The main reason for the trip was to see Nigel and Arliene get married in Hawaii, but obviously we extended that to catch some rays, swim in the ocean and check out the sites. After a remarkable easy flight, we dropped into LA for a couple of nights and caught up with the majority of Abbys friends for their 'Taco Tuesday' tradition. Down to the local Mexican restaurant for some a taco and a beer - we were sitting on the roof. The weather caught everyone off guard as it was quite cold but we grabbed some thick table cloths and used them as blankets. Few brews later we were stumbling home to get ready for the flight to Hawaii the next day.

We were all staying in the same hotel as the bride and groom, so it was easy for us all to catch up in the morning at breakfast or on the beach. First couple of days we just hung out on the gorgeous beach, some people surfing, others just lapping up the sunshine but all sucking up the cocktails.

Nigel and Arliene's wedding day was ideal, sunshine and a cloudless sky. It took part in the local catholic church on the beach, and was a simple and quick wedding. I was a basic affair and I think most were keen to get back to the hotel for the reception. The food and booze flowed easily. The reception was outside in a court yard, surrounded on three sides by the hotel and on the fourth by the beach/ocean. As night feel they lite candles on each table giving us a little light - but people started to return from the beach and retire to their hotel rooms with darkness. What they didn't realize was that we could all see straight inside, so every time someone naked came near their window - a cheer would go up from the now rowdy crowd.

Over the next couple of days, we did the touristy things as required! Pearl Harbour was interesting, it is very over the top american as you could imagine. Red white and blue everywhere, flags etc. But the trip over the sunken boats was interesting and it was good to see some history to break up the lazing on the beach. Next was the Dole Pineapple Planation, and views over the coffee and banana fields.

More site seeing took in various movie/tv sets and beaches. Extinct volcanoes and sea blow holes. I really did enjoy Hawaii, as it is just what it says on the package, relaxing and calming. Afterwards, we flew back to LA to catch up with Nick and Jade before flying back to London.

With Abby settling in over here in London, it was about time to go back and pick up some more(!) of her stuff, meet the parents (shudder) and pick up her pet iguana Johnny. Never really nervous about meeting parents - as well…they all love me, but the prospect of living with Johnny I must admit un-settled me a bit. Something about 4 foot territorial lizard roaming the house looking to pick a fight. But at this point I had already suggested to Abby’s disgust that it live outside. Because it is a 12 hour flight, we extended it from a go and grab mission to a 10 day holiday.

Driving from the airport to Abby’s home town of Stayton, you got an idea of just how sparse the population of Oregon was. It kind of reminded me of the Canterbury plains back home with endless farms, but in this case, all of it produce - with very few live stock anywhere. I got a kick out how back-water American movie town it was - one traffic light, a diner, kids going to the river to go swimming and well that was about it. I could see how you would get bored it could be in the summer holidays and why people try to escape and run to the big city. But then all the kids worked on the farm, picking berries, driving tractors, snipping broccoli etc so I guess they were busy.

State Fair
We headed to the state fair, which is very much like the A&P (Agricultural and Produce) show back home but on a much larger scale. It was hot, dusty and a tad un-comfortable walking around. But I got to laugh at the magnitude of 'cowboys' roaming around with their Stetson hats, spurs and one size too small jeans. There was the normal variety of sickening foods, candy floss and toffee apples, fair go rides, arts'n'crafts, an as-seen-on-tv hanger of stalls, and live entertainment. I think it was a been-there done-that event where I won’t be rushing back to any state fair. But it was a good day out.

Seattle
We hired a car and drove to the State of Washington to visit Abby’s sister (Mellissa) in Seattle. Different state = different world basically, as the landscape changed from rolling farmland to forests with cities implanted in the valleys, you could see the IQ raising and the level of sophistication equaling rising. Abby’s sister has two small girls and newly acquired baby boy. The girls seemed to latch onto anyone who had given them remotest bit of attention - which was my fatal flaw. As we arrived, they asked if I wanted to have a look at something and naturally not wanting to offend 'Yeah sure what is it?' - next thing I know I am being molested for 3 days to look at this, play with that, push me on the swing this... arrg... When do we leave?

But it was pretty relaxing and I liked their life style, we went out on the boat and had a water tour of Seattle, seeing the house boats from 'Sleepless in Seattle' the movie, a sail boat race in the harbor, we even saw Bill Gates house with him arriving home on his yacht. It seems he lives in his 'complex' on one side of the lake/harbor and works in Redmond, Seattle on the other - so what better way to get to work but to drive you boat. As he arrives, 4 men in perfect white suits come out to help dock and tie off his boat. Next we did a spot of waterskiing and tubing before heading back in as night started to fall. On the same tour I was pretty happy to see an American Bald Eagle - which I learnt has recently come off the endangered species list.

Johnny
So, the iguana. Although he is pretty cool, I am no real fan. And it would seem, neither are Abby’s parents or sister who have been living with him over the last 3 months. So I think they were looking forward to seeing the back end of him. But the real excitement came a few days before we were scheduled to leave, Abby was giving him a bath at the same time as preparing his food, in the process of carrying him and adjusting his food the little blighter took a snap at her and managed to just graze across her arm - she got him in his cage before starting to go into shock and passing out, falling taking most of the deck furniture with her. Lauren and I were just going outside as we saw her hit the deck and start convulsing and shaking while soft fat and muscle tissue was pushing out of gaping wound. Putting her in the recovery position we were going to give a minute before calling the ambulance but she came out of it all alright within a minute. So we took her down to the ER to get a dozen stitches. The up-side of the incident was that Abby became a little scared of him and we decided to find an educational rescue which will look after him well. Bye bye Johnny bye bye.

Having made a new friend in LA, cheap flights and nothing planned for my next 10 days off. There was little to no excuse for not going back to LA and doing a little more exploring.

After a bit lazing around Hermosa beach, shopping and going out in LA, the initial plan was to head down and pop over to Mexico, but the banditos scared us off so we headed for Vegas. Its just how you picture it from the movies, neon lights everywhere, a casino in every building even the petrol stations have slot machines. I saw at least half a dozen brides running around the lobby of our hotel. We had a play in a Casino, naturally losing our money in the blink of an eye. Abby had the hook ups at some very cool clubs, allowing us to get on the VIP list to avoid the multi hour ques and cover charges. Although the club was a pretty high class, this was vegas after all so there were still girls in bath tubs and dancing on raised platforms.

After Vegas, we went to the Nevada + Arizona border to see the Hoover Dam. I was a tad disappointed - as it was a lot smaller then I imagined. But a pleasant surprise was seeing some Wild billy goats. It was a relaxing trip, off to Snowboard in Italy next week.

Who thought going home would be so much of a drama. There is zero public transport from Mammoth back to the clutches of civilization. The initial plan was for a friend of Bonnie's to hire a car from Reno to get to Mammoth, and I was going to take the car to LAX. That fell through when a storm blew in and closed Reno airport taking away both the option of an internal flight and car rental from there. Also, the lady who ran the local car rental branch spun out on ice on the way to work, and they wouldn't open for a few days. So no car rental there arrgh Out comes the cardboard, it was time to get down to the corner and start hitch hiking.

It was about minus 10, snowing and did I mention minus 10. Two hours later my fingers, toes and other unmentionables had gone through the shivering stage and out the other side. I wasn't getting much luck on the lift front, although I believe I was entertaining the masses as I got lots of thumbs up, big smiles and waves. Then a vision of beauty - a Honda civic doing a U-turn and pulling over. Abby, an LA local took pity on me and we headed south. As we left the snowy mountains behind picked up speed across planes. Unfortunetly, the storm causing the snow on the mountains was blowing over semis' and caused the state highway patrol to close large sections of the Mojave desert road adding another 2 hours to our journey. But the bad luck didn't end there, I was pointing out something in the desert causing Abby to glance over while a strong wind blew us into another car traveling down the highway. crash. Dragging our sorry butts into LA, we headed to the pub to drown some sorrows before crashing for the next days flight.

Sat next to Woolly - the mountain mascot on the lift up one run. Wooly doesn't talk but his chaperon remembered Tom from years ago and started telling me about him crashing down the mountain woolys head rolling off down the mountain without him. I found in hysterical hearing about it ;)

I didn't have to stay on the couch very long as I ended up house sitting for one of Bonnies friends. The two cats were cute but didn't seem to like sleeping at night much and enjoyed pouncing and tormenting me into the early hours of the morning. But it was nice to have a bed and place to my own for a few days.

All my gear turned out to be really good, well I was pleased at least. And hitting the powder in decent gear was great. The ipod was blaring and I was nice a toasty all day. A couple of stats on mammoth: the ski area is 3,500 acres, top elevation of 11,053 feet with a vertical drop of 3,100 feet. 150 named trails, 3 gondolas and i am guessing about 30 lifts.

I was very slack over the whole holiday taking photos which as you always do - you regret instantly afterwards. But as long as I had a good time and the few I did take will remind me :)

Bonnie picked me up with a friend of hers, who had just been told that her little sister was moving out of home and coming up to Mammoth with her. So for the next 5 hour drive, the girls in back were scrapping like only sisters can...most of the way up, Bonnie was picking on me suggesting that I was going to get altitude sickness as apparently most people do, as the hours past and the hassles continued I was half expecting to die once arriving. Nothing happened, and nothing ever did..I do believe I was suckered.

That evening we arrived at Mammoth, it was lightly snowing after the ends of a little bit of cloud which dropped about a foot of snow. Which set up the first days boarding. It was fantastic to hit the slopes, the difference between Mammoth and skiing back home is immeasurable. The size of the ski field, trees everywhere and long runs.

Bonnies work seemed pretty cool, although she seem to have a few internal office politics its a good group and they get to take long lunches and hit the ski field. It can't be all bad when this is your view from her window! It is extremely social on the mountain, everyone is up for a good time and that seems to be what they have. People are almost divided in to locals (+2 seasons), transients (1 season) and patrons (me). Bonnie dragged me out to a few parties, back to ski school party, few gatherings with mates and various other outings. She did well in entertaining me. I never realised quite how cold it was on a mountain at 10,000 feet until we were in an outdoor hot tub up to my neck and the wet hair on my head froze solid.

I had bought a few toys online prior to arriving in the US. With the cheaper prices in the US as well has the tragic state of the US dollar I would have been stupid not to.

So arriving at Nicks I has quickly taken ownership (although with a little bit of a fight with Nick) of a new Forum 2006 Warrior Snowboard, Burton custom bindings, goggles, sunglasses, ipod nano, climbing harness, (and bits) and a camelbak. And now that I have arrived, I completed the set by going shopping with Jade and getting some boarding pants, boots and a nice woolly hat.

Last night Nick and Jade dragged me to a little surprise birthday party of one of their friends, a nice little party but the highlight was giving the new Nintendo Wii a test drive. This really is the future of gaming, it is pure fun and easily the next step. For those who dont know how it works, instead of pushing buttons and directions you physically move the controller to manipulate what ever you are trying to control. For example, here is Jade going nuts with a boxing game on the Wii.

After the b-day party at about 11pm, we caught up with some more of Nick varsity mates at a dodgy mexican restruant/bar for some large jugs of margaritas and nachoes. Rather happy, we stumbled home to get some sleep.

After a few days down here in LA, Bonnie is picking me up and we are heading to Mammoth Mountain. :) Bring on the tree skiing!

Breaking up the trip on the way home to New Zealand for Christmas, we stopped off in LA for four days making the most of the hospitality offered by Jade and Nick.

I was quite impressed with Air New Zealand's recent plane upgrade giving us all our own movie screens and selectable menus with all the latest movies. Aaron was just commenting on how lucky we were not to be sitting next to screaming kids when a lady was moved next to us and spent the next 15 minutes complaining that this was her third move in the plane and how outrageously badly you were treated when travelling by yourself - oh well, them's the breaks and the headphones blocked her out quite nicely.

Neither of us had been to the states before and the first impression on walking out of the airport was how big everything was - the cars, trucks, roads, etc and this was further enforced when we opened Nick and Jade's fridge to find everything from mayonnaise to ketchup in jumbo size.

We saw a few of the sights, though only being there for 4 days meant that we had to forgo Disneyland in favour of Universal Studios, but I'm sure we'll be back that way sometime (or there is always Euro Disney in Paris). Nick and Jade took us to Venice Beach and Santa Monica, where all the freaks hang out - ask Aaron - I'm sure he'd describe it better than I would.

We also visited Hollywood, but apart from the stars on the footpath and the sign on the hill, there wasn't much to see and in actual fact, it was a bit of a dump.

Universal Studios was great fun and we filled in the whole day there. Arriving shortly after it opened on a Monday in winter (still >20 degrees though), it was really quiet and we didn't really have to queue for anything.

Spent a bit of time with Nick and Jade hanging out and got to go on a tour of Caltech University (a la Nick style) which was very picturesque especially compared to Canterbury. All pretty quiet as it was holiday time, but still nice to see what Nick does when he's pretending to be hard at work.