USA Trip , day 3 - 26th January

Woke at 4 a.m. and tried to get back to sleep. Gave up at 7 and went for a full breakfast in the hotel. We kitted up - first mistake of the trip - trying to put on ski boots on a full stomach at altitude. We waited an age for the complimentary bus to arrive, which then took us around the other casinos and finally deposited us at the base of the gondola about an hour after we got to the bus stop. We picked up our ski passes (pre-ordered through Ski-I, who also booked our accommodation) with no fuss and took the gondola up to the Heavenly ski area. The views from the gondola over Lake Tahoe were truly spectacular. Some reporters express disappointment at the way the casinos spoil the view from here. To be honest, they're only marginally worse than the rest of South Lake Tahoe.

We chose a nice easy green run to get ourselves into the groove, which went pretty well, then took a blue run down to Sky Deck area then up to the highest point of the mountain. As blue (intermediate) runs go, these were pretty flattering, and we had a very pleasant ski down the Ridge Run. The views over Lake Tahoe from this high point were stunning. Similarly, the views in the other direction over the plains of Nevada were pretty good too.

Today is Australia Day, and it became pretty clear that a high proportion of the staff in the ski resort hail from those parts. Those not working were having a party on the slopes – lots of green and gold, including helium balloons, lots of noise and by the looks of things, lots of booze.

We were pretty knackered by the middle of the afternoon, so returned to the California side, and took the gondola down to the "village". The bus back to the hotel was pretty efficient, but we resolved to use the jeep next day.

We wandered around the town to try and find somewhere to eat - easier said than done - you need to drive to sample the full range of restaurants. We ended up at Kalanis - and enjoyed some excellent Japanese fusion cuisine. The restaruant was full of families, all in town for the weekend.

USA Trip , day 2 - 25th January

Next morning we took a walk around Fisherman’s Wharf. San Francisco was enveloped in low cloud (typically), but it was good to see the (California) Sea Lions at Pier 39, performing well. There was not much happening on the birding front, although I didn’t expect to see some Anna’s Hummingbirds buzzing around one of the car parks. There were quite a few Mew Gulls (aka Common Gulls) around the harbour, which weren’t present during my last visit in the summer.

We checked out and started our drive to Lake Tahoe. We took a route via the Golden Gate Bridge (well you have to don’t you) and took a road across the northern part of San Francisco Bay. There were a number of pools and estuarine parts we couldn’t get access to – frustrating as these seemed very birdy. We did manage a stop and a little walkabout a freshwater pool where 100’s of Brewer’s Blackbirds were following a tractor ploughing a field, with 10’s of Ring-billed Gulls. There were plenty of diving ducks there, including Canvasback, Lesser Scaup, Redhead, Ruddy Duck, Bufflehead, Pintail, American Coot, and a small flock of Least Sandpipers and a lone Willet feeding around the edge. A Northern Harrier and a White-tailed Kite were quartering the saltmarsh.

After a quick stop for lunch, we continued our journey. It was pretty mild, with temperatures in the mid 60’s Fahrenheit once we got away from the coastal fog. The drive was pretty easy past Sacramento, then we wound our way through the Sierra mountains and down to Lake Tahoe, and our destination of South Lake Tahoe.

This town has a split personality because it straddles the state-line between California and Nevada. On the California side is a long boulevard with a sprawling mess of budget motels and eateries. I'm sure there is some good quality accommodation among this dross, but you'd have to know what you're looking for. Around the base of a new gondola to the ski areas up the mountain, new developments have added a touch of class to the area. Across the state-line there are a number of casinos modelled on Las Vegas and Reno.

We are staying in one of these, the Mont Bleu Resort, which used to be Caesars (as in Caesars Palace). The rooms are very comfortable here on the 9th floor (another 7 floors above us) with a great view of the mountains behind South Lake Tahoe. The basement is taken over by a huge games hall – slot machines, slot poker games, card and roulette tables. It’s very glitzy, as you would expect and another world to a non-gambler. Also on the ground floor are a swimming pool, spa, fitness centre, 3 bars (with gaming machines on the bar), 7 restaurants, a nightclub, a concert hall and several shops. It’s some place, and very good value.

A welcome letter from Ben, our rep from Ski-I was waiting for us, complete with instructions for picking up our lift pass tomorrow. The local ski slopes have been suffering from a lack of snow - apparently the worst ski conditions for 20 years. Oh dear.

We went out to look for skis to hire, and found that the rental shops further away from the casinos offered very good value for money. We settled on George’s Ski Rental which offered top of the range at $20 per day with a discount voucher I printed out from their web site and a considerable saving on other places we checked out. We ate in one of the Mont Bleu restaurants and crashed out.

USA Trip , day 1 - 24th January

George and I left Aberdeen 2 ½ hours late on 24th January – a few flecks of snow apparently brought Heathrow to a stand-still as numerous aircraft competed for de-icer. This meant the plane which we were due to catch was late in getting to Aberdeen. So, we missed our connecting flight to San Francisco and the only alternative meant a journey via Chicago and arriving at our destination 6 hours later than planned.

This was the first time I have been into USA since the new security system came into force. You still have to answer the same stupid questions for the visa waiver form, such as "are you an international terrorist?" If you're stupid enough to answer "Yes" to this, then you don't deserve to enter the country. At the immigration desk, you now have a much longer wait (so it's worth getting yourself off the plane and in the long queue as quickly as possible) and they scan each fore-finger and take a digital photo of you. Apparently they check this matches up when you leave, then delete all your records. You then have to collect your bags, go through customs and get your bags checked through to your next flight. George managed to rescue his bag before it got shunted off into oblivion at this point.

We arrived at San Francisco slightly ahead of schedule and picked up our hire car with little fuss, except it was cheaper to upgrade our small car to a 4WD Jeep than fit a ski rack. We got to the Fisherman’s Wharf Hilton with little fuss and a bit of help from LizLiz.