was an early one, as we wanted to do a 3-mile hike to Vernal Falls, up about 1000ft elevation.  Had a light breaky, packed 2L of water, couple oranges and sarnies and headed off.  Walking up the edge of the waterfall was incredible and cold and a bit scary all at the same time.   However, when we got to the top, we took the wrong trail path and actually ended up doing a 6.8mile round hike.  2 1/2 hours up, 1 1/2 hours back down (via the easy way!)  We think we hiked up 2000ft elevation in total!!  we’re blaming the American signage for that!

" Up above the streets and houses, ... "

This pic isnt really clear, but wwe kiked up the left side of the pic through the spray; walking on rocks about 2ft wide whilst passing others on their way down…Toilet roll on stand-by!!

If any of you are planning a trip to Yosemite: DO IT!  And book early!  We got here early June and some of the campgrounds ere closed because of, wait for it……Snow!!

Driving along the the country lane a few days ago we chanced upon a lone wolf trotting casually by the side of the road, quite obviously with somewhere to go, but with no real hurry.  Reminded us both of the end sequence of each episode (Jane used to watch it, honest!!) of The Littlest Hobo . . .”maybe tomorrow I’ll want to settle down, until tomorrow I’ll just keep movin’ on . . .”.     

And as for the strange Lepidoptera, we were on our way out of Yosemite National Park driving at a respectable speed, when all of a sudden the road was covered – nay, blanketed – with butterflies.  Just sitting there in ones and twos.  Not flapping; or mating; or playing Buckaroo.  Just sitting there.  Now it matters not how skilled a driver you are, but trying to miss 000’s of butterflies and keep the car on the right-wrong side of the road is a test.  (Mike got 7/10.  Killed that is!!)