Driving around Utah enjoying the National Parks. We stopped at Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. There are pictures up of both (Zion and Bryce).

I didn't mention them, but there are also pictures up of Lake Havasu City and Hoover Dam.

Time for an update – I don’t get to a computer and I seem to think of Twittering a message when I am driving and that’s not a good idea.

From Anaheim, we drove east amid 18 wheelers and large pickups pulling boats. It rained on us while leaving LA and a few times on the road. We didn't see any of the tornadoes that happened that day and we missed to flooding, but there is a lot of rain falling on the desert down here and that's usually good for at least one flood.

Like I said, there were lots of boats on the road. It seems that the Spring is time for the annual migration of boats from LA driveways to the wet recreation areas along the Colorado River. We spent the night at one of these -- Lake Havasu City. This town is on Lake Havasu (of course) and is just a little south of Needles. I know that town because it's always in the weather news as the hottest city in the country. Despite the summer heat, there are a lot of people living down here with subdivisions spreading across the desert and up the hillsides.

The main attraction in Lake Havasu City, besides the lake and water activities, is the London Bridge. This is the London Bridge of "falling down" fame that was carted from England to the deserts of the US and now spans one end of a small bay. You can drive across it and walk and boat under it. The development directly associated with the bridge is a little sad, though. There are some flourishing hotels and a few restaurants, but, around the visitor's center there are boarded up buildings and the 'theater and pub' is closed and boarded. The 'British and American Friendship Garden' is dead and long removed. Some of the buildings have 'improvements coming' signs on them but that's the only sign of advancement. The bridge itself looks good and seems to be in fine health.

Driving around we notice little differences between the states. As I Twittered before, unlike in Oregon (where alcohol stronger than wine is only sold in state licensed liquor stores) California Costco's sell hard liquor -- think Costco sized bottles of vodka. Maximum road speeds vary by state (75 in AZ, 70 in CA) and one noticed coming from CA to AZ is gas prices -- CA is consistently over $4 per gallon while, just across the boarder in AZ, the prices are in the $3.60 to $3.80 range. It's not the state gas taxes -- I looked. Utah, which has gas taxes 1.5 times the CA gas tax still has $3.80 gas.

After Lake Havasu City, we drove north and stopped at Hoover Dam. Impressive feat engineering. We took the tour and visited the tunnels and generator room. The visitor's center is very grand and they keep reminding you that is wasn't paid for by tax dollars -- the dam supports itself by selling power and charging visitors fees.

It was threatening rain at the dam and we watched lightening flicker in the skies overhead. Our drive from there north to Zion National Park was a wet one. It rained and rained and rained here in the desert so the hillsides are green with new growth.

We are finishing up with some last time in Disneyland and will head inland tomorrow. I’ll be glad to get out of this crowded park. The weather hasn’t been too bad and, by normal DLand standards, the crowds are actually light. It’s still a lot of people and a lot of lines. Tomorrow Arizona and some more outdoors.

There are some pictures for our drive through Big Sir and the visit to Hearst Castle and some more snaps of Disneyland. I reversed the order of the trip pictures so the newer ones show up on the first page.

As I mentioned in the Twitter to the left, we drove into LA last night. It was really LA as we experienced freeway traffic jams on a Sunday evening. Amazing. It’s in the 80’s and a little humid with not a cloud in the sky. At this very moment, I’m sitting beside the pool at our hotel while the laundry goes around – a necessity of travel.

After SF, we stopped in Monterey to visit the Aquarium and eat lunch in their touristy Fisherman's Wharf. The aquarium had a lot of amazing displays of fish and plants but the activities were all geared to young children. So we came, we oggled, we exited.

The next day was a visit to Hearst Castle. When I have 200 million dollars to spend on a house, I hope mine is this magnificent.

The rest of the day was spent driving down the California coast -- beautiful, beautiful, beautiful: the sea lions basking on the beaches, the white waves crashing against the rocks and the blue, blue ocean.

Dland Originally uploaded by MisterBlue Guess where we are.