My daughter and son-in-law had secreted with Dee a birthday card with the inclusion of $100 and the injunction that this was to be taken, converted into chips and be blown at the tables or slots. Neither of us is a gambler so we texted various friends of greater nous in this area for advice. “Put it all on black” was the card-accompanying suggestion; “18 Black” was another but on our wheel 18 was red so what to do? Another said you can’t lose on Keno machines. Chips collected we did a little roulette, a little blackjack and some slots but even with advice from the locals (on reflection they probably wouldn’t tell us how to win would they?) the first fifty had gone in minutes. With a minimum bet of $10 and no hint of a one-off win let alone a streak, we decided we were crap gamblers, nobody playing looked very happy and that we’d be forgiven for investing the remainder in wine and sake to accompany our imminent Nobu meal.
We had eaten at Nobu in London a while ago and knew it still had a few stars around the empire. It would take us back to Japan and so seemed the best place to celebrate. And how! The manager arrived at our table with a trainee waiter in attendance and asked if it was OK. Well I don’t object to medical students in the surgery so if someone can learn proper service I’m all for it. We are given a cocktails menu and select what has become a real favourite for Dee a dirty cucumber martini for her and a whiskey sour for me, followed by a very nice Albariño from Rias Baixas to accompany what we expected to be a fish influenced meal. The first of these arrived and we sipped and campai-ed each other. Then the duo returned and the manager still presented no menu but rather talked to us about the kind of food we had enjoyed in Japan.
He nodded noted and inwardly digested, excuse the pun, and promised us a succession of dishes we would enjoy. The glow of his confidence obviously enveloped us and then it dawned on us that we had no idea what all this was going to cost us. It’s not often in my life that I’ve been in the situation where if you need to ask the price you can’t afford to buy, so we settled back enjoyed our cocktails and waited for the procession.
And that’s what it was – a procession of dishes carefully planned to complement each other and move us through a stunning evening. Presentation was so superb you didn’t really want to spoil the layout but hunger and curiosity overcame us. Sliver-sliced squid with yuzu sauce, sea bream sashimi with ponzu dressing, waygu beef carpaccio with sesame and spring onions, and several others I’ll need the bill to identify.
Finally our dinnertastic duo returned bearing no plates but enquired what we would like for dessert. After protesting that we weren’t really pudding people we agreed to have some ice cream and set them a little test. We thought they would manage green tea and possibly black sesame two of our favourite flavours from our time in Japan. However our absolute favourite was white peach which we’d first discovered in Okayama. We were sure they wouldn’t have that. They trumped us by bringing out three bowls of ice cream with all three flavours offset with a smidgeon of appropriate fruit and chocolate piping on the dish reading “Happy Anniversary”.
Sheer class! As were the delightful hammered silver teapots from which we poured our sake. It’s great when service like that makes it such an occasion that you absolutely know whatever it cost it was worth it.
Untempted by further slots and tables and excited on our anniversary and last night in the US, we took a bottle up to our room and played music and Take Two (a brilliant Scrabble variant for those who haven’t encountered it) until 3 am when we thought we’d better go to bed as we had to pack and get to the airport by one o’clock to check in for our flight back to Gatwick. We’d promised ourselves another Hooter-free visit to the pool but packing got lengthy and we wouldn’t have made it before it was check out time – we’d already negotiated an hour extension beyond the usual 11:00. Returning the car was easier than picking it up and we checked in, did security and headed for the none-too-special lounge The Club at LAS. However it beat sitting out in the general departure lounge by a long way.
The flight back was a bit delayed and we hit Gatwick about half an hour late but otherwise it was fine. Having landed just before midday and had a trusty south east London Data Cars cab to take us home I was at the computer at three checking whether I would be able to manage a deadline of the end of July for some urgent work for the Dutch publishing agency I work for. They’d enquired while we’d been away and I was keen to do the work if I could – these jaunts have to be paid for somehow. So it’s been back to the grindstone (a very pleasant one) ever since for them and the design and branding agency Maverick, hence my sloth in completing our US blogs.
And I felt bad when I wrote that in 2014. Then life, work, sickness and death intervened and here we are with a July 2014 trip finally documented in April 2017. Gentle reader (if any such there be) thanks for your patience.
We completed the drive back to Vegas with no hiccups. There was a strange cloud formation that looked like the genie had been let out of the bottle so we wondered if it meant our luck would be in. We drove into the self-park at the Hard Rock eagerly anticipating our move to our new non-smoking room. We still had the keys to the old room and went there first.
So we retreated to the Hard Rock and got a couple of hours by the Nirvana Pool before being kicked out for a private function. It transpires that despite having their own hotel and casino in Vegas, Hooters had taken the Hard Rock over for the week with performance prizes, beauty pageants, recruitment sessions and a whole load more. I guess this was an international gathering so they wanted the home team to feel they were somewhere different. I had no idea there were 430 Hooters in 28 countries the only one in the UK being in 
Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny so we decided to go back and see more of the Grand Canyon in full sunlight. And what a difference! Colours were brighter, shadows more intense and it seemed even further and deeper down that we spied a wiggle of the Colorado. We bought some Junior Ranger gifts for the grandchildren in the visitor centre which doubles as a small museum of the history of the Grand Canyon village.
Who knew there was an abandoned uranium mine called the 
On our return via the shuttle bus to Grand Canyon Village we were presented with a display of dancing from the Hualapai outside the Hopi House one of the main attractions of the village. They were energetic and slightly threatening and reminded us of the Ainu dances we’d seen in Hokkaido.
The road itself was great – empty of traffic except for a Havasupai Reservation Police jeep at one point – surrounded by rolling hills and agriculture and then we came to the sign “Entering Seligman”. Obviously you’d have to be a hermit not to have heard “Get your kicks on Route 66”. I think I first remember the Chuck Berry version but Nat King Cole did it first and the Rolling Stones and many others followed. In a fabulous piece of 
After waiting in vain for some fresh road kill and having a beer in its dollar bill papered interior we chose a German themed diner opposite with good craft beer – 
We roll through undulating scrubby hills stopping at one out-turn to admire a finger of blue water amid the arid surroundings. Our route meant we would miss the Hoover Dam but this was part of another related irrigation project which had had a profound effect on local environment and wildlife if the helpful display panels were to be believed.
Refreshed we speed (within limits of course) on down to Kingman then across to a left turn a few miles before Flagstaff onto the 64 signposted Grand Canyon National Park. The road from here on into the south rim is remarkably flat. We’ve obviously all seen pictures of the canyon itself but I for one had not appreciated that it was carved out of a billiard table flat plateau. We arrive at half past one at the Grand Hotel at Tusayan also known as Grand Canyon Village. It had taken us, with stops, just over four hours to drive from Vegas. The Grand is a modern hotel – self-styled upscale – and was very pleasant indeed. We had booked a helicopter flight for five o’clock and needed to check in half an hour beforehand so we hung out at the hotel, had a beer or two and some fries in readiness for my selfie birthday present of the helicopter trip.
We flew south to north, turned and returned southwards with great views of the Colorado River twisting through its grand creation. I think for once the “a” word is in order. It was truly awesome. So much so that on return to dry land the ground crew rushed to provide Dee with a box of tissues so overcome was she with the whole experience. It happens quite often they said which is why they were so well prepared. The only mild downside of the flight was that the weather was not great and we had a light spattering of rain on the windscreen as we came back over the forest.
However it seemed to be brightening up so we drove back to the south rim and walked along the edge to find a good sunset viewpoint, just in case.
We wandered around Union Square taking in its historical significance as a place of meetings and protests, admired the Dewey Monument statue of the Goddess of Victory high above us and thought idly about taking a cable car ride – one of the musts in San Francisco which we had failed to do in our previous days here. We had seen the lengthy queues down by Pier 42 and in Market Street and thought we’d have to wait for ever.
We wandered around the huge hotel/casino me resisting the temptation to purchase some really awful Beatles dolls – well Dee is a big fan! We then ate an acceptable dinner in one of the few eateries that remained open and retired to our not-too-smoky room.
We decided not to go back into the valley next day but to drive the Tioga Pass eastwards through the sierra. It is an amazing road but not for the fainthearted. It is very mountainous with twisting roads, vertical drops of 2000 feet with no Armco or stone barriers – just my kind of drive except for two twenty minute hold ups for road works which made the already narrow road single track and short bursts of alternate flow didn’t seem to be on the agenda. I think the 4×4 just in front of us were contemplating getting out their portable BBQ at one point!
We exited the road at Lee Vining on the shores of the weird Mono Lake which appears to have a significant number of clones of Lot’s Wife. It is a saline lake and the accumulation of salt rises up in tall pillars a bit like outdoor stalagmites. We had a lunch stop at the gas station and rest stop which was fine and took the decision to turn left and go north on the interstate 395 and then head west and back to San Francisco on the 108 through the northern sierra as an alternative to retracing our steps via Merced.
The next stretch on Route 5 must be a contender for dullest road in California enlivened by a row of mailboxes for which their were no houses to be seen. Eventually when we turned off onto the 140 at Merced the scenery did improve with a few golden coloured rolling slopes and a generally rural and agricultural feel. As we neared Mariposa the terrain became much hillier with big pines and occasional sightings of big birds which might have been kestrels, hawks and turkey vultures but were usually too high to identify.
We’d booked the Cedar Lodge at El Portal which proved to be a strung out motel with a shop and a restaurant. We were too early to check in, of course, so went for a beer and a light snack until the room was ready. The room was a little old fashioned but did have our towels folded as swans across the end of the bed – often seen in the movies but never before in real life. We dumped our luggage and headed off to the park.
We did find a waterfall with a bit of a trickle, sauntered across the surprising flat meadows that suddenly open up and found the whole place completely enchanting. We also had a glimpse of a brown bear which signs at regular intervals told us not to feed or approach. It was a great afternoon and we made our way back to El Portal for a beer on the porch of our room before dinner.
Fortunately the office was right by the Buena Vista Café which proved an ideal place for lunch. We shared a table with a family from Hawaii and shared their experiences of San Francisco, Las Vegas and LA but didn’t join them in the house 
It was well worth persevering and a reminder of the Japanese gardens in Kanazawa and Okayama we had visited last year, albeit on a much more compact scale. Pagoda, lakes and fountains, lanterns, buddhas and bridges gave it an authentic feel. It’s very popular for photo shoots as we saw both Indian and oriental themed models with their attendant crews. We concluded our visit with a cup of tea – well it is the Japanese Tea Garden – and some excellent mochi cakes. This was another delicacy that we had barely tasted in Japan neither of us being great cake or pudding people.
We decided to dine close to the hotel in a highly web-recommended Thai restaurant called Jitlada. It lived up to its reputation, was small but pleasant, service was friendly and efficient and the food was of such taste and quality that I’m prepared to believe one poster’s claim that it’s ‘the best Thai food in the city’. And that’s what you have to call it The City.
was Getty Day the first of two visits to see how oligarchs with money no object chose to spend it. Interestingly in their later years both Getty and William Randolph Hearst whose castle we planned to visit next day, started talking of their projects in terms of museums rather than just personal indulgences which is how they began. Now they buy baseball and football clubs which don’t leave the same permanent physical identity on the earth’s surface. We went first to the Getty Villa a fanciful reconstruction of a villa from Herculaneum. Its grounds are superb with gardens and courtyards of different kinds surrounding the central palatial building. The centrepiece was a little underwhelming because the ornamental ponds were empty and while blue tiles give some impression of water they don’t reflect like the real thing.
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