California is the most populated state in the USA with approximately 30 million inhabitants. Some days it looked as if every inhabitant was on the LA highways, especially the I5. The weather is generally great in most areas with extremes only in Death Valley and on the Sierra Nevada mountain range in winter. San Diego has a wonderfully temperate climate with the weather being very pleasant most of the year.

We were always aware of the earthquake threat in California and in October 1999 we experienced a really bad earthquake whilst we were in a RV park just outside Escondido. I had just flown back from Chicago, Yvonne picked me up at the San Diego airport - about an hour after going to bed we felt the motorhome start shaking violently from side to side. This was our first earthquake experience and it was frightening. The epicentre was in Twenty-nine Palms, a town just the other side of the mountain range, about 60 miles away. Thankfully there were no injuries due to the epicentre being in an extremely remote area - only a train was de-railed.

We have seen a lot of California, we spent 6 weeks travelling the coast of California on old Highway 1 from San Juan Capistrano, just south of LA to Crescent City, the most northern town, on the border with Oregon. For details of this trip, click here. I will never forget the day we arrived on the west coast, with its cool sea breezes blowing. We had left the east coast months earlier, and had spent a hot summer in the central American states. The few days just before arriving at San Juan Capistrano, we had spent at Calico - a ghost town in the Californian desert - where it was a hot as Hades, well into the 40 degrees (100's in Fahrenheit). A weekend at Lake Perris was no cooler, so we were very glad to feel the sea breezes again, not to mention seeing the sea once more.

2 years later we returned to California and spent 4 months in the San Diego area, based in a small town called Escondido, about 30 minutes north and slightly inland from San Diego. From here we visited San Diego & all the surrounding towns, including and Tijuana in Mexico (Baja California). We thoroughly enjoyed our time in California and whereas I did not like California or its people on our first trip, now I liked both, we made some real good friends.

After our time in Southern California we left and headed to San Antonio, Texas, via Arizona and New Mexico. We travelled along the southern route on the I8 and then the I10. It was a long drive, and after we reached El Paso on the NM / Texas border we were very surprised just how long it still took us to get to San Antonio. Texas is truly bigger. We were greeted with "Don't Mess with Texas" signposts all along the highway. This was a clever anti-litter campaign.

We spent 3 months in Texas, interrupted by a short stay in Vancouver over Xmas, in order to qualify for another 6 months stay in the USA. Both Yvonne and I have B1/B2 US visas, so we are limited to 6 months at a time in the US

We then returned to California but based ourselves in French Camp, a very small town near Manteca, which in turn is just outside Stockton. Stockton is about an hours drive for San Francisco. We often went through to San Francisco as it is a city we also love to visit. We also stayed there in 1997 when we first visited California. We would not like to live there but it is a great place to spend the day. Of course, Fisherman's Wharf is a great experience. The clam chowder served in a scooped out loaf of round bread is great, but it is worth paying a bit more, it is better than from some of the cheaper take-out places. Chinatown is great, and I find one of the most authentic and realistic inNorthern America. We enjoyed one of the best Chinese meals ever in Chinatown.

At the end of February we left California headed for Vancouver again. This time we were going to leave our motorhome in Vancouver, return to South Africa for a vacation and return a few months later. The cold weather had arrived and we were quite worried about getting stuck on one of the mountain passes near the Oregon border, but we were lucky on our trip back. The day we travelled to Grant's Pass in Oregon, the weather was clear and sunny. The views we had of Mount Shasta were really great, we could see it for literally hundreds of miles. We always stopped at the Wal-Mart at Grant's pass to stock up with goodies.

That night we spent in a rest area near Portland, Oregon alongside a river, lined by trees whose leaves had started changing to the fall colours. In the morning when we woke there was a heavy mist, but as the sun rays broke through it was most pretty. Our final night in the USA was spent near Lynden, close to the Canadian border. We needed to clean & winterize the motorhome ready for the cold Canadian conditions. From this park, Hidden Valley RV Park, Mt. Baker was clearly visible, fully covered in snow. That year, apparently 96 feet of snow fell on Mt. Baker.