Helen & Chris Road Trip USA

A new home

2008-11-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

Moving to my new home....

Click HERE for my new blog

Time to say goodbye

2008-11-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

Moving On...

2008-10-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

It has occured to me that the blog 'Road Trip USA' isn't all that appropriate anymore. I feel that part of our life has come to it's natural end and we can't hide from that fact any longer. We never knew 'how' the trip would end. I always dreaded the idea that flights would be booked back to England and Harvey would be off to the knackers yard, no longer part of our family. But then I never was very good at facing up to these things, though it's gotta be said the path we're taking isn't exactly an easy option in itself.And so the path to Canada beckoned. Immigration into Canada is far from easy. The current wait times for a federal application processed in London is 4-5 years and from all accounts getting longer by the day. Still that little nugget chugs along in the clockwork of London CIC.

And our road trip ground to a standstill in British Columbia - our new home of choice! Basically if we can find a job and have a few bits of paper signed by the future employer there are ways and means of getting here somewhat quicker. In the short term as a temporary worker (being able to start work in as little as 3 weeks) and in the longer term as a permanent resident (that old application gets hauled out of the dusty cupboard to be processed with priority). Different options. Different choices to be made.

Busy bee!

2008-10-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

Only a week left here in Kelowna. We've had some good fall weather - cold, like frost in the morning a couple of days, but so crisp and fresh. Been out walking most days - on the Greenway here. It's a 14km trail along the Mission creek and is absolutely beautiful and with the leaves changing right now every day is a different picture. Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. We're celebrating by Chris going out on a bike ride and me staying at home (but that's OK!). Our landlord here at the RV park brought us fresh apple juice yesterday - Oh WOW - talk about good - you'd be satisfied just from the smell of it let alone the taste!

So I've been taking an online digital scrapbooking class with Jessica Sprague. It's been awesome so far. Lots of new and quite funky techniques - I never knew you could do so much with Adobe Photoshop! Catching up on some layouts I've wanted to do for a while from this last 6 months. Here are some of them;

So it's not all work

2008-10-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

We might be job-hunting but we have to remind ourselves that we are in the Okanagan - this might have to be the prettiest part of BC though there's plenty of contenders - no wonder we want to live here! This week took advantage of the fantastic fall weather and took a ride out with Tony. 220 miles in the day with a plesant stop for lunch on a lakeside. There's a book on the biking roads of BC - Destination Highways and we rode the number 7 rated road (based on twistiness, engineering, remoteness, scenery, road surface etc). It was a lovely trip - I just loved the colours, the leaves are really starting to turn here.

These are the sort of views you get in the rear view mirror (yes that's Chris in the background - I'm not daft to risk my camera as we're actually riding!)

Chris - making friends. In this case it appears to be Sasquatch(...Or this from a couple of days ago. Making friends AND influencing people! And in case you weren't sure - yes that is a RCMP uniform. Put it this way she wasn't writing down her phone number for him!)

What can I say?!...

2008-09-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

Not heaps happenning here. Busy doing stuff though I wouldn't like to define stuff!! Have had some pretty great autumn weather. Lots of walking along the beautiful Mission Greenway in Kelowna and making the most of the weather out on the bike.

Right now...Listening to this....

2008-09-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Biking and Boozing (in that order)

2008-09-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

Busy month for guests this month; no sooner had we said goodbye to my sister and her two, we had Andy P over to stay with us for the long weekend in Kamloops - so much for getting on the job hunting case...He rode 8 hours from Calgary to get here; I did say not to buy a Harley...We then had a good couple of days riding round the region in a variety of weather; from the 30s in the Okanagan Valley to single figures riding up and over the mountains from Kelowna to Merrit. We got soaked through and frozen at one point, stopping to heat up on hot chocolate and adding any spare layers we had; but it was on the best road in the area so we did it again - twice! We dragged Helen out one day with the promise of stopping at a winery for lunch, sat out on the patio with a stunning view overlooking Lake Okanagan. Helen enjoyed her choice of BC wine whilst we suffered our Pepsis, saving our wine till later - I do believe we made up for it though when we got back to the RV!We cooked outside and stuck it out as long as possible until it really did get too cold; it does cool off here once the sun goes down, even as early as late August and we're not as tough as Canadians who don't even put long sleeves on if it's above freezing point.This morning we filled Andy up with a hot breakfast, again cooked outside, to hopefully see him through the best part of his 8 hour trip home; at least he's got a hot-tub when he gets there - we took the day off to recover! Actually not the whole day; we did manage a few mile walk along the South Thomson River and a spin up the race-track like road to Sun Peaks; Kamloops' own ski resort - hopefully we'll be seeing more of that one day...

2 Weeks on the Lower Mainland with family

2008-08-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a hectic 2 weeks and things are just beginning to settle down for us again. It's been great having Chris's sister - Helen and our neice and nephew - Lauren and Callum come to visit us. We based ourselves for the first week in the gorgeous Porteau Cove Provincial Park. Situated right on the water's edge of Howe Sound on the Sea to Sky highway (runs between Vancouver and Whistler - so very aptly named). The views along the road are quite staggering. Every time we drove out we never failed to be impressed. It was quite the introduction to Canada for our guests! From here we visited Whistler. Drove a crazy 40km old logging road to some rustic hot srings which were some of the nicest we've been to (apart from the odd mozzie - the trick there was to just stay submerged in the hot water - tough but someone had to do it!!). Of course the big advantage of driving desolute logging roads is their remoteness - on the way back at dusk we turned a corner and there in the middle of the track was a big black bear trundling along. Fantastic for everyone to catch a glimpse of theif first 'bear' - it perked up a rather tedious journey no end!We hiked 'The Chief'. Apparently the 2nd largest monolith in the world (after Gibralter) it was a seriously tough climb and even tougher coming down, but the views of Howe Sound, Squamish and Mount Garibaldi are quite worth it. We visited the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver, rented bikes and cycled along the sea wall of Stanley Park, bought supper fresh from Granville Island market after hopping the bath-tub ferry across False Creek. We took the boat out on the water of Howe Sound many times and spent a day at the lake in Alice Lake Provincial Park. Lots of BBQs and campfires finished off most of our days.

Next stop was Cultus Lake. This was where we had spent 5 months over our first winter on the trip. Sadly some things don't seem to have changed. Summer or not it still seemed to be raining! Thankfully not every day and there were still things to do. Harrison Hot Springs was a great way to while away a couple of hours (fully developed, it's really just a super warm swimming pool), the cinema, a couple of fab meals out at Earls. And Lauren and I managed some scrapbooking time. When the weather did perk up we went to down the lake, hiked Teapot Hill with some fab views of Cultus Lake. Spent an afternoon at the Waterpark where we had a blast. (Talking of 'blasts' Callum really wanted a ride on Chris's bike but the only spare helmet was my extra small one - not really suitable for a strapping rugby playing rower! Lauren however, with her small and lady like head managed to convince both Chris and her mum that it would be a good idea for her to go for a ride. So they did and she came back grinning from ear to ear and wanting to go again - sorry if she's been converted to a life of biking...) But really I think the highlight of the fortnight for us all was the white water rafting. Writing this my twisted knee seems to have finally righted itself and the black eye has faded but I'd do it all again tomorrow. About 14km of white water rapids down the Chilliwack River (the Canadian National team train on parts of the river apparently). Chris and I rafted a couple of years back but that was so tame compared to this!! Quite adventurous and derring-do we all loved it! Lots of rapids - just a constant 2.5 hour hard work and paddling. Both kids fell out on one major rapid and our raft nearly capsized - I can only assume this was where I picked up the knock which become the black eye but I was having such fun I never noticed at the time! Big smiles all round!

As always it's hard for us to say goodbye to visitors. It reminds us that this life of ours is a little lonely at times. It also highlights all the strange quirks we've picked up over the years. Too much time on our hands and not enough social interaction perhaps....?!?!?

Bear encounters of the good kind!

2008-08-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Time has flown by since we've been in Canada - 2 weeks already! We spent the first few days in Calgary with friends Andy and Sharon and then headed out to Kananaskis Country in the foothills of the Rockies. Very beautiful but we had horrid weather and spent one day cooped up in the RV - we were using the furnace - in August!! It was a public holiday here in Canada so the weekend was crazy busy but we still managed a lovely hike out to Ribbon Creek Falls.

As we drove across the Rockies into British Columbia we stopped for a short break in Banff and look what we saw...!!

Not 20 feet from the RV and in my mind the perfect way to see wildlife - safely in the confines of a hard-sided vehicle with the engine running!! The bear was so dis-interested - busy eating berries he gave us a quick glance over his shoulder before turning back to his food!!

Now we're in BC and very much looking forward to family visiting next week in Vancouver.

Glacier National Park

2008-07-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

Back to Glacier National Park in Montana for our second visit this trip. Sadly for us the weather didn't really play ball for us this time either. Smoke from the forest fires in California made the views hazy and we had rain each night. HOWEVER!! We did do a couple of FABULOUS hikes. And this is surely the place for it! So much good hiking and with our now tight-ish timetable we really only had time for a couple - it was a tough choice!

Monday we hiked the 11.5 mile Highline trail. This is my kind of hike. Due to the (free!) shuttle service running throughout the park we were able to start and finish at different spots and meant that we had a 200ft elevation gain on the first 7.5 miles, followed by a 2200ft downhill to the trail end! Apart from it being pretty easy going we saw billy goats and big-horn sheep up close, we were wrestling with the goats for trail rights!! Thankfully no grizzlies (check out Chris's hand compared to one of theirs!! - and kids the world over take bears to bed and cuddle?! - sheesh!). Whilst waiting at the bus stop for our shuttle to the start point we met Jeff the Geologist. He was from Helena, Montana and has spent oodles of time in Glacier - as a Park Ranger in his youth. We hiked with him the first 7.5m as far as Granite Park Chalet and had a great time chatting away about this, that and everything. So enjoyable to hike with someone new. Not that Chris isn't charming company, but...well you can imagine!! Thanks Jeff - we'll be looking you up for your guided hiking services next time we're in Montana!!

Today we hiked 9 miles to Iceberg Lake. With every other man and his dog (Actually I was kidding - no dogs - but they would make great bear bait...) Despite the grey, miserable start to the day the sun won over eventually. Again a pretty easy going hike, but the closer you got to the lake the chillier it got - all that snow and ice around?! And curiously enough the lake was full of icebergs - well I never...!! Very cool. Literally! A quick stop for lunch and the hike back again. We were surrounded by prime bear habitat, no sightings for us today. Mostly that's a good thing!

This evening we crossed the border into Canada. After an exciting moment when an 18-wheeler steamed past the control booths and was chased down the road by the border patrol we calmly pootled our way to the nearest town on the Alberta side - Cardston. Bonsoir!! (because this IS a bi-lingual country!)

Swarm of Mozzies devour hapless campers!!

2008-07-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

That was us in Sawtooth Wilderness. A seemingly innocent enough camping spot right on the shores of Alice Lake - 6 miles from the trails end, 8500ft up in the Mountains and not a soul in sight. Gorgeous enough but that was us, in that tent before nightfall. Just to escape the incessant mozzies. Hideous creatures. Eating our freeze-dried curry wrapped in all the clothes we had, not so much because it was cold but to build up the layers which the pesky bugs could nibble us through. And yes we had repellant. These ones had obviously been working on their immune system against the stuff. But enough moaning, after all the itching has calmed down now!! After a major winter in these parts the area around the lake still had snow and the river crossings were way more entertaining than this time last year. Thank heavens for Tevas!! We just strapped them on and waded straight across. We had great camping weather too, and got back to the trailhead just in time as the first grey clouds we'd seen all week enveloped the mountains we'd just been trekking through!

Sawtooth National Recration Area

2008-07-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

We are hanging out in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Wilderness in central Idaho. After doing a wee 10 mile hike today to yet another gorgeous alpinesque lake, we have decided this is possible our favourite all round spot for great hiking - anywhere - a pretty lofty statement I agree but it really is splendid. Coincidentally we ended up here on the exact same week this year than last and this time of year the electric blue of the sky contrasts so starkly with the brilliant fresh greens and a rainbow full of wildflowers in the meadows. The weather is lovely too. A little chillier than I'd like to get on a bike first thing to ride out to a trailhead for an early start. But you can't have everything - by the time we finish a hike we're in vest and shorts and still too hot! We're camping at 6500-7000ft but most of the hiking is inevitably straight up - many of the lakes are 8500-9000 so it stays perfectly cool to hike and picnic.

You what?!?!?!!?

2008-07-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

Did they change the date of April Fool's and not tell me? Tell me this isn't for real. I mean, seriously I have seen it all now!! Much as I find it hard to beleive myself this is a bona fide chocolate wrapper from a bar I bought last week in Walmart. My skin feels more beautiful already and I can't tell you the change in Chris's complexion. Oh Puh-lease!!

Scuba diving in a Hot Spring!

2008-07-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

Who'd have thought the slightly obscure 'Altitude Diving' certification would come in handy again?! We originally did our altitide scuba course in Lake Atitland in Guatemala 15 months ago at 5500ft. Here in Park City at 5000ft there's a hot spring crater thingamy that you can dive in. How could we resist. Besides after a 15 mohth gap since our last dive (in said Lake Atitlan) it was about time we reminded ourselves what it was all about. (Added to which I'm fairly sure that my Scuba Instructor Brother hasn't done a Hot Spring dive!!)

So the Homestead Crater is some sort of Calcite deposit thing. On the inside it's about 40ft in diameter and is 65ft deep. The water in it is a balmy 95 degrees (this is SO my kind of temperature!) and constantly circulates at a rate of 100 gallons a minute - circulating completely over the course of 3 days. There is an natural light opening but at 50ft it gets pretty dingy. To be fair there wasn't a lot to see or do but a good chance for us to practice drills. A sweet little dive to add to the logbook!

Another scrapbook album from CKU

2008-07-06T17:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a little peek at another album I did at CKU. Finally I got around to creating a whole album from the photos taken by Tara last year. Beats a crusty old Wedding album - eh?!

You can see the whole album here.

Wasatch Mountains & Salt Lake City

2008-07-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

The whole Wastach Mountains and National Forest has become our new 'fav'. Love this area, so much beautiful scenery and more hiking than you could shake a stick at. It's so green too, with the last straggling remains of the winter snow on the peaks. We ventured into Salt Lake City for the afternoon. Didn't stop too long - we really aren't city people. But timed it right for the daily organ recital at the Tabernacle in Temple Square which was incredible.

SLC is the Morman 'mecca' and temple square seems to be the symbolic heart of it all. We took a guided tour of some of the square buildings with a couple of women working as missionairies at the Temple who explained the history and basic teachings of the church. Interesting....I'll leave it at that shall I?!

One of the very good reasons for me not being a Morman is the Utah Beer. Not in any way a dry state (contrary to popular belief) It just has a few restrictions and unique laws surrounding it's sale and distribution. It generally is a little weaker than other brewpub beers (max 4% volume) but still as fabulously tasty - I am rather partial to the Wasatch Raspberry Wheat ale!! and as always brewpubs came up trumps with a good lunch too - I ordered TUNA!! (I am SO not a fish person!) but I had the most amazing Ahi Spring Roll Salad (check that - not only was it fish it was a salad!) that was at the Squatters Brewpub in SLC (we get around when it comes to beer!)

4th of July

2008-07-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Fourth of July! We spent American Independance Day in Park City, UT. Lots of celebrations going on; on the evening of the 3rd we went to The Canyons ski resort for an open air concert and huge fireworks display. On the 4th there was a town parade in the morning and we spent the afternoon in one of the other Park City ski resorts (they have 3!) - Deer Valley where we took the scenic chairlift to the top of the mountain, took a wee hike back down to the midway point and lounged out in the sun having a lovely indulgent picnic - Simply lovely - hey it almost felt like a holiday!!

What is this...???!

2008-07-01T17:29:00.000-07:00

.....a tyre shop??? The new bike is now on it's third rear tyre in 2 months. Bike tyres don't do so well as the car versions, more's the pity!! But on the up side - it just goes to show how much we've been out and about on the bike. Saving gas and exploring!! 5500 miles in 10 weeks!

And once we worked out that the RV costs us a little over 50 cents per mile to drive (OUCH!) you can see why this has become the preference.

And here's the childish way that Chris sends the old tyres to Tyre-heaven - doing wheel spins in the Walmart carpark - tut, tut, tut...

My CKU Evolution Album

2008-06-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally finished off my 'Evolution' album that I starting working on at CKU. I am SOOO happy with the results. Love it. The album was designed in 3 parts. Since it was all about me I broke it down into my childhood, school & Uni years and adulthood (when I get there!!).

Each part is essentially the same; a front cover with pocket for journalling on the left, a transparency page with section title and photos on either side, a page with 6 circles with mini photos or embellishments, the backside of that with 6 square photos, and a closing full page photo of that era (love that picture of me and my brother as superheros!!). I added a couple of extra pages along the way to be able to include more photos!

I so enjoyed this project (designed by Life Artist - Ali Edwards). I loved the excuse to dig out all these old photos and scan them in - it now means I have a whole stack of old photos on my laptop and they come round periodically on my beloved screen saver slideshow. Love that.

To see the whole album visit my scrapbook gallery HERE

Bryce Canyon NP

2008-06-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

Such a wonderful couple of days in an enchanting and unique place. As their orientation and promotional movie goes 'Bryce Canyon is like no place on earth'. Due to some complex layers of specific stone and rock the erosion that takes place here is something else. In winter it has freezing night tempearatures and warm days resulting in a constant freeze/thaw action in the cracks of the stone. In summer it receives monsoon rains and washouts crumbling and dissolving the limestone and runoffs off the plateau leaving distinct gullies. When gullies get deeper the walls between them get narrower and taller and fins eventually devlop. Fins erode to form windows and windows erode and collapse to form hoodoos. Phew - busy eh?! The landscape is constantly changing here. And what we see is magnificent ampitheatres full of a crazy, other-world landscape of fins, hoodoos and spires.

This is our gorgeous campsite in amongst the trees...

Last night we went to a ranger talk on astonomy - just reminds us how teeny weeny we are in this mighty big galaxy of ours. Earth is 3 light minutes from the sun whereas Pluto is 14 light hours from the sun (both planets are within our little ole' galaxy and they estimate there's billions of separate galaxies) The figures just start get overwhelming and fascinating at the same time. Bryce is quite remote and at 8000ft quite high so has awesome visibility for star-gazing so after the talk the rangers had set up several telescopes for us to spot through. We saw Saturn. Amazing. So clear, complete with it's rings - we could see the gap between the planet and it's rings and everything! Also saw some other stuff (all with weird astronomy tecchie names) - a galaxy, a dying star and a double star and other cool stuff!

The Wave

2008-06-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

So this is 'The Wave' and we're 2 of 7300 people a year to see it! (which sounds a lot but really, think about it - it so isn't - 20 a day). Still can't believe we got lucky in the lottery for permits!!

It was a pretty tough hike out there. Only 3 miles each way but completely exposed and thus VERY hot. Mostly walking across slickrock which was easier, but toward the end it was thick sand - I'm sure I've brought home half of the desert with me. Aren't I just wishing I didn't got for those vented trek shoes?! The Wave's location is pretty tricky to find. It's in the Coyote Buttes area of the Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness and although the trailhead is in Utah the actual Wave is in Arizona! You get given 4 pages of trail details when you collect your permit - with colour photos and descriptions and even they were ambiguous at times we thought!. Because the sandstone formation is so fragile they limit the people able to visit. And when you're there you can really understand why. It wouldn't take long to wreck the beautiful rock if hundreds of feet were trudging all over it. It would wear trails on the stone and damage the thin layers that create the waves and streaks. So really having limited permits is a good thing (easy for me to say now I've been!) It was great to get out there and see this famous formation!

Page, AZ as our base

2008-06-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

So here we are in Page, AZ. On the shores of Lake Powell. It's a man-made lake created when they dammed up the Colorado river at Glen Canyon. I had no expectations of this place. I had no idea the scenery here was so spectacular! The lake is vast and generally fairly inaccessible (unless of course you have a boat - Houseboating is enormously popular here - I want to come back one day and do that it looks such fun!). We have stayed at a great campsite in Page, bargain price and it's been so hot so we've indulged in some non-stop aircon action which has been very appreciated when we get back from long days out on the bike.

We went on a tour of Antelope Canyon - a very popular slot canyon. It's amazing and although we're pretty happy with our photos they don't do it justice. I must be honest I don't really understand quite how slot canyons are formed (wind & water obviously!) but they are just something else. The walls are smooth, almost polished and wave-like in shape and in many places you can touch both walls as they tower up above and in Antelope Canyon it was just a floor of perfect, pristine pale sands. Tours are popular and busy but we still got chance to savour the place and take plenty of photos!!

We've been getting up early the last couple of mornings. There's a really 'famous' desirable hike in the area. Very exclusive and preserved area they only issue permits to hike to 20 people a day. 1/2 are reservable in advance but the other 10 are offered to people in a lottery system. It didn't bode well. I was the person who had a standing order national lottery ticket and won NOTHING for a year!! In high season 80 people turn up to try to get lucky for the 10 permits. Oh dear me!! You have to be in to win as they say and we went yesterday at 9am and didn't get lucky :-( Second chance this morning and this time they give you 2 balls in the bucket - we got drawn 3rd and got our permits for tomorrow! - Hurrah!!

Back to yesterday though. Who'd have thought we'd be re-visting the Grand Canyon. Certainly not us. We visited in Spetember 2006 and hiked to the bottom and back and spent several days based at the South Rim. This time we were much closer to the North Rim and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit. This is the 'exclusive' side!! Apparently only about 10% of all park visitors come this side. It doesn't open till 15th May and closes again by mid-October (due to snow - it's at a higher elevation than the south rim). Visitor facilites are much smaller here but that added to it's appeal. Even on a busy day in high season the place was quite lovely - not at all teeming with people. And at 8800 feet we managed a midday hike (wouldn't contemplate that back at Page where we're staying!) Walked out to Cape Final - just a lovely view! Such a great day out we had to drag outselves away around 5pm. We had a long ride home to Page. ABout 3 hours. But the scenery on the ride was hardly an eyesore. Past the Vermillion Cliffs, over the Colorado river where the condors hang out (we didn't see any!) and a full moon to guide us home the last 30 miles to Page.

Today we visited another slot canyon. This time we didn't need a guide and it wasn't quite as popular as Antelope. We had to ride a nightmarish 8.5 miles on a horrid dirt track (we've got to do this again tomorrow to get to the trailhead for our 'special' hike). From the trailhead we walked 1.5 miles in a sandy wash then entered Buckskin Gulch. This goes on for miles and miles. We only walked about 2.5 miles before we turned around but it was a fab hike for the time of day. The walls were so high and narrow - in one place we had to walk sideways to get through! It meant the sun didn't get in much so it stayed beautifully cool and shaded almost the whole way.

On the way back to Page we visited the Glen Canyon Dam - the cause of Lake Powell. Watched the video of how/why it was built and took it the spectacular views.

Monument Valley

2008-06-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

When we FINALLY left Sedona (after 15 nights!) we made an impromptu decision to detour about 100 miles to take in Monument Valley.

Probably the first time we've actually been bothered enough about gas prices to cost out just how much extra it would be to take the RV rather than do a day trip jouney on the motorycle. But for $40 ish it was worth it. It meant we could stay overnight and for us that was the highlight of Monument Valley. It's just such a classic American scene and we were camped out on the top of the mesa overlooking the lot. Perfect sunsets with the buttes glowing in front of us and sunrises silhouetted them perfectly.

As I lifted my head from the pillow in the morning I was greeted with the most fabulous view - not a bad sight to see first thing in the morning! Went on a lovely short hike - actually did it twice, once in the evening and once again the next morning. Down off the mesa then onto the valley floor and around the butte in the middle of the photos.

Sedona

2008-06-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

We'd heard so many good reports about the whole Sedona area that we really were expecting a pretty cool place; and we weren't to be disappointed! Part of the appeal was the race track quality mountain roads (obviously I didn't act like I was on a race track; ok well maybe a little bit then... after all Helen was away in Houston for a few days leaving me alone with the bike...), not to mention the stunning scenery - There seemed to be something to do in every direction; to the east was the Coconino National Forest, south to Prescott was the local area brewery which Helen made the most of whilst I rode us there! Like so many brew pubs we've been to, the food was pretty spectacular so I didn't do so bad out of the deal. It was no surprise that the brewery was there as the town has the original "Whisky Row" street from way back in the days of the wild west; they had a fire once, (as most old American towns seem to!) and the patrons of one particularly popular bar managed to get together and physically lift the wooden bar out in to the street to save it - it's still there!

On the way to Prescott was a small town called Jerome that although now quite a hippy/arty town, was once a virtual ghost town; it was a big, (in fact the biggest in America) copper mine built on the side of a 7,000 ft mountain overlooking the Sedona valley but partly due to a lack of demand but mostly because of a huge land slide that dropped more than half the town down the mountain, people moved out and almost but not quite, deserted the place.

In and around Sedona itself are the most amazingly red rocks and mountains so hiking was big on our list; unfortunately the pictures will never do it justice - you'll just have to go there and see for yourselves! Sedona is well known, (apparently...) for its vortexes; not really my chosen subject but the area is said to be full of high energy points which means everywhere you go there seems to be a bunch of people chanting and offering sacrifices, (thankfully not live goats and things) to whoever I don't know.

This was our hike out to the West Fork. Lovely shaded hike and at the end the trail just dead-ended in water. At least I'm sure it would go on if you wanted to get your feet wet!! We paddled a little just to see what was round the corner but it was COLD!! On the way back to the trailhead we were treated to a glimpse of this Hummingbird faithfully guarding it's nest. Didn't seem bothered by us even if we were poking a camera lens in it's face!

And then there was Slide Rock State Park; the name might hint at the theme here; basically a large park cum picnic area with a river running through a very rocky valley. The river of course had worn away the rock over the years leaving a smooth, narrow and thankfully, cold channel in which one can slide one's way downstream. We should have perhaps taken more notice of the fact that the locals were all wearing heavy duty shorts or cut-off jeans; let's just say my backside hadn't felt like that since my last caning at boarding school!

Last but not least was the winery just outside the campground gate; too expensive for us travellers to shop there but we of course had to at least go through the rigorous process of tasting the choices they had on offer...

Verde Canyon Railroad

2008-06-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

So after the 'little' mishap with reading abilities I finally got home Sunday night. Late. Very late. Pulled back into the RV park just after midnight. It's so good to be back and so much exciting stuff to talk about and show Chris - all my goodies and projects from CKU!

Today Chris surprised me . And I generally am not easy to surprise - I usually think too hard and figure it out! But I was stumped until about 2 miles from our destination...The Train depot. Had no idea there was a scenic railway around but Chris had booked us First Class tickets for an afternoon journey on the Verde Canyon Railway. I specify First Class as it's quite a different experience from regular and so worth the $25 more. Comfy, comfy armchairs. Only about 30 people per carriage and served by 2 wait staff who brought drinks, gave us info about the sights we were passing and generally pampered us. After the journey from hell yesterday this was the best way I could imagine spending an afternoon. Hor d'erves were served during the outbound journey and ice-creams on the way back, along with a full bar service. It was WONDERFUL!!

Oh, and to mention the scenery. Well it's a given that it was rather lovely. The tracks run from Clarkdale to Perkinsville and it's loveliness all the way. Even the slag heap on the side of the tracks had an interesting story and we saw 2 bald eagles and plenty of funky rock formations - if you squint you could maybe make out George Washington, the Angel or most impressive the Elephant!!

CKU!!

2008-06-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

CKU. Stands for Creating Keepsakes University!! Creating Keepsakes is the 'leading' scrapbook magazine in the USA and very proactive in promoting the craft. It was a 3 day convention I suppose is the best way to describe it. Lots of classes, projects, time to work on your own stuff in the 'crop' hall, great chance to meet new friends with a like-minded hobby. Fantastic experince. Was maxxed out the whole time with non-stop business - they only gave us an hour between classes and evening activites on some days! Busy from 9am till midnight!! I have so many projects I worked on. Mostly Scrapbook pages - I normally create 12x12" pages but here we were using different sizes - we created a whole album of 6x6" pages - 8 different classes with 8 different teachers with different styles and products - very cool - all I need to do now is finish it off with my photos and some journalling!
Also created a fab mirror! Loved this class - so many new techniques for me and I could even get into the messy play thing and start using paints! The main thing I realised I can't fully embrace Scrapbooking until I have a much larger space to collect products, tools, papers, paints - an RV isn't ideally suited!! I came home with 2 bags full to bursting with goodies we'd been given and all my new projects!!

These are all the goodies and even here I have stuff tucked away in bags so there's even more than it looks!! Now I have to find homes for all this! I ain't complaining!

Read your ticket properly... and use the 24 hr clock when travelling!

2008-06-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

DUH!!!...... CheapAir.com obviously haven't mastered the 24 hour clock system. If they had I'd still be wandering the Galleria mall in downtown Houston after having had a lovely long night's sleep in my Heavenly Bed. Whilst I'm prepared to accept SOME of the blame I will defend to the death. It's not 08.35 it's 20.35 - if only....the ticket says 08.35.....you can see where I went wrong! Meanwhile I will continue to sit at this blasted airport for another 4 hours. 8 hours down, 4 to go. Thank God for Itunes Monvie rentals, Wifi, and a cosy corner with power outlet, added to which I will miss my shuttle bus in Phoenix which means I lose the return portion of my ticket AND Chris will enjoy a 6 hour round trip to drive the RV down to Phoenix to meet me. Duh, duh, duh.....

And the moral of the story is two-fold.....(1) Use the 24-hour clock when travelling (2) Learn to read!!

Oh...and always travel with snacks!!! (They come in handy!)

Petrified Forest (belated!)

2008-06-08T10:57:00.001-07:00

OK so I was gonna post about Petrified Forest National Park. First up I must say it really doesn't look all that scared...

It was a day-use only park, so we drove in from Gallup, NM - Arizona doesn't use DST so our times were all messed up and we got there early in the morning so first into the visitor centre. Even by that time (8am) the sun is so high in the sky and the colours were already getting washed out. We entered the park in the Painted Desert area. But even with the high sun the colours were still amazing - photos just don't do it justice! Took a little hike from here - walked down into the desert floor from Kachina Point and headed off into the 'wilderness area'. There were no trails we could just walk wherever we wanted - used the 'wash' in the distance as a reference point. What looked like a tiny dried-up stream bed was actually as wide as a 6 lane highway and filled with perfect 'clean' sand once we got there! All along there were bits of old trees just strewn about - trees that are rock! I just can't get over how cool this looks - how tree like! The texture is all still there - preserved forever, cast in stone - AMAZING! And this part of the park wasn't even heavily populated with the petrified forest so much - that was more south!

The park has a 30 mile road going right through it. Lots of pull-outs and mini trails leading to points of interest. We stopped at most of them - really making the most out of the fact it was only day-use (we're so used to spending time in the National Parks, camping, hiking out etc). There was an old pueblo ruins, some petroglyphs and the old Route 66 passed right by - the line of old telegraph poles remains to mark the old road and a rusting old car.

The thickest concentration of petrified wood (did I mention HOW COOL this stuff is!!!? - I did?, ok!) was in the Crystal Forest and Long Logs area - wow! Did another little hike round this area - to an old pueblo building that had been built with the 'wood/stone'. These days that's not really in keeping with the whole National Parks preservance policy but it was done 'before their time' so it's been left. People nicking stones is a HUGE no-no in the park. They estimate (how on earth?!) that 1 ton of the stuff gets swiped each month! There are spot checks on vehicles as you leave. Strange because 1/2 mile down the road outside the park boundaries you can buy as much as you like - there are whole parking lots full of the stuff all laid out for your perusal and purchase (it just isn't collected from within the park).

Standing on the corner of Winslow, AZ!

2008-05-28T22:22:00.000-07:00

As sung by the Eagles in the song 'Take it easy' Well we've pretty much got the latter part cracked over the last 3 years but this was our chance to get the first bit checked off!! Winslow, Arizona is a tiny town on the old Route 66. Politely put there doesn't seem to be much going for it these days but after it's fame from the Eagles song they'd milked every last drop and have a fab little park dedicated to the whole 'Standing on the corner...' thing. A bronze statue of a backpacker with guitar standing on the corner. A lovely big mural of a girl in a old Ford truck is in the background (And the real life version in the foreground). It's rather cool and I've been humming that darn song the last 24 hours. Perhaps this will get it out of my system!

Also in Arizona, also on the Route 66 this time in Holbrook - a classic of the old Mother Road - the Wigwam hotel - 15 concrete wigwams, each comes complete with it's own classic car parked and rusting away outside! I'll stick to Harvey thanks but it sure looks the part! And you can still actually stay in these things - rates were starting from $48!!

More about Petrified Forest National Park which we visited the same day soon (my battery is about to die!)

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-05-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

Finally the weather picked up just in time for the long weekend. After a couple of days cooped up in the RV half way up a mountain getting snowed on it was good to get out! This really is such a beautiful part of the state - we took a long ride out north west of Santa Fe - up to Taos area. Lots to see and do along the way!

San Francisco de Asis church - it's in some dispute whether this is the oldest or second oldest church in America - either way it's old! A lovely adobe building - the straw is literally crumbling out of the walls with every gust of wind! - But adobe building techniques are not to be sniffed out - it was built in 1815!

The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge - with incredible views into the river gorge some 650 feet below! The landscape around and approaching the bridge is quite flat and within 1/4 mile of the gorge we still hadn't seen the gorge - then suddenly it opens up like some giant crack in the earth - Amazing views along the gorge with the mountains far off in the distance.

Taos Peublo - was built around 1450 and has been continuosuly inhabitated ever since! It's the largest exisiting multi-storey pueblo structure in the USA and is traditional adobe construction and is home to a fair few ferral dogs following you round and begging for scraps!

Taos Plaza - we stopped in Taos town for our lunch and listened to the drone of Harley Davidsons going by. Being Memorial Day weekend every man and his pillion rider were out on bikes proudly wearing their Vietnam Vet jackets (did the US Military issue Harleys to their War Vets to see out their days deafening everyone with the noise???) On the up side it was free parking on the plaza and a cheery display of Stars & Stripes flags backlit in the sunshine.

Red River - we soon discovered the source of all the Harleys...Bike Week in Red River! The place was heaving. It took about 15 minutes to ride the 1 mile downtown main street. I don't like (the noise of) Harleys (who'd have guessed eh?) BUT they do look good - especially en masse and there was a party atmosphere even just riding through.

Took the 'Enchanted Circle' road - 84 mile loop around Wheeler Peak the highest in New Mexico (13,161ft) - still completely snow capped at the moment and by the time we passed by glowing in the last rays of sun.

We had such a long ride out - didn't get back till 10pm - 2 hours after sunset by which time it was freezing of course! Just as well the neighbours had a healthy campfire roaring away to sit beside!

This morning we said out goodbyes to Nancy and Chris - after nearly a week of having some Brit Rv-ing neighbours they're fast-tracking their way to California whilst we're Arizona bound. We moved further up the hill but back into a site with electricty for the night to recharge our woeful batteries after battering them with an overdose fan heating!

But with more gorgeous weather another day out on the bike beckoned. There's so many variations of roads around the area - all with such lovely scenery and good roads just to be out enjoying the ride and the long weekend holiday! (but with that ever-so-slightly smug thought that I'm not going back to work tomorrow! (Yes you can all laugh oh-so-loud at me when it's my turn, but until then...!))

Snowing in Santa Fe

2008-05-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Here now in Santa Fe. We're staying in the National Forest just 8 miles away from town but it could be a million miles - we're 1500 feet higher than the city (which is at 7000 feet anyway!), the air is fresh and clear, we're camped surrounded by pine trees with the most amazing smells and today we woke up to snow!! (actually it was exciting but wasn't really part of the plan!) The high altitude seemed like a great idea when we arrived in town with temperatures in the 90's. Now I'm not so sure....it's a little chilly! It didn't stop us setting off for our daily hikes but the last mile today was a determined hail storm! (nothing like a natural exfoliator!) We ventured briefly into the old centre of Santa Fe but we're here for a few more days and we'll explore more then. Camping next door to us are Nancy and Chris - the other English RV'ers. There's nothing like a good chin-wag around the campfire at night!

Albuquerque part II

2008-05-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

Had a busy time in Albuquerque. Lots of chores to do - a new fridge fitted, new tires for the RV and for the bike (already!!). But we still had time for some fun. Did a couple of hikes in the Cibola National Forest - We rode up to Sandia Crest - a 16 mile scenic highway to the 10,000 foot peak overlooking the city and hiked from there. Or rather it wasn't so much of a hike as a 'trudge' - it was still pretty thick snow on a well shaded trail - at times knee deep! The view from the top was spectacular - that was moments before the cloud came in and obscured the view and treated us to a little snow in case we were in any doubt who was boss!

Back at the bottom of the hill we stopped by a great museum - The Tinkertown museum. We've done our fair share of musuems during this trip but this was totally unlike anything else. It was put together by an artist called Ross Ward who spent most of his life creating what today comprises Tinkertown. It started with a collection of miniture hand-carved figures back in the 60's and 70's which he travelled to carnivals and fairs to display. Now the museum is housed in buildings made of glass bottles (over 50,000 of them!) and is a crazy maze-like series of rooms with various collections - the original figures & old southwestern street scenes, circus scenes, a collection of wedding cake bride & groom toppers, antique tools, dolls, a 35ft boat (Which spent 10 years travelling the world - that's a whole other story!), fairground entertainment - we had our fortunes told by 'Esmerelda', established that I should be a 'Dictator' on the career wheel of fortune and listened to music on the wurlizter! It was just an amzing place and such fun! You turned each corner never knowing what delights were in store and there was so much to see! We met Carla - Ross's wife. It was her brother Fritz that had travelled for 10 years in the boat. We chatted for a while about his travels - so interesting for us also being travellers! The boat he wasn't able to sell after his adventures so it took the trip across the land to settle forever in the Tinkertown museum. As we left Carla gave us a copy of his book - we haven't finished it yet but already it's such a fascinating read.

Our second day being tourists we went downtown. First to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Centre - we got there in time for the traditional dancing. There were just 5 dancers but they all performed different traditional dances - lots of fancy names which I'm afraid were totally lost on me. The costumes were what I loved the most - so colourful and vibrant and full of texture and flow as they moved! The rest of the centre was dedicated to the 19 pueblo villages that still exisit in New Mexico. Although they often get lumped together as similar cultures they are all quite distinct with a number of different languages and customs.

We spent the rest of the day at the National Atomic Museum (it was here in New Mexico that the first atomic test bomb was exploded) and in the old town area - eating ice-creams in the shade of the trees surrounding the traditional plaza.

Albuquerque

2008-05-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

We have a new camera! Very excited! After a false start on Sunday when we bought the camera orginally, we took it home, played around, and discovered the colour was off - like REALLY off - Chris's new bike was bright pink! After a call to Canon they agreed it was defective. Somewhat frustrating as we were in wilderness 200 miles from the nearest store to get it exchanged. So now...it's sorted. We have our brand new fully functional Canon Digital EOS Rebel XSi!! and very nice it is too. Currently wading our way through the instruction manual. It's a late birthday present from each other and from Pat who gave us birthday money this year towards it - so thank you all!

Have just spent a few days in a town called Truth or Consequences. Yes a strange name for a town, but in 1950 they changed their name (previously called Hot Springs) as part of a publicity and fund-raising effort and it's stuck ever since! It was named after a popular game show at the time.

From here we took a fantastic ride out on the bike up into the hills and Gila National Forest. The roads were fabulous biking roads through very picturesque scenery. Past the HUGE open mine pit of Santa Rita (the oldest active mine in the SW - it's 1.5 miles wide and 1800ft deep and is producing 300 million lbs of copper a year!), over the 8228ft high Emory Pass and through a few small (nearly) ghost towns . Stopped for lunch in Silver City - it was a silver mining town, then got lucky and found copper once the silver ran out so now it's still going strong as a funky bonhemian town with every other store an art gallery, a few good cafes, wineries and at least one brewpub that we noticed! The old downtown is full of Victorian brick buildings and a real wild west town feel to the place! A great stop and a chance to stretch our legs for a couple of hours. We then took an incredibly twisty road north to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument - the road was actually TOO twisty to be really good fun on the bike - but at least we weren't in a car - the recommended drive time was 2 hours to do 58 miles!! (we did it all in about an hour! - the advantages of a bike on narrow roads - at least we could overtake the slow stuff!) Gila Cliff Dwellings were inhabited about 700 years ago by the Mogollon people - there were a series of 7 caves set up in the cliffs with dwellings built in stone inside them making up some 40 or so individual rooms. Quite fascinating stuff - quite reminiscent of the Cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, CO we visited a couple of years back but these were very quiet because of their remote location - we only saw 2 other people in the area!

And so now we're in Albuquerque. Getting a new fridge fitted! After 2 years of intermittent problems with the thing - going from +15 and everything warm to -5 and frozen food I've got fed up and booked us in Friday, whilst Chris was still mincing about it all (it doesn't help that for the last week everything seems to be fine). I figure it's a kitchen applicance and therefore my domain and whilst Chris sits gazing adoringly at his mistress (aka the new bike) I'll get on and admire a new shiny, clean fridge - a fair deal - nah!!! - get me my leather jacket and helmet and take me for a ride baby!! (but I WILL get a cold drink when I get back!)

The Fireblade's first track day

2008-05-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

A bit of an exciting 'in a nervous kind of way' day today; I took the new bike, aka 'The Mistress' (as named by Helen and for probably obvious reasons) on the track for the first time; not bad really as it is only two weeks old and barely run-in! Not that modern Japanese bikes really need much of a running-in; more of a case of stay under 120mph and don't practice too many racing starts... The nerves were there anyway, what with it being a new bike that I'd hardly had chance to get to know. (unlike 'Donkey' who had over 25,000 miles on him before he was subjected to track abuse) And then compounded by the track owner who gave us a drive/walk round first thing explaining as he went just how technical and complicated to learn the track actually was. And then there was the bad surface, the dips and bumps, the gouges dug by previous unfortunates and the desert wind blowing sand and dust across the place. Being a sensibly mature(?) kinda guy I set off at a comfortably slow pace choosing, along with another 'new' guy - Bill, to follow one of the locals to learn the lines and was more than a little surprised to see Bill hammer it down the first straight, brake waaay too late and run straight off the track into the desert; the last I saw out of my peripheral vision was him and his beloved bike cartwheeling into the distance. Almost comical considering the conversation we'd just moments before about taking it easy for the first few sessions! Thankfully that was the only mishap of the day and the rest of us had a good safe day exploiting the sheer excess of power, speed and ability way beyond any of us mere mortals that is a modern sportsbike. So now my head is buried in magazines looking for any up-coming track days whilst Helen has resigned herself to second place... No chance honey!!!

Viva Terlingua!

2008-05-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

We so didn't want to leave Terlingua. Such a great place that just felt so 'right' straight away. It obviously helped that we met great people - Cynta, who in turn arranged for us to park the RV in the yard of Sue & Joe. Such a warm welcome. The plan was just a night - Cynta laughed at us and said people never stay what they planned - and she was right - it really didn't take that much persuading for us to stay an extra day (And really it could've been so much longer). Terlingua Ghost Town is such a funky little community that we felt right at home in - out walking the neighbourhood dogs with Cynta in the mornings and sitting on 'The Porch' at the Starlight in the evening (and really the BEST margaritas I've tasted!). Last night we also met another great couple - Nancy and Chris - English (check), Young (check), RV'ers (check), wanting to emigrate to Canada (check)!!! Talk about conincidence! In all this time of travelling we've met next to no RV'ers our kind of age and then we do and we're similar in those other aspects too! Obviously we had a fair amount to chat about!! With 4 Brits in the house we treated Terlingua to a little of the weather from home - got them pretty exicited about the flash of rain that passed through - first for them since November I think it was!! With that came a spectacular show - lightening like we'd never seen - dramatic fork lightening going across the sky in all directions - amazing!

Staying the extra day also gave us the chance to check out a wicked little biking road that Sue & Joe implored us to do. (FM170) Just 62 miles long between Terlingua and Presidio it was non-stop twisties and roller-coaster straights - sometimes both at the same time! There were a few crazy blind bend hilltops and some seriously steep hills - following the Rio Grande all the way. We stopped in Presidio for lunch then turned around and did the route in reverse - which was just like a whole new road of turns and twists putting the new bike through it's paces. We stopped at a little old film set village and some fun teepees (or wig-wams?) check out the pics!

Big Bend National Park

2008-05-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

We've just spent the last 3 days in Big Bend National Park. Right at the bottom of Texas on the border with Mexico. A very remote and beautiful part of the state. The Rio Grande runs along the edge of park creating a natural border with Mexico. We camped down by the river - the hottest place to be! But the other campsite was up in the Chisos Basin - 5500ft up with a small, twisty and steep road with a bunch of switchbacks to contend with - not a road that Harvey could handle! It would've been nice but I don't think we'd have lived to be writing this blog!! Instead we used the bike to get around the park. We did a couple of amazing hikes up in the basin - one out to 'the window' - a gap in the mountains surrounding the basin where you can see out into the surrounding area (slightly spooked at the idea that the trail we used had had a bear sighting only the afternoon before - a bear with 4 cubs no less! - our crazy bear song came into good use once again!! - actually it was a pretty well used trail and we saw a bunch of other people out hiking too) The second hike of the day 'Lost Mine Trail' was way more peaceful - the trailhead had 2 other vehicles parked up and we passed 2 groups of people heading back down within a few minutes of us setting off so it seemed like a safe bet we were the only ones out on that particular trail that evening. We didn't leave till 6pm so we had gorgeous late afternoon light when we got to the top - just amazing views. Back in the basin we watched sunset - conviently it lines itself up just so with the window!! From the basin we had a 20 mile ride back down to the river campsite and here we were ran the gauntlet of sucidal animals that seem to live in Big Bend. We had near misses with 3 birds (added to the 3 birds that met their maker on the 8x12 foot speeding wall that is Harvey!) We saw 3 deer and then 3 javelinas - which we stopped in good time for but the truck coming the other way wasn't so good on the brakes... and lets just say if Javelinas were pigs then I'd be cooking myself a bacon butty right now! Finally the sucidal Jackrabbit so I seriously don't know how we missed - and by this time we were crawling along at a snails pace after all the near misses!!

But besides all the crazy animals there's been a few 'new' animals sightings for us to add to our list! Javelinas (they are NOT pigs!!) and a real live tarantula (not in a zoo!) and though we've seen them before we had a cute little roadrunner hanging around our campsite! The morning we left the winds had come in. Bad for visibility but great for the heat - so much cooler down by the river and we took a nice hike out along the river, through the desert to the Hot Springs. The cooler temperatures made it so much nicer easing yourself into the 100 degree water too of course!

Right now we're staying in Terlingua Ghost town - just a few miles outside of the park on the western side. We came here to meet up with a couch-surfer - Cynta. She lives in a beautiful house she'd rebuilt from the ruins of the ghost town (this was an old Mercury mining town which was abandoned in the mid 1940's). It's a great little place full of funky old ruins and the old Stralight theatre - now a great reaturant/bar/meeting place. The town mercantile with a huge porch full of intersting characters and impromptu music from someone sitting out and stiking up a toon on the banjo! It's so peaceful here! We just whiled away the evening sat on Cynta's porch star-gazing - and boy can you see the stars in a place like this?! There's just no light pollution - the sky just doesn't seem big enough for all these stars!

That grin...

2008-04-30T17:17:00.001-07:00

Still hasn't worn off!

Yesterday we'd moved on to Hill Country, TX and some classic biking roads. There's a loop route of three roads - the 335,336,337 that are sweet (according to a t-shirt we saw someone wearing the 3 roads are called 'the 3 sisters' and it's a very well know biking route), We took a ride in of about 300 miles. A great way to get used to the bike a bit and help with that 'running in' thing. Hill Country is just gorgeous. This is actually the 3rd time we've visited (the first time we had no bike, the second I was ill so Chris went riding the route by himself). There's a whole bunch of exotic animals living in Hill Country (at times the scenery it quite African looking. We saw giraffes and plenty of exotic hooved animals with fancy antlers - not your regular white-tailed deer that's for sure!) I was most excited by the kangaroos!! (At least I think they were - they had the whole bouncy thing going on but were quite small - what's a wallaby? could it have been them?) Anyway, Cute and all chilling out under the shade of a tree in the heat of the day! There's so many rivers and the contrast between the lush greeness and the bright blue sky was wonderful. We ate roadside BBQ at a bikers joint and kept the jackets open-necked to let the breeze in - it was a hot day!

Before leaving Austin we stayed with some other friends - Marty and Tom. They were fantastic tour guides who gave us an 'Austin in 8 hours' tour! Boy we crammed in a lot, it was great! We toured the capitol building (with a 4 floor building set underground next to the original domed building) and the senate & house of represenatives and into the Governors reception room. We went by Lake Travis (Another of Austin's lakes that was dammed), We saw their new house, had lunch at their new neighbourhood restaurant and finished off the day at the University of Texas Club in the Longhorns Football Stadium (the Longhorns are the College Football team of the Univeristy of Texas Austin). It was a great day out - thanks Marty & Tom!

A new addition to the family, Donkey is put out to pasture and Happy Birthday Chris!!

2008-04-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

Well what a busy couple of days. It's all change in the Mills-Backhouse household. After nearly 3 years of loyal service Donkey (or 'The Donkster' as he was more recently known as (hey - it was a Buell we had to make him a little more hip and cool y'know?!)) was put out to pasture - to see out his days in a more relaxed and better place than hanging off the back of the RV for about 35,000 miles!!

And of course y'all know better that Chris isn't saying goodbye to one motorbike without welcoming in a new one! Yes we welcome a new (as yet un-christened) motorbike - a Honda CBR1000RR (Fireblade). To me it's a large shiny red and black thing. It has a higher pillion seat making it more difficult for me to clamber on and off but it IS much smoother ride, less vibrations and it sounds nice - much less like a Harley, much more my thing. Chris, well he's just spent the last 24 hours wandering around with an ear-to-ear grin - it's beginning to look a little scary, you know - village idiot look!

It wasn't REALLY that planned an event. He'd hankered after the 2007 model Fireblade since last November just before we left Texas when he saw they'd been discounted over $2000 on the new price (there's a new model out now which he prefers less). I reigned him in at that point but there'd been various mutterings over the past months and finally I suggested he phone round the Austin dealers 'just to see' if they still had any in stock in his colour choice. So all we'd really gone into the showroom for was to see what kind of trade-in price they'd give us on Donkey. He'd had a hard life, several scuffs and all and we'd been offered just $1000 last November which was a joke. When the guy looked at the bike and offered us considerably more than what we'd even hoped for we didn't even look at each other (we just knew it was good!), and pretty much signed on the dotted line right there. About 45 minutes later Chris rode out the door on the new bike!! I got all upset about Donkey - poor old thing. I was probably more fond of him than Chris (being the underdog, and I never really appreciated all his faults and shortfalls than Chris found so frustrating). That was all yesterday. I like to think that it was his birthday present - that's what I'm saying anyway - because that makes me sound like a really cool, understading wife!!

Today we're staying with friends John & Michelle and their kids Kate & Callum in Austin. Started the day off watching a VERY exciting little league Baseball game that Callum was playing in. This is WAY more interesting than grown-ups baseball and I even totally got the hang of the scoring, along with a little screaming and cheering! John & Michelle took us out to lunch for Chris's birthday. It was a scorchio day and what better place to be than down near the water - Lake Austin to be precise. There was a great Hawaiian themed place called 'The Hula Hut' (though I'm sure most of the food was TexMex) right on the water and we sat out drinking cold beer and margaritas on the deck before eating a late lunch.

Back in the USA!!

2008-04-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

Oh it's so good to be back. We had an OK journey back from Gatwick, via Philadelphia and into Houston. At least this time US Airways served something vaguely edible!! We had a 4 hour stop over in Philly but just as well as we spent some time chatting to the folks at immigration. Of course we're nice people and once they realised this they were more than happy to stamp our passports and see us on our way. But that only left time for our first American junk food meal (in the form of Chick-Fil-A - it could be worse!) before boarding for the second leg of the journey. By this time I was quite frankly cranky. I'd worked out we were fast approaching the 24 hour-with-no-sleep time and I still had to drive from the airport back to the Storage facility where Harvey was parked. Things looked right up when we ended up landing 3/4 hour earlier than we'd expected. We're still not sure whether we'd got the times wrong or the pilot just drove fast!!(Oh - you know how we always moan about England. Can I just point out the America charges $3 for a trolley at the airport (compared to free) AND the bottles of water at the airport were more expensive than England. Now don't say I never say anything nice and complimentary about my place of birth!!) The hire car place was empty so we were through that in a flash. They had no compact cars so we've ended up with a monster of a 7-seater MPV - it's SO embarrassing - someone might think I've got children!! I set to the drive with new and renewed energy and we even zombied our way round Walmart to stock up on some immediate essentials. We were in bed at 12.30am local time - just 25.5 hours after we'd got up in England the previous day.

Harvey had no power or water that night. But everything looked good by torchlight. The lady from the storage facility had come by and opened the windows for freshness but I'm sure it still smelt of the air freshener I'd blitzed 5 months previous! We had a surprisingly good nights sleep and and when we came to move next door into the campground Harvey even started on the 2nd try - no dead vehicle batteries!!! And everything IS GOOD. Harvey is great. A small hiccup with some rain through the roof but nothing we didn't know about. Still confused as to why our plastic sunflowers are in a vase full of water???....(I'm sure there wasn't THAT much rain come through the roof!!!)

Tallinn, Estonia - last days in Europe

2008-04-18T16:56:00.000-07:00

OK. So it's been awhile. Once we got back to the UK we had just 6 days to get our gear in order before heading off again to the USA. It's only today that I got to download the photos from our last days in Eastern Europe!..

Our final stop was Tallinn in Estonia. We couch-surfed here for 2 nights with a wonderful host - Marion (thanks!!). Her apartment was just minutes walk from the old town. She took us out to eat at a great restaurant - Kompressor. They did enormous stuffed pancakes and were a bargain price. Apparently EVERYTHING in Estonia gets served with sour cream - and Kompressor didn't let us down - I had a garlic sour cream with my cheese & mushroom stuffed beast! (It was so good we wound up here on our 2nd night too!) She also gave us a private guided tour of the Old town theatre - the Linnatheater. It's in a beautiful old building (or rather several buildings on the same block). The facades are all classicly old and inside it's a wonderful higgildy piggidly maze of rooms, backstage areas, workshops, dressing rooms and stages. There are 3 stages, all only seating a few people (maybe 100-150?) Somehow it's all been fused together inside even when each building looks so 'separate' from the street. Sadly the weather in Tallin was terrible. I guess it was the most north we went on our 3 week trip and it's on the Baltic Sea (now doesn't that just seem to shout COLD/WET at you?!?!?) We still did a walk round the old town cobbled streets and buildings but it was inter-jected with a darn sight more cosy coffee shop stops than usual!! (Check out the spire of that church - you can't even see the top it's so shrouded in mist!!) There was a particularly great coffee shop right on Raekoja plats (the main town square). It had rough, uneven stone floors, low ceilings, cosy soft lighting and comfy old sofas in the corner AND they served a great hot cocoa and mulled wine (not together!) and cheesecake - what more could you ask for?!

So after 3 weeks and 1 day we flew back to the UK. Sad for our short trip to be over but had a brilliant time visiting 7 different countries. We travelled by plane, train, bus, underground, tram, fenicular, foot & cable car!!

Latvia

2008-04-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

This was Riga. In Latvia. Great place. We spent 2 nights here staying in a great hostel right in the centre of the old town. A small old town area and very easy to get around by walking alone. Sadly already overpopulated by drunk English who have already made a name for themselves (we were there on a Saturday night so at it's worst). But then, where Easyjet go, the drunk British yob will follow...

This trip we've seen more cobbled streets than you could shake a stick at. Also since getting to the Baltic countries we've seen a LOT more rain. (and there's something quite lovely looking about wet cobble-stones glistening in the neon lights of an evening!)

From Riga we took a bus ride about 50km out of town to Sigulda. It's a town of castles. 3 in fact. Pretty old - around 800 years. 2 are in serious ruins but the 3rd - Turaida castle is in pretty good shape with the help of some restoration! It was a great place for some hiking along the Gauja river and in the woods. We took a cable car across the river valley in one direction then walked (And got lost!) before finally making our way to the castle. At that point the heavens opened (lucky we weren't still walking) so we took refuge in the castle until it eased off!

Happy Anniversary to us!! in Lithuania!

2008-04-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

6 Years and counting!! We celebrated our 6th Wedding anniversary today in our 6th different country! Yahay!! A fun tradition that crept up on us a couple of years back and so far so good!! This year we were in Lithuania! We were staying in the city of Vilnius. It was lovely (though didn't quite live up to my expectations of old world euro capital - I must admit I've been somewhat spoiled for choice of late!!) It was a small city and so ideal for us to just stroll around. We had some great food and yet more of the wonderful European beer and visited the Museum of Genocide victims (housed in the former KGB headquarters!). It was a great museum, with excellent displays and plenty of English langage info. In the basement were the old cells and exocution chamber.

From Vilnius we took a 4.5 hour coach journey to Riga in Latvia. Now this is far more my idea of classic, old world quaint European city....

Auschwitz & Birkenau

2008-04-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

Today we took a day-trip to the Auschwitz & Birkenau State museum - about 1.25 hours from Krakow.These are such famous names they need no introduction.
The Auschwitz site is much smaller and was the original camp - many of the original buildings remain. Once they outgrew that and needed more gas chambers and crematoria they built the Birkenau site about 3km away. This covers approx 1 square mile, and although the retreating Nazi's tried to cover-up the horrors that had taken place by destroying much of the place some barracks, the railway lines, the unloading dock and perimeter fences remain. It truly is a vast place (there were over 300 barrack blocks here, 4 gas chambers (holding up to 2000 people at one time) and crematoria.

Because so many of the deportees arrving at Auschwitz were gassed on arrival and were never registered (as many as 70%) it has never been agreed exactly how many people perished at these camps. However it is estimated that the figure is in the region of 1.5 million; 90% of which were Jews. It was an insightful day...

High Tatras Mountains

2008-03-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

We’ve just spent a couple of nights up in the High Tatras mountains which is a stunning range that just seems to pop up in the middle of hundreds of miles of flat lands; covering the area around north east Slovakia and southern Poland. The Slovakian side is a large national park called Vysoke Tatry. It was the end of the winter season but there was still plenty of snow on the high ground, (around 3,000ft plus) with a few die hard skiers still on the slopes.

We stayed in a ‘chata’ which is an old style mountain chalet up in the snow covered forest and had the most amazing views back down into the valley and up to the 8,000ft peaks higher up.

We took a cable car, (in fact three cable cars) up to the top of Lomniky Stit which is the highest mountain in the region and with the bright sunny day we had, offered amazing views of miles around both of Slovakia and Poland.
To get to Poland we had to take a bus to the border town of Lysa Polana, then get off and walk across the border to catch another bus to Zakopane and beyond to Krakow.

I know the poles have had a rough time of it in the past; first under the Nazi occupation and then under Soviet rule but the country is doing pretty well for itself now. The countryside is beautiful and most of the houses outside the cities are huge five story picture postcard style alpine villas.

Krakow itself is also a very modern and cosmopolitan city that has just the right mix of old and new, and hasn’t as yet been ruined by the stag/hen party crowd; although why I’m not sure as the food and drink is as cheap as anywhere! We’re staying in a fab hostel that is spotlessly clean, includes breakfast and supper in the price, has free internet, laundry etc and is perfectly positioned with a five minute walk to either the train station or the old town; which of course is where the best eateries and drinkeries are!!!

Day off in Kosice!

2008-03-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

We've just enjoyed a relaxing day in Kosice. It's Slovakia's second city but is quite small. The main street is cobbled and there's a couple of old churches and a Tesco! There's very little to do (a couple of 'attractions' mentioned in the book seem to be closed for the winter) but it's been nice taking a day off from the rushing around and sight-seeing. We've stayed in a great apartment and indulged in a mini 'LOST-fest' on the laptop - catching up on the last few weeks episodes!! Our first opportunity to get some laundry done and the first time we've had a private bathroom too! (it's not that common compared to America, or is it just the sort of place we stay in?!)

Hungary & Thirsty!!

2008-03-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

We have just spent the last 3 days in Hungary. After an interesting 9 hour sleeper train journey from Romania to Budapest on Sunday night we arrived early on Easter Monday morning. Much of Romania is Orthadox so they were not celebrating Easter at that time and so when we left everything there was busy and open. A contrast to Budapest when we arrived - even the McDonalds was closed!! We were able to leave our bags at the station and set off for the day on foot to explore.

Our first stop was the Szechenyi Furdo (thermal baths) in the city park. They were built in 1908 and are wonderful. Huge. Outside were 3 very large swimming pools. The air was cold and the water was warm to get into compared to the air but not so much once we'd sat around for a while! And so inside were more smaller baths & saunas of various temperatures ranging from 32-38 degrees - much more like it! We whiled away our morning here until we were thoroughly wrinkled and warm!

There is much public transport systems in Budapest but we ended up spending the whole day walking around the sights - we must've walked 10km! We had a tour of the 'Magyar Allami Operahaz' (Hungarian State Opera House) which is a beautiful 1884 neo-Renaissance building and wonderfully ornate. We walked along the River Danube and across the Chain Bridge to Buda (the west banks of the River, compared to Pest on the eastern banks). In Buda is 'Varhegy' (Castle Hill) which is high on a hill with fantastic views of the city and the parliamenet buildings on the Pest side of the river (which were apparently modelled after the London Westminster buildings but have many more spires and elaborate features).

During the day we had a couple of helpings of the famous Hungarian Gulash soup to keep us warm!! That evening we had arranged to couch-surf for the very fist time. It is an internet based network of people who offer to host people on their spare 'couch' or bed. You either host or are hosted. We were staying with Zsuzsa + Daniel in Buda. On our arrival at their apartment they had cooked for us traditional Goulash and dessert which was wonderful. We also sampled the Hungarian 'Firewater'brandy 'Palinka' It is strong and fruit flavoured - this one was apricot but it comes in many flavours. It was somewhat 'warming' but very tasty!! We enjoyed 2 great nights at their apartment which was just minutes from the centre of the city. It was a great first experience of couch-surfing and we hope to try it again soon!

Our second day we took the train 20km north of the city to Szentendre (sen-ten-dreh). It is a small quiet town with narrow winding streets and many souvenirs shops, cafes and galleries. It was a great place to spend much of our day just strolling around and shopping! (and today we tried the Hungarian Pancakes (I forget the name of them) They are stuffed with meat and served smothered in a yummy creamy paprika suace!). Back in the city we visited the 'Terror House' museum. The building was formally the headquarters of the secret police. It portrays the life expereinced in Hungary during the times of Nazi occupation during WWII and the Communist occupation between 1945-1990 (they had a hard time in this country!). It was a great museum, though covered a lot more information about the Communist occupation but didn't beat around the bush about how tough life was here (some video and pictures were quite graphic and very sombering).

We had the most incredible meal on our second night. We had been reccommended a restuarnt by an Australian girl, living in Budapest but travelling in Romania when we were staying in Brasov (can you get any more confusing?!). It was a good call! Trofea was near the River Danube and was an all-you-can-eat buffet (including all you can drink wine, beer, champagne, soft drinks etc). It was very good value (though I suspect quite expensive for Hungarian standards) It cost 15GBP each. There was the most incredible salad bar, fresh meats & fishes cooked to order, many Hungarian dishes (a great way to sample lots of the them!), soups, breads, cheeses and plenty of desserts! We must've stayed there for maybe 3 hours!!

Today we are heading for Eastern Slovakia - a 5 hour train journey to Kosice and our 3rd country in 8 days!

Brasov

2008-03-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

From Bucharest we took a 3 hour train journey to Brasov - on the edge of the Transylvanian mountains. We are staying in a dorm in a hostel in town (the dorm of 7 people in itself being an interesting 'first' for us! - and possible last - I'm too old for it! - I have nothing to prove anymore!) However the hostel is good and organises cheap tours to the sights of the area. We have just returned from a wonderful day trip around the Transylvanian castles. First stop this morning was Rasnov - a small 13th century citadel on top a hill. After a 10 minute hard walk to the top there are tiny little allies leading up from the central square with some great views out over the town. I tried leaving Chris there, locked in the shackles but alas...!

Next stop was Bran Castle . It's famously called 'Dracula's Castle', but in reality Vlad Tepes only ever 'popped in for a cuppa' sometime in the 15th century. The castle is set up on a rocky outcrop and is quite harsh looking but inside it's surprisly small and currently has lots of displays of photos, not giving much of an impression of what it was actually like 'back in the day'.

The higlight was Peles Castle for sure. (Though not the footballer's, though these days most of them I'm sure would be trying to buy up this kinda joint as a summer home!) Actually it was the summer residence of the 1st King of Romania, King Carol 1 from Germany. Completed in 1914 it's pretty amazing. It had a 15 year long refit between 1975-1990 and is open for tours covering just 30% of what's there. It's simply stunning. Huge grand reception halls, dining halls fashioned in Florentine, French & Moorish styles. More carved walnut and gilding than you could shake a stick at and a particularly lovely spiral stair case 'just for ornament's sake' in the entrance hall. It was pretty advanced for it's time. It had a central vacuuming system, central heating, elevators, electricty, a huge stained glass window skylight covering the whole entrance hall (several metres wide) that can be opened electronically in summer - and all this stuff still functions! It was so cool! And our tour guide spoke English with an accent just like a female version of Count Dracula from Sesame Street!!! - Very sing-song-y!!

Roaming in Romania...

2008-03-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

So we're in Romania! It's lovely and warm - unseasonal I think but we're not complaining! We arrived at lunchtime yesterday in Bucharest and sorted ourselves out within a couple of hours with a nice hotel in the historic part of the city. It took some wandering around with the rucksacks on but all good in the end! We had a great receptionsit who chatted for ages about all the things to do and good places to eat - a veritable fountain of knowledge! (Although quick to confess she doesn't really like Bucharest!). We whiled away a couple of hours in the lovely Cismigiu park and lake (though the lake is bone dry - perhaps it's a summer lake; we haven't found out!) We had a GREAT Romanian traditional meal at 'La Mama' on recommendation of both the receptionist and Lonely Planet. Meatballs & Meat stuffed Cabbage rolls with lots of 'peasant style' country potatos and veg - all delicious!

Today we had a good lie-in after yesterdays 4am start! We did a lot of walking around the city (not wanting to miss out on our usual morning 'hikes'!) We stopped at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant which had a host of tradtional costumes, an old wooden church and house (all inside!) and lots of artifacts - good stuff but not as good as...The National Village Museum - another mile out of town, past the Arc de Triumph (yes Bucharest has one too!) and to the gardens of Herastrau. They've collected together dozens of buildings from around the country and carefully restored and recontructed them all here. They've separated them up into the different regions they've come from and made proper little 'villages' with many peasant houses, farm buildings and churches. You're able to walk in amongst them and go inside many. It may be a poor hard life but in almost all cases they were rich with colour and 'love' There are many ornate, besutiful hand carved gates and ornaments inside and most are decorated with cheerful woven rugs and pottery. Really enjoyed that! We walked back into the Historic part of the city and checked out the Palace of Parliament. It's the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon apparently). It was built in 1984 by Ceausescu and covers 330,000 sq metres and cost an estimated 3.3 Billion Euro! It's pretty sizeable and I'm sure we couldn't see the half of it from the road as it's depth is at least as wide as its width! We did pass the Bank of Transilvania and it was all I could do to stop Chris going inside and asking if it was a blood bank.

Next stop - the Mountains and castles of Dracula's stomping grounds...

One Down...

2008-03-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

One Down…

Well it looks like all our hard work paid off; the second person to view the house has put in a decent offer and we’ve accepted!
After spending Christmas and New Year with family and a busy January DIY’ing for said family, we moved back into Helen’s house in Swindon to redecorate. In fact it was more like renovate as the tenants had been asylum seekers put in the house by a housing association so we really did have our work cut out. Thankfully Helen’s folks were on hand as we had neither the tools nor much of the skills needed to put the house back into order; I say ‘on hand’ but that’s if you count 100 miles away and half a dozen trips up to help us as on hand!
So with new carpets upstairs and the downstairs wooden floors sanded and re-varnished, new flooring in the kitchen and bathroom, a top to bottom repaint and more than a few repairs to walls, floors and ceilings we let a bunch of estate agents loose…
Naturally they all promised lists of potential buyers all waiting for a house just like this one but some seemed more realistic than others so we chose the most down to earth person with a realistic valuation and reasonable fees. (Is there such a thing?) we gave the go ahead on the Wednesday, had two viewings that week, a second viewing the following Tuesday and an offer, (for more than we hoped) on the Thursday!
Of course anything could still happen up until completion and I’m not one to count my chickens but there is this new motorcycle that’s been eyeing me up lately; and what with the Dollar being as weak as it is and us flying back to the states next month…

Off to Eastern Europe!

2008-03-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

Hoorah! We've finally booked ourselves some adventure! We fly off to Romania on Tuesday and fly back from Estonia in a months time.

We've spent the last month working on the house in Swindon and it went on the market last week - now just gonna get us some buyers (actually just one will do!)

Saw this and loved it. Came through the letterbox whilst working on the house. Loved the sentiment (even though yes I suppose this houses's soul IS up for sale!)

We still live!

2008-01-24T16:24:00.000-08:00

New Year is off to a quiet start (just as well after the hectic Christmas!!) Spending time with families. Walking and Geo-caching have been filling our days mostly!! (yes, yes, easy life I know!). I've managed to do some scrapbooking...went to a crop at Paper Arts near Stroud last weekend which was fun!

Here's a one of my latest pages (about the walks we do around my parents home in Taunton);

Christmas in Taunton

2007-12-30T08:08:00.000-08:00

After a packed few days in London Chris and I headed down to the West Country to my parents for the 'Mills/Coles family Christmas'. More mayhem ensued...my Mum was hosting 11 of us plus 4 more for 'Christmas Dinner' itslef on the 28th. On the 27th (our 'Xmas Eve') all 11 went up to Bristol to see Mamma Mia at the Hippodrome - absolutely great stuff. We ALL got up and danced away during the encore!

The downside to the 2 Christmases-thing is the FOOD - the overwhelming and un-ending quanitity of it. Thankfully Chris and I have kept up the walking, and at the end of the year I'm pleased to say we managed 530 miles - the aim for 2008 is 1000 miles!!

Trouble - with a capital 'G'!!

The Chefs!

The 'Girl' Cousins!

The Men!

The most riduclous number of presents I've ever seen!! (I'm not complaining - my fair share were buried somewhere in this lot!!)

Boxing Day!

2007-12-26T22:17:00.000-08:00

All of us outside the Natural History Museum on Boxing Day. The plan was supposed to be ice-skating but a power cut put paid to that. Instead we indulged in the most indulgent hot chocolate I have ever tasted - you have GOT to try this. Gu - OMG. It's amazing - not just chocolatey but sort of choc-brownie rich - yuuuuuummmmmy!

Christmas in London

2007-12-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We spent 5 days with Chris's family in London. The whole of the UK puts on an incredibly disappointing show of Xmas decorations and lights (bah-humbugs!) Here are a couple of cheerful, festive displays we saw - Covent Garden (where we spent an evening wandering around, watching the buskers and sipping mulled wine whilst grabbing a few last minute presents!), and also Carnaby Street. Christmas means great food and LOTS of it! I love it! These mini chilli peppers stuffed with cream cheese & mint went down a treat...and chicken satay - and that was just the nibbles whilst we worked up an appetite for the main event! (like there's ever room for Xmas dinner?!) I get the feeling here that Call was guarding the dinner - just gorgeous decorations at Helen's house - I think we counted over 40 cream candles burning each evening - just beautiful!

And these are the crazy Chrismas Day swimmers at the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Each Xmas Day morning at 9am they swim the 100 yard dash in the freezing waters. There were probably about 50 of them. It was pretty fresh - the brave souls - the weather was lousy - the only miserable, wet day we had over the Christmas period but we managed a wee walk around the park for a bit before the inevitable mayhem started!

Christmas Card 2007

2007-12-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

Snowdon

2007-12-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

Who said the UK doesn’t have mountains?...Oh – that’ll be me then!! Wales' best offering is Snowdon at 3560ft. Not quite in the same league as the 14ers of Colorado or the +10Ks of California that we were hiking earlier this year, but… All things are relative I suppose.

An early Monday morning in December and the carpark was surprisingly busy – but of course you still have to pay and display! – typical UK. Completely unfriendly and unapproachable park wardens too who basically gave us the impression that if we had to ask about conditions and recommendations then we shouldn’t be doing it! A somewhat different outlook to the US where we feel that it’s the irresponsible ones that don’t ask!

Anyway. We hiked up the Miners track to the peak and returned via the Pyg track. A total of 8 miles and an elevation gain of 2500ft. Most of the trail was quite maintained and built up with stones – almost like paving and it was so wet, and in places mini waterfalls had developed, pouring down them. But actually it was so icy so we were skating around a bit and scrambling around the mountain-side trying to avoid the ice which slowed the progress somewhat! At the peak it was amazingly windy – we were clinging hold of the trig point for fear of getting blown off!! All in all we were so lucky with the weather – most of the hike we had views of the peak with some crazy clouds whizzing by every so often. Great views from the top right down to the coast in one direction, and in the other clouds way below us really giving us the feel of being on top of the world! It was very cold, especially when we stopped for more than a moment so retreated to the nearest tea rooms for warm soup and hot chocolate! (The mulled wine came later!!!)

The Netherlands

2007-12-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

Had a quick escape to the Netherlands this last week. What a great time!! We stayed in Amsterdam with our friends Leo and Annette (these are the crazy Dutch couple we met in Baja California last year who'd cycled from Alaska!! - mentioned on the blog entries back in November/December 2006) - Thank you SO MUCH guys - you are just the most amazing hosts!

Had a wonderful time just strolling the city. Must admit had some TERRIBLE weather - we got so completely soaked through a couple of times but of course there's plenty of cafes and bars to retreat to and warm through with a nice glass of hot chocolate. Our contribution to culture was a visit to the Anne Frank House which was great in a sombering kind of way - can't believe she was only 15 when she died. They hid in the house on the side of the canal for just under 2 years before someone grassed them up. Anne herself died in a concentration camp just one week before it was liberated by the British Army.

Leo & Annette did introduce us to Indonesian food. Can't believe I haven't had this before. NEED to have it again soon! Rijsttafel is an indonesian buffet which we all ordered. I counted 15 mini dishes laid out on our table and I'm sure I didn't get to sample them all (if only the American culture of 'doggy bags' was somewhat more accepted here!!)

And in no particular order here are some of my favourite photos of this lovely, colourful city;

Jolly Ole' England!!

2007-11-30T11:52:00.000-08:00

SO. England. So far so good. We've been back 3 weeks now and we've only been out walking in the rain twice!! Unseasonably mild and dry - but it's England. It's bound not to last. But we have been making the most of it. Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth!! Since we've been back we've walked 77 miles. This is us keeping up with our latest fitness regime (something else that's bound not to last!!) Start the day off with a 4 mile walk, trudging round the English countryside - great!!

So with the mild weather we even managed to get the top down in our 'old' SLK!! My folks kindly put us back on the insurance for us to drive while we're here (actually less of the 'us' - they wouldn't insure me due to 'age unacceptable' - go figure! Still being chauffeur-driven isn't so bad! This is the view from 'up the hill' looking down on Kingston St Mary - the village I grew up in, and where my Mum & Dad still are. Looks far more 'romantic' here in B&W than it ever was when I was here!

And - FINALLY we found some autumn!! After missing it all in the States there are some remnants here. And plenty of leaves!! (Picture taken 28 Nov in Kingston)

Yesterday we had beautiful weather and so took an afternoon trip out to the seaside with my Mum & Dad. One of the nearest places to us on the South coast is Lyme Regis in Dorset. I remember all the fun trips I took there as a teenager with friends staying in a beach chalet and generally running riot - the promendae is all tarted up and looking rather different, but the old cottages and 'the Cobb' (was used for filming in the movie French Lieutenants Woman) protecting the harbour never change. Strolled along the shore, stopped in a little English tea-rooms for cream teas, hot chocolate, buttered crumpets and mulled wine! - Ahhhh - tis good to be back!!

One day to go!

2007-11-12T12:00:00.001-08:00

Time is counting down. This time in 24 hours we'll be on a plane back across the Atlantic. For our last few days we've based ourselves in Conroe, TX - about 35 miles north of Houston. Great place, great campsite and a perfect place to prepare for home, prep the RV for 5 months of winter storage and pack. Looking forward to seeing our family and really excited about 'going home for Christmas'.

The trip is on hold now for 5 months. This is not the end. We have return tickets booked for mid-April!!

'Old Baldy' - seen in Hill Country, TX - Yes YOU Backhouse!!!

Whilst in Austin we also caught up with Marty and Tom - a couple we'd met when visiting the Four Corners Monument (in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah - take your pick!!). Finally after all our plan changes this year we visited their home and had dinner with them - also in Austin, TX! Great to see you both!

Time with old friends

2007-11-09T18:58:00.000-08:00

A couple of shots of Chris with his old buddy from RAF II Squadron days - 'Geordie' Sparrow - now all grown up, retired from the RAF and mature he's better known as John! Had a great couple of days staying with him and his family - Michelle, Kate & Callum in Austin. They took us to the MOST fabulous Texas BBQ joint - The Salt Lick restaurant. HUGE plates of BBQ ribs, sausage & beef brisket served family style with heaps of beans, bread, pickles, potatos, sauce. Oh wow - just fab stuff and all you can eat so we all waddled out a couple hours later to listen to the live music playing in the garden of the resturant!

39th State

2007-11-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

This is our USA states sticker map. It's stuck on the door of the RV and we peel off and stick on the states as and when we've visted! Vague criteria qualify a state for sticker status - we have to have stayed the night and 'done' something (for example driving 2 hours through Arkansas 2 years ago didn't qualify much to Chris's irritation, it wasn't until last month that it actually got it's sticker (And soaking for 2 hours in a Hot Spring and hiking was good enough in my book!)

So 39 States in 34 months. And what with our flights back to the UK booked for less than 2 weeks time this is all we can achieve for the time being. So 39 - not bad (we could sneak in a couple more on that figure given that we've both been to Hawaii, and I've been to Kansas & Massachusetts but not on this trip so disallowed! - Yes, yes - I'm strict with the rules!) Poor old West Virginia is out on a limb a bit so we might never get that one! New Mexico I haven't 'really' been to. We went to the 4 corners last year and put a limb in 4 states which I admit is stretching it a little (OK, since I'm short it was stretching it a LOT) but anyway, Chris did do his bike trip there last year which MORE than qualifys him!

Snuck in to Oklahoma this week (mainly to bag a final sticker before we go!) Went to the beautiful Chickasaw National Recreation Area. Went off merrily for our morning hike. All very nice, although I was grumbling along about how thick the undergrowth was making it tough going. Well that became the least of my worries when a very dodgey geezer in camo-gear informed me that it was 'Black Powder' (whatever the hell that means) season and I looked like a white-tailed deer (something about the cream sweater I was wearing rather than my natural grace and elegance) and was highly likely to get shot at. Nice. We beat a hasty retreat and stuck to the roads to the sound of guns going off all around. Chris re-assured me by saying that if I heard the shot it missed me. Mmmm. Thanks for that. Also in Oklahoma did a mammoth Christmas shopping spree - with the $ at $2.08 to the UK£ it can't be bad - spend, spend, spend!!

Track time...

2007-10-23T23:21:00.000-07:00

You know how women have those pamper day thingies? Well today I had a men's pamper day; it was me, my bike, a race track in the middle of Texas and a whole bunch of like mided bikers!

The track day organised by Buell, (my bike is a Buell) and 'Private Track Time' a company that hires race tracks for private use, and when I'd seen it advertised a couple of months ago I conveniently 'steered' us to be in this area at just the right time...

The track was open from 9 am to 5 pm and each hour was split into three groups of twenty minutes for novice, intermediate and advanced riders so throughout the day everyone had seven twenty minute sessions. (Which is actually more than enough for most people!) There are expert coaches throughout the day to either follow and critique or lead to show you the right lines for this particular track; they are free and well worth it as it would take half the day to learn the track without their local knowledge.

Buell were there with a fleet of their new pre-production model which won't be available in the showrooms until next year; anyone with a license could sign up for a test ride so we all got the chance to put it through its paces on the track; this is a very rare experience and quite a privilege; it's not uncommon to not be able to test ride a bike before buying anyway so getting to test one you're not buying, on a race track really is something.

We parked the RV in the pits area so with Helen on hand to rehydrate me and clean my visor in between sessions I even had my own 'brolly-dolly'... And of course she got to watch all the action in close up full colour live timing; bored? surely not!

The whole day cost $100 and included lunch, a T shirt, knee sliders, (if you don't know you won't understand!) and the much appreciated marshals and medical cover - which thankfully wasn't needed! Of course the bikes get a much harder time than normal so my new tyres have several hundreds miles of worth of wear on them, but the day was an absolute bargain for a day of playing GP racers!

One of the others I'd met at the track was a guy from Florida called Norm who had a house within the track grounds, (and yes I am envious!) who invited Helen and I to have dinner with him, a friend, Brad also riding and their respective wives, Maggie and Cinda So a fab day was finished to perfection with a great evening enjoying cold beer and Maggie's wonderful cooking in thier lovely house overlooking, (literally) the track.

Baths

2007-10-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Whizzed across a few state lines since I last wrote. We had a quick night out in Memphis. Visited here over 2 years ago near the start of our trip and did all the attractions but happenned across a wicked bar on Beale Street with the most increadible pulled pork BBQ sandwiches and since we were 'in the area' we had to go back!! Just as good as we remembered, and a good night (if rather wet) out in Memphis!

From there we crossed into Arkansas and our 38th state. And with a city name of 'Hot Springs' how could we resist?! It's also a National Park (And we like those!). This is actually a city park and the national park is there to preserve and protect the hot springs which flow around/through the town centre. In the late 1800's it became a popular spot for people to visit the therapeutic healing hot waters and by the turn of the century it was quite the place to come to 'take the waters'. Theres a whole row of grand old bath houses which the NPS are currently restoring. The visitor centre is in one of them - the Fordyce Bathhouse and you can tour around inside and see how it was in it's heyday - the changing rooms, bath hall, massage rooms, vapour rooms and even a funky old fashioned gym full of equipment! 3 doors down is the Buckstaff Baths and these are the only functioning baths. For $50 we had the 'full monty' bath - about 2 hours in total. Men & women bathe on separate floors. You take the elevator to your floor and get met by a locker room attendant, you takes your clothes and wraps you in a linen sheet toga-styel. You start with a 20 minute whirlpool bath. Your own private bath attendant scrubs you down with a loofah mitt then you sit back and relax. From there you have a 'sitz' bath - which is a small sit-in tub with extremely hot water which is good for lower back pains. Next is a vapour cabinet (weird thing - I had a head-out thing which felt very strange, Chris was in a more conventional steam room), then I laid on a bed and had hot packs positioned wherever I wanted them and sweated out for 20 minutes or so. Finally it was into the needle shower for a rinse off before settling down to a swedish massage. Pretty good stuff! Hot Springs town is quite small and surrounded by hills - we got in a couple of hikes before we felt we'd earnt the bath treatment! (we're aiming to complete 350 miles of hiking before we head home to the UK in 3.5 weeks time)

Now we've just crossed the state line into Texas. We're heading for Dallas where Chris has a track day on the bike next Tuesday.

Motorcycles....lots of them

2007-10-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

I know how to show a girl a good time; "Fancy a romantic weekend away on the bike dear, stay in a hotel for a change?" I knew one of us would have a good time!

What I had in mind was a 550 plus mile round trip to spend all day at the 'Barber Vintage Motorcycle Museum' in Birmingham Alabama. I'd seen the museum raved about in a bike magazine a year or so ago and regretted not knowing it was there when we passed through Birmingham near the start of this trip, so when I realised we were 'so close' it seemed criminal to miss out again!

The museum is an open plan, five story monolith and holds the largest private collection of bikes in the world with 750 on display at any time and another 350 in the basement either awaiting restoration or space upstairs - they try and rotate through the models every month or so. (Best go back next month then!!!) The guy who owns them is the boss/owner of a large ice cream company and has been collecting for 20 years which is quite some feat considering what he's managed to get hold of.

The display was truly phenomenal with bike ranging from the early 20th century to today with many famous race bikes and one off prototypes and special editions. I'll do my best not to alienate bikers here but I'm sure names like Mike Hailwood, John Surtees, Kenny Roberts and Joey Dunlop will be recognised by most people as masters of the bike racing world; there were the very bikes that these guys had made history on in amongst everyday bikes that were/still are popular with the rest of us. The bike Steve Mc Queen rode in 'The Great Escape' was there as was a replica, (the original was wrecked in the film) of the bike Dennis Hopper rode in the iconic 'Easy Rider'.

There was also plenty of nostalgia for me seeing so many of the bikes I'd grown up drooling over, (including some I'd owned myself over the years) in 'as new' condition; many in fact were actually unused and as old as they were, had zero miles on the clock! I know I couldn't be that disciplined; if I had my own private collection of 1,100 bikes, garaged within the grounds of one of America's best race tracks, (that I also owned) I don't care what the bike's history is, there's no way it would find a place in the museum until I'd taken it for a few laps myself first!
And the ride there and back was pretty good too; six hours across the rolling countryside of Tennessee and Alabama in late summer is as good as any way to spend the day. Despite being mid October, the weather is as warm as an English summer day; cool and fresh in the morning, balmy and hot in the afternoon.

As for the romance... well we did have the novelty of cable TV to keep us occupied at night!
Ooops, I nearly forgot 'old Jack'; we took a detour to stop in at the Jack Daniels distillery for a tour on our way south to Alabama. Last time we were in Tennessee it was just a brief visit to Memphis to see the home of "The King" (you know, him with the blue suede shoes) and Lynchberg would have been too far out of our way. With hindsight I'm glad we didn't make the trip as Jack Daniels is the only brewery/distillery tour I've eve been on where you don't get a sample!

Believe it or not Moore County, (Lynchburg and therefore the JD distillery is in Moore) is still a dry county left over from the days of prohibition! Old Jack himself bought the rights to the iron free natural spring back before prohibition but was stopped from making whisky for some 30 years; prohibition itself had ended but Moore County stayed dry. Eventually it was agreed that the distillery could open again as it was good for local labour and the economy, and it operated for many years without ever being able to sell it's product locally. Much later, and I already forget the date, a local law was passed to allow the distillery to sell whiskey in its own shop (but still only special edition bottles, not regular retail stuff) although the whole of Moore County is still dry!
The whiskey starts at 140 proof before it gets filtered through 10 ft of charcoal whereby it drops to a mere 90 proof; our very funny and quite mad guide, (either mad or overcome with fumes from all the tours he does) insisted on rattling the (locked down) lids of the filtration drums to let the aroma out - and what a smell it was! As the lone foreigners in the group the guide took an instant (moon?)shine to us and thought it was wonderful we'd come all this way for a distillery tour where we couldn't even get to sample the end result.

Jack Daniels is the largest producer of whiskey in the world and perhaps unsurprisingly the UK is the largest importer; perhaps this was why the guide felt a certain affinity to us! They still make it the same way they did in the beginning from the same underground spring and to assure quality they are the only whiskey producer to make their own wooden barrels and use each one only once - if you buy a barrel which is 240 bottles, you get to keep the barrel and each bottle comes with its personalised embossed medallion. All a pretty good detour for 2 hours spent on a freebie tour with no sampling!!

When in Nashville...

2007-10-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

Who'd have thought we'd be clapping our hands and toe tapping our way through not one, but TWO nights of live Country Music. When in Nashville.... After lots of good gen from a super friendly info centre we headed into downtown Nashville. We parked just half a dozen blocks from the action on a busy main road but it was free, unmetered parking (and at the end of a great evening it was staggering distance back to bed and we stopped the night, drifting off to sleep to the sound of disel engine buses chugging their way round the late night bus routes!) First stop was the strip of Honky-Tonk bars on Broadway. Plenty of bars, plenty of choice and more country music than you could shake a stick at. They were all free cover so we could drift in and out at will depending on the music. ALL had live music and cold beer - what more could you want?! After a while we went in search of food and after a certain amount of wandering we ended up in BB Kings Bar (OK so not entirely country music here) Again great live music - a crazy keyboard player - dressed up in platform white boots, phscadelic shirt and with permed long blonde hair - he was SO out of a 70's rock band but was awesome entertainment even if he was in a blues bar!!

Tonight it was a night at the Grand Ole Opry. This started out as a simple radio broadcast back in 1925 and is now a full live-entertainment show, the self procalimed 'home of country music'. ALL the famous names have been performed there. The show is almost variety show -like in organisation. You don't actually book to see a particular performer you just book your seat on a date and are one of an audience of thousands on the recording of the Grand Ole Opry 2-hour radio show. There are 8 different performers and each do a set of 3 songs (in between sets we did have to sit through the radio presenter talking his way through a very scripted radio commercial for the show sponsors such as Cracker Barrel Ole Country Restuarant). We got lucky - Carrie Underwood was performing!! We'd been quite into a couple of her songs playing on the radio a lot here ('Before he cheats' is great!) At the show we realised that she was actually shot to fame by her success on American Idol - but now is making a respectable name for herself in country music - a gorgeous, petite, blonde in amongst a show full of male singers on the night we were there it's hardly surprising! A great night at 'The Grand Ole Opry' - what a Nashville thing to do?! We polished off the night with another American classic - TGI's (it's tacky, expensive, and the 'proper' food is awful, but the cocktails are great and the bar snacks and appys are tasty!) Tongiht we went upmarket - no street-side camping for us. No tonight we found a Camping World shop carpark right alongside the interstate to cosy up in (my husband takes me to ALL the best places!!)

Amish Country, Ohio

2007-09-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

Have had a great couple of days and we haven't been outside of the RV!!! Checked into a nice little campsite in amongst the peace and serenity that is Berlin, OH; which is right in the heart of Amish Country. We have had the most atrocous weather for the past two days but the good bit of it is we have Wifi. This shouldn't normally be cause for too much excitement (we're not normally THAT sad!) but it's been a while - the last few weeks we've been just grabbing odd minutes here and there parked outside hotels!! So surfs up!! And we've just discovered the joy and ultimate time-wasting wesbite that is Facebook! So the weather has been lousy...

Until today; today we had to get out. Took the motorbike out to a neighbouring town of Sugarcreek where they were having their annual Swiss Fesitval. A kid's parade and lots of people wearing swiss national dress (I assume it was anyway..) Sampled some local Ohio wines. Bought some local Ohio wines (you know how it is!) and sampled (and bought) some real (Ohio?!) Swiss cheese. Ate Deep Fried Swiss cheese-on-a-stick (markedly better than it sounds) and Bratwurst and drank more Ohio wines...

Then strolled around the local town of Berlin. This is just such an Amish part of the country. Lots and lots of buggys out on the road and many Amish people who are quite distinctive in their dress. Check out this photo - love it...the equivalent of the Amish Supermarkt on a Saturday afternoon - total gridlock in the supermarket carpark (and you say you have problems parking in Tesco in Bishops Cleeve Pat?! - you ain't seen nothing!!).

And finally - this is Donkey tied up at the 'horse rail' next to an Amish buggy - he's fitting right in don't you think?!?!

Cedar Point Part II

2007-09-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

More about Cedar Point - it deserves a good write up! It was Halloweekends at the park while we were there which was fun! It was all decked out with spooky decorations and come nightfall there were some themed attrations. 3 Haunted houses and 4 spooky 'walk-throughs'. Let me just say that Cedar Point rates all it's rides on a 1-5 basis with 5 being a extreme thrill experience. One of the houses we went in was rated a five (normally reserved for the radical coasters). As you walked through there were creepy decorations (spider web stuff hanging down in your face etc!), mostly it was pitch black so you really had to feel your way step by step along the floor. Lots of hanging curtains and nooks and crannies that 'things' could be hiding in/behind. And there was a cast of real live people all dressed up as ghouls, witches and dead people etc, and jumping out on you shouting, screaming and rattling cans and generally making you jump sky high. The adrenalin was going like crazy but it was funny too - when people had succeeded in making me scream I couldn't help but laugh out loud at myself!! There was also one of those tunnel things. It's a straight through tunnel with fixed walkway, but there flashing lights in a tube all around and they moved in a circular motion so your brain tricks you into thinking you're moving. This we were in stitches over - it REALLY felt like we were up on our sides on the walkway, clinging on for dear life - hysterical!! Actually even funnier when we walked right through to other side then watched the people behind us falling about - of course from our vantage point it was a straight, still walkway!!!

The haunted walk-through was also great. Amazingly it was on one of the main thoroughfares in the park to get to a whole host of roller coasters so there was no choice but to walk through it, given it was rated a 4 it was hardly surprising that one of the common sounds accompanying the 500 yard walk was the sound of kids crying!! This didn't open till 8pm so it was nice and dark. They filled the air with stage smoke/fog and had lots of eerie lights penetrating through casting a strange glow over the whole place. Whereas the street would normally be lined with nice flowerbeds these had been replaced with halloween themed graveyards, skeleton people scenes and the like. And along this haunted walk there were people, again, dressed up and running at you, shouting, wailing, rattling cans (this was the worse in fact!), stalking you, scaring you! So funny! (but again totally spooky high adrenalin stuff)

I think I may have met my match in a roller coaster theme park - this one had me beat. There was a ride that I WAS NOT going on - no way jose! The dragster ride - it propelled you at speeds reaching 120 mph along a dragstrip and then vertically, (quite literally!) up a 420ft rise which crested briefly and then came back down vertically - I don't know the exact height of the tower but it had aircraft hazard lights on the top (and that was a pretty good gauage for me - the fearer of heights - if it had lights on it I wasn't going on!) Chris was well up for this and I was ready to queue the 2 hours with him but honestly, we ran out of time. He did get me on the Power Tower which lifted us 240ft in the air then freefalled us back down same said tower - it had me whimpering and shaking and Chris then excused me from any other ridiculous ride that went too high (it's the height, vertical drop thing that freaks me - give me a game old roller coaster, vertical loops and I'm happy - just not a vertical drop!)
So Cedar Point was incredible - America's Roller Coast it was. If you ever had time to glance at the view from the top of one of these rides it was quite picturesque - a slice of land jutting out into Lake Erie and surrounded on 3 sides by water. We saw a beautiful sunsest through the old wooden slats of the Mean Streak roller coaster and a glimpse of a big ship sailing past, silhouetted against a red sun. Just great!

Cedar Point ROCKS!!

2007-09-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

Cedar Point - America's Roller Coast. Busy, busy day yesterday. My neck, shoulders and back are completely shot to pieces after being vibrated loose on 'The Mean Strek' - a 1.5 mile wooden roller coaster - just don't do it. They stopped making wooden coasters and went to snazzy modern things for a very good reason - a smooth ride. Such an awesome day. It was open from noon till midnight - we never imagined we'd be there that long but we squeezed out the whole time, and people were still in line for rides at midnight so we could've stayed longer - we were just too pooped by then. This is a roller coaster park to beat all others. We didn't do some of the coasters - simply ran out of time. We queued for 1.5 hours for one ride - The Maverick - it was voted the best new ride of 2007 and it was worth the wait - instead of the first gradual incline to build speed like you normally get it fired you out of the station at 30mph! and then it just got better - a 95 degree drop - yes thats beyond vertical!!! SO COOL! Loved it. Now just need to rest and work this crick out of my neck...

The Henry Ford Pt 2

2007-09-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

You'll have to excuse my handwriting here; the breeze coming off Lake Eerie is moving the hammock, and the sun filtering through the trees makes the screen hard to read! Another amazing day at the Henry Ford. This time we went to the Greenfield Vilage as it opened at 9.30am. It'd been suggested that we allow 5.5 hours for this, and once again it was an underestimation - we left 30 mins before it closed at 5 o'clock!

So, Greenfield Village is a large collection of buildings that Henry Ford started accumulating from around the country and in a few instances from around the world. They've been moved to this site, reassembled and renovated to their original condition. There are all sorts of buildings - his childhood home, the garage shed in which he built his first automobile - the quadricycle, there are farmhouses, stables, barns, wealthy family homes, working class family homes, slaves quarters, plantation houses, a windmill, even a Cotswold cottage and a Swiss chalet! The complex is split into areas - working farms, porches & parlours, the steam railway (together with a working roundhouse), and the craftsmen - this included glassblowers, potters, weavers, printers, sawmills, carpenters but curiously no blacksmith. Now we've been to a few of these 'old' villages before during our time here and we've seen our fair share of blacksmiths - nearly always a working shop with a real bona fide blacksmith working the bellows and bending metal, insisting that you stay and watch them make something from nothing. (I even got given some neat little twisted metal curtain hooks that we watched being made at one place!). Trust me, you can only watch so uch blacksmithery in one lifetime so it seemed somewhat pleasantly surprising that there was no blacksmith here in the craftsmen area - oh, how disappointed we were! (it's become a bit of a standing joke!). But these guys at The Henry Ford are cleverer than we are - oh yes, here they cunningly snuck in a Cotswold Forge just for good measure...and what pray, does one find in a Cotswold Forge? A bloody blacksmith!! So we came away fulfilled and satisfied that the blacksmith lives another day here in Dearborn, Michigan! (and frankly in much nicer digs than usual, but then I'm biased to a bit of Cotswold stone anyday!)

It really was a great day. Aside from all the buildings that you could go in and explore, often with costumed guides welcoming you into the house and telling you a bit about the era in which they were decorated, the whole village was beautifully landscaped. There was the old village pond with covered bridge, long leafy roads with all the grand family homes on, and lovely farm yards and fields with crops. All the while Model T's were chugging along the roads (You could tell the route the Model T's took around the village by the trail of oil - I guess some things never change with Fords..!) and an old steam train was doing a circuit of the place whistling away!
Bizarre to think that many of the workers live in Detroit, (not the most picturesque of cities!) commute through the worst kind of traffic to then work in the peace and tranquility of a real working 1920s farming village. Shouldn't that be the other way round???

The Henry Ford

2007-09-18T08:44:00.000-07:00

So today was a busy day; we got up from everyone's favourite campground (Walmart) and drove the 20 or so miles through the rush hour, (such a nice time of day to take it easy as long as you’re not in any kind of rush!) to the Detroit suburb of Dearborn and The Henry Ford.
The Henry Ford is actually a complex consisting of the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, an IMAX and the Rouge Factory tour. We wanted to do everything (bar the Imax). The ticket clerk suggested that we’d need about two and a half hours to see the Henry Ford museum and about the same for the Rouge Factory tour, and then another whole day for the village. How wrong she was; We could have spent all day in the museum alone!

It was that good and had that much to see and do! Loads of interactive stuff, (obviously a misspent childhood!) over 100 cars through history, trains; including the 125 ft long Allegheny loco weighing over 600 tons and standing 16 ft high, a whole bunch of planes, bikes and agricultural machinery. There was the bus on which Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat for a white person. There was a circular, mobile one piece house from the 40s (it was called the Dymaxion house and was made from aluminium. It seemed like a good idea at the time but never actually sold due to prohibitive production costs). There were recontructed rooms through the decades showing the American way of life and all the fashions, fads and 'latest' technology. There was the limo which JFK was assasinated in, the chair in which Lincoln was sat when he was assassinated. There was a temporary display of 'rock stars and their cars and guitars' including John Lennon’s garish Rolls that we saw in The Royal BC Museum in Victoria; some tasty cars such as the ones ZZ Top used in their videos, and others like Marilyn Manson’s creation showing another side to fame and fortune.

The plan was to have lunch back at Harvey but there really was no time before the last factory tour so we stopped at the “Wiener Mobile” café for a hotdog before jumping on our Variety Sunshine Club coach that took us the 15 minutes ride to the Ford Rouge Factory. For a start the place is HUGE! It's 2,000 acres and has a 110 miles of railroad tracks within the complex (making it the largest privately owned railway in the world!) (and that is the second piece of train trivia in one blog entry - just proving that I am a train spotters, sorry, steam train enthusiasts daughter at heart!). In the factory We watched the Ford F150, (which is one of those big gas guzzling American SUVs that everyone here absolutely needs!) being made from start to finish – each person on the production line gets 56 trucks pass them every hour. We then sat in a 360 degree cinema watching the whole process on a film to compare with any I-Max production; all very impressive! The factory employs some of the latest technology going and is working hard to be eco-friendly - it has the worlds largest 'living roof' on some of the factory buildings (a small succulent looking plant that carpets the roof keeping temps 10 degrees cooler in summer and 10 degrees warmer in winter - thus being fuel efficient.) It also has huge skylights which apparently cuts lighting bills by up to 50%! It has porous parking lots which soak up rainwater, filters it and drains into wetlands which have been replanted in the surrounding area and they use paint fumes and convert them into energy and all sorts of other interesting, funky eco-friendly things! As well as all the nifty modern tenchology the Rouge Plant is listed on the National Register of Historic Places - it is the original plant that Henry Ford built. Slightly ironic then that they make some of the most, (and probably more than most) uneconomical vehicles on the planet!!!

We’re now sat back in another Walmart in the heat of a beautiful evening – so much for the summer having left us! Tomorrow we’re going back to 'do' the Greenfield village part of the museum complex...

Sleeping Bear Dunes & WINE!

2007-09-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

After some indecision over whether we headed down the east or west shorelines of Michigan we plumped for the west - the Lake Michigan shore. The lake is pretty well known for it's great sandy shores and dunes...lots of dunes! Have spent the last 3 nights staying at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. It's very sandy and very nice. Busy hiking some nice trails and with our one good day of weather we were out on the motorbike travelling round the Leelanau Peninsula - one of Michigans wine regions (and yes we do sniff them out!). Stopped for some obligatory tasting and purchasing. Including a 'special edition' wine from the Ciccone Winery (owned and operated by Madonna's dad - the special edition commemorating her latest studio album with a fancy picture of her on the label and a numbered bottle!) Also discoved the MOST yummy breakfast place which rivals any Denny's diner (sorry Dennys! still love you really) - the Omelette Shop in Traverse City. After dubiously ordering a hash brown 'casserole' I wasn't sure what I was expecting (something in a sauce?! - but it was listed as a breakfast dish) It was hash browns, egg, onion, bacon and ham all mushed together and baked into a loaf shape and topped with cheese and grilled. It was loaf like in as much as you cut off the next mouthful and was just THE BEST! (We actually had to go back 2 days later and order the same thing!)

The Michigan UP

2007-09-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

We've left Wisconsin behind and have travelled north into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - the 'UP'. It's a quaint, quiet place and we've travelled along the shore of Lake Michiagan staying at State Parks along the way. In Mastinique we visited the nearby Palms Book SP, home to the Kitch-iti-kipi (made up name of course!!). It's a rather large natural spring, bubbling up through the ground at a whopping 10,000 gallons a minute. It's 45ft deep and 100ft across and the water is astonishingly clear. They've built a wooden self propelled raft which you winch out on a cable across the spring. In the middle of the raft there's a roof to cut down on sun glare on the water and you can look down into the water. You can quite clearly see the swirl of the sand at the bottom where the water comes through and there's a whole bunch of healthy large fish. It's just a shame its not a natural HOT spring. In fact the constant temperature of the water is a somewhat fresh 45 degrees! It doesn't freeze and it doesn't warm in the summer - just a constant 45 degrees - brrrrr!

The UP is also 'famous' for it's pasties. Yes, real, live CORNISH PASTIES!! We had to sample them and I have to say they were pretty darn good. Obviously this was beacuse they ARE the real thing - brought over by the Cornish miners that settled in the Northern parts of Michigan (although when we get back to UK I might have to have an Ivor Dwedney pasty in Plymouth just to compare!!)

We got all the way to the Mackinac Straits - the channel of water separating the 2 peninsulas of Michigan. It is linked by the Mackinac Bridge - the worlds 3rd longest suspension bridge at 5 miles long. It celebrated it's 50th anniversary this year - prior to that people travelling between the lower and upper peninsulas had waits of up to 18 hours for the ferry service on holiday weekends!!

Bobby Le Marche and USA's Patriotism

2007-09-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

Well today I was mightily impressed with the American patriotism and the whole “Support Our Troops” loyalty thing; we passed through a town called Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan having seen a sign on a fence saying “Welcome Home Bobby”. I assumed it was someone called Bobby from that household who was maybe coming back from Iraq or something. A few miles later we were driving through a smaller town called Wells and there were even more of the same signs including electronic ones outside hotels and businesses; the type normally used for advertising. Anyway, we stopped for gas and I asked the guy there what it was all about; it turns out it’s some guy called Bobby Le Marche returning from Iraq who's paralysed after getting shot, and he’s returning home this afternoon so they’re asking people to put our yellow ribbons and come out to welcome him home. So we hang around and about two hours later than planned there’s this cacophony of sirens and vehicle horns coming from some way away. When it gets closer we see fire and EMT trucks and police cruisers all with their lights and sirens going, military Hummers and trucks from the local National Guard barracks, and literally hundreds of bikes all in this huge convoy for this guy. And just a young local ‘nobody’ (till now anyway) guy, not some big wig or anything! Talk about bringing a lump to my throat; why couldn’t they do something like that in the UK? Everyone would be too busy or embarrassed to come out and cheer some guy on who’d done that bit more than his duty for his country! A very touching moment.

Happy Laptop Day!

2007-09-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

Today has been a good day. And all because of an insurance company....yes hard to believe. I would like to sing the praises of Progressive Insurance. They are amazing!! After breaking the laptop a few weeks back we claimed on the RV insurance to get a new one. Talk about efficient. A few phone calls and we were told to go buy a new one and take the receipt to the local office where they'd reimburse us. One short visit to the office in Green Bay (As we were passing through) today and we left with a cheque for the full amount (less $50 deductible) in hand!. I just can't beleive it was that easy! UK insurance companies could learn a thing or two from these guys. So the rest of today has been spent playing and transfering data and files. It's all taking its time added to which I'm on a steep learning curve since the new laptop is running Windows Vista...the jury is out on this at the moment. If I don't blog for a while it could be because I've thrown the thing out the window in frustration (OK maybe not - not my new gorgeous glossy white baby!) Happy Day :-)

Goodbye Summer

2007-09-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

Yes this weekend has been Labor Day here. The 'official end of summer'. And after a brilliant day out today we rode home. The roads were quiet, the shops shut up, motels and B&B's deserted, and there was a twinge of sadness that this was the end. Not for us - we aren't going back to school after the summer vacation tomorrow, neither are we back to work tomorrow after the long weekend but the atmosphere was there and I was affected. It just seemed so SAD. After having driven out round the peninsula the last few days it's been buzzing with people, everywhere was busy and the sun has been shining. But purely down to a date on the calender it's the 'end of summer' The people have gone but the sun's still shining. I feel like we're the last ones to leave the party. In England we don't seem to have this same 'defined' summer season - no, we just grab every last ray of sunshine we can get ahold of and milk it (Even if it is November!). It's more noticeable here in the Northern States. A lot of business are advertising their reduced hours starting this week - many only open for the weekend now. Several hotels were already closed for tonight (taking a break after their hectic weekend?) and restaurants were quiet as we cruised on by. And the campground - as we turned the corner on our 'road' we were the ONLY ones left (it was full when we left this morning!). Ah, and so to summer - we shall raise our glasses and salute a fine season!! Goodbye summer 2007.

But today we did have a GREAT day out! We rode to the tip of the peninsula on the motorbike and caught a ferry over to Washington Island. A 7 mile ride got us from one side to the opposite and there we parked the bike and took ANOTHER ferry over to Rock Island State Park (it's a Wisconsin state park right - you KNOW it's gonna be good!!) It's a 900 acre island that is inaccessible to motorised vehicles. Just pure, natural nothing! Very peaceful, just us, a handful of other day trippers and some deer crashing through the woods (they were making the most noise!). We hiked round the 6 mile loop around the shoreline. Stopping at the old turn of the century (the one before last!) lighthouse and visited the restored keepers cottage (we've been to a few lighthouses lately on the Great lakes and I have to say - they had SERIOUSLY nice houses - huge, and inevitably GREAT views!) There was also a beautiful stretch of sand dunes and sandy beach. Took a quick dip in Lake Michigan before heading back to the ferry dock to catch the last boat home.

Door County

2007-09-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

Right now we're in the most popular park in the state - Peninsula State Park in Door County. Door County apparently gets likened to New England - all the cutsey, quaint fishing villages and shoreline. We can't really comment not having been to New England but it certainly is pretty. The park and campgournd are cycling distance from one of the nicest of the said quaint fishing villages - Fish Creek. One of the last remaining drive-in movie theatres in the state is here and tonight we drove right on in (in the RV!!), parked up at the back and watched 'Hairspray'. This is a new remake of an old film, set in the 60's and what with all the 60's music (its a musical) it seemd the perfect film to be wathcing at the drive-in!! So American - why did these never catch on in England? I had a deprived childhood!!

Wisconsin is also known as 'America's Dairyland' and well known for it's 'cheeseheads' - well they can't make cheese for toffee (ahhh - do miss a good English cheddar!) but not bad for 'frozen custard' (Which seems to be all the rage round here) - like a super-smooth softie ice-cream with a faint hint of custard/vanilla taste - mmmmm!

Wisconsin State Parks are the best!!

2007-08-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

We've been in the state of Wisconsin for the last 2 weeks with most nights spent in the outstanding state parks. All the states have them and they're places we seek out and stay in - generally they are well maintained, state managed protected lands - normally for specific reasons such as protection of wildlife habitats or areas of ecological interest etc. Wisconsin has really excelled itself as far as its state parks - all just lovely. We've had sand dunes, forests, great lakes, little lakes, rivers, lighthouses and beaches - lots of managed cycle trails and plenty of hiking, plus really good facilities and great campsites for around $15-20 a night. Every night we're surrounded by the woods and smells of campfires and grilled food, lots of pretty little lights strung from campers, tents, RV's and trees and sounds of happy people enjoying themselves. It's not that we don't get a lot of that everywhere we go but for some reason Wisconsin state parks really hit a chord with us and we've just so enjoyed it here. The only consolation in having to leave one park is that we knew that the next one we were heading for was going to be as great - and they all have been!

Transmission #2 and counting....!

2007-08-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

Yes this was us bright and breezy in Wisconsin Dells. Out for a little drive around the most tacky kitschy places in the state (also known as the Waterpark capital of the country - which with the recent weather has been a total washout mores the pity). We lost drive and ground to a standstill in the middle of an intersection. After dragging the RV kicking and screaming off the road we waited for the tow-truck for Harvey's second tow in 2 years down the highway to the nearest transmission specialist - to be told that we could cough up $3000 for the 2nd rebuild in 2 years - lucky, lucky us!! So now we are holed up in a Super 8 Motel across the road for the next 3 days. On the up side we've got a bath, free breakfast, HBO and free Wifi, all for the bargain price of $60 a night!!

Portrait photos

2007-08-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

We finally got our photos in the post from Tara - the portrait session was back in May so it feels like ages ago - great to have the photos with us now though - thought we'd share a few - helps us remember a fun day having them done and we just love the results - don't we look like quite the 'GAP' ad!!!? Hee, hee!

No plans

2007-08-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

So it's all gone quiet. Always sad to say goodbye to visitors - even if it does mean we can use our table and chairs again! It was great! Today it's been back to admin. We're sat in a Camping World carpark now having our fridge tested after an on-going problem. Luckily we've been hooked up so we've been doing the usual spring clean and tidy up - we also have been eating like pigs since we can't use the fridge and we have heaps of food leftover from feeding the 5000!! Chris picked up his laptop after sending it off for repairs, we got mail delivered today and we also picked up Donkey after being without him for the last 2 weeks while he was in the garage getting new wheels fitted - and this time they're a snazzy new black colour so he looks quite different with his mini make-over!

And for the first time I can remember we have NO PLANS. I mean NONE. We just don't know where we're heading next. I mean other than Wisconsin, and even there we don't know specifics. Feels weird to me - I normally plan. Might hand over the reigns to Chris and let him take charge - winging it is much more his thing!

Lake Superior's North Shore

2007-08-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

From BWCAW we headed to the shores of Lake Superior. The largest of the great lakes - all the lakes could fit in it and then some. It's water temperature is about 40 degrees - so no rush to go swimming!! There's several state parks along the north shore - we spent most of our time there. In Tettegouche, Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse State parks. We managed a couple of dawn walks out along the cliffs, a walk to High Falls in Tettegouche and a brief spot of swimming on Gooseberry River (getting in the water in the river before it reaches the lake made for more pleasant paddling temps!) At Split Rock we went on a guided tour of the lighthouse and old keepers cottage. It was decommisioned in the late 60's as it only served as a navigational light not as a warning for anything but it's perfectly maintained and the tour was conducted in part by costumed guides. Our final day with the family was spent in Duluth. It's quite an industrial city - with lots of HUGE ships passing through the port and an impressive arieal lift bridge which we saw in action numerous times while we were there. We also toured the SS William Irwin iron ore ship - at 600-odd feet long it went into retirement because it was too small - the modern ships are still very similar in style to ship this but at least a 1000 feet long! We also had a hilarious hour battling along the lakefront walk in a double buggy bike thingamy. It's a lot harder than it looks! Especially when the trail is narrow, there's another buggy coming in the opposite direction and we've got one of two crazy kids steering us - yikes!! Our 'last supper' together was Olive Garden - we just had to introduce them to our FAV restaurant which yet again never fails to impress!

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wildrerness

2007-08-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

The highlight of the last week has to be the trip to Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Northern Minnesota. As it's name suggests its a huge area of wilderness accessible only by canoe or occasionally on foot. Access into the wilderness area is controlledl by permit but we got lucky and managed to get one for Friday night. We didn't have much idea where we wanted to go or what our options were but we turned up at the permit office in the small town of Ely and spoke to the Ranger about all our options. In the end there wasn't a lot of choice (these permits are available more than 6 months in advance due to such high demand). We were heading for Angleworm Lake! We organised canoe rental and the following morning strapped 2 huge canoes to the top of the RV and headed off. First up was 10 miles on a paved road. Then 4 miles on a gravel road (always a chore, never a pleasure in the RV!) before we got to the trailhead. Then the fun started....a 2 mile portage!! (we get the impression now, hindsight an all that a 2 mile portage is pretty hardcore!, espeically for us beginners!). This is when we realised this was why the permits were still available for Angleworm! Gosh - SUCH HARD WORK. We all carried large rucksacks and we started out with 2 people at a time carrying the canoes aswell (44lbs a piece!). The way you carry them is balanced precariously on your shoulders and only possible for one person to be carrying the load. After a mile in it became too much and progress was slow - we were swapping every 0.1 of a mile!! We dumped the canoes on the side of the trail and heading off to the edge of the lake to drop off the bags first. After a lunch break Chris and I headed back for the canoes. MUCH easier without rucksack straps digging in your shoulders and almost comfortable! We managed the 1 mile with only 2 stops! FINALLY the idea of paddling was sheer delight! Angleworm Lake was beautiful. It was glacier formed so it was quite steep sided with dramatic rock right down to the shoreline. We paddled for another 2 miles along the length of the lake before we found a vacant campsite. After setting up camp we paddled another mile or so to the far end of the lake where we spotted a beaver (but unfortunately no moose!). Bangers & BBQ beans for supper cooked on the fire and a peaceful evening sat by the edge of the lake under a crystal clear night sky aswash with bright stars, a vivid milky way and several shooting stars - does it get any better?!

Next morning Chris and I got up for sunrise paddling silently around the lake looking out for wildlife. We didn't get lucky with seeing any but we heard several WOLVES! What an amazing sound. We knew there was a pack in the area and once we heard them they're so obviously different to Coyotes. It sent shivers down our spines! Truly amazing! The paddle back to the far end of the lake was tough - the wind was against us and at the end of it all?...another 2 mile portage - erghhh! Managed it all a bit quicker this time - shuttling back and forth with bags and canoes. Callum was on form the 2nd day after taking a fall the first - he did over a mile with 2 rucksacks and paddles. Chris and I managed the canoes for most of the way - easier without the bags and once I got stuck into it I just kept going - it was easier than trying to get the darn thing off my head!! By the end of the day we were exhausted and achey, but happy with a huge sense of accomplishment. After dropping off the canoes and gear at the outfitters we ate in an Italian restaurant in town and camped out in a carpark in town!

Disappearing into the Minnesota Wilderness!!

2007-08-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

OOppps! It's been a while. Have so much to say but no time now. We're in Minnesota and thankfully NOT on the bridge that collapsed but thanks for the 4am phone calls to check up on us!! Actually after picking up Chris's sister - Helen and her kids - Cal & Lauren we didn't spend much time in Minneapolis other than to spend a gruelling 6 hours taking in the Mall of America (and we still only managed 1 floor out of 3!!!!) But great fun, and washed down at the end of the day with a much needed glass of wine and grub at Ruby Tuesday's!!

From the city we've headed north - first to Mille Lacs and right now right up into Northern Minnesota and the BWCAW (Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness). Absoultely stunning but there'll be more on that when I get a proper chance to sit down and write something and post some pictures.

North Dakota

2007-07-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

Finally, after 2 months back in the US we get to 'stick a new sticker on'! Yes we've reached our first 'new' state in I don't know how long...(September last year I think!) - North Dakota!! This is our 31st state.

We based ourselves in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park for a couple of days. This is just 25 miles east of the state line with Montana. It's a wild place, full of badlands, prairie, herds of bison and dozens of prairie dogs (these little critters are just too cute!!). We went on long hike on our first morning - 12 miles across said landscape, crossing little creeks (more times than I care to remember - why the trail couldn't just keep us on the same bank the whole way I have no idea - I swear we crossed the same darn stream at least a dozen times, and it was getting messy and muddy toward the end!) We started and finished the loop trail in the middle of a prairie dog town (there were even holes dug up right in the middle of the parking lot!) These guys crack me up - think they're 'oh so tough' barking away at you in warning, then as you get closer they dive for cover into their holes, with a wiggle of the tail as a final flourish!!! If you stop and stand still for just a moment the same critter will pop it's head out to case the joint ready to come back out - then you just stare each other out!!

The National Park is in a town called Medora. Hadn't heard of it prior to our visit but it seems it's quite the little tourist destination. It's an 'old wild west' town (dubious age on some of the buildings!) but it sure looks the part with a quaint old post office, ice-cream parlour, wooden sidewalks and saloon. And the guys in this neck of the woods are real, live cowboys. Everywhere else the get-up can look a bit daft - the hat, the boots, the checkered shirt and wrangler jeans. But here - well what other way is there?! And most often they're all so smart (I guess cowboys can be the only guys who can get away with tucking their shirt into their jeans!!!)

Medora is also home of the 'Medora Musical'. This was a kind of variety show meets broadway kind of performance. Set in the fabulous Rolling Hills ampitheatre just out of town it's an outdoor venue with a backdrop of the ND badlands - the setting itself was worth the ticket price. It was 2 hours of great 'family' entertainment - singers, dancers, a band, a yodeller (who was amazing!), an African acrobatic troupe, horses, a stagecoach and a finale of fireworks! Sounds good?! - it was great!!

Driving in ND is a little dull - long straight roads, and the weather has been hot making it pretty uncomfortable. However they sure know how to break up the monotony...introducing 'Salem Sue'!!! This is the worlds largest Holstein cow (presumbably there's a larger one, but of a different breed...surely not!!!!). She's 3 stories high and perches atop a hill overlooking the highway - we could see her from at least 3 miles back!! North Dakotans - they're nutters - they spent $40,000 on Salem Sue back in 1974. Still it was a fun and welcome break in our journey, and I guess that's the whole point!!

Right now we've found another ND gem - the Fort Lincoln state park, near Bismarck. The campsite is great and we're cooling ourselves off here (with some much needed aircon - one of our indulgences - we prefer to live without it usually) during a little mini ND heatwave it seems. We're right next to the Missouri river and the park is home to an old Indian village dating back to the 1500-1700's. There's also an Army fort which was used as one of the major staging posts in the Indian wars in the 1870's.

Idaho & Montana

2007-07-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

Doesn't time fly?! Already we are in Montana for a brief visit. Stopped by here last year and thought it was great. Once we knew our route for this summer we had to stop back. First and foremost it has GREAT beer - Big Sky Brewing is the local brewery which has a great tap room where you can get very generous samples of the beers - up to 4 a day in a real funky pub type environment. So we went today, and will be stopping back tomorrow no doubt! Also got our 'Growler' filled up - a big 64oz glass bottle (we were told today by a woman at the bar there that they came about in the days before Montana became a state the men used to hang out at the bars a little too much and the only way the landlords could get rid of them was to send them on their way with a take-out beer - the growler. Now brewpubs often still sell beer to go in these Growlers - $5 a go - and why not!!) (Loved this sign at the brewery - "Beer - so much more than just a Breakfast Drink"!! - oh yes!)

Spent the last week in Idaho. What an amazing place!! Loved it! The Sawtooth National Recreation area in particular. Lots of mountains, the Salmon River winding it's way through, green fields and lots of hiking (40 miles in the last week!) and we even managed a spot of easy going river rafting (not the white water variety this time!). Also discovered the joys of camping in the National Forests and Recreation areas - as well as all the 'developed' campsites they have plenty of freebie places too - basically anywhere that has already been used for the purpose! Bizarrely one place was pretty much a campsite to us - it was an overflow area for the popular Redfish lake and there were well marked sites, firerings and a toilet and it was free - 200 yards down the road was the turning into the 'real' campground costing $11 a night!! (OK so I realise we're not talking big bucks savings here but even so!!). We camped out at some beautiful spots right next to the river (such a great sound to lull you to sleep!), in real solitude. Watched a wild storm come over the mountains in the distance one afternoon but we got lucky - it never reached us. The Sawtooth area is also a hotspot for natural hot springs - discovered a couple along the roadside and along the river the day we went rafting - a good way to warm through after being in the chilly river water for a while!

Bend, OR

2007-07-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week and a half; we got to Bend, Oregon 10 days ago after driving north from Crater Lake and found ourselves in probably the nicest campsite we've (ever?) stayed in. It has all the facilities of a private campground but each site is tucked away in its own clearing in the woods making it more like a National or State Park - only civilised!

Bend itself is a wonderful place; it's close to the ski resort of Mt Bachelor, and this time of year it is full of hikers, mountain bikers, climbers and general outdor types - so it has a great vibe. It also has a fair smattering of micro breweries and their beer gardens; who says America can't make decent beer!!! So most of our days have been hiking along the gorgeous Deschutes River, or kayaking down it, (being bowled over by the most amazing houses that pop up out of the forest on its banks every mile or so) followed by the occasional pub lunch!

Whilst we were in the area, (200 miles away is in the area over here!) we took the opportunity to re-visit Jan and Kase, (distant relatives on Helen's side) who live over in Portland. We spent a great couple of days with them, eating well and lazing in their huge hot-tub in the cool clear night - thanks guys!

Of course it has been 4th of July this week so the country has been celebrating their independence from us; although naturally we've been made very welcome wherever we go. There's many celebrations - and of course they do it in style. Every place, person, vehicle, pet etc has been covered in red, white and blue bunting, flags have been out even more than normal and every spare acre of public land seems to have a picnic, a b-b-q, fireworks or some sort of party going on. We went to the local fireman's picnic where the kids were being encouraged to have hose fights; like a tug-of-war but instead of pulling the other team over, you just knock them down with high pressure water. I had a deprived childhood!

That evening there was a free concert laid on at one of the resort golf courses called "Rhythm on the Range". The golf course was littered with picnic blankets and easy chairs and there were tents selling candy floss, hot dogs, burger etc and of course the obligatory beer tent where you could buy wine in a glass - yes, a real glass, made out of glass! Imagine that at an outdoor event at home!

Tomorrow we're leaving the area for Idaho and the Midwest; we now have less than three weeks to get ourselves across four states, covering 1800 miles to pick up the other Helen, (my sister) and her two kids Callum and Lauren for what we hope will be their holiday of a lifetime!

Crater Lake is Blue

2007-06-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

Crater Lake is like this CRAZY indescribable blue. Really...like you can't imagine. Everything we read in advance bigged up the place and the view you'd encounter when you first reached the rim of the caldera and looked at the lake for the first time. Well it's all true. It really is BLUE!! And so clear - you almost feel like you can see deep into the water (it does have visibility of up to 130ft!). Crater Lake was created so they say by the collapse of Mt Mazama. Mt Mazama was this Daddy-O of volcanos/mountains that reigned the region some 6800 years ago. It blew it's top a few times then one day all the magma underneath ran out and there was a big empty air pocket underneath that couldn't support the mountains weight so it collapsed in on itself - hence a big crater. After a few more mini eruptions; one of which left the island in the middle called Wizard Island, (because it looks like a wizards hat, silly!) it sealed itself. And so with no water sources in, and no water outlets it just filled itself with snow and rain water and hey presto - you have yourself a lake. Then some guy came along with a wicked imagination and thought up the name Crater Lake!

There's a 33 mile road around the rim of the lake (which is approx on average 1000ft above the surface of the lake). Due to snow about 1/2 the road is still closed (on the 26th June!!). Still we still saw some incredible views and after watching a short video at the visitor centre about their snow clearing efforts we have infinate respect for the snow clearing teams (they start clearing in April, with drifts up to 60ft deep!!!) It takes them 4 months to completely clear the 33 mile road! We did manage to do a short hike to the top of Garfield Peak (which the ranger had said was still closed due to snow, but there was us and a fair handful of other hardy souls that trekked through snow to reach the 'summit'). Of course more spectacular views from that vantage point at just over 8000ft. (surface of lake is at 6100ft)

And this is just a little plaque summing up some of the accomplishments of the CCC. And not everyone knows about these folks - they were the Civilian Conservation Corps. Set up by Franklin D Roosevelt within days after his election in 1933 it was during the great depression in the USA and something like 25% of the working population was unemployed. The CCC was set up to put young men to good use around the country builing things, working on roads and trails etc. AMAZING organisation. During our travels we've come across SO MANY instances where the CCC have left their mark - from old fashioned picnic tables and toilet block buildings, trails, bridges, ranger building and housing, campgrounds etc in national parks and state parks from Alabama to here. Just amazing - one of our 'big respects' goes out to these people. The CCC was disbanded come WWII when the country put it's resources, money and men to war efforts, but that have left such an inspiring legacy behind. (the campground we stayed in at the bottom of the Grand Canyon was an old CCC camp, the ampitheatre at Zion National Park where we listened to an evening ranger programme was built by them - just so much good work.)

A side trip to the Redwoods

2007-06-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

At 6 am it was hard to believe the radio weather forecast; they were claiming a high of 100 degrees in the valley while we were getting dressed into bike gear with the heating on full blast. It was just 5 degrees up at 6,500 feet but we knew from the day before when we'd hiked a 13 mile route up in the mountains, that once the sun had been up a while it would soon warm up.
Sure enough two hours into the ride when we were down at sea level it was 86 degrees at 09:00 and we were happy to have packed light for our overnight trip to Redwood National Park on the northern Californian coast.

The scenery on the way down the mountain was very much like it had been the day before; only because of the early hour it was like someone had turned up the contrast, the sharpness, the colour and the brightness; or just dusted and polished the whole day. Everything stood out so much more, the greens were bolder, the sky bluer, the snow cleaner and the water in the rivers looked like one of those photos taken with a slow shutter speed where the water blurs soft against the sharp surroundings. The alpine air even tasted clean.

We'd been told about the road from Interstate 5 to the coast and I'd read about it on a motorcycling web-site; it was alledged to be the best biking road in California. And it is!
The route of the road made absolutely no sense at all and could have only been designed by a biker; or copied from a child's first scribbling. (Non bikers talk amongst yourselves for a minute...) The sign was a 'twisty roads' yellow triangle that promised bends for the next 140 miles and that promise was fulfilled; the first 80 miles or so was slightly undulating and winding and open - the road could have been flat and straight but the engineers were obviously practicing for when they had to build it through/over the coastal mountain range, and the surface was race-track smooth. The mountains were the same only more so; steeper and twistier - perfect; no traffic, no police; I could go on all day...

The shock was riding down to sea level after the coastal range and seeing nothing but thick grey clouds below us; we hadn't seen cloud for weeks, (or was it months?) and as it got colder nearing the sea we realised that dressing for what we thought was appropriate for the Californian coast in late June was a mistake. We stopped in the first town we came to, Eureka, for lunch and to warm up in a cafe and had the biggest b-b-q pork sandwich imaginable; the pork was more like what we call bacon and there must have been a pound of meat in each roll! But it was hot and filling and what better on a cold seaside day than an overdose of bacon butty after a 250 mile ride?

Further up the coast we checked into a cheap(ish) motel in a town called Arcata, turned the heating up to full and went for a walk round town to warm up; both of us wearing all our layers - of light summer wear! The town was small and quaintly old but seemed very 'off season' for late June so we killed a couple of hours browsing any shop that seemed warm from the door way until we stumbled into an old theatre that had been turned into a modern day cinema inside (and watched Oceans Thirteen - highly recommended by the way!); a perfect way to while away a couple of hours till dinner!

The next day we rode up to Redwood National Park (our 4th National Park since getting back into America a month ago, and our 21st park (out of 58) since starting the trip 2.5 years ago) and drove the scenic route amongst some of the tallest trees in the world, reaching the dizzing heights of 357 feet (over 100 ft taller than the Statue of Liberty!). Well not actually through the middle of the trees themselves; there is one tree you can drive through that had been hollowed through some years ago. There is also a felled tree that someone has hollowed out and turned into a home; the wood shavings from within which have been used elsewhere to make a normal sized 5 bedroom house!

We stopped for lunch at a local micro-brewery at the base of the mountains happy in the knowledge that for once the weather would get warmer as we went uphill! A couple of hours later it was back up to blue skies and 3 figure temperatures!
We took a different route home; not as empty or winding but just as scenic and after already riding 100 miles that morning, a slightly shorter route of just 230 miles; making the two day ride 380 miles altogether.

getting back home was like returning from a great weekend away in the real world; mechanical jobs to do on the RV, housework to catch up on, packing up to leave the next morning... real world, how will we ever cope???

Donkey & Bear C96 givin' it a high five!!

2007-06-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

The American National parks never cease to IMPRESS us. By far the best 'thing' of this trip we just keep on lovin' the parks, monuments, seashores, battefields and the like that are all managed by the dept of the interior. Just bought our latest annual parks pass, which for $80 has got to be the best value $80 we spend each year. Just fantastic.

Right now we are in Kings Canyon National Park which borders with Sequoia National Park - working as a kind of twin park thing going on. Here there is such diversity of landscape - the foothills (starting at 1800ft), the giant sequoias, canyons and the high sierras (reaching up to Mt Whitney at over 14,000ft it's the highest point in the contiguous United states). It's all incredible scenery which, at every turn is constantly wowing us. The world's largest tree is here - General Sherman which gets the prize based on volume. The widest tree is also here - General Grant which at 40ft in diameter really needs to go on a diet methinks...!

The first night in the park we stayed in the foothills and it was all drama that evening when 'bear C96' came a-visiting. Apparently she's quite familiar to the rangers having been visiting the campsite for the last 11 years (her number means she was the 3rd bear captured and tagged in 1996!). She's out of her regular habitat but comes purely for human food and opportunist rewards. The group in the campsite opposite us (not 20 yards away) were sat around their fire and spied the bear about 6ft from them, when they ran (as it's kind of difficult not to - gut reaction and all!) the bear took the chance to come right forward to the their table and food they'd left there. - Blimey - exiciting stuff!! She got hazed off by the ranger but about an hour later she came back (to the same campsite) and this time we saw her cruising around their tent! Next morning we discovered that the Donkster (uh-ummm - the motorbike!!) had been high-fiving it with her - a bloomin' great bear paw print was on his seat!! Coooool!!

Been doing loads of hiking - 50 miles in the last 2 weeks - 30 miles of it here in Sequoia & Kings Canyon. And nothing like easing ourselves in gently we're straight back up to altitude hikes and skinny air!! (but it isn't 'alf fresh!! - ahh - bliss!) Chris did spot another bear out on our hike today. About 30 yards in front of us on the trail heading away. Apparently it turned to look as it wandered off so it knew we were there. I say apparently coz Chris shoved me back round the corner before I got sight of it. We then started the loud inane drivel that tends to spout forth when we're in bear country and by the time we'd edged back round the corner it had sensibly long gone (probably to save it's ears).

Vegas

2007-06-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

Our last day in Vegas (for now!!!) Got up early, early to head out of the city to Red Rock Canyon. Fantasic scenery on a 13-mile scenic drive with (bizarrely enough) red rocks!! We weren't just there for the scenery though - got in a morning's rock climbing - hadn't been for 9 months - in fact the last time we climbed was here in October - and it does rock!!

Last night we did our 'strolling the strip' session. Rode the New York, New York roller coaster - I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to appreciate a great view of Vegas at twilight as it bolted me round the tracks - expensive mind - $12.50 per ride!! (makes Disney a good deal!) Also couldn't help but be mesmerised yet again by the Bellagio fountains. I swear I could stand and watch for hours, and some of the music just breaks out the goose-pimples and sends a shiver down your spine it's so 'magical' - love it! (particulalry Con Te Partiro (Time to Say Goodbye) by Andrea Bocelli) Finished off our vegas night by going to see Cirque du Soleil's 'Zumanity'. It was a caberet style show billed as the 'sensual side of Cirque du Soleil' - which I think loosely translated as topless women and touchy feely performers. Seriously though it was great - some of the acrobatic performers were just out of this world and a hilarious 'side act' (a modern hip equivalent of the clowns I guess) with a 60's style couple talking sex and other cheeky things - scotch baggie boobs filled with whiskey - you had to be there!!

Love Vegas, though it's time to move on. I think 5 nights here is enough in one go. But I would so visit again...(those Bellagio fountains!!)

Palomar Mtn, Salvation Mtn & lots of Deserts

2007-06-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

So better get up to date a little. Left San Diego on 28th May (was it really that long ago?!) - Memorial Day here. We didn't get far the first night - since Chris had heard about some awesome biking roads nearby. So we camped by a lake, walked at sunset and got up early to 'burn some rubber' - funny to be back on the bike 'just for fun' - it became such a part of life and routine!! We drove up to the Palomar Observatory - which is home to a 200 inch telescope (I think that's pretty large by anyone's standards!!) The mountain roads were great and very quiet early in the morning.

Next stop on our travels was Salvation Mountain. I'd read about this in the Rough Guide and it was such a cool side trip. Basically it's just desert with a few clay hills and some guy started decorating and painting the hills spreading the word 'God is Love'. He started this 20 odd years ago and is still working every day adding to his creation. It's quite a sight and he's quite an inspiration. We got such a warm welcome from Leonard - the creator, who took time out to give us a guided tour of his art and chatted about his dream. It's just incredible, as is he. He lives a simple, peaceful life sleeping in a hammock out in the middle of the desert and working endlessly on his never-ending project. You must check out the website, there are some great pictures of the place and more information - just so cool!

This week we've been in the desert. At 2 ends of the extreme. First up was a couple of nights in Joshua Tree National Park - in the 'off season' - there's a clue there....oh boy was it hot!!! No-one else about - I think we were the only ones in the first campsite we stayed in and even the ranger seemed hot and weary - when we asked what 'such-and-such' was like she said - 'oh - see outside the window - well it's just more of the same old desert' - very enthusiastic!! Still not to be discouraged we did start on our hiking again (after a rather lengthy gap of doing nothing resembling physical exercise for the whole time we were in Mexico!!) We managed a lovely sunset hike, sleeping out under the stars in our sleeping bags and then the following morning a whopping 9 mile hike into the wilderness to the 'Lost Palms Oasis' - really it should've followed the signs, wouldn't have got lost - eh?! The following night was back at Jumbo Rocks (we camped here in Oct with my parents when they visited) - just the coolest of landscapes - camping in amongst the huge smoothed boulders and to boot a near full moon to catch the light and cast dramatic shadows.

The next 2 nights were in Mojave National Preserve - also very wilderness-like. And very hot. They have a great scheme there - Roadside camping. Basically you can park up on the side of the road in areas 'traditionally used for this purpose' - for free!! So it was just us and the big wide open space of the desert. A night camped just a 1/2 mile from the Kelso Sand Dunes - they cover a 45 square mile area and reach up to 700ft high (and yes, bright and early we hiked on up to the top!), then another night up in the hills - a balmy 5000ft and much cooler (Still 85+ mind!) Just a wee jaunt in the morning through one of the dense-est Joshua Tree forests out there and up a peak to admire the view. Of course it was here that our generator packed up on us and so no smoothies for breakfast, and perhaps more alarming no chance of any aircon (and whilst we don't normally endorse the use of aicon WE NEEDED IT BAD!!)

And so that brings us to the other desert extreme - Las Vegas!! We couldn't resist a repeat visit! It might be loud, tacky and expensive but we really rather liked it! There's so much 'free' stuff to do with all the mini shows on the strip, and just people-watching takes time! To boot there's the best bagel shop going! Oh and the all-you-can-eat buffets, the Cirque du Soleil shows, the classy 5-star rv resort we're staying in....

And that, my friends, is us - up-to-date....Phew!!

Some photos!

2007-06-06T19:23:00.000-07:00

Flip - has it really been that long since I blogged?! - oopps!

Been busy. Will write more later. Had a portrait session done a couple of weeks ago. Had to share - the fab photographer-guru has put some of the photos on her blog;

Check it out by clicking on the groovy little house icon!!

Published!!

2007-05-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Some time ago Chris sent an article about his bike trip to Santa Fe to Bike Magazine in the UK. The trip happened last October and the article was soon forgotten and nothing was heard from the mag. Imagine our surprise when we bought a copy of the May edition of Bike yesterday in San Diego and while flicking through the articles Chris thought that a certain photo looked rather like a picture he had of his trip. On closer inspection the bike in the the picture even had a Union Jack sticker on the front just like Donkey has.....wait a goddam cotton-picking minute here.... Yes! He's famous. A whole page glossy full-page spread of his trip - with his edited down words and 4 fabulous photos. I'm so proud. This is so COOL! Bike is like the 'leading' bike mag in the UK and this is just so darn excellent!

And this comes just ONE day after Pat phoned us to say she'd be browsing through Chris's Mensa Magazine that arrives at her house each month back in the UK when a rather dashing photo of her son caught her eye. It accompanied an article he'd written about Life Coaching and again it was sent off quite a while ago and although the editor had expressed an interest in using the article he hadn't confirmed when it would be featured.

SO 2 BRILLIANT SURPRISES in 2 days!

(And incidentally this comes just 2 days after I finally got the 'Scrapbook magazine' from the UK in which I had a couple of scrapbook pages published. Although the mags were from Dec & Jan and I'd seen scanned copies of the pages I finally got the original mags brought out from the UK only this week!)

Back in the USA!!

2007-05-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well they had to let us back in didn't they? - after all we're good for the economy!! Since being back we've been busy choring away and shopping and you probably don't need a day-by-day detail on all that!

We've been into San Diego a couple of times. Yesteday we toured the USS Midway down on the waterfront. It's a HUGE aircraft carrier (1001 feet long) that was the longest serving aircraft carrier in the US fleet. It served in the 1st Gulf War and was de-commisioned in '92. Had a great audio tour round the thing and it was even more interesting than I expected (we've done a few of these old military boat things and to be honest I had a bit of a 'seen-one-seen-em-all' opinion but this was good) - we were on board for 3 hours if that's any kind of testimony!

Also strolled around the historic Gaslamp district and had our first good Indian curry in quite a while. In a 1 block area we saw about 5 curry houses so we figured it might be a good bet - and it paid off! We actually had a buffet so all the old favourites, great naan bread, tikka masala etc. Only thing is the restaurant was WAY too stylish! Not like the curry houses in the UK. No moving pictures on the wall, no dodgey music, no stained table-cloths and no poppodoms! But really all that aside it was money well spent!

2 weeks have passed...

2007-05-11T21:57:00.000-07:00

And after a rigorous regime of regular exfoliation and expensive body lotions the leathery-ness of my backside is beginning to soften!! I'm feeling like a new woman and Chris says he is too....!!

Haven't done all that much....We did get back to Baja in time to celebrate Chris's birthday with friends at the RV park and generally hung out there for a week. Chris get sick with migraine for a few days so I played Nurse Mills rather well actually even if I do say so myself!!

Baja isn't quite the same second time around. With one road extending the length of the peninsula there's no real options for alternative routes and we travelled slowly on the way down seeing everything there was to see so there's not really anything 'left' to do this time. The season here has quietened down dramatically - most campgrounds we've stayed in on the way north have been empty apart from us! So we stopped at Playa Santispac again (The place we hung out for Xmas) We had no trouble re-establishing ourselves at exactly the same palapa, only this time we had a daddy-O Guatemalan double hammock to hang up - OH YES!! And weren't we just the snooziest-in-the-sun!!

Now we're just 150 miles from the border 'waiting' till Monday to cross over. Fingers crossed...

Around the world in 80 days!

2007-04-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

Well ok, not the whole world exactly and it was actually 81 days but you get the picture! Helen, Donkey and I left Baja California on the 5th of Feb. and returned on 26th of April, (my 44th birthday; 43 was one thing but 44 was just too old!) having covered 6,390 miles taking in another 13 Mexican states, pretty much all of Belize, (not difficult really as it's pretty small) and a fair sized chunk of Guatemala.

Despite all the rumours of bandits, highway robbers and murderers; we met nothing but the friendliest of people on our way; I'm pleased to say the bike performed faultlessly even though it's now in need of a good service; the nearest thing we had to a problem was two punctures; in the same tyre, at the same time! We came out of our luxury hotel room, (it must have been good, after all 10,000 ants seemed to enjoy their stay there!) to find the rear tyre flat however, there was a gas station across the road with a pump and not half a mile away there was a tyre repair shop. 10 minutes and 20 Pesos, (including a 33% tip) later we were back on the road! And we like to think we're a developed country...

It wasn't all such smooth going though; slip sliding an overloaded and overweight sportbike down 25 miles off Belizean bumpy dust track, (or would have been dust had we not been in the middle of a tropical storm - it is after all a rain forest I guess!) made the potholed, corrugated Mexican roads seem like an American 8 lane highway! Running the gauntlet with Guatemalan buses in the mountains was an education; if you've seen bike couriers in London's rush hour you'll know what I mean! And no I'm not exaggerating; they slow down for no-one, (even passengers getting on and off have to do so at a jog!) overtaking long lines of traffic on blind bends while all oncoming vehicles pull of the road to make way; or is that to save themselves? It's the only time I've ever been overtaken while filtering past stationary traffic on a bike!

We bumped into a live crocodile on the beach in Mexico, a dead one on the side of the road in Belize, a four inch long scorpion in my shorts, (twice!) "hey, there's only room for one ***** in my shorts! Howler Monkeys in Guatemala that didn't see why we should be eating bananas when they had none! Then there was the packs of wild dogs that hunt in towns and are right up there with the fastest at the traffic light Grand Prix! Thankfully the sharks, sting rays and moray eels we saw whilst diving kept themselves to themselves!

We met our fair share of crazies; two of the most memorable ones were Adam from Manchester who is on a five year trip 'couch surfing' the world, (www.couchsurfingtheworld.com) and a German teacher who is one year into a three year solo trip on a 14 year old and 60 kilo all up weight push bike; 15,000 Kms and counting! (www.mikeonbike.de) Made our trip seem a little tame!

We dived in the aquamarine waters off the coast of Caribbean Mexico, along the second biggest reef in the world off the Belizean Cayes and in a volcanic caldera 5,000 ft up in the Guatemalan mountains. Accommodation ranged from hammocks, (I don't care how cool the image is - it just isn't comfortable however much you drink beforehand!) through beach front 'palapas' made from palm leaves to a Holiday Inn, (well it was Helen's birthday!) with cable TV and wireless internet.

We managed over 1,000 miles in one three day period on the way home, (target fixation I believe they call it) the longest of which was 432 miles in 12 hours! And we must have hit and I mean HIT a thousand speed bumps, or ‘Topes’ one half mile stretch of village may have a dozen topes; some painted, signed and even fairly smooth, others cunningly disguised in amongst the shadows of trees and more like riding up a kerb than rolling over a speed bump! UK drivers - be grateful for small mercies, at least your speed cameras are bright yellow!

Mileages

2007-04-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

Flores - Poptun/Finca Ixobel (68m) - Scuzzville (can't remember the name of this wretched little town and it's revolting hotel with dirty sheets) (289m) - Panajachel (52m) - Santa Cruz (by boat) - Panajachel (by boat) - Antigua (70m) - Huehuetenanago (154m) - INTO MEXICO - San Cristobal (168m) - Salina Cruz (255m) - Zipolite (151m) - Puerto Escondido (45m) - Zihuatanejo (432m) - Barra de Navidad (332m) - San Blas (282m) - Mazatlan (192m) - La Paz (by ferry) - Los Barriles (84m)

TOTAL MILEAGE FOR TRIP = 6390 MILES
14 Mexican States, 2 Central American countries
Average Fuel consumption 54mpg (this compares to 7.5mpg in the RV!! - now do you see why we went by bike?!!)

Back in Mexico

2007-04-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last 2 nights in San Cristobal at 7000 feet. It's chilly at night and first thing in the morning, but we'll enjoy it while it lasts - heading for the Pacific coast tomorrow! Yesterday we risked life and limb and got on a Mexican bus - (yes I hear the gasps of horror and shock). All in the name of time management and efficiency. We wanted to visit Palenque and Agua Azul (only coz Helen B said we had to!). It was 200km away each way from here and riding just wasn't that appealing for once. The bus tour was a bargain $30 each and carted us round to Agua Azul waterfalls, Misol-Ha waterfalls and finally Palenque Mayan ruins (safe to say I am now offically 'ruined out'!) 14 hours on a bus, but it was an enjoyable day out - we both really enjoyed the laziness of it and the opportunity for Chris to enjoy the view for once. Lots of nap time, time to listen to music on the Ipod - all that stuff we just don't do on the bike - it was worth the money just to be driven!

Met a very interesting fellow Brit on the bus tour trip – Adam. Adam is from Manchester and is ‘couch surfing the world’. So far he’s 6 months into a 5 year trip. Couch surfing is a website organisation that was set-up that people register themselves either to host or to find places to stay on their travels (with fellow members). He's writing a book about his adventures of which I’m sure they’ll be many. So far he’s successfully managed to couch surf the USA and most of Mexico – that is stay for free for the last 6 months (maybe that’s something we need to look into – perhaps there should be a ‘RV-park-in-your-driveway’ scheme!!) Check out his website here.

On our way 'home' now and it feels it. There's a kind of 'winding down' feel to the trip now. And whilst we don't want to rush too much (it is still a trip and should be enjoyed) we're eager to get back. Looking forward to re-visiting a couple of our favourite Pacific coast towns.

Racing Chicken buses & other mountain tales...

2007-04-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

Enjoyed some beautiful scenary and riding on our last days in Guatemala. We were up in the highlands where the weather was fresh. We left Antigua and headed NW towards the border and to San Cristobal in Mexico. It was too far in one day so we night-stopped in Huehuetenango - a local market town in the mountains - a bustling place, particularly on the Monday morning as we were trying to navigate our way down the narrow one way streets to head back onto the highway - the market just sprawled itself out onto the surrounding streets so we were dodging fruit & veg stalls, hawkers with candy or T-shirts and a few stray turkeys escaping their baskets only to be hustled back by old women in traditional dress. It was a colourful, hectic place and I think we were the only gringos in town!

The roads were spectacular. A lot of roadworks going on, though that was never a problem for us on the bike - we just got waved through. That doesn't mean it's safe though - you're on your own picking your way through the JCB's and diggers, hoping that the guy doesn't miss the truck and drop a ton of dirt on top of you! It was interesting - and more so once we started racing the chicken buses...The drivers obviously missed out on their calling for Grand Prix driving and so work the buses in the highlands of Guatemala instead. Although we were generally faster, we were getting overtaken by these buses on any dangerous bits that we slowed down for - and especially through the roadworks where they have no regard for the vehicle or it's suspension and whizz past us! The only time we could nip past was when they slowed to drop people off or pick up - and even then they didn't come to a halt - for the poor woman with a laden basket it was a running stop as she flung herself off and trotted off down the hill, basket balanced expertly on the top of her head, chicken tucked under one arm!

It's not just roadworks - wandering pigs, chickens, cows and goats; a fair splattering of local kids begging for money or trying to sell us fruit or woven scarves and bracelets, old men pedalling ice-cream carts (in the middle of nowhere?!), and frail old ladies carrying the largest bundle of firewood on their heads when they should be at home knitting in front of the fire with a nice cup of cocoa.

It's crazy stuff, but so 'Guatemala', away from the tourism of the big city; where we were constantly stared at with curious fascination - after all I guess it's not every day they see a heavily laden bright red sportsbike being riden 2-up by a couple of strange looking gringos in the middle of the highlands!! Must be mad....