Long time offline - apologies for current e-mail silence ! I've been through San Diego now, nice beaches and a few travelling reunions (hello to Erwann and Jessica). Whilst staying near the mexican border, a quck day trip to Tijuana was in order - which heralded a day of bad tourist shlock and cheap cheap tequila drinks !

Then on Saturday I got a lift up to Los Angles, where I met up with Will and Ben for some holiday style relaxing. After 10 weeks of solo tourism, it was nice to kick back and relax for a while, and having a car in the US is a great bonus - especially in spread out LA. We went down to universal studios and rode all the rides, went drinking on Sunset Blvd and cruised the beaches and Hollywood sign.

Then we moved onto Las Vegus and toured the casinos. Another random travel reunion (hey Joe) and some low stake blackjack games culimanated in an all night bender of dollar beers, dancing util 5am and then gambling on $5 stake blackjack whilst utterly drunk. Fortunatley I had, like everyone else in Vegus, a system ! So despite my intoxication, I just followed the system and walked off $100 richer - basically covering the cost of previous losses and 3 days of all-you-can-eat buffets.

Currently the three of us are chilling out a few miles away from the Grand Canyon which should be tomorrows expedition. Better sign off and get some kip - only got about 2-3 hours last night and feeling a little drained now !