mybigadventures.com

I've just been making a few tweaks before we take our trip and decided to add in a new feature - album comments. It seemed like a big job until a few recent changes that made it all possible so there you go. You can now add comments to blogs, albums and individual photos. The new comment link appears only on albums containing photo's and can be found under the album cover and summary which appears on the right of the screen. 

I've also added a few icons to give the site a bit of a facelift. If anyone's interested I'm using the fontawesome font set to generate the icons. Its really straightforward to use and there's lots of icons to choose from. I've got quite addicted and added them all over the place, many of which only Dani and I will ever see! That's all for now, let me know if you have any issues.

So, I’m writing this at what is essentially about 5 AM, after what felt like, and virtually is 24 hours of travel. We travelled all the way from the UK, flying from Manchester to Heathrow, and then Heathrow to America. We slept okay in the TraveLodge and got up around eight-ish to sort ourselves out. I had to empty out my carry-on bag, to ensure all the things that I had randomly stuffed in it yesterday were ‘safe’ to take on the plane.

Then we went to get on the shuttle bus (£7 for the two of us). The driver helped us load our stuff and checked that we wanted to get Terminal 3, to which we nodded, but we didn’t actually know for sure!

Turned out it was terminal three! Got checked in for our Heathrow flight and for our San Francisco flight. The very helpful lady at check-in gave us a printout of all of our flights on our ticket for us to refer to and then we had to go to a different place to deposit our rucksacks (as we did in Europe - they are classed as ‘soft’, although they’re pretty solid due to the amount of stuff!) We then wiggled through security. Ben’s bag got stopped for a ‘random check’ - the mini suitcase was swabbed for any chemicals used for bombs, etc. But, it passed the test, so we wiggled on.

Once through, we found a seat and scoffed the remaining chocolatines and a couple of bananas. We had a bit of a wander and found a better seat, with a view of the runway. Got a couple of bottles of water from WHSmith’s and sat. And waited. For a while…

We got the call for our gate and scuttled off. Got on the plane - to find we were almost the last people on, apparently - although we were there just after the call. Clearly, everybody else was super-prompt, as we got going ahead of schedule. The flight was pretty quick, with a complimentary drink and snack. We arrived at Heathrow 15 minutes early and followed the purple signs to meet our connection. Ben recognised the terminal when we arrived - having sat and waited there when he went to Spain (on a school trip) recently. We had a wander around and admired all the designer shops and the Harrods ‘boutique’, but were surprised by the lack of places to eat as we expected more variety; clearly, Heathrow is above such things as McDonald’s and Burger King! We sat down to share a toasted steak and cheese ciabatta, which was really nice, from EAT, and then, when our gate was called, we went on the little train to get to the gate. So far, so good.

Arrived at our gate and settled in at a window seat with a nice view, which was slightly hampered by a Polish couple, who stole my seat when I went to the toilet. But, when Ben went to the toilet, our row was called - it’s all go!

Got onto the plane and sat in our little couple seat (specially selected during online check-in yesterday) and Ben lined up the films he wanted to watch. As the flight got underway, we began watching, but the complimentary headphones didn’t do much to block out the noise of the plane. So, most of the dialogue went unheard! We decided to try the headphones from my MP3 player which worked much better, though obviously we only had one pair. So, we whiled away the 10 hour flight by watching films, going to the toilet and eating! First meal: a chicken and vegetable risotto, which was very nice - perhaps more like a savoury rice pudding, but tasty all the same. Had a mini bottle of wine for me and a mini keg of Heineken for Ben. Second meal: chicken Caesar sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and, weirdly, a mini tub of water! Saw some fantastic views as we flew over Canada - lots of mountain ranges complete with snowy blanket.

Landed at San Francisco - slightly panicky moment when looked for a minute like we were going to land on water! - but a very smooth landing. Everyone applauded when we landed - presumably due to the recent incident at San Francisco! (There was a recent crash landing at San Francisco airport, reported on the news - the wreckage was still visible from the runway where we landed). We disembarked, spent about 30 minutes queueing at customs, had to give fingerprints (!) and photos, and we were out!

Got the BART (train) into San Fran - a 25 minute journey ($8.25 each) and then walked - further than we anticipated - to the hotel. Had a rather strange experience at check-in, as the woman seemed to want to chat, but then alternated with trying to get rid of us. She worried us a little by asking us for a voucher for our stay - which we didn’t have - but, she reluctantly agreed to copy our itinerary instead, with all the necessary references and reservation numbers on.

Our room is on the 19th floor, commanding a good view of the city. We had a sit and then went out - at what felt like four in the morning, although it was actually only 8 PM US time. Bought some pizza slices from a nearby pizza place - $17 for four big slices. Started feeling very flaky, so wandered back to the hotel and turned in.

Dani woke up early and had a bath before waking me up. It was gone 8:30 AM and, with breakfast ending in half an hour, we hotfooted it across to the breakfast room. We stood in the queue for waffles before giving up as it was taking far too long (maybe tomorrow?). Instead we had some toast and I had a cold boiled egg, and then we had a couple of pastries. We also sorted ourselves out with a couple of teas. After breakfast, we gathered our things and headed off in the car to Yosemite National Park. It took longer than we expected to get to the park and we arrived at the parking for the main visitor centre after about an hour and a half.

We were given a map at the entrance and another at the car park information, and, after catching a bus from the car park to the visitor centre, we got a third. It wasn’t very clear where to start even with all the maps and having asked for information at the car park. Dani asked about the Yosemite waterfalls, but due to the dry weather both the main falls were apparently pretty dry. When we asked again at the visitor centre, the man was a little more helpful, directing us towards the Vernal Falls which involved hikes of different lengths depending on how far you wanted to go up.

It first involved catching one of the shuttle buses that run around the park. The shuttles take you to the main trail heads around Yosemite village. We caught the shuttle to stop 16 and when we got there we thought we better eat the crisps we were carrying, having read warnings about carrying food (due to bears). We also bought some chocolate cookies from the food kiosk and filled the water bottle from the water fountain. Finally, we got going on what turned out to be a much more strenuous walk than we had anticipated! It took about an hour and a half, walking uphill all the way, with a few stops for water and to catch our breath. We saw a little lizard darting about and a pretty impressive butterfly, and lots of little squirrels. Close to the top, when we were having a rest, a boy came past on his way down and cheerfully told as it wasn’t much further - we must have looked like we were on the verge of giving up (we were)!

And he was right! Minutes later, we arrived at the bridge and enjoyed the view of the waterfall, taking a few obligatory “we were here” photos. We sat around under the trees by the bridge for a while to recover before setting off back. We filled up our water bottle again and started the journey back, past a squirrel that was splattered on a rock looking knackered. It looked how I felt.

The walk down wasn’t too bad; certainly easier than going up. Once at the bottom, we joined the queue for the shuttle bus. There were loads of people waiting at the bus stop, as it seemed late, then three came at once: you know what they say about buses. So, we caught the bus back to the visitor centre. We got off at ‘Curry Village’, having spotted some deer from the bus. We took some pictures before heading to the gifts and grocery store where we bought Burt the bear, some Pepsi, a fridge magnet, a sew-on badge and a postcard.

We’d already decided that we wanted to go to Glacier Point next, via Tunnel Viewpoint. This involved a drive. And a much longer one than we expected, as it turned out! We stopped a couple of times along the way, including at Tunnel View, which offered fantastic views across the park. The car park at Tunnel View filled up shortly after we arrived, with a number of coach parties and we left just before we got blocked in by another coach. The drive to Glacier Point took much longer than expected, due to the slow winding roads, but we did see a wolf by the road on the way, which was fantastic. We stopped at a viewpoint shortly before Glacier Point which was pretty busy. Somebody offered to take a photo of us sitting on a rock against the panorama, which was nice. We also saw some more of the blue birds we’d seen earlier and took some more pictures before heading back along the winding roads.

From Glacier Point, our next stop was due to be Mariposa Grove, home to the huge Sequoia trees. Time was already marching on and we started to get concerned whether we would make it in daylight. Again, it turned out to be a really long drive (the park is massive); it took about an hour and a half and it was gone 7:30 PM when we arrived. The light had already started to fade so much that Dani had already taken a picture of the sunset just before we arrived. The trees were incredible, and absolutely massive. Disappointingly, they were fenced off to protect the roots, so you couldn’t get too close. We had a bit of a wander, and it was dark before we left to head back to Mariposa.

It took about another hour and a half to get back along winding hill roads. We went straight to a restaurant in town called the Charles Street Dinner house. It was very nice; I had fettuccine and steak and Dani had honey barbecue baby back ribs. Again, the meal came with a side salad and also some very nice garlic bread. It was all very nice and cost $75, including tip. Back at the hotel, we had a quick look at photos, but the Internet was going too slowly to be any use, so we went to bed, ready for our road trip to LA tomorrow.