In the Summer of 2023 we headed to the East Coast of the USA for a road trip! We started in San Francisco where we travelled by cable car, visited Alcatraz and saw sea lions at Pier 39.

We drove south on Highway 1 stopping at Monterey Bay, Pismo Beach and on to Los Angeles past beautiful beaches and picture postcard sunsets, discovering that swimming in the Pacific Ocean has a similar chill factor to Seaford sea! 

Los Angeles was a fast moving maze of motorways and malls. Fuelled by Big Gulp Slurpees and Frappuccinos we some Hollywood sights and met our favourite characters at Disney and Universal Studios.

San Diego and Yuma were the next stops, detouring to see Trump’s wall on the Mexico border. We found London Bridge which had been transported from London and rebuilt in the 1970s.

Las Vegas rose from the desert like a strange grown-up version of Pontins with giant fake European monuments.

A tropical storm flooded Death Valley so we changed tack and headed for Fresno to stay in an RV with unusual pets including micro pigs and alcapas. We went cowboy boot shopping and saw the world’s largest tree (by volume) at Sequoia National Park.

Heading back to San Francisco we panned for gold at Columbia State Historic Park and learnt all about one of our favourite sweets at the Jelly Belly Factory.