Amazon Reviewer: C.A. ELLARD (Sidcup, England) I have just finished this booked and thoroughly enjoyed every part of it. The descriptions of the places visited are so visual it is easy to emagine being there. American readers will find the comparisons with the UK interesting and UK readers will just want to visit all the places. It is written almost as a diary and I just wish I had as much recall of places I have visited as this author does. When you read for foreward you realise this author had a lot to overcome and these journey through the US obviously did much to help.

Amazon Reviewer: P.K. Roberts (Brandywine, MD USA) I had the chance to read this book last year before it was published as it was written by my friend in England and she sent it to me in sections on email. If you are an American and have not been to any of the places she writes about you will want to go. If you have been there the book will take your mind right back there. It is beautifully descriptive and I cannot wait to receive my copy. Please buy this book. You will enjoy it. She and I went to a ranch in Texas in April 2005. She took a lot of notes and I hope she will write about that too. She is most informative and absolutely loves America.

Email the author on: susanhaven7@googlemail.com

Contact the author and get a signed copy for only £12 incl p&p.

********** Again it was very, very hot and some small clouds were hanging over the Catalina’s. While Andy went back to his room to lie down, I went and bought a couple of T-shirts and a mug at the reception area to take home. While paying for them, Joan mentioned that she’d heard of me! I was curious. “Gee, have I got me a rep?” “Oh yes,” she said. “Ah,” I replied, “but about what?” She just laughed and refused to say.

********* While I was eating, I could hear the waiters getting cross with someone and gathered that they were unhappy with a customer just down from us, an elderly lady. Chatting to one of the men behind the counter after, we found out that she apparently came in nearly every day and always complained about the coffee, just smiling back at them when they got mad at her. We crossed the road and sat on a bench in a small circular area with a statue and fountains, inside the centre of five converging roadways. Looking up, I nudged Andy to show him that over the tops of the skyscrapers there were heavy, black clouds looming. We decided to get under cover quickly, crossing back over the road and entering a small shopping arcade, where Andy bought a T-shirt for himself, and I found a small one for Vicky, my niece, with New York written on it in attractive coloured embroidery. I also spotted an elephant for Brenda, a friend of Andy’s and mine, who collected them. Back out on the street, Andy hailed a cab to take us to the famous Macys department store. On the way over, we were held up by a coloured cyclist screaming abuse at a cab driver ahead of us, smacking his window, spitting, and forcing the car to stop while he continued shouting. Our driver managed to get round them luckily, before dropping us off outside the store just as the heavens opened. We ran to get through the doors. Browsing round the ladies wear department, I came across some beautiful silk blouses, fawn or pink, and decided to treat myself to a pink one as they were at a very reduced rate. I had to stand and wait for ages to pay for the queue was very slow moving. We continued upstairs using escalators, the last two being beautiful old wooden ones, and I hoped that they weren’t being replaced by boring modern ones. We slowly made our way back downstairs, finding ourselves in a cellar where there was a small café area among the goods on sale. Andy bought some cups of coffee that turned out to be the worst we had ever tasted in America up till then, and despite being thirsty, we both had to leave it.

********* We filled in the forms for the car we’d ordered and Andy went out to the car lot to get it, but when he pulled round to pick me up, the oil light was on. Having a lot of distance to travel, we considered it was too dangerous to have a problem, so I went back to the desk and got it exchanged for a black saloon, a powerful Pontiac Grand Prix. Very smart, and very comfortable, although there was only just enough room in the trunk for two cases, everything else being piled onto the back seat. It was getting dark by this time, and driving out of the airport we had trouble finding the road we wanted, but by keeping the setting sun on my right, I knew we were heading southward. Once it went down, a full moon rose ahead of us. In the dark I was having trouble seeing the road as the headlights appeared to be set too high, and Andy was too, having to slow whenever we went over bumps in the road. Flat land slowly gave way to the black shapes of cliffs and bluffs, and when we saw the glittering water of the creek beside us, stopped to get out and look. It was very warm and still, and so peaceful with just the gentle noise of the rippling water and the incessant cicadas. The tall cliff walls across the creek were bathed in a gentle silver moonlight, criss-crossed with shadows from the rocky formations. We drove on and came to a stretch of unmade road with roadwork signs, coming up behind another car that was sending up clouds of white dust, making it very hard to see. After quite a few miles we finally reached the end, joining a tarmac road again. Andy stopped at a gas station so he could clean the windscreen, and I saw that our once shiny black car was now almost white! We bought some biscuits and chips (crisps) at a nearby store, and drove on to Mexican Hat, a small cluster of buildings, looking out for a sign for a motel. At nearly 11pm, Andy spotted one and parked up, going across to see if they were still open and had any rooms available. He took such a long time that as I could see him talking to some people I went over. Apparently the couple were French, on honeymoon, and had a room booked, but couldn’t get through on the phone to the emergency motel number. Finally Andy managed it, and the lady owner came out from a building on the left. Yes, she had a room for Andy and one for me, indicating we should park round the back. We parked up beside several very large motorcycles in front of the raised veranda.

********* I woke at 6.30am and phoned through to Andy’s room, meeting him outside in the dark by the car. We drove over the San Juan River heading for Monument Valley just as the sky began to lighten, passing several yellow school buses headed in the opposite direction. Finally, we rounded a corner of rock to be faced by an enormous valley stretching to the far horizon with huge red sandstone cliffs and fingers of stone rising out of a red sandy floor. Both beautiful and awesome, it took my breath away. Pulling in off the road, Andy set up the video on the car bonnet pointing towards where the sun looked like it might come up over a ridge of thin fingers of red rock. Patiently we waited then, all of a sudden, brilliant shafts of light sparkled through one of the clefts in the rocks as if shining through a diamond. It was one of the most beautiful and radiant sights I have ever seen. The video picture was spectacular we found after, having been placed in just exactly the right spot. We headed on along the valley road passing huge crags and buttes with pillars of red stone that thrust up from the red floor. The road crossed washes and arroyos that cut through smooth slopes of beige coloured hills covered in scrubby bushes. Navaho hogans were dotted in the distance. Fabulous.

********* At the side of the road we came across a billboard for Goulding’s Trading Post, looking somewhat sacrilegious in such a lovely landscape. We turned off, to park under the shadow of a huge, smooth faced rock marked with streaks of dark lines as if some giant hand had dribbled different colours of brown paint down it. The buildings were the original trading post built in the early 1905-1910 by the Goulding’s, Harry and his wife ‘Mike.’ They’d settled there, and had become renowned for their integrity, honesty and genuine concern for the Indians, establishing a hospital along with a fresh water source. The brick built cellar out back had been used several times by film makers, one of whom being John Ford, including ‘She Wore a yellow Ribbon’ starring John Wayne. Inside the main building, the dark back room was given over to photos and memorabilia of both John Wayne and other films that had been made in the valley. Back outside, we descended some steep concrete steps to a store and I browsed around finding several Louis L’Amour western books that I hadn’t got in my collection. I also bought a mounted sand painting made by the local Navaho, asking the girl behind the counter for an interpretation. Unfortunately, her English was limited so I only managed to understand part of it. Driving on, we approached road works, and had to wait in a queue of cars for a truck with a flashing arrow sign that pointed straight up, to lead us past. We had to follow it very slowly for a couple of miles, passing another truck leading more cars in the opposite direction. Once away from there, the road passed through land with small rounded red and cream rocks, and boulders dotted with grey sage bushes, some of the mounds being peculiarly strange looking, like piles of whipped icecream. Then we found ourselves out on a red, sandy flat plain with slopes covered in trees on the horizon. As the car turned a corner, there in the distance under cream coloured cliffs, tall buttes and pillars of rock, lay a long strip of bright blue water shimmering in the heat. Lake Powell. It was spectacular. I had very mixed feelings, being impressed by the immensity of what man could build, but saddened that the beauty of the canyon could be destroyed for mans’ need for more and more water. Dams were now needed to take it from here to Las Vegas and other cities. Even then a lot of it is wasted with fountains and ponds evaporating in the wind and heat, and miles and miles of grass wanted for golf ranges.

********* Back outside, all the streetcars were full with people hanging off the sides like on TV, so we walked on until one finally came along with room. As the driver pulled the levers that caught the chains running down a groove in the middle of the tracks to go up or down the hills, it was very noisy, and it wasn’t as comfortable as I’d thought, especially with the hard wooden seats. We changed streetcars for Fisherman’s Wharf, and as we jumped onto the next one, a voice called out, “hey, England, where you bin?” and it was the American couple. I waved. “I bet we can’t do that again!” I told them, when we got off at the last stop to walk to The Wharf. He told us, rather wistfully, that having been in the city many years before and having just gone back to the park to see it again, it had all changed, and not for the better, in his opinion. I commiserated. “Nothing ever is.” We left them and browsed round the shops where I spotted a western style shop. Inside I went looking for some chaps, but the only pair they had were miles too big, and had no fringes either. Despite their hardest efforts to get me to buy them, I didn’t. We finally came across the famous Fisherman’s Wharf sign that stands at the entrance to the pier, and after photographing it, found a drug store for Andy to get some more painkillers, as his ear was still aching a lot. At a kiosk we bought tickets to visit Alcatraz for the following day, then he booked a seaplane trip to fly over the bay at 5pm, before slowly walking along the wooden pier, which I found very delightful with all its little shops and colourful hanging baskets of flowers. Several flights of steps led up to the second level and even more shops and cafes. At the far end we came across a restaurant with windows overlooking the bay, and went in for a meal, sitting where we could see across to the Golden Gate Bridge, far out in the distance. The waters were choppy in the strong breeze, and a mist shrouded the bridge making it difficult to see. Back outside and heading for at the other side of the pier, I could smell the sealions before I heard their noisy barking. Sleeping brown seals were heaped on the flat surfaces of wooden pontoons, while others were swimming round and round them, barking. Some of the swimmers leapt smoothly out of the water onto the backs of their companions, and the noise was tremendous as they upset the ones that were resting, causing even more noise as they squabbled and complained. According to a notice, the sealions had been allowed to take over this part of the bay-probably because they brought in so many tourists that it was worth it. I lent on the railing and watched them for a while before heading back to the shops.

********* Andy drove to Discovery Cove. He’d booked this quite early on when we were organising the holiday, as they limit the numbers of people for the day. I filmed Andy closing the roof of the car, grinning. At the entrance to the park, a young girl held a two-toed sloth with long silvery hair. It hung from her shoulders by its thin arms, and people were allowed to pet it. It felt like a coarse brush. I felt rather sorry for it, being handled by so many strangers. We queued inside for our pictures to be taken for a security card. This could be swiped at the various counters inside for food, drinks etc, this being charged to your account, and it also entitled us to enter Sea World, where we would be going to tomorrow. We were handed some natural sunscreen cream that was not harmful to the habitat. We were ushered into a line of people and a guide led us down the pathway to a counter under a lovely thatched roof hut where we were given a bath towel, snorkel and mask, which I’d never used before, and a yellow/blue float jacket. We could keep the snorkel but the rest had to be given back at the end of the day. The sand was silvery white, very pretty, with rows and rows of blue/white loungers and parasols surrounding a huge clear pool with palms and rocks. A rocky tunnel and waterfall was on the right of the pool, with low rocks to the left. Lifeguards were everywhere. We were shown a locker and given a key, and went and changed into our costumes in the changing rooms.

********* Setting off for Sea World, almost immediately we ran into a traffic jam for several miles, but finally reached the signs for Sea World, turning into a huge car park (gosh, will we find the car again,) even though we parked very near the front. As we parked up and shut the roof down, I heard a loud clang as a people carrier knocked over a mobile metal sign. We were allowed in by showing the identity cards from Discovery Cove, and headed round a small lake with a lighthouse in the middle, a lovely bright painted sailing ship on the sparkling water and model sea lions on the rocks. Pretty shops, everything again clean and bright, like the Cove. Using a map we’d got from the front booth, we passed the pink flamingos, stalking about with a disdainful air on their long spindly legs, coming to a large concrete bowl with huge sea turtles. Then on to a large pool with a beach, and dolphins, and would be giving shows over the course of the day. Walking on, we came across a dark concrete tunnel that led down to thick glass looking out into the water with the dolphins swimming past. I took photos of them cruising by, through the glass. Hope the pictures come out. (One turned out to be very comical for a small boy had run up to the glass, with his hands above his head and fingers outstretched, just as I’d taken the picture. Showing up black against the creamy blue of the water he looked like something out of E.T.) Further on were the manatees, large pink-grey, whale shaped mammals with flippers and tails like paddles. They were just wallowing gently at the side of their pool, and were much bigger than I’d expected. Being so slow moving it was no wonder they got injured, sometimes even killed, by speeding boats. White wormy things lay at the bottom of the pool looking like dead fish, until I realised it was the roots of the trees coming through the mud. We carried on a short way until we found ourselves inside a small cinema, where a video was explaining all about them. We walked on under the water splash ride, avoiding the drips, coming to a corkscrew like frame for the Kraken Ride, a looping roller coaster. Andy’s eyes lit up and he went on it (he’s nuts), while I used the camcorder to film the carriages hoping he’d show up on one of them. He came off grinning, saying it was really brilliant and the best he’d ever been on.

********* After looking round some of the shops, we headed back to the exit, passing a stall where two men were drawing caricatures, either in black and white, or coloured, just a head, or head and body. On a whim I stopped. I could have a choice of body! Oh dear, what? Finally I just said, wistfully, “can you bring back my youth?” The young lad suggested, with a grin, a bikini. “OK.” Andy had also decided to sit and have his done. I noticed several people passing by either smiling, or doing a ‘double take.’ What’s he doing? Then Andy came for a look and laughed. When I saw it, well, I was stunned, he’d got my face to a ‘T’ and the bikini clad young body was brilliant. I couldn’t thank him enough after I stopped giggling. Andy’s was also great. He’d chosen a shorts clad runner. Brilliant, how do they do it. They were rolled up for us and put them into cardboard tubes to protect them while we were travelling.

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