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A little bit of Mark Twain, Noisy New York and Chris!

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Our next destination after leaving Albuquerque was Philadelphia. David was making a visit to Pennsylvania University. We had been here before and with only one full day, and no definite plan, I decided to walk into town. It was an hour's walk, fortunately walking straight along one main road, so there was little chance of getting lost.  First stop was to buy an umbrella, which then proceeded to blow inside out on this cold, wet,  blustery day. I eventually took refuge in Macy's department store where I happily roamed amongst the sale racks. The actual highlight of that shopping experience was listening to the daily organ performance in Macy's on the worlds largest fully functioning pipe organ. As people shopped, the sounds of " Jerusalem" rang out. It was beautiful although most shoppers seemed oblivious to the performance! We left the next morning by train for New York where we were to pick up a rental car to drive to Storrs in Connecticut. After collecting ...
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The Wild West and Beyond

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While David attended the conference in Phoenix I amused myself walking around the downtown area, reading and sitting beside the pool! (It's a hard life!) I found downtown Phoenix does not have much to offer. There are few shops, mostly restaurants and businesses and of course the conference centre. David attended the MRS conference (Materials Research Society), a conference with about 4000 people attending. The days were particularly hot and the air very dry. There were lots of homeless and a police officer stationed on our street corner every day. On the final day of our stay, once David had completed all his conference commitments we caught the light rail and bus to Scottsdale. Over an hour away by public transport, situated east of the capital and not far from Camelback Mountain, the older part of Phoenix is known for its art galleries. Scottsdale itself has a fashion mall but it is the Old Town, although very touristy, that has all the charm with statues linking its past ...
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Getting our kicks on Route 66

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As I begin to write I can't help wishing that someone would pay me to travel the world and record my introspective ramblings!  We have already had a great weekend in the US with Emma joining David and I for this short time; a weekend that would take us from LA to Phoenix and Flagstaff. We flew into LA on Thursday (13th April), where, after a shower and breakfast we met up with David's brother Chris and his new wife Ann. (Anne is so incomplete without an "e".)  We were staying in the Manhattan Beach area of Los Angeles and they drove us down to the beach where we walked out on the pier and along the beachfront walkway, marvelling at the houses and colourful spring gardens. A walk was what we needed to try to clear our heads of the cobwebs of jet lag. After lunch at a typical LA style organic restaurant, where David and Emma opted for the "hangover" juice and myself a honey lemonade, and a catch up on all the family news, we were taken to Venice Beach. A l...
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