Day 1 - The tour begins!

We get up early at MVR and dad gives us a lift to the tube so we can get to Heathrow for our morning flight. The start isn’t quite as early as I’d thought, but we still know that we’ll need a lot of coffee to help us get through the day. We struggle our three suitcases onto the tube, but they are soon propped up at the side and we grab a seat and free morning paper.

How did we end up with three suitcases? I keep telling myself it’s because we’re carrying a lot of gifts for people and we’ve left lots of space to buy clothes and other cheap goods in the US. We’re using the smallest one as hand-luggage and inside one of the larger one is a hold-all just in case we really do go to town on the shopping.

We fuel up with a cooked breakfast at the airport whilst waiting for the flight. This is a planned move as when we looked at the finer print on our flight details it seems they are the budget choice in terms of on-board food. We don’t complain as the sausages and bacon do the job and we just keep thinking of the unlimited tea and coffee that we’ll consume to make up for lack of food.

We’ve got a long flight, which is direct over to the West coast which for me would get me thinking about how many films I can fit in. Looking at the in-flight magazine on board though and we soon realise the options are limited. We both watch the new Steve Carrell film and then channel hop. Scott manages to find a diving program which is pretty cool so we watch that too. Scott also discovers that Channel 9 for the radio is actually the Air Traffic Control and so we spend a good while listening in as we taxi around the airport and fly over the UK. To make up for the in-flight entertainment we end up flying north and over Greenland and then northern Canada before coming down the west coast. This route is awesome and every five minutes finds me lifting the blind and craning my neck to see as much of the icey landscape as possible. I point things out to Scott until I realise that he’s not as excited about another glacier as I am and so settle for taking photos out the window.

Far too many teas and coffees later we land at San Francisco for a short layover befor flying to Sac. The landing at SFO is awesome as we circle the bay and the Golden Gate bridge and finally come into land over the bay, touching down just as land appears beneath the wings.

We’re knackered and lounge around the airport trying to rest, but keep awake. The time difference means that this afternoon flight is actually the middle of the night for us. We made the decision to try and stay awake throughout the day-time flight and go to bed “normal time” when we arrived at Lel’s. This way we thought we’d get over the jet-lag quickly, and we probably will, but it’s tough going for these two hours.

The flight to Sac is only 30 mins long and is on the cutest tiny plane. We walk out on the tarmac to it and the stairs fold down from the door for us to get on board. The lone air hostess has to open the door to the cockpit and stand in the doorway to have space to greet us as we get on board. The props start spinning and we’re away.

The adrenaline hits us though and we are wide awake again as we touch down in Sacramento and we know Lel and Tom will be waiting for us. They are there at the bottom of the escalator and we exchange hugs and excitement at the start of our adventure. It’s really great to see them and know that our holiday is properly starting!

Traffic is heavy back to their place in Folsom, but we don’t mind as we natter away and catch up in the car. At the house we bear hug Will, meet his girlfriend Morgan, and then Ceese arrives having driven up after finishing work in the Bay for a long 4^th of July weekend.

The holiday weekend sees the Folsom Rodeo taking place, and we arrive just in time to catch the cattle drive – ‘a hundred head of cattle’ herded down the main streets of Old Folsom.  Lesley drives us across the river to

Sutter Street

, a part of town straight out of a Western (although with tarmac roads rather than dirt) where we watch the parade.  Various runners in fancy dress, followed by classic cars and a number of horses and carts head down, before everyone is told to stand back as the cows arrive.  In the heat they plod quietly along the road, flanked by cowboys in rhinestone shirts and colourful embroided chaps.  It’s wonderfully 'wild west' experience to have on our first day.

It’s so great to see everyone and we spend the evening putting the world to right over good beers and red wine. Scott and I finally collapse into bed, having been awake for nearly 24-hours.