USA

Into the New York subway today and down to visit to the 9/11 Memorial.

The new One World Trade Center building is enormous - 104 stories high and the tallest skyscraper in the western hemisphere - but I have to ask myself, why would they build another one? The final component, the spire on top was put in place in October 2013 and standing directly beneath the main entrance and looking up is a little daunting to say the least!

The 2 reflection pools in themselves are a brilliant memorial to those killed in the 9/11 attacks, each 'group' of people having their names grouped with each other and engraved around the edge of the pools. One of the pools surrounds, basically has every name from the North Tower where the majority of people perished.

It was an early morning start out of Toronto this smorning with a 3am wake-up call! A 30 min traffic free run to the airport had us arrive along with many others arrive about an hour before the immigration gates opened for entry into the US. Roll on 4.30am and the quese were building. Made our turn up to the automated passport booth only to find we had been directed into the wrong queue - we were in the US and Canadian queue for automated passport control - wrong! Over to the other queue please ..... ho hum, anyway made it down to the gate no problems and all aboard for the quick 1 1/2 hour flight to New York.The reasons we did all the immigration checks in Toronto were obvious - into the US there was nothing! We were in!

A big day today even though not picked up till 1pm as we were 3 hours ahead of LA time so didn't get up till about 10.00am.

Took approx 2 hours by the time we finally arrived in Niagara after a gorgeous drive along the Niagara River on the way there. The Autumn colours are in full bloom (if you can call it that) and the palce is absolutely gorgeous looking. The drive along the river was apparently classed by Alfred hitchcock as one of the prettiest drives on the planet. It was certainly worth the comment but I guess there'd be lots of pretty drives nowadays.

A long 10 and a half hour overnight flight from Nandi to Los Angeles, neither of us had much sleep but such is life!

Arrived in LAX and eventually found our pre-arranged ground transportation which got us to the Universal City Hilton, high up on the hill in Hollywood right at the doorstep to Universal Studios.

It was mid afternoon on arrival there and with lack of sleep we both bedded in for a couple of hours lie down.

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It’s now time to head home after a very fast paced 12 days here in Vegas.
We’ve played 4 rounds of golf in over 36 degree heat – one day was 40 at least we are certain!!!!
We’ve flown up to the Grand Canyon in a light plane, taken a helicopter ride to the Colorado river at the bottom and then all back again.
We’ve been out to the Hoover Dam and been to the bottom of that and made sure the generators were still working – they were!
We’ve walked The Strip I don’t know how many times!!
As our bus driver said yesterday, and we totally agree.....
The casinos here
•    Have no exit signs anywhere – you are supposed to stay inside and gamble

Time is flying by here – have now played 2 days of golf on the Bali Hai and The Royal Links Golf courses – both beautiful courses and not sure of a daily fee if we had to pay that but all part of our package so not worried. But what’s more I’ve even won the last 2 days amongst the ladies!! A sleeve of 3 golf balls times 2 plus about 6 I found on the course today so am up a dozen balls to date!
It was a VERY hot day out there today on the links style course – probably around 40 degrees we reckon but the course staff were fabulous, think we saw the drinks cart about 4 times, one guy running round with icy poles for everyone which for anyone organising ladies open days which turn out to be really hot – they are a great idea and a nice surprise when everyone is so hot.

For those who didn't know - we've gone again!! It was a typical 13hr long haul over to Los Angeles then we had a delayed 6 hr wait for transfer up to Las Vegas on Wednesday. Arrived in here about 3pm so after a quick shower we managed a couple of hours sleep before venturing out into the strip for a quick stroll. Although that's an understatement - a quick stroll along the strip is like a 100m fight through the crowds!

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