7 days to wheels up...

All hotels booked. Almost time to start packing (well, almost time for Diane and Lorraine to start packing anyway).

Accommodations:
7th Feb - New York - Grand Hyatt
10th Feb - Niagara Falls - Embassy Suites
12th Feb - Los Angeles - Westin LAX
13th Feb - Las Vegas - The Palazzo
16th Feb - San Francisco - Stanford Court
19th Feb - Big White Ski Resort - Stonebridge Lodge Unit 405A
29th Feb - Vancouver - Pacific Palisades
2nd Mar - Whistler Ski Resort - Woodrun Lodge Unit 403
9th Mar - Los Angeles - InterContinental Century City

Nice snow down to the village at Whistler. The dreaded 'r' word hasn't raised it's ugly head for a while, so this good solid base of the white stuff should be able to withstand all but the most severe rain events until our arrival.

Temperature links...

More links.

These links will give you current temperatures, weather conditions and forecasts for the day.

New York
Buffalo (Niagara Falls)
Las Vegas
San Francisco
Big White
Vancouver
Whistler/Blackcomb
Los Angeles

Today's the day we've waited 12 months for...

Well, the day has finally arrived for Diane and myself and we are enjoying our final cup of coffee, possible the last decent cuppa we'll get for 5 weeks, ready to be taken to the airport by Bob Snr.

My next report will be from the 'Land of the Giants', that's New York for those not au fait with the Superbowl.

A click on the weather link below shows we will be greeted with clear skies and a maximum of 7 degrees. The Swannies scarf has just been moved to the outside zipper, lol.

Thx all for words of encouragement and Clive and Lorraine, we'll see you next week.

Bye for now.

Greetings from The Big Apple...

7th Feb, 2008

Arrived safe and sound in New York, 28 hours from the time I locked the door behind me at Hoddle Place until we checked in at the Grand Hyatt.

New York is cold.

Found a great bagel place for breakfast with all kinds of flavoured cream cheeses to spread. I had Jalapeno flavoured cream cheese and Diane had Apple and Cinnamon, Mmmmm.

Went to the top of the Empire State Building today. We paid $7 for a hand held device, something like an oversized mobile phone. You enter numbers on the keypad as you come to the corresponding numbered sign on the Observation Deck and it gives you a couple of minutes narrative of points of interest at each point. Amazingly, only about 20% of people seemed to have them, but it was easily the best $7 you could have spent. It pointed out all the areas of Manhattan and a few historical facts as well. Fully recommend.

A few pics of the view from up top, though it was quite misty:






Did a fair bit of shopping afterwards at Macy's and a menswear shop.

Tonight we are off to the theatre to see Chicago and to have a post show dinner at Carmines.

Later.