May in the USA

As threatened a few notes on my trip to Rock Hill/Charlotte in the Carolinas to see my school friend Tricia and her husband Clive plus Las Vegas to celebrate one of my newer friend's xx birthday.

Rock Hill is a 20 minute drive from Charlotte, I'm not sure what I was expecting but it was hotter and  more snake ridden than I thought, no bare feet in the garden!

As you can see the area grew once the railroad came through and no doubt this horse trough became redundant, but good piece of ironwork.

Lots of wooden houses, but brick and stone municipal buildings.

One of the oldest churches

We travelled just the other side of Charlotte to what turned out to be the first goldmine in the country, where the original nugget was found by a young boy and the Reed family used it as a doorstop until someone offered to buy it and although sold for a very low price, it became clear that a seam of gold bearing rocks was very near the surface . Quite a lot of panning was done and there were flecks on this statue. Tricia looks suitably impressed!

The search moved underground

and we saw the shafts from both top

and bottom.

Quite a history before the gold rush fever moved everyone further west. It was lovely to spend some time with them both and not feel too pressured to rush round (although I did manage some jeans shopping!). So thank-you both for a relaxing time before the mayhem that is Las Vegas.

Interesting watering patterns (I assume) from the plane on the flight over  

and as we approached could see both part of Lake Mead

and the desert.

I had arranged to visit the Grand Canyon by helicopter on the first morning,fortunately from the 'local' airport. Limousine picked me up and after the obligatory 'weigh-in' we were allocated to the different helicopters and off. At the edge of the airfield these beauties were hiding but quite who they thought they were protecting heaven knows.

The desert is a riot of colour

and we flew over the Hoover Dam (used in one of the James Bond films)

with a closer look at Lake Mead where many people go for boating trips

before reaching the canyon

 and landing on a ledge

where we could walk to overlook the river where many photo's were taken!

We had a walk round and I was rather taken with this cactus

before we retired under some much needed shelter for a glass of fizz and a picnic box which was rather better than I had expected.

On the flight back there was another lovely view of part of the lake

and a reminder that the area was volcanic (shades of Hawaii) spot the cone!

 With a last reminder of the desert colours.

We flew over  a resort on the edge of the lake nearest Las Vegas and you may recognise this bridge from somewhere else! From this height not a bad impression of Florence.

On arriving back into Las Vegas, from airport on left to stratosphere on right.

We flew close to the stratosphere where you can take a very high and scary ride, look at the arm on the left!

Then travelled up the strip so had an opportunity of seeing some of the hotels from the air

Bellagio in the foreground and Paris behind

Ceasars Palace which spreads more than this for shopping

The Venetian where I stayed, all three of the blocks at the rear with Treasure Island in the front

New York, New York

and of course the Luxor

The whole place is shopping and gambling (although there was a very interesting photography exhibition in our hotel, but cost an arm and a leg to get into so failed miserably in trying to get any culture). The insides of the hotels once away from the inevitable casino were quite interesting, a Parisian street in Paris was very well done and the grand canal (2 floors up!) and totally indoors in our hotel was also pretty spectacular.

Our hotel tried hard, this is the walkway between reception and the casino

and this was the view of our nearest outside pool from my room window, the pool is on the 10th yes 10th floor!

Las Vegas at night is a whole different thing with various entertainments on offer apart from the fountains, sorry no decent pictures, you can catch volcanoes

pirate ships both spooky, filled with lady sirens in their show

and more mundane, the musical show lasted for 25 minutes or so and completely free to those on the sidewalk.

Paris looks particularly pretty

as did our Doges palace tower, not to mention the Rialto Bridge, shame about the traffic!

We ventured out to Fremont Street which is the 'old' part of Vegas, where the street is covered with lights,

the show girls were out

and to the local buffet, which was very good as confirmed by this patron!!

I tried to win a BMW on the slot machines (as you do!) but fortunately only on my last day so only lost a very little, it was quite extraordinary to see people putting dollar after dollar into the machines, and poker/blackjack tables often had $50 minimum so glad I was not tempted. It is an extraordinary town given over to look-alike people, I saw 'Rod Stewart' and 'Johnny Depp' just wandering down the street as well as look-alike places, but I think I'll stick to the originals places not people!

Fran and I shared a meal and saw The Jersey Boys as her birthday present and at the time it was lovely to come out of the theatre after 11pm into still very warm air to stroll back up the strip to our hotel. A great way to celebrate an important birthday.

Maui

Another early start for the flight to Maui, the last of the islands we are visiting. It is two volcanoes joined together by a low lying area of flat land where not surprisingly the airport is situated.

Sea both sides in the distance taken from the national park. 

It is an older island and hence has also developed some lush green vegetation and beautiful valleys as you can see here

along with the aptly named 'pinnacle rock'.

We then travelled on to a pretty town called Lahaina for lunch before arriving at our hotel further north on a lovely beach. We were particularly lucky with our room which faced the sea, possibly because we had booked two extra days there.

Actually able to unpack properly as 5 nights and then went and explored the beach and watched the sunset ceremony based on old traditions where the lights are lit and then the young man

 takes his flare up to the top of the rocks makes a prayer to the gods and then dives off to find his bounty.

We had foolishly (at my request!) signed up for a road trip round the coast of the larger volcano departing at 7.15am, I really should know better! Called the Road to Hana it passed a surfing beach 

and then proceeded to wind along a very picturesque coast 

with wildlife if you can see it

and a banyan tree

where the roots drop from the branches and a special eucalyptus, the trunk is not painted honest!

apart from the notice at the top.

through Hana a small town with some famous inhabitants (no doubt because it is rather difficult to get to) and on to another black sand beach where we had a provided picnic lunch.

The road goes down to a dirt track and when it has been rainy we wouldn't have been able to continue but fortunately all was well and once the road became metalled again we reached the winery, now you understand why I wanted to go!!

Some rather strange wooden sculptures greeted us 

along with a more domesticated version of the wild animal, and even more strange wine, pineapple not as sweet as you might expect and a more ordinary white and red, not tempted to buy though. It had a lovely old fashioned general store selling all sorts of tourist stuff magically not too tacky.

The road goes round the base of a large volcano called Haleakala rising to some 10,000ft and that is where we headed the next morning with the whole group as it was the last day of the main tour.

Passing sugar cane fields with Haleakala in the background

and the only sugar cane factory in Hawaii, 

once reduced it is shipped off to California and refined into C & H sugar no prizes for guessing what the initials stand for!

There is a useful ranger shop with lovely wooden bird sculptures note this one

and they cultivate the silver sword            

which dies after flowering shown by this rather fine sculpture

They also have two flags flying one is fairly obvious but the other with a union jack and 8 stripes ( 8 islands) is the state flag of Hawaii showing the Captain Cook connection, must be a trivial pursuit question!

The top of the mountain is a national park and the crater is enormous and apparently used to test lunar/Mars rovers by Nasa, as it was mid morning by the time we got there the temperature although cool was not as cold as our evening visit to Mona Kea. The air still a bit thin but as veterans of a higher peak we decided to climb the highest part we could and were rewarded with some good shots of both the crater

and some people setting off on a horse trek with the coast line far below.

Met up again to say good-bye to most of our fellow travellers, sadly no free drink at this meeting not even orange juice, then travelled into Lahaina for supper to test out the local bus service as we need to use it for our whale watching expedition tomorrow.

At the entrance to the dock is another banyan tree, the second largest in the world and all of what look like trunks are in fact roots of one tree!

We saw whales! A mother and baby and a competition pod where 2 or 3 whales are trying to impress one female. We did see a whale rise right out of the water but since they do it without warning no photo I'm afraid but quite extraordinary to see them so close to the boat.

Went and treated ourselves to very fine lunch afterwards looking over the sea before going back to the hotel for some sun for me and a walk for Gail. Quiet evening, nice sunset.

Last full day and we walked in the morning to the Hyatt regency at the other end of the long beach to see the

yes penguins! South African in origin and therefore apparently able to cope with the climate although they are in a central atrium which is I suspect kept cooler in the very hot weather.

Time for a little sunbathing before heading back to Lahaina to pick up our cocktail and sunset cruise, well it was our last evening. The island has many colours from the sea

This also proved to be an opportunity to watch some whales although not as many as we had seen on our first trip but it did give me an opportunity to photograph Lanai one of the smaller islands.

This is where Bill Gates got married some years ago and it was recently purchased with some help from the British taxpayer by 'Mr Amazon' Larry Ellison! The side visible is rather barren but I understand the other side is a bit better, however I was pleased to see the rain falling on another evening!

 

 We followed up our cruise with another fine meal and were still in time to catch a bus back, timing is everything!

Fortunately wangled a room for the day as we were not due to leave until 7.30pm, on the third floor and at the back of the hotel but with this view of a very blue sea and coast further north.

It also proved to be a magnet for birds once they realised we had some crumbs from left over crisps and biscuits, this one should be familiar.

One last sunset

and a meal in the bar of the hotel, surprisingly not over-priced and then the long trek home began and some 24 hours later we arrived back at Heathrow  pretty tired but with some amazing memories,a brilliant trip. Aloha.