See ya Truckee...Hello California Highway 1

What an awesome Christmas Day we had waking up at Kristina's and watching Mack & Jade opening all their presents from Santa in their stockings.  Ian made us all pancakes...then Kristina and I headed out on a mission to find a turkey.  We did manage to find one...but did get side tracked visiting Sqaw (another skiing resort) and doing a spot of shopping (god I love America - shopping on Christmas Day!).  Then we all headed out to Sierraville to spend the rest of the day with Red and all the family.  It was a fantastic day and our new American family even said it was their best Christmas ever :)  Boxing Day dawned and Jeremy went snow mobiling again with Ian while Red, Kristina and I went shopping in Reno at Legends which is a massive outlet shopping centre...well I was in heaven...even had my own personal shopper in the Adidas store!!  All was going well until I got a phone call from Jeremy to say he had come off Leroys snow mobile after hitting a tree!  Luckily he was ok...just hurt pride and some pretty mean bruising.  The next day we said goodbye to everyone and Red drove us back over the mountains to San Fran.  What a cool city!  We spent the afternoon exploring Fishermans Wharf...then Red and Jade headed back to the hotel to watch Rapunzel while J and I headed out for a night on the town.  We had a reccomendation to eat at Scomas which is apparently a world famous seafood restaurant...well lets just say if Americans think that seafood is world famous they need to visit NZ!!  It was about as good as the seafood we get in our pubs!!  Anyway the next morning we all jumped on a double decker bus and went on a tour of the city which took us over the Golden Gate bridge...very cool.  Then it was an emotional goodbye to my sister before loading up our hire car to head for California Highway 1.  Now for the cool part...the man at Hertz recognised Jeremy as being Maori and started talking to us about Once Were Warriors...next thing you know we had a free upgrade to a 2011 V8 Cadillac with all leather interior and a ridiculous amount of room!  Off to Monterey we went with our GPS guiding the way and only 2 arguments later we made it!  This morning we started out with the Monterey Aquarium (Kelly Tarltons eat your heart out) the place was amazing!!  It was absolutely massive!!  We spent 2 hours there before Jades legs gave way and I'm not sure that we saw it all...incredible.  Then we hit the road again heading for our next stop Pismo Beach...down Highway 1 through Big Sur.  Apart from nearly blowing me off the cliff due to the wind each time I made Jeremy stop so I could take a photo of the amazing scenery it was an amazing ride...what a beautiful rugged coastline!  Now we are about to crash for the night after a big meal at our hotel restaurant ready for the drive into LA tomorrow.  Watch this space for how we cope with the crazy freeway system we are about to come across!