Last stop – Disneyland. Can you belieeeeve it? This was at my request and the boss agreed (although he is probably regretting it!) We arrive back in LA on a hot afternoon and straight to Howard Johnsons just down the road from where Mickey and Goofy and friends live and, by the look of the temperature gauge, it is just as well we put the shorts and t-shirts on the top of the case! It is a warm 33 degrees as we set off after breakfast to be kids for 2 days in the land of fantasy. The littlies have emailed us to tell us what their favourite rides were last year and I can see that every bone in our bodies is going to be rattled as we hold on for dear life on rides which scream around in the dark and in the light and where Star Wars Chewbaccas are using every tool in their armery to awaken us!! We ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain (where we were more than splashed), the Matterhorn Bobsleds, Pirates of the Caribbean, the tameness of Finding Nemo Submarine and It’s a Small World, Hyperspace Mountain, Star Tours, Astro Orbitor, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and then it’s over to California Adventure Park to do Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, Luigi’s Rollicking Roadsters, Radiator Springs Racers, the Grizzly River Run on rafts and the amazing Soarin Around the World which we line up for twice. The first day we managed to do 10 hours of all this excitement staying to watch the Paint the World light parade and fireworks before hobbling back to the hotel and fallin’ into bed and sleeping like babies!! Next morning we were back there to finish off the list the kids had sent us. We then hobbled back again to have a swim and shower and even fell asleep on the loungers at the pool before the shuttle came to collect us. We are just hopin now that we don’t need to go to the physiotherapist next week to sort out our bones that have probably come out of alignment with all this shaking and turning (and screamin!!). So the journey is over and what an amazing one it was.


Highlights?  There are too many to mention; too many contrasts of wonderful scenery, experiences and monuments from the big cities like Washington, Montreal, Quebec, Toronto and Ottawa to the madness of New York and Las Vegas; the heat of the deserts and canyons in Arizona and Nevada; the pretty and beautiful places like Victoria and Yosemite; the sheer magnificence of the Rockies with the huge mountains, the blue lakes, the never-ending Christmas tree forests; the interesting and unusual life of the Amish; the quaint places of Maine and Nova Scotia like Peggy’s Cove; the black bears, moose, caribou and other amazing wildlife of Canada and Alaska; the glaciers of the Inside Passage; the wilderness of Alaska with its mushers, log cabins and the salmon running to get upstream; the incredible flight over the Arctic Circle to Coldfoot and Wiseman to get an insight into this very different life – all of it a feast for the eyes and an experience we never thought we would be fortunate enough to get. We are blessed. We are completely over Trump and Hillary and glad we have left them behind and we are over queuing at the bathrooms and looking under doors to see if there are feet there!!!  

We have travelled in excess of 12,500 miles on land sitting beside each other on a coach (and we are still talking!!)  We have slept in 36 beds, enjoyed wonderful food, and had too many wonderful experiences to recall (the blog was written partly for us!)  It was mainly written for family and friends to travel along with us and we hope you have enjoyed it.  We have just loved writing it.

So we are home – we managed to get to the right place for breakfast at the right time and we didn’t need to put our cases outside the room for collection. We had a love affair with the washing machine on the first day back and the car was quite nice too!! This adventure has ended but make no mistake – there will be another sometime, somewhere. It might not be as far away or for as long as this one but we already have some ideas! Heaven forbid! Just need to buy the Lotto ticket!    Golden postcards.org will remain and we may even write about other holidays.  We are off to Melbourne in October for a special wedding; to Pauanui for a few months over summer and Martinborough for another special wedding in March so we will post photos and a short commentary of our continuing adventures.  Now we look forward to catching up with y’all here at home!