Bite the bullet and take four weeeks. I would recommend Rainbow Air Academy, in Long Beach California. They have a good fleet of well maintained aeroplanes, and some of them are quite new. I actually flew with the owner and collected a Piper Warrior III with only 100 hours on it TT. That was only last year. Rates are reasonable, and a good quantity of Brit/Aussie/US Instructors. Airspace is busy class B....mix it with C17s and MD11s....Good R & R locations locally...ie., Chino air museum, Universal Studios, Disney, Knotts Berry Farm......Good X-Country destinations too, like Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas and Palm Springs!
Tailwinds!
PS - Suggest you do all the UK writtens BEFORE you go, then you can juast concentrate on flying and having fun!