For our final Honeymoon Blog, here’s a few USA stats and facts:
We travelled around and through 8 American states: Arizona, California, New York, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming and we went to Toronto, Canada.
We drove just short of 3,000 miles in 2 hire cars: a Buick and a Nissan Rogue SUV.
We took 7 flights: Heathrow to Newark, Buffalo to Chicago, Chicago to Jackson Hole, Jackson Hole to Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City to San Francisco, Las Vegas to JFK, JFK to Gatwick.
We had 1 helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon, took a journey on an Amtrak train to Canada, a New York subway train, a tram and 2 boats: Hornblower, Niagra Falls and a boat ride to Alcatraz and Angel Island, and we walked… for miles and miles!
With ears popping wherever we went, the lowest place we went to was in North America, Death Valley, Badwater Basin at 282ft / 86m below sea level and the highest point, the Eastern exit of Yosemite, Tioga Pass: 9,943ft / 3,031m above sea level.
We stayed at 3 Airbnbs: San Francisco, Big Sky Montana and Niagra, Canada; 1 Grand Canyon wooden lodge in the forest and 17 hotels and motels – some luxurious, 3 with pools, 1 awful.
We visited 5 National Parks: Grand Canyon (North and South rim), Yellowstone, Yosemite, Death Valley and Zion.
We saw one eclipse of the sun and many animals: buffalo, wild turkey, elk, deer, terrapins, many designer doggies (in San Francisco), a little snake, chipmunks, lizards, squirrels, a humming bird, horses, sheep and cows.
We (Mike mainly) took nearly 2,500 photographs.
On our travels we missed instant and cappuccino coffee with semi-skimmed (your coffee was always lukewarm with half & half or creamer powder), thought it strange you put Monteray Jack cheese on everything, that you like mustard rather than mayonnaise, didn’t seem to understand a word we said?! and added tax to every price at the checkout.
God bless America for your yummy ice cream (mainly cookie dough and choc chip), amazing weather, ice cold beer, very well done Visitor Centers, the ‘just get on with it’ nature of your people, respect for the Native American communities and maple syrup, bacon and pancake breakfasts, and lastly, for your amazing, diverse and impressive landscapes and places that we had the pleasure of visiting on our once in a lifetime holiday.
A selection of photos that didn’t make our other Blogs…
Times Square attractions
Directing New York traffic
Bad hair day, good hair day
On the way up to the top of Empire State Building, lovely art deco interior
An S & M fire hydrant?
There’s Mickey & Minnie. In Las Vegas?
Where’s Kate? She’s at one with the earth
I thought Amish weren’t allowed out?
Most of our pictures suggest it wasn’t very busy. It was.
There’s always time to buy more earrings
Posing
More ice cream Kate?
