Our last full day.....

Hi Everyone. Well sadly it has been our last full day of the holiday today as we fly home tomorrow. If you want our flight details then they are at the end of this post.

We had a great day today at Universal Studios - another clear blue sky day with a temperature of 90f. As we had visited Universal Studios in Orlando we already knew what to expect so the boys picked out their priority rides first (which was Revenge of the Mummy - a roller coaster in pitch black that takes you forwards and then backwards...!).

William really liked the Terminator 2 show and you can see from the picture above that he was even in the film!

We all have our own highlights of what has been a wonderful holiday. For me (Chris) it was probably Yosemite Park. I was just taken by the wonderful scenery and just the scale of the valley and the rocks. Also I really enjoyed the rafting down the Colorado River at Grand Canyon - something I will never forget.

Its Jack now and my favourite part of the trip was LA. All of the glamour and recognisable places were great to see. Also, the bus tour was very good and we got to see alot of the city.

I (Caroline) loved all of it but especially the balloon ride in Napa (something I've always wanted to do), Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Los Angeles. I also enjoyed Las Vegas much more than I thought I would. The hotel "New York, New York" was fab and L.V. was a bit whacky. Loved the fountains at the Bellagio hotel.

Sam and William's favourite place was Las Vegas but they also loved the balloon ride and the Grand Canyon airplane/boat/safari.

Also we have eaten in some great places - I think the sea food has been the overall favourite...shrimp, lobster, crab, salmon, clams....mmmmm.

Tomorrow we are heading to Venice Beach in the morning and then off to the airport in the afternoon. Our flight details are:

Depart: 28th August 17:35

Arrive: Heathrow 29th August 12:05

Flight number: VS008 (Virgin)

I hope you have enjoyed our blog - it's been nice to receive the comments and share our experiences with you. I wonder where our travels will take us next.....Australia perhaps....?

This is the Morgan family signing out from the US......

Exploring LA

Hello all - Jack blogging for the first time today. We had a good day today exploring LA, we went everywhere including Beverly Hills and Hollywood. When we first got into LA we walked along Hollywood Boulevard which is where all of the famous actors and singers have their names in the stars on the floor. As you can see from the photo we found Michael Jackson's star.

After exploring Hollywood Boulevard for a little while we hopped onto a double decker bus tour which took us around BeverlyHills which is where many famous people live including The Beckhams and Madonna. It took us through a very exclusive shopping street which included brands including Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana and Versace. We were taken around Beverly hills for about 2 hours and then we hopped off and got onto another tour bus which took us to Santa Monica beach. We visted the pier which Forrest Gump runs to and then turns around to run back across America in Forrest Gump. We got off at Santa Monica beach and walked around for a while and walked along the pier and visited the original Muscle Beach. We then continued our tour of LA on the bus and saw many film studios including Paramount and Fox. None of us realised how many film studios there were which belonged to smaller companies.

We eventually finished our bus tour in the early evening and when we got off near the Chinese Theatre there was a man throwing money off a roof down to somebody dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow. Shortly after this Sam ran in and caught some of the money and then everybody tried to get some of the falling money and the man kept on dropping it off the hotel roof.

In LA there were many people dressed up as characters from films including Superman, Batman and Captain America.

Eventually it stopped raining money so we got in the car and drove up to an observatory where we could view the Hollywood sign. From up there we got a great view over all of LA. You can see a photo of this on our Flickr page here.

Tomorrow is our last full day in America before we return home and we are spending the day at Universal Studios.

Hope everyone's well and we all look forward to seeing you again soon.

Jack

xxx

Beckhams out.......Morgan's in (L.A)!!!!!

Well we have arrived in LA after an easy but busy drive along the coast from San Diego this morning. David and Victoria were waiting in LA for us which was nice - Sam gave David a couple of tips about his football and Caroline gave Victoria a couple of tips on where to shop..... ;-)

Talking of shopping, that is what we did for most of this afternoon. Jack was looking for an Abercrombe and Fitch shop so we scoured LA for one and ended up in a lovely outside shopping centre in Beverly Hills (called Grove Drive Farmers Market). Most of us (except Sam) went on a bit of a spending spree - suffice to say that Gap and Abercrombe sales revenue figures are safe for this year.....! Jack and Chris bought new tops and Caroline bought.....well take a look below:-

Tomorrow we plan to do a 'hop on hop off' bus tour of LA taking in the main sites and on Thursday we are visiting Universal Studios followed by dinner with the Beckhams....

Some more pictures on our Flickr page here as usual.

San Diego...

Hi Everyone. Well, we arrived in San Diego at 3.15pm on Sunday after a long drive down from the Grand Canyon (5.5 hours). We are very close to the Mexican border and had to pass through a number of border check points on route - luckily we didn't get pulled over...

Caroline and Sam spent the rest of the afternoon at the San Diego Hospital ER unit. Sam had been feeling really low on energy the past couple of days and had been experiencing lower back pain. We were concerned that he might have a kidney infection so wanted to get him checked out properly. Although they had to spend 4 hours at the hospital they did give him the full works - x ray, urine test, kidney ultra sound scan - in fact $1,000 worth! However they found nothing wrong with him....which at least gave us peace of mind (thank God for insurance...). Today Sam has been absolutely fine so perhaps it was just a virus.

So today we have spent the whole time at Seaworld enjoying the various sights and shows. My favourite was the Shamu show - there were two shows...one in the day and then one in the evening. This was followed by a great fireworks display to finish off the evening. The boys really enjoyed it and actually surprised us by taking time to explore the acquariums etc as well as the obvious rides such as 'Journey to Atlantis'.

We also nipped out of Seaworld this evening for an hour or two for a meal at our favourite restaurant called Red Lobster. Jack and I shared a lobster, crab and shrimp dish which was gorgeous. The 4 boys polished this off with apple pie, ice cream and (for William) a large cookie!

Tomorrow we are driving up to L.A. along the coast which will be our final destination :-(

P.S. If you want to check out Jack in a pink hat click here

Viewing the blog map.....

UPDATE - THE BLOG MAP SEEMS TO BE WORKING AGAIN NOW.... :-)

In case you are having problems viewing the rest of the blog map at the top of the page, here are some simple instructions.

- You can move around the map by placing your mouse on the map (you should get a hand symbol appearing as the mouse cursor), clicking and dragging. The map will move with the drag of the mouse.

- ...or you can use the + and - keys on the top left to zoom in and out.

Hopefully that will enable you to see the rest of our holiday destinations.

We are just leaving for Lake Havasu now where we are staying 1 night before heading on to San Diego......

Lake Havasu.....London Bridge isn't falling down...yet

Howdy Partners......Chief Blogger here...aka Caroline! Just a short blog today coz we haven't done a lot!

We left Grand Canyon this morning at 9.30a.m and arrived at Lake Havasu City at 1.15 p.m. Can you believe it but it RAINED the whole trip down, quite heavily in parts. And guess what...! When we reached Lake Havasu, the lady in reception said she couldn't remember the last time it rained!!! I can hear you laughing from Spain, Sue!!But it soon cleared up and was 90 degrees for the rest of the afternoon and quite humid.

We have a very nice "condo" that looks nothing from the outside but inside we not only have a big bedroom with two queen sized beds, but a little lounge area and kitchen. The pool is really warm here (in contrast to G.C) so the boys jumped straight in.

Lake Havasu is supposedly the second most popular place in Arizona after G.C - that doesn't say a lot for the rest of Arizona! It is famous for the fact that they have their own London Bridge here (see foto). They bought it from us in the great year of 1968 for an immense sum of money and rebuilt it brick by brick over here. However, they soon realised they'd made the mistake of thinking they had bought Tower Bridge.

Jack checked out Trip Advisor for us to decide where to eat and we had a fantastic meal at an Italian restaurant five minutes down the road called "Angelinas Kitchen".

Long journey tomorrow - 5 hours - to San Diego so see you there!

Our last day at the Grand Canyon

After yesterday's action packed day, today was a more leisurely one. Part of the package from our Grand Canyon tour were some tickets to the IMAX theatre, so we headed off to see this first of all. The screen was huge - about 120ft and the photography was great....Caroline was starting to feel dizzy (apparently this had nothing to do with the sampling of Californian wine last night..).

Then it was off into the South Rim park to take a look at the various views across the Canyon. We decided to take the shuttle bus as this was much easier (and free). The views were as stunning as we hoped they would be and there was very little complaint from the ankle biters.....which has to be a good sign.

This evening Caroline and Chris abandoned the kids, sadly only on a temporary basis ;-) to watch the sunset over the Canyon. Who says I am not a romantic.......answers on a post card.....

Below is a sample picture from this evening but as usual there is more on our Flickr page here

Grand Canyon Adventure

Hi folks - Chris reporting today (it's taken days for me to be allowed back onto the laptop!)

Wow, what a day today! It was an early start again as our adventure started at Grand Canyon airport at 06:00...the kids needed to be dragged out of bed.

It started with a 50 minute plane ride over the Grand

Canyon taking in some wonderful views (my favourite being the horse shoe turn). After we landed we were given breakfast and then it was off for a jeep safari. We were taken to a place called Antelope Canyon which is the most amazing corridor of caves that has been carved out by water flowing through it. The red Navajo sandstone layers were formed by compressed sand dunes over thousands of years and provided some incredible sights.

Next we were driven through a 2 mile tunnel that took us to the base of the dam at Lake Powell. Here we boarded our raft for a 15 mile trip down the Colorado river. This was great fun and really peaceful. The Canyon walls go from 400 feet high at the start to 1400 high towards the end. The sky was a perfect blue and the temperature about 95f. Lunch was provided on route as well as a continuous supply of cold water and lemonade......which was needed!

After reaching the end of the river trip we boarded a coach for a tour taking us back to the starting point. Our driver - Martin was keen to show his knowledge of........everything....yawn...including the fact that his Grandfather was born in the Rhondda valleys....there's lovely!

This evening we have had a big steak meal and are going to bed early as we are wacked! Tomorrow we have another day exploring various sites around the South Rim area of the Grand Canyon.

Some more pictures available here.

From Vegas to Grand Canyon

Hi everyone, it's Sam blogging today so make sure you leave a comment (especially you George).

Las Vegas was a cool city but in the middle of a desert which was odd. We left Vegas at 10.30 and set our sights for the Hoover Dam followed by the Grand Canyon. The Hoover Dam was on route to the Grand Canyon and took us 1 hour to get there. It's absolutely MASSIVE!

The clue is the name as to who built it ,and for the thicker ones out there it was Herbert Hoover (31st president). You could see where the water level had been as the botton half of the rock was white and the top brown. It was something me, Will and Jack could relate to as we'd recently watched a film called Transformers (if you haven't seen Transformers the main scene is filmed inside the Hoover Dam and i would reccomend Transformers to everyone)....apart from Grandma.

Still, we carried on with our 5 hour journey 'till we got to a stop over on Route 66 .We bought some tasty bits and pieces and enjoyed the scenery for a moment, before carrying on with our journey. We arrived at the Grand Canyon Squire hotel at 5.00 and were very pleasantly surprised with the standard of the hotel. I had the slash of my life after being in the car so long. It has a pool, games area, gym (Dad has had a 4 mile run - nutter!).

This is Sam Morgan reporting for Newsround may the force be with you because you're worth it.

Viva Las Vegas.....Part 2

Had a good day in Las Vegas today.....just resting now before we enjoy our last night here.

The day started with breakfast as usual - lots of pancakes and maple syrup (William is holding the record for the most pancakes consumed in one sitting...). After that the boys (including Chris) took a ride on the New York New York roller coaster. Thrill levels were high and William wanted to go straight back on again..!

After that it was back to the rental car company as they had let us know that they had a new car replacement for us. After about an hour we had the new car and all is well again ready for the rest of our journey.

Premium Outlet shopping followed in the midday sun (a mere 95f) with some relatively minor purchases from Caroline and lots of browsing of football boots from Jack and Sam.

The rest of the afternoon was spent visiting the various hotel spectacles up and down The Strip. Our favourite was the Venetian which was fantastic! There is actually a river running through the hotel with guests being punted along it on gondoliers whilst being serenaded... outrageous!

Tonight we are browsing a few more of the hotels and taking in more food - the boys have chosen a Chinese. With all this food and lack of exercise I will need to cycle to London and back...

Viva Las Vegas....!!!!!!

Well, we managed to get up in time to see the sunrise over Zabriskie Point. It was good....but not as spectacular as we thought it might be.....I don't think the boys would have appreciated being woken up at 5.30 so leaving them in bed was a good move! We found the different rock layers and contrasting colours to be quite fascinating - see below:

We set off for Las Vegas and arrived at lunch time, sorting out a hire car exchange en route. Then we hit the outlet shopping area....with Chris's card starting to melt quite rapidly! Jack bought his first pair of Levi jeans and Will bought some Nike trainers which he is sleeping in tonight!

We are staying at the 'New York New York' hotel and our room is on the 28th floor with great views of the 'Strip'. The boys really like the hotel especially as it has it's own roller coaster going right round the building - we are going to try that out tomorrow.

Went for a wander this evening and had a good meal of Noodles in Caesar's Palace which Will and Jack were raving about. On the way back we watched the spectacular fountain display at the Belaggio Hotel.....twice. We finished up with a Ben and Jerry's ice cream which was so big that Will couldn't manage it all....and in fact most of it ended up all over his face!

Off to bed now....more from Vegas tomorrow.....

Death Valley Tour...

Hi everyone......Caroline here...

Today we started our travels from Lone Pine to Death Valley. We left the most comfy beds ever of Lone Pine at 11 am and a temperature of 84f (sorry, America work on fahrenheit). We entered Death Valley after about an hour, stopping at various tourist spots to take photos. During the course of our journey the temperature gradually increased as we drove deeper into the valley, by as much as 5 degrees per 1000 feet!

At a place called 'Stovepipe' where we saw some sand dunes, we had dropped from 4,000 feet and 84f to sea level and 110f! By the time we reached an area called Badwater we were 282 ft BELOW sea level at a temperature of 114f. We could only stand being out of the car for 15 minutes at a time. Badwater is the lowest point in North America and is a landscape of vast salt flats - quite a sight.

So the whole day was spent in the car visiting tourist spots with amazing views - the contrast of the green pine trees of Yosemite to the dark volcanic rocks of Death Valley was very marked. Finally at 5.15pm we arrived at our accommodation for the night 'Furnace Creek Ranch', which is very nice. Even at 8pm it is still 35c but the boys cooled down in the pool before going for dinner.

Tomorrow morning Chris and I are going to get up at 5.30am to go to Zabriskie Point about 7 minutes drive away to witness the most spectacular sunrise (so it says in the books!) - let's hope it's worth it! Then we are heading to Vegas which the boys are really looking forward to. They have a really big outlet shopping area there, so I think I may have some fun too, but maybe I should win some money on the slots first...ha ha!

Stopover in Lone Pine

Hi everyone. Just a short post this evening to say we are now at Lone Pine which is our stop over on the way to Death Valley.

We had a good trip here from Yosemite and the temperature has gradually got hotter....about 90c when we arrived. Apparently it is 45c in Death Valley.

There were some funny noises coming from the car breaks on the mountain roads today so I have called the rental car company - we may change the car when we get to Las Vegas.

Lone Pine is an interesting little town - very American.....and in the middle of nowhere! It is situated close to Mount Whitney which is 14500 feet high and still has snow on top even now.

Jack chose our restaurant this evening and we had a great meal. The peanunt butter pudding was amazing so we are going to bed full but very happy tonight.

Poor old Pompey lost their first game of the season.....but at least Scummers lost 3-1...:-)

Tomorrow we are driving to Death Valley so look out for more news.....

A few messages...

The Summers Family .... have a great time in Spain! Glad you are enjoying our blog and it's nice to get your comments.

Becky and Alex ... if you are reading this, have a great holiday in Florida. Haven't had any comments from you so don't know if you have broadband yet. Hope the card turned up.

Mum and Dad Moore... Are you successfully reading this now? If you are, you could try commenting on it!!! Then I would be impressed.

Lisa and Debs ... Hiya! Hope you are not having too many nights out without me at the Concorde! Hope Jess's birthday celebrations went well - what did she get up to? Two female teenagers in your house now ...O.M.G!

Lots of love to you all and to Granny and Grandad! xxx

Greetings from Yosemite...

Hi, this is Will reporting today....

We left Rolf's house in Sonoma at 9am on Thursday and had a 5 hour journey to Yosemite. The journey went according to plan and we stopped off for a while to visit the giant Sequoia trees on the edge of Yosemite park.

We arrived at Yosemite lodge at about 16:30 and just checked in, followed by some dinner. Mummy says that Yosemite Lodge is a bit like Centre Parks on steroids - I think she means it's good.....

Today we have had a little adventure. First of all we watched a short film about the history of Yosemite and then we headed off for Glacier Point. From this area you have an awesome view of the valley. Dad was particularly impressed with the 'half dome' rock which is absolutely HUGE. It is incredible to think that the whole valley was carved out by a glacier.

After taking in the the views we went on a very hard 3 mile hike to a place called Senitinal Mount. This took us up to 2500 metres but the hard work was worth it because the 360 degree view was fantabulous. There is still some snow at the top of the mountains and one piece really looked like someone had painted a crocodile on the side of the mountain. From Sentinal Mount we could see other famous rocks such as El Capitan, Half Dome and also a number of water falls. There were lots of squirrels and chip munks at the top and Mum could see where the Chip and Dale idea came from!

On the way back to the lodge we stopped off at Bridalveil Falls which in the winter is a massive water fall. Today it was just a small water fall with it's spray being blown around by the wind.

Tomorrow we are heading for Death Valley but staying over at a place called Lone Pine which is about half way. Dad thinks we will have some good views of Mount Witney.

Below is a picture that Mum took of the valley (which she is chuffed with). Dad says there are more pictures here if you want to see them.

Caroline's mobile is out of order......

Quick message to say that Caroline's mobile is dead at the moment in case you are trying to text her. If you need to get in touch at all then just contact Chris on his mobile......

Sue - hope you have a great holiday....I expect the weather will be lovely and warm

Will hopefully provide the next update from Yosemite assuming they have internet access there!!

Back soon!

Balloon Ride in the Napa Valley....

Hi everyone... Caroline reporting for first time! Its 11 a.m and we have just come in from our hot air balloon experience which was truly awesome! Sam and Will didn't know anything about it. Last night at dinner we told them we would be getting up at 4 am for an adventure. This morning in the car we played 20 questions that we could only answer yes or no to. Eventually Will guessed correctly and they were a bit dumb founded!

We arrived at our designated location at 5.15a.m and helped ourselves to coffee and pastries. Because it was a bit foggy over Napa Valley, we had to drive to another launch site 45 mins away. When we got there, three balloons were ready for the off. There were 9 people in our basket. The Boys had to get into the basket while it was still lying down... They looked so funny! Then the rest of us climbed in and sailed up, up and away!

Our pilot was called Bob who had been flying balloons for 30 years! It was very majestical floating silently above fields of walnut trees, almonds, sunflower fields, tomato fields etc. In total we flew 16 miles in 1.25 hours (click here for exact details) and at some points flying as high as 2000 feet! Near the end of the flight, the guy in front of us proposed to his girlfriend who accepted!

We landed in the middle of nowhere and were driven back to base where we were welcomed with a glass of champagne and a cooked breakfast including our first humongous pancakes with maple syrup...the boys went up several times for re-fills!

Will said of the adventure..."that was the best surprise ever! Can we do it again this afternoon?!!!" Even Jack gave it 11 out of 10, so it must've been good!

We are now "back at the ranch" chilling out for the rest of the day, sunbathing and catching up on sleep! Tomorrow its off to Yosemite!

This is Caroline Morgan reporting live from Sonoma!! More pics available here or on the right hand side of the blog....

...and now we are in Sonoma...

Hi All. We drove from a foggy San Francisco to Rolf and Roger's other house in Sonama today, not far from Napa. You can see the location in a bit more detail on the link below if you are interested (use the + and - to zoom out etc).

View Larger Map

It is a wonderful house with magnificant views acrosss the valley....vineyards as far as the eye can see and complete peace and quiet......well, it was until we arrived...!

Sonoma is a very nice little town which we stopped at quickly on the way here to get some provisions. So the wine is now open, the boys are having fun in the pool, Caroline has her nose in a book and I am off to join them....

Here are a couple of picks of the house here on our Flickr site (plus a few more photos).

More fun tomorrow.....early in the morning....and then it is off to Yosemite on Thursday.

Exploring San Francisco

We had our first day exploring San Francisco yesterday and had lots of fun finding our way around.

After a breakfast of pancakes and waffles we caught the tube (called the 'BART') to the Fisherman's Wharf area and then walked to Coit Tower. This used to be the main telegraph tower which you can now climb for some great views of the city. It was a very steep approach to the tower and Sam counted about 450 steps....but the view was worth it.

After that we headed over to Pier 39

where there is lots going on. Jack chose a sea food restaurant for lunch and the food was excellent. Lots of shrimps, calamari and chowder type food.

After lunch we watched the sea lions basking in the sun - there must have been about 50+ just lazing around - take a look in the picture on the right.

In the afternoon we took a bus tour of the city before heading back to the Wharf to catch the ferry to Alcatraz. By this time the fog had moved into the bay and it was really quite chilly with visibility down to about 20m. It made for an eerie approach to the island which certainly added to the atmosphere. We all really enjoyed the audio tour and as it was dark it made it all rather spooky. The boys were really interested in the tour and even though they were very tired there

was no moaning!! Hot chocolates on the ferry back warmed us up and Rolf was waiting to pick us up - what a kind chap he is.

We all managed a reasonable night's sleep and are heading off to Sonoma today for some relaxing time by the pool. Rolf mentioned casually that there may be a rattle snake in the garden....so we need to be careful where we tread!!

We have arrived.....!!!!!!

Well here we are in San Francisco....finally, at Rolf's lovely town house. The flight was very good and all ran to time (although it wasn't up to Chris's usual standards... :-)

After waiting an hour for the rental car we found our way to Rolf's house without a problem....sat nav worked like a treat and it was only about a 15 minute drive.

Rolf's house is beautiful - built around 1905 and spread over 3 stories. We are very lucky to be able to stay here for a couple of days - what a great start to our little adventure.

The plan tomorrow is to explore the city a bit and we are off to Alcatraz in the evening - perhaps we can leave the kids there....

It is 6.20pm here now and the boys are still wide awake which is good as they should sleep well tonight!!! We are going to have something to eat next before we visit the land of nod..zzzzzzzz

Last minute panic...

I had a nice call from Virgin Atlantic yesterday just to check that everything is OK. They casually mentioned that my tickets showed me as 'Chris' and did that match the name on my passport? No, I replied - is that a problem? 'Er hem' replied the chap on the end of the phone - 'well, it will mean you can't fly on Sunday...oh and neither can Sam......as his name should be Samuel'....!

OK, so it's just a matter of changing the name on their computer right? Er, no! You have to buy two new tickets!!!!!!!!! What!!!!!!

After a lot of escalation up the management chain I managed to persuade them that they could do it and I would pay an administration charge - £60. They made the change but I had to send them a scanned copy of our passports first.

So all is OK again....phew! Can you imagine turning up at the airport for them to say...sorry, can't fly!

I worked it out to be £6 a letter to make the name change - thanks Mr Branson for getting us out of a pickle!

Routes Planned

Another milestone completed today. We have worked out our route and even programmed all of the locations into our sat nav!

Chris in his usual organised fashion has created a folder with all the accommodation contact details etc.

Caroline has been researching some special activities for us to do.......more to be revealed soon!

Next task is to work out what the 'must see' items are for each area we are visiting.

Care hire booked....

All accommodation is booked up now and today I booked up the car hire. We have gone for a 7 seater as this will give us a bit more space, particularly for the kids. The cost of the holiday is going to be about 20% more than planned (gulp!) due to the weakened pound...

Still got a few more things to sort out yet though....