The Hot Dog Blog

Jue's last blog

2009-10-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

There’s now less than 24 hours til we jet out from our base camp in Hawaii and head for the summit up Canberra way. It’s great to see that its bloody cold there – good times – but at least there’s been some rain.

So seeing as this is the last blog, the last hurrah, the final cut then I suppose it’s time for a bit of reminiscing –and that’s just what Lib and I have been doing. One good game we play towards the end of any holiday we’ve been on is to play “TOP FIVE!”... where the aim is to name as quickly the first five favourite things from the trip on any given topic like:

NATIONAL PARKS!

1. Glacier

2. Zion

3. Arches

4. Crater Lake

5. Grand Canyon

Or something unexpected like:

TOWNS!

1. Seattle

2. Monterey

3. Los Angeles

4. Ouray

5. Cabo San Lucas

Its gets a little difficult when you get to things like restaurants, as we tend to forget the names, but MEALS WE’VE EATEN stand out:

1. Szechuan eggplant with beef in San Francisco

2. 2 dollar soft tacos in Cambria

3. Bakery breakfast in the market in Seattle

4. Sandwiches by a stream in the heart of the desert country in southern Utah

5. Instant porridge under the redwoods in Humbolt State Park

Or SONGS that have had an impact while travelling:

1. Music (was my first love) by John Miles. The girls loved having their dolls do CrAZy dancing along with this one. I don’t even know WHERE I got this song from...

2. Your Love by the Outfield – the girls love to sing along, constatntly asking what the lyrics mean... I DON’T KNOW!

3. Shock the monkey by Peter Gabriel – the girls loved this one too... “Why does he shock the monkey?”

4. Slave to love by Bryan Ferry, for some reason we drove around a whole day in Monterey just listening to this. Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmore adds a lot to this song.

5. Flesh for Fantasy by Billy Idol... it was ALWAYS on the 80’s channels.

Sometimes you can’t even make it to five, like FAVOURITE FAST FOOD JOINTS YOU CAN’T FIND IN AUSTRALIA:

1. Jack in the Box

2. Arby’s

3. ...ummm... Cinnabon?

Or of you choose more than five it would seem self indulgent, like BLOGS:

1. Canon City Storms

2. Something more sinister

3. Dekka’s Long awaited Disneyland post

4. Comments... and on the road

5. Ricky Ponting you bloody RIPPA

6. Crunchy Granola

Oops – see – self indulgent...

But what this trip has really been about is memories, and the fact Lib and I now have this wonderful stack of memories of the girls at this age... they’ve been wonderful to travel with, great troopers all the way, and have helped us to really appreciate what we’re seeing in this amazing country. We can’t wait to come back – it really is that good...

And let’s not forget you guys dear readers. Those of you who’ve dropped by. We appreciate the fact you’ve checked up on us, and have read our little bits of prose more than you can imagine. A special HUGE thanks to those of you who have encouraged us by leaving comments and observations, it’s so nice to know that at least SOME people are out there reading up on us (though of course being the artists that we are we don’t blog for that reason – we’re artists dammit!).

On that note we’d like to say thanks. Thanks so much for putting up with us, reading along with us, chiming in to let us know you’re there. We’re looking forward to getting home and catching up with you all again.

So until we see you all again in the flesh, farewell, and thanks for tagging along with us, it’s meant the world to us... well... maybe thats overstating it... it’s meant the United States to us.

We will find you acting on your best behaviour...

2009-10-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

It’s not like we didn’t know it was coming... it’s not like it snuck up on us in the night or just dropped out of the blue. Still, it’s strange how you suddenly find yourself at the airport, bags in hand, shoes on the floor from the security scan, boarding passes lost, hopefully somewhere in a pocket or bag or kids shoe. Its madness, its chaotic, it’s just a terrible way to punctuate the end of era – it’d be so much nicer if you could just do it twice at the beginning of a holiday and then never do it again – just mosey on home as easy as you please with no stress, just pleasant memories...

Still, it IS an adventure, it’s exciting in a way I suppose, in an “I hope I don’t say something stupid and get hauled off to Guantanamo“ kind of way. It’s strange how the only time you REALLY think about saying something totally inappropriate is when it’ll get you in BIG trouble, like at a wedding, a funeral, a birth, or worse... when there’s the possibility of a rectal exam involved...

I thought our last few days in the continental US would be spent like a man raging against the end of the day, flailing about in an energetic frenzy trying to cram as much in as possible... thankfully San Francisco is such an easy place to wind down in that we didn’t need to... it’s relaxing and rewarding and invigorating all at once... We took tea and dim sum in Chinatown... we tried shopping again in Union Square – but we’re still hopeless shoppers. We did the Alcatraz thing and visited the island. I thought it would be hopelessly touristy – but it’s a great visit... and the Audio tour as you walk through the old cell block is amazing; informative, moving, nostalgic, exciting and violent (shrapnel marks in the concrete from grenades used by Marines in the Battle of Alcatraz...)all in the right doses... The sun was out, the air crisp, the breeze light and refreshing.

On our last day we biked along the north shore towards the bridge and watched kites and windsurfers on the Bay. As evening fell we rode the cable car up the hill, past closed bakeries waiting for the early morning rush, past cozy front rooms, inviting lobbies, past corner groceries and small parks to a little pizza joint called Za and the BEST pizza we’d had in the states. I should have called this 'The Pizza Blog' as I’ve realized there’s more variety in pizza styles than hot dog styles and I actually enjoy pizza more – for shame!

After a great meal, we rode the cable car back down the hill, past views of distant lights, the fairly light strings of the bay bridge spanning the still quiet bay, views of lovely Coit tower and, with the wonderful smell of the smoking wooden brakes of the trolley... and that's it. And as they say in Madeline - There isn’t any more. Three months on the mainland was over just like that... except for the wonderful thrill of the airport run early the next morning.

Libby's last blog...

2009-10-02T21:58:00.001-07:00

After leaving our ‘Home Sweet Home’ in the hills of the gold country we wind our way down towards the place where our 12 week, 10500 mile loop will be completed. Before we get there though, we have two days for a final Californian adventure. We explore sunny Sacramento where the highlight is paddling at a popular beach on the river hoping not to be an eye witness to some horrible accident. It is noisy, crazy and exciting. I guess being a 105F Saturday afternoon everyone and their dog/boat/jetski/beer/recklessness is drawn to the water. The best part of the city for the girls however was Fairytale Town.

We then zoomed our way to the coast, yet again, to peaceful Point Reyes. Here we were able to walk our way over the headland to a lighthouse which boasts its original ‘first order’ Fresnel lens. John Carpenter’s ‘The Fog’, one of the first scary movies I watched when I was younger, features this same lighthouse. Being here was far removed from seeing those dark images with the fresh sea air, sound of seals playing and the sea sparkling delighting our senses. I tried to contemplate what it must have been like in the past for those lighthouse keepers coping with such isolation and monotony...I couldn’t... so I just joined Lucy singing with the amazing acoustics in the solid buildings.

From there we made for our final chance to use our National Parks Access Pass. We wanted to hug the majestic Californian Redwoods one last time. At Muir Woods we sucked it all in, that longed for atmosphere we came from the other side of the world for. I was slow to walk out, dragging my hands along the thick ripples of bark on the trunks, keeping my eyes off the path for a possible last sighting of American wildlife.

Not long after, we approached Golden Gate Bridge. Our loop was completed. I thought about my past self and was briefly jealous. The last time I was here I had it all before me and now it is over – I could do it all again. I don’t want to replace the last few months of my life though. I’ve had an incredibly special time that I will have the memories of for the rest of my life. What bliss!

Hi there!

2009-09-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to wind down here... In the last few days it’s become apparent that, while we came here for Summer, Summer doesn’t last forever.

The sun hangs in the sky with none of the menace it showed during those dog days when we would swelter our way across the deserts, watching the car’s thermometer show 110 on the clock... like the true artist she is Autumn is starting to weave her magic. Its still warm but the evenings grow cooler, there’s a chill in the morning and the unmistakable scent of fallen leaves and cut grass fills the air, flowing down from the wooded hills like water, pooling in the cool shadows. Its beautiful, but a reminder that we’re almost into the winter of our holiday too... we can count the days until we leave easily now, unlike when we started and they were just uncountable and it was unimaginable that we’d ever actually return home!

Yosemite was our last National Park – and while not my favourite – it was an amazing reminder of just how bloody grand this country can be, just what a show it can put on when it wants to. From the exit at about 10000 feet we slide back down the eastern slopes of the sierras, we can see the deserts again in the distance. Its much drier over this side of the mountains, and sagebrush creeps across the rolling hills to the horizon. As the sun begins to set we pass the old ghost town of Bodie, lonesome in the glow of magic hour, the wind whistling through its empty streets and the tall grass and abandoned mines...

We stop for the night in a small town called Bridgeport – theres not much to it – but the motel is nice, the girls play on the grass amongst the fallen leaves and in the morning we find an excellent park to play in. The girls play hide and seek with us and then Lib and I try the local breakfast burrito with salsa verde (lovely!) and a cup of great coffee. We cross back into Nevada and explore the state capitol of Carson City – Mark twain worked here for a time, and in nearby Virginia city – honing his writing skills, its a nice stop, and I pretended to filibuster with the girls in the old assembly rooms of the Capitol building.

Lake Tahoe is next and a strange hotel RIGHT on the boarder with California – so of course its a casino – but a great big bustling one in the middle of, well, not much else... and mid-week it was as dead as a doornail – gambling is in NO WAY glamorous... the only people here were haggard looking stained t-shirt wearing slot jockeys hoping for that big break that will never come as they suck on a death stick and drink watered down beer... talk about glamorous... Lake Tahoe itself is BEAUTIFUL... the most amazing clear waters, bright sunshine, interesting nooks and crannies along its coastline, great walks and wonderful beaches... and its all inland! We hire a paddle boat with a top speed of about .2 knots and chug out onto the water – we can see down a long way... and it gets even deeper (abd colder) the further out you go... its so cold they occasionally bring up perfectly preserved cowboys who met misfortune over a century ago... poor buggers. We have a lovely paddle along the shore and then head north into the gold country for one of our last stops...

Downieville and Sierra City are two tiny little towns strung out 12 miles apart on a VERY quiet highway both with a population of about 300. Its like being in another world, we’re bunked down in a small cabin about half way between the two – surrounded by pines, steep hills, glacial lakes and the sound of the river running by outside... its wonderful... The girls and I play in the river all day building stepping stone bridges, playing with dolls and making up stories... we hire a rowboat and spin hopelessly on a small lake, watching bald eagles fly overhead, and fish hide in the shadows below us. The deli in Sierra makes AMAZING sandwiches (roast beef, pickles, Swiss cheese, crispy lettuce, red onion, mayo and mustard on a sourdough roll) and we eat them on the rocks below the cabin in the sun, sipping on orange juice or lemonade while the girls eat ice cream. Its quiet and relaxing – and I can see the trees across the river dropping yellowed leaves in the afternoon breeze... they twist and turn downstream, out of sight, towards the sea...

Yosemite National Park

2009-09-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

Yosemite...Yosemite...Is it worth all the hype Jue wonders. It certainly wasn’t back mid-year ’88 when there was so much hype and overcrowding that my parents and I were turned away at the gate. “How on earth can that happen? How can people who have travelled across the globe be turned away from a national park? Can’t we just have a peek?” Thankfully in recent years Mum and Dad finally returned and were welcomed in with such open arms that they now have a mug, a very often used and loved mug, to remember the joyful occasion. Now it is my turn. A turn only granted to me by the sheer dedication of my beloved Scarlett Johansson loving husband. It was midnight when he was sitting at the computer with sweaty palms, not for the above reason....hopefully, but for the 5 month advance release of Yosemite Valley campsites. His computer gamer quick hands made their deadly moves knocking out other contenders for North Pines... NO! Booked, booked, ALL BOOKED! “QUICK GO FOR LOWER PINES.” “NOOOOOOOOO!!!! ALL BOOKED!!!!! “GO FOR UPPER PINES! HURRY, HURRY.” Finally a massive release of tense breath. Site 67 Upper Pines campground was ours. He did it. He got me in.

Yosemite was worth all that hype. And it is for others too. This is a place where people come to get engaged, married and bring back their families year after year and spend several days rock climbing the SAME wall. I stood at the edge of Glacier Viewpoint and smiled. After everything we had already seen, not just here in the States but in all our travels, this was new. Like I did at all the great vistas we’d been to in the past months, I thought of those millions of years that took to make such a place, marvelled at its creation, and swelled with pride that its creator knows and loves me.

Yosemite was the grand finale of our time camping and visiting USA National Parks. As we packed up our lovely tent/home, carefully to avoid problems with customs, we thought of the places it had been and dreamed of the places it was yet to go. Jue drove out of the park entrance and I stared at the little wooden hut where the rangers guard the road. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, like the way you might not take your eye off a plane your loved one is leaving in. I kept looking at it till I could see it no more. Then I cried.

Almost not safe for work! LOLZ!! OMG!!!

2009-09-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

I can feel the ship rolling on the great swell of the Pacific ocean... rising and falling with the work of the wind across the open miles and the pull of the moon. It should be comforting but its not – the problem is I’m at 8000 feet, in a tent, in the high sierras and hundreds of miles from the coast...

In the dark of the tent its fairly disorienting to still feel my bed rhythmically moving up and down and left to right... The roll of the ship stays with you long after you step ashore... I must look strange standing in the restroom at the urinal slowly swaying from side to side like some drunk... well, then again maybe I just look drunk...

Its bloody cold outside too – almost freezing in the dead of night, and a far cry from the heat and madness of Mexico... its dead quiet and we’re surrounded by a sea of huge trees rather than a sea of... ummm...sea? We’ve visited General Sherman himself, the largest living thing on earth, though to me not as impressive as the coastal redwoods of the start of our trip. Ol’ Sherms might be BIG but he’s not as tall as his cousins along the coast. The landscape is stunning up here in the sierras though, huge domes of granite and severe drops at every turn... this is where Patty Hearst's kidnappers came to hide out and “liberate” the poor of San Francisco...

Ironically enough we actually descend from Sequoia National Park the next day, via the most twisty bloody turney road I’ve ever driven, through mist and dense cloud and across the San Joaquin valley and its lush orchards and vegetable plots and water piped from the north by huge canals the Romans would drool over to the west coast again... San Simeon... the start of a great marine reserve, the start of the best part of Highyway One and also the old home of Patty’s grandfather, good old boy Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane himself...

Its an amazing home to pass through, full of incredible pieces from across every historical period and place on earth it seems... in other words its a grand mess. A rich mans ongoing and incredible vain desire I believe to outdo and impress everyone around him. Its big, its beautiful (taken a VERY small chunk at a time) but in the end a reminder that money doesn’t buy you taste or sense... Living here would be like the episode of the Simpsons where the family have to look after Mr. Burns Mansion... spending every dinnertime proclaiming “LOOK HOW LOAD I HAVE TO YELL!” Its not a place I might desire to live in, it does have a nice swimming pool though...

From there we’re onto the Big Sur drive, winding north along the coast, clinging to cliffs and hang over the waves to Big Sur and Monterey. When we spoke to people about going to the US they invariably asked three things “Are you doing Disneyland?“ (yes, and we loved it) and “Are you doing the drive to San Fran along the coast? (yes – we just did it).

After such a buildup from people who know it, have driven it, seen it in movies or written about it in guide books I was expecting an out of this world experience. The road paved with rubies that looked like Scarlet Johansson’s lips, guardrails that looked like... umm... Scarlett Johansson’s arms, highway signage that glittered like Scarlett Johanssons ...?... That and vistas that made your jaw drop and angels with complimentary shots of Cabo Wabo at every turn and a White Castle in every town (I really want to try White Castle, but they’re only on the east coast).

Needless to say Scarlett Johansson is sorely missing. Its a wonderful drive, and it was a beautiful day, the sun glimmering on the sea, the fog keeping its distance, the gulls swirling and spinning in a blue sky... but the food is HORRIBLY expensive along the way, and the local towns have a grossly over-inflated sense of “cool” and self worth. You’re also just in the car most of the time, there’s a few walks and so on and a few lookouts, but mostly its just driving...It is, as I said, a wonderful drive, but don’t come 16000 miles for it or expect the best drive ever... New Zealand is much closer and puts up some mighty fine contenders for a better drive. No sour grapes, just a wake up call that not everything is the best in the world over here.

Monterey though IS pretty damn cool. Here is one town I would live in in a split second. Its not overbearing or pretentious unlike nearby Carmel), there’s some nice food, some GREAT parks, and a relaxed and down to earth feel like we’ve only experienced in a few places over here. Its easy to get around, its beautiful, and it has everything you need, including a local council that obviously places a high value on local greenery and parks – kudos to Monterey for being such a great town to relax in.

We stay on the motel strip out of town proper and use a local Jiffy Lube to change the oil in the car (I thought 10000 miles was pushing it) and had pizza from the local cafe. The US feels very familiar now, we’re used to most of the inns and outs... we feel at home here, and slip easily into the groove of local shopping, gas etc... its a far cry from arriving in Honolulu and being amazed by all the new brands, all the quirky differences... they’re all second nature and we even have out favourite brands for ham, hot dogs, breakfast cereal, milk, bread, candy, butter and cheese... it will be weird, and exciting to go back to Australia and get reacquainted with all our old favourites there.

But there’s still a few things to do before we head back home...so we buy some of our favourite brands, pack them into our food box and esky, and prepare to head out to our last national park, the big one, the one that is the third question everyone asked us... “Are you going to Yosemite?” Yes... we are... and we’re just about to find out if it was worth all the hype...

Blue Sky Mining...

2009-09-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

With no driving, no GPS, no fingers crossed for correct hotel reservations, no crappy Motel 6 service and with no roads travelled we wake in a different town... Machine gun toting army joes in green fatigues swagger and smoke in front of rusting shipping containers out our window, behind and above them rise billboards for cheap diamonds, Pacifico beer and behind that a wild array of radio towers sprouting like wild hair from a lush rocky hill... this is Mazatlan in Mexico – really a world away from the towns and ways of the America we’ve known for the last 2 months...

On one side of the ship lie the port and the city, spreading away to the golden sands of the bay and the hazy distant towers of the “Golden Zone” – a mashup of foreign investment and local funseekers. On the other side of the ship lies the dingy river mouth and a tumble down shanty town fighting back the ravenous jungle. Birds soar in crazy circles and a huge black helicopter judders its way through the smog of a belching factory, back into the pale blue sky and across the city.

Today is hotter than the last if possible, and I break into a sweat just thinking about going outside... thankfully its much worse than I anticipate... within seconds leaving the ship we’re waving away a barrage of taxi offers and walking towards downtown... A few seconds more we’re begging for a taxi and a fresh towel to dry the profuse sweat that’s carving a canyon down my back and pooling on the cracked sidewalk. We slug into town in a converted VW beetle and soak it all in. Its busy and relaxed at the same time, so much going on, banners and flags and stall holders at the market vying for attention, the spires of the cathedral flashing in the hot sun and the cool shade of the trees in the plaza providing respite before I urge us ON! ON! There’s too much to see – we buzz on in another taxi to the golden zone – sounding like something from a John le Carre novel or a Bond movie – its nowhere near as exciting. A bunch of jazzed up shops catering to tourists need for a bargain (though in no means providing one) and tropic frayed hotels teetering over a too thin beach... we spend an age trying to find a good place to swim – there really isn’t one here – it all “looks” good but the swimming is... underwhelming. So we fake our way into the restricted area of a very up-market resort and spend some time using their pool and facilities... Thanks El Cid! Not only did we have a better swim, but my inner cheapskate was well pleased...

The next port though, Cabo San Lucas was stunning. Even though we were awakened in our cheap cabin by the clanking and goings on of the ship preparing to send us ashore by tender it was worth it. A stunningly beautiful day dawned out the window over the desert town of Cabo, perched at the end of the Baja peninsula and surrounded by water so clear that I could almost see the bottom from my cabin window.

The tender drops us in the heart of the marina and I feel a sense of déjà vu – the lighthouse across the bay looks somewhat familiar... then it strikes me... Cabo... CABO! That bloody tequila I trapesed across the whole of west LA looking for, for Chris, the famed Cabo Wabo – came from here – DUH! They’re practically giving it away on the wharf, sales ladies ask me if I need a free six-pack of the stuff – the locals use it for cleaning the dishes with and watering the window gardens they have! Actually though, and much to my inner cheapskates eternal thanks I got it for the same price in LA that they sell it here for – with NO duty troubles...

Like Mazatlan the taxi drivers swarm us – but here they all drive glass bottomed boats instead of cut down Vee-dubs. We shug out to Lovers Beach and spend our time in the clearest water I think I’ve ever seen... its beautiful, and we watch our ship float majestically in front of us and I drink Pacifico beer play with the girls in the surf and watch the waves and the birds and the buzzing town a few miles away which we haven’t even entered and life is good until I get a stupidly blazing dose of sunburn – oh the irony –I’d been happily pointing out all the burnt idiots on board and laughing maliciously... until now – ouch. Stupid beer.

I walk across a spit of sand to the western edge of Baja and look out. The Pacific is my favourite ocean, the bright blue sky and deep blue powerful swell remind me not to mess with it, and I don’t jump in. With the hot sand burning my feet I turn my back and walk through the bright sun past the white rocks to the clear bay and our playing children and the jumping fish, and our little glass bottom boat comes to take us back to the Marina, and our tender to our ship. We set sail, round the southern tip of Baja, then full speed back to Long Beach and the United States of not Mexico...

Bryan Ferry would approve

2009-09-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

It’s called "dead air" and that’s what we were for the last week... a gaping hole in the blogosphere, static down the wire...

What the hell where we up to? Where did we disappear to? What kind of magic removes a man who needs the internet like the tide needs the moon (or Ponting needs a whinge when not winning) from his world wide security blanket the internet... More interestingly... what on earth could make a man who talks underwater in his sleep stop blogging for such a period?

After raging our way across the dusty innards of America, poring over the geologic entrails of dead seas, the dry scars of dead rivers and climbing the bones of giants its quite simple - we felt the call of the seas... to be more exact that curse of the Emerson-Elliott family, that of salt water blood without being able to sail for nuts set in - we hit the high seas... We - the cheapest and skimpiest of families who camp rather than take discount hotels, who eat chili from a tin rather than takeout succumbed to excess took all the money we'd saved during these last few months and blew it on a dammed cruise. Not just any cruise though - oh no! Not for us - for us it’s only the best! And by best I mean the only one that fit in with our itinerary. We were to be flung across the raging (placid) seas to far flung (not that far) exotic (strongly familiar) Mekk-heeeeee-CO (Mexico)!(.)

The ship loomed like a damn intergalactic cruiser as we approach it on the freeway... wait we can see it from the freeway?! Damn strait Mr. Rhetorical question we can - from like 5 miles away this monster of a ship towered over EVERYTHING. Even the building which used to house the world’s largest plane is now used merely as a sitting room you pass through on the way to boarding the Carnival Splendor. 450 Bajillion metric tonnes*, 45 decks*, 27 bars*, a full size replica of Laguna Seca raceway*, two zero gravity bowling alleys*, 4 planetariums*, 6 cirque de so lei shows* and close to of one of the biggest ships to be cruising the Mexican east coast out of Long Beach on a Sunday with this particular name. If not the biggest...

It’s pretty exciting being herded on board, in that it was pleasant - my only other experience of cruising was just after the iron curtain fell and some nuclear powered ex-Russian navy "cruise" ships plied the Australian route back in the early 90's and you were ushered on board with complimentary borscht and vodka - and that was for the kids!

The decor is a bit disorienting at first - orange carpet and a proliferation of pink vomit on the walls and blue lights to discourage shooting up in public (I imagine?). Though try as I might I couldn't help but slowly start to fall in love with the ship.

There’s something about being at sea, pulling away from the wharf and knowing you're on your own, nothing in any direction but miles of sea... feeling the slow and comforting rock of the ship as she rides the swell, the distant but constant hum of the engines and the quiet whoosh of the bow waves as they break outside your cheap cabin... Which though, yes, cheap, was VERY nice, a great bed, and exciting for the girls to have fold down bunks and a fun little light to play with each. It’s cozy yet spacious and on our first night Lib and I stood mesmerized watching the sea and all its mysteries play out before us as we glided down the Baja peninsula - and not a hint of pink vomit in sight...

Cruise life would send a guy like me mad - just sitting around on deck trying to look cool/pretty/hip/tanned/intelligent... thankfully there’s a lot more to it than that - and the entertainment staff kept us well... entertained with trivia, karaoke (yes really - admit it - you play sing-star, and you LOVE it - it’s just like that but worse)...

Just as we’re getting into the swing of things (much like Bryan Ferry would!) we arrive in bloody Mexico – talk about bad timing – now we have to go out and explore a new and exciting town deep in the tropic west coast of (for me) this unexplored land. And, true to form we fit right in, and within 20 minutes I’ve found us a lovely gay beach with some wonderful waiters and exciting new friends... at least Lib feels at home (not gay, she just knows she not on show here like some other beaches...)

We buy a few drinks, swim in the bath warm seas and watch as alien birds circle in an alien sky with the towering office blocks and relentless jungle spilling up and over us like some Ralph Steadman landscape. I then reacquaint myself with how BLOODY hot and sweaty it is carrying a child on your shoulders up hill in the tropics as we wind through back streets in search of a taxi back to the ship. Its different here, I’ve felt this type of country before – its like being in S.E. Asia again but with Mexican food, Mexican shops and Mexican “bargains” you just HAVE to be told about around every corner...

We fall back into the arms of the ship as she pulls away again into the night... to sleep... to dream... to awaken, like magic at our next port and our next adventure – we love it...

Avalon...

2009-09-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

Like an electric shock the freeways of L.A. jolt us back into real life. Disneyland disappears as we float over concrete and palm covered suburbs and workshops, billboards for weight loss, past the towering monoliths of downtown, under the LA metro lines to the glittering sea again. I keep getting "Disney artifacts" in my vision and thinking though... I keep thinking the car runs on rails or the jack-knifing gas-tanker in front of me is a good 3d effect... I'm pretty sure some of the people serving at the hotel are animatronic, I'm sure I see fireworks out of the corner of my eye but when I look its always just some gang related shooting going on...

Santa Monica beach sweeps gracefully along the pacific coast mere miles from Hollywood and its myriad of adult shops and visitors hoping for a glimpse of something more meaningful. Its most likely not there - and it may not be in Santa Monica either - but this is a far nicer place to pass the time.

The beach is wide and inviting, the pier flexing its muscles out over the water with a multitude of overly expensive attractions encrusted on it like salty barnacles. Mexican restaurants line the alleys that run back from the sand offering cool water and shady respite from the heat and every second pedestrian zooms by on funky roller-skates. Its not as inviting a beach as Laguna was, but its more exciting, there're lights, sound action everywhere... even musclemen working out on muscle beach and moaning about how tired their arms are just so you'll stop and watch them (they must love that). I studiously keep my eyes averted, its not like I stand around in public with my donkey kong handheld moaning about how tiring it is to get a high score...

Back from the beach lie avenues of wonderful shops just waiting to be explored, if only we cared a hoot about shopping, but we dont, so we wander past them and think how double-edged a sword it would be to enjoy shopping: more fun in a place like this but a huge cost... I'm actually glad we dont like shopping, our purchases so far consist of some dresses and shoes for the girls and some camping equipment. That actually changes in Santa Monica as I pass a video game shop and drop in for some bargains... sheesh...

Our jaunt into Mexico is coming up - so we do our best to do some laundry while avoiding getting involved in wonderful dispute at the 7-11 next door as some large lady screams about her "damn soda cup" which is "just behind the damn counter - I paid for it! Dont make me call the cops!" Thankfully we get out of there before the cops or the inevitable drive by shooting attempt happen. We find a liquor shop and grab a bottle of Cabo Wabo for Chris back in Australia. Its a very old bottle, the cashier literally has to go out the back to wipe all the dust, grease and blood off - I hope it ages well.

I take a walk out before we leave, into the heat and the back streets of the suburb, Bryan Ferry (who I had grievously under-rated in my youth) on the headphones (and what a lovely twist in that video too - quite moving)... The fires bloom into the sky, their huge mass creating striking white plumes of pyrocumulous. Apart from that its much like any suburb. Buzzing insects, trees, letterboxes and crisscrossed wires... As I stroll down one road, mechanics and beauty salons on one side, a lush and manicured cemetery on the other I bump into a wonderful surprise...

Its like my guardian angel, here on this hot day, pushing along a small hand painted cart with jingle-jangle bells tinkling is an ice-cream man... I can't see a house for miles and its a quiet Saturday... I wonder where he came from. He charges me a dollar for a frozen fruit bar and then jingle-jangles off into the semi-suburban maze again, leaving me with my dripping but very much appreciated frozen ice treat and the muted sound of the freeway and cicadas in the trees... L.A. is a pretty cool place like that...

Dekka's long awaited Disneyland post

2009-09-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

As far as I'm concerned there are two types of adults who go to amusement parks. Those who have a deep sense of self preservation and those who don't. Jue and I fall separately into each category. I was quite young and at the Canberry Fair when I first found out I was a wuss. Over the years I've tried to conquer my motion sickness by going on rides such as the corkscrew roller-coaster at Sea World and Wipe Out at Dream World - still tame by many peoples' standard. It frustrates me that some part of my brain kicks in...or doesn't... when I'm on thrill seeking rides and I panic. Jue on the other hand is a Goody - he'll do anything, anytime, anywhere. Disneyland is for everyone. It gives both types the time of their life and provides an amazing range of experiences no matter what your "in to". Of course the girls loved it too, how could they not? They had been counting down the days and knew from You Tubing before we left Australia, that they would be meeting real princesses.

Jue's childhood dream to go on Space Mountain began back in the 70's when he saw a map of Disneyland on the back of a Disney Annual. It was awesome to see him grinning from ear to ear after coming back. "You have to go on it. It's great!" And then it started. That churning feeling down in the lower half of my stomach. I'm trapped. I could refuse but then know that curiosity will chew at me and tease me that this ride just might change who I am and take me to the other side. I remember that it is a roller-coaster in complete darkness with sprinkles of star-like dots of light. Dad had gone on it back in '88 and it definitely wasn't on my agenda then. A day had passed when I realised that it was now or never. I went to the toilet. My eyes scanned the photos of people faces taken during the ride. I went to the toilet. Walking quickly through the space where lines of people would be waiting in the peak of summer I'm able to avoid time dwelling on what I was going to put myself through. With barely a pause I'm directed to my seat and I'm comforted that a woman 30 years older than me sits in front. The ride starts. It's not so bad. I can do this. It takes about 5 seconds for my confidence to be wiped flat. I begin to groan. The lady in front will just have to deal with it. When the ride is over I apologise and make my way back to the sunshine.

For me and my type, Disneyland is about fun adventure, spectacular shows, enchanting animatronics, tear jerking sound-tracked fireworks and lovely rides such as spinning tea cups, it's a small world, flying dumbos, rockets and yoghurt containers and Lucy's favourite, 'Heimlich's Chew Chew Train'. The fat caterpillar takes passengers through a giant dripping watermelon and a cookie box blowing the warm, sweet smell of freshly baked cookies. In three days and thanks to quiet Wednesday, we were able to pretty much cover everything including California Adventure park - a new addition since my first visit. It was here on 'Soarin' Over California' that I had the most beautiful, wonderful and emotional experience of any fun place in my life. People clap at the end of it.

This is definitely a place for everyone's life to do list. It is a dream theme park. I agree with Walt Disney who once said, "Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future."

Screenwriter's Blues

2009-09-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

I'll admit that I hadn't really been looking forward to L.A... Its a big city. We've been in the wilds for so long... I was worried that it might not live up to the wonders we'd seen before - be a bit of a step back as it were. I imagined it was full of valley girls, washed out wannabes, freeways, smog and broken dreams. I couldn't have been further from the truth.

Its a great town, all 20 something million souls of it, all umpteen billion miles of freeway of it, all "a palm tree on every corner" of it. Its energetic, its both industrial and imaginetic at the same time, spinning you along past strip malls, freeways, tangled spaghetti junctions, billboards, the ocean glistening like a bed of jewels, unimaginable wealth and those who got left behind. It infuses you with a sense of the possible and an understanding of why the dreamers and pragmatists come here to work together.

And its not movies I'm talking about either (Hollywood was a dreary couple of streets we passed through, and didn't stop at, on the way to the architectural triumph and treasure-house that is the Getty Centre, perched high on the brown wooded hills above Bel Air with a glorious view of the huge city sprawling below and the large station fire to the east) its not movies at all. I'm sure they're made here but the 20 million people dont work in movies. Its school after school, mall after mall, workshop after workshop, factory after factory, foot by foot of concrete, canals, playing fields... suburb after suburb of either Brady Bunch type bungalows to Pulp Fiction like apartment blocks and everything in between...

It doesn't matter which, they're all part of the tapestry that is LA. I'm not sure what it is, but the mix of it all is intoxicating. This is a real city, big beyond what a small Canberra boy can probably grasp, you can feel its pulse as you travel the freeways, it grips you, I even find myself not worried by the snarled traffic, thats just how it is here - you live with it. You go along to get along. If I had to pick a town to live in over here, to experience for a long time, it'd be here (or Seattle, but thats a different beast). You can feel in the air theres just so much here to be done, seen, felt, its real. I'm most likely being a naive tourist in that regard! But if you are over this way - dont turn your nose up at LA - its a great town, well worth the visit... I'm glad we're not done with it yet.

We also explored the southern beaches of Orange County... its like the Northern Beaches of Sydney but with worse traffic (if possible) and less snooty residents. Fishing fleets ride the swell in the bay meters from art galleries, gas stations, charity shops and haut coture shops, a mix you dont really get in Palm Beach, thats what it feels like here. The beaches are almost as good too - we had our first real swim in the ocean at Crescent beach in Laguna, it was great to get back in and get smashed by some waves then float, back down, toes cooling in the breeze, bobbing up and down beyond the breakers looking back at the city. Rivers and pools are all well and good but the beach still provides the most refreshing way to take a dip.

The girls make 5 minute friends and build sand castles on the beach together, we chat with the locals who range from the retired to tradesmen to day traders to unemployed... the beach is the great leveller, no matter who you are you can come to the beach, the houses above it might cost several million but hey - for the day you're closer to the ocean than them - and it didn't cost a cent.

After exploring the beaches we retire to our hotel and the girls discover the game of shuffleboard. None of us know the rules - but that just adds to the fun. Theres some tension in the air as the girls head off to sleep though - Disneyland is up next, and the hopes and dreams for two little girls (not to mention Lib and I!) will be realised beyond imagining or dashed come the morning...

Now you've done it...

2009-09-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

So there I am, late at night by the window in our Vegas motel... laptop glowing, searching the internet in vain for an exciting family outing in the Vegas area that does not involve gambling, hookers, drugs, the mafia, Liberace, hamburgers or humvees... I was getting kind of desperate.

"Okay.." I thinks to myself, "its a big town, theres bound to be lots of things that normal people here do..." Apparently normal people in Vegas if they don like gambling, hookers, drugs, the mafia, Liberace, hamburgers or humvees, they ah... they must play golf? There's more golf courses here in the waterless desert than there are social services I'd wager. BUT, finally, at last, like a bolt from the blue came the answer.

One word. One quarter. Two flippers. Hours of entertainment...

PINBALL!!!

Las Vegas hosts the International Pinball Hall of Fame... not so much a tribute to those who can play well - but to those who LOVE to play. In an out of the way location, miles off the strip, in a plain shopfront with no great fanfare lies the greatest indoor fun I've yet had in the states... row after row of pinball history... from baseball simulators that ran on magnets from the 40's to childrens amusements of the 50's to fantastic and innovative pinballs of the 60's and 70's to (what I consider to be the pinnacle of Pinball Games) the best selling pinball machine of all time The Addams Family and beyond, right up to new machines like CSI and Batman. EVERYONE in the family had a fantastic (and cheap - even better!) time. Jammy played her first pinball, Mario World - how awesome is that! The best of both worlds Mario AND pinball!!! Lucy played her first game - too! We spent a few hours here just soaking up the fun, quarter by quarter...

Theres some fine machines out there - I have no doubt now that in my family room of the future there's going to be a pinball machine - an Addams Family if I can get one. I say to you now, the unconverted, those who have not played pinball in years, or worse, their life - GO - find a machine, play it, enjoy it! Its simple, its honest, its fun and has a certain magic that even at ages 3 and 6 my little girls could relate to.

It was great to leave an attraction in Vegas, not because we'd run out of money - but because we'd had enough fun - it was the highligh of our stay in town, I could have gone back happily for a few more hours the next day but it wouldn't have made it any better... it was just perfect. If you're in Vegas you must visit. If you're not in Vegas you must visit Vegas so you can take this in.

To finish our stay in Vegas off we decided to spend an evening off the strip and get OLD SKOOL.. we headed downtown, were Vegas used to live (and technically still does as the strip is outside the actual boundaries of the city of Las Vegas).

The casinos here are older, dinosaurs, lovable dinosaurs compared to the sleek gambling mega-complexes of the strip, but endearing in a way an old safe cracker is as opposed to a white collar fraudster... still, endearing only gets you so far - the place was dying - so a few years ago they closed the main street and put a huge canopy over it making a mall, not just any mall though -that canopy overhead they turned into the worlds largest damn video screen - and whoo boy - what I thought was a gimmick was actually pretty cool to see in action... its about 200m long, 30 or 40 wide and every hour they present amazing footage overhead. The video we saw for Don McLeans American Pie was by far the most interesting take on the song I've ever seen put together, from casting Altamont as the 'day the music died' with Mick Jagger as the devil, to Janis Joplin as the girl who sang the blues, with Bobby and John Kenndy and Martin Luther King as "the three men I admire the most - the father son and holy ghost" ... the rest you'll have to see for yourself if you get over here.

The next morning we packed up, said goodbye to Vegas and headed off for the west coast. The real west coast, the ocean. We were headed to the OC, Orange County... centre of all things consumerist and I was prepared for the worst...

They used to test bombs out here...

2009-08-31T22:16:00.000-07:00

...visitors would flock to Las Vegas and crowd the cheap motel rooftops and fancy hotel bars to witness the distant glowing fireballs rising up above the black rock Nevada horizon. Drinking chilled beer in the desert sun, burning themselves lobster red and then moving indoors to gamble their cash away and fund the growing city.

Its not really that exciting anymore, the horizon now consists of endless lofty hotels and apartments, dull and awash with the desert dust during the day but bursting into an amazing array of lit wonders, spires, rollercoasters, billboards, flashing signs, neons, sweeping spotlights and glitter during the night.

We're staying on "the strip" the most expensive couple of miles of real estate this side of manhatten island, and everyone is trying to get your attention, or to get you to stay in a different manner - from the faux Camelot of "Excalibur" and its ye olde carnival themed cheap all you can eat buffet under flourescent lights, to the MGM grand with its lurid green yet alluring outer walls visible probably from Mars the place is so big, to the lush and flower filled Italian stylings of the very welcoming Belagio and its amazing water fountains set to lights and music... all the way down to the glittering McDonalds sign in a very Vegas style and the hundrens of "card men" on the street who hand out the business cards of working girls (photos included!) with a flick and a wink and a "she can be with you in 20 minutes"... the cards litter the street in the morning, the "tastefully" positioned stars on the nude models doing little to allay our worring about what the girls might ask if they see them - thankfully they remain oblivios, and I, holding Lucy's or Jammy hand dont have to fend them off like some single men I see do... Then theres M and M world, "Coke World", their cousins out the alley in back "coke world" and THOUSANDS of other two bit attractions with signs bigger than than my house.

Its a fun town though, theres not a lot to do but gamble, swim, take in a show, avoid the pimps or eat... we didn't take in any shows or gamble and the pimps avoided us thankfully - we did a lot of swimming and eating though! The buffets here are amazing value - with great and innovative food in many of them - it was our daily treat for lunch (being about 50% cheaper than dinner).

We tried five such buffets, and ranked them thusly:

1. Wynns Buffet - lots of small portions of some very classy foods, salmon, smoked trout, rare beef with caramelised onions and caper, cream and aniseed sauce (or something like that - it sounded better). STUNNING desserts...

2. Paris Village Buffet - every cliched type of French food the Americans could think of and then more... and actually very nice creme brulees

3. The Luxor Buffet - lots for the kids, wonderful piles of fresh fruit, and the locals must have loved it with heaps of pizza and burgers... why not just but them on the street though - oh thats right - because here you can eat like TWENTY!

4. The Tropicana - cheap and cheerful with tough carpet, flouro lights, a sizzler like salad bar but a certain "Canberra Club" faded glory style...

5. The Main Street Station Buffet... lots of steak... not much else... oh collard greens. And no, collard greens aren't worth trying...

The girls had a great lifestyle, eating fruit at the buffet and swimming the rest of the time... as there really wasn't much else to do - we did however -with one day to go discover THE absolute best way to spend your quarters in Vegas - my dream attraction, a real highlight of my holiday, a place I'll be working VERY hard to get back to - or find a similar place in Australia -it was truely wonderful - and I'll tell you about it later...

The 5 percenters...

2009-08-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

Still gasping for breath from the wonders of Antelope Canyon we drift back to our lodgings and head out for a swim in the warm waters of Lake Powell, a huge man made aquatic wonderland in the middle of the desert. I float in the warm water looking out at the parched rocks changing hues with the setting sun and think about the lost wonders fathoms under my feet in drowned canyons and rock formations.

The kids love splashing here though, and the air is warm and the water soothing so I don't think too much! It is good to be swimming again, stretching out, splashing in the mud and sand and watching the girls laugh and the water droplets light up against the blue sky and red earth.

From here we head to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon - but being the sadist that I am I can't just take the quickest path there... I've seen two National Monuments that look like fun outside of Flagstaff Arizona... Route 66 country. Painted Desert Country. Fossilised Forrest country. Its too attractive to pass up so we head briefly out of our way to to visit abandoned adobe castles in the high desert and a volcano that only a thousand years ago spewed forth the ash that allowed these desert castles to bloom like flowers for a short time. Now the volcano is dead, cold, quiet jagged lava flows and eddies of ash and pumice in the wind. The soil it fed has long been drained of nutrients and the people it fed long move don. Their homes sit now at the end of quiet box canyons and atop strategic hills waiting for their return but only we are there to see them today, stuck between the grand canyon, the city of Flagstaff to the west and the brilliantly coloured painted desert to the east. I'm not game to drag the family out into that (on this trip...)

After some lunch Flagstaff falls behind us and we wind through pine forests towards the south rim. I've heard its much more crowded, much more touristy than the north rim. And with good reason too. Its better.

The views are, well, like I expected of the Grand Canyon, and I expected a lot. You really can see forever here... and forever is *chock full* to the horizon with twists, turns, peaks piled on peaks, collapsed towers, flashes of green from hidden springs and space... ohhhh so much space! The sense of distance is palpable - its so damn BIG. We join the elite 5% club - those who venture beneath the rim. We hick switchback after switchback down the South Kaibab Pass (the Northern end is at the North Rim - 28 miles and 3 days hike away - thats why we didn't take the hike there!) After an hour of steep descent we reach "ooh-aaah point" and boy did we ooh-and-aaah! Its BIG down here, thousands of feet below us we can still see the path winding down, thousands of feet below that we can see the Colorado, green and slow and welcoming from this altitude (but a raging torrent down there with 3 of the worlds top ten rapids in its winding trail). Eagles swoop by - some two thousand feet below, hunting prey on the slopes. People just stop and stare, quietly taking it all in, only stopping to ask again and again for poor Lib to take their photo please... Its only after we get back and see our path winding down the side of the canyon from another viewpoint that we realise just how little we've scratched the surface of this place... what we thought was a mighty descent into the maw of the canyon was a minor toe-dipping excersice down the mile deep behemoth...

As evening approaches we race a coming summer storm eastwards to try and catch the sunset. We don't, but the power of the storm is immense and invigorating in sunsets place. It laces the sky with lightning and lashes the canyon rim with a deluge of cold rain... leaving the air cool and clear (but cloudy) after its passing.

For fun (and to avoid our damp campsite) we head into town and introduce the girls to the all American pastime of 10 pin bowling. They absolutely love it. What they dont love is the concept of it ending... tears aplenty - but pizza and ice-cream allay them for now... Next we head for Las Vegas, I'm a little sad to be seeing the last of the desert wilderness, from here on we leave the tent behind for a few weeks, I might miss it a bit, but we're all looking forward to having proper showers again and for the girls, the promise of a pool is all they need to drive them on...

Totally Radically Awesomely Toastally Gnarly

2009-08-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

This wonderful phase has had limited use since I first heard it as a young teenage girl. Today I am able to say it once again as what we did in the Lake Powell area was TOTALLY RADICALLY AWESOMELY TOASTALLY GNARLY!!!!!! I'm not talking about the Rainbow Bridge national monument - we didn't get there (Mum and Dad we we were lucky to see that when we did as it now costs families hundreds of dollars to tour there). I'm not referring to exploring the 658 square kilometers of reservoir either (I'll leave that to Phil and his jetski). I'm talking about this..

Antelope Canyon

This is most amazing place I think I've ever been. A sandstone slot canyon formed gracefully by the elements. The girls walked through bare footed on the sandy floor stretching out their arms to try and touch both sides. Our eyes constantly darted around taking in all the different ways the sunlight played through crevices and on the curves of the rock. My mind went wild, it was so totally, radically, awesomely, toastally, gnarly in there.

Theres a change of pace...

2009-08-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

The wind picks up in the middle of the night, whipping around us on the canyon floor and reminding me that I'm a light sleeper... as morning rolls around though the wind dies down, and a warm glow fills up the gorge from the top, the sun slowly melting down the rocks like molasses.

We pack away the tent and drive through towns with names like Hurricane, Kanab, Fredonia and Jacob Lake before topping out at 8000 feet on the northern rim of the grand canyon... its cooler up here. Its a change of pace, its quiet, more reserved, removed from the desert that surrounds it - like some elitist neighbour in the run down part of town. Its green, the elevation gives it an alpine feel, its rustic, the old hotels here were built in the railway heydays of the 30's replete with singing bellboys and evening talent shows from the summering college boys and girls who worked here in spats and starched collars and gingham dresses. This is where "The Shining" surely is in real life - it even closes in the winter with only a few caretakers and the only access by snow-mobile...

Our first real view of the canyon is even through the windows of the "sun room" here, age stained wooden handrails, leather couches, black and white photos of long gone visitors... The room is almost more interesting than the view - only due to the fact that a fire rages on the canyon wall some miles away and has filled our view with grey smudge... its still wonderful though - gazing down towards the Colorado river(though you cant quite see it from the hotel) through the haze - the miles and the millions of years to the bottom.

Of course we're not staying in the hotel - we reluctantly drive back to our allotted campsite to set up, wondering when we'll see the canyon again. The ranger at registration smiles at me when I check in:

"Wow... you have no idea..."

"Pardon? You mean our site - is it a good one?"

"Oh you'll see..."

Turns out we're practically hanging out over one of the side canyons, setting the pegs and lines as the setting sun fires everything into a pink glaze around us, the pines move above us in the breeze and I cook chili, beans and rice on the camp stove and the kids eat spagettios from their blue plastic bowls.The wind ominously picks up but thankfully retreats to just tickling the treetops for the night as we slumber on the edge of the chasm...

The girls take a morning hike with us to the lodge in the morning and we celebrate with hot chocolates, we spend the rest of the day exploring the nearby mesas, letting the girls play and gazing down at the huge dropoffs and generally being anxious about kids and cliffs!

I'm not sure what to make of the North Rim - its probably the most relaxing camp we've had - its like a resort - a lot to see and take in, but you can really kick back and just do that - theres no amazing hikes to be had (that we could do anyway - I'll elaborate later) and the views, while amazing had less impact on me than say Zion or Canyonlands... I await with baited breath how the South Rim develops... we'll be there soon...

Crunchy Granola

2009-08-20T22:39:00.000-07:00

As that old school philosopher Neil Diamond would yell in a wonderfully gravel voice "GOOD LORD!" Yep - holidays can be soooo much bloody fun its ridiculous... its even better when you share it with the kids and have a ball swanning around and in and under a river in the middle of the parched desert...

We're in Zion, in God's country... or at least the Mormons... or well, it used to be, but now its a National Park - and for a protestant boy like me good self it was encouraging to find that this little outpost of what was once Mormonism is now a wonderfully welcoming place with sun kissed mountains, deep dark canyons (and surprisingly for the desert) shady glades, hanging gardens from the cliffs, swamps and cool streams. Even more surprising is all the local religious names given to these places came from a good Baptist chap who wandered through on holidays some hundred years ago and just started hanging names on places... The Golden Throne, The Court of the Patriarchs, The Temple of Sacrifice - replete with blood red iron oxide stains streaming down its some 500m high white sandstone cliffs.

This is a wonderful little oasis away from the flat plains, we're camped out in the bottom of a magestic and scenic canyon carved into the landscape by the Virgin River like a plastic spoon through Jamila's half eaten and melting ice-cream sunday (I had to finish it for her - hey - I'm a nice guy).

I love cooking burgers as the sun sinks below the western rim and sets the eastern mountains on alight... I'd love it more if the wasps weren't so darn interested in the fat exploding out of these burger patties... The girls love being able to swim in the river only meters away, and also love debating over cactus or cactai (Lucy is very definate on whether a patch is singular or plural and loves telling us "Its one Cac-tuSS and lots of cacTAI!")

Its hot during the day - as it always is out here, but the cliffs block the sun early and EVEN BETTER theres a great river of all things to swim in, cooling the blood under the eaves of the cottonwoods and floating lazily downstream until you bump into some yelling group of bloody french tourists... bloody tourists.

Its hard as always with words to convey how COOL it is being here. The first night I sat on a crummy portable chair drinking some local brew and was struck by a large hole in the sky where the stars should be. "Julian you idiot" screamed my more intelligent inner monologue "Thats no hole in the sky its a... errrr.....wait on" mmm that beer was good... "Ahh thats it, a mountain, a bloody big one! Its just blocking the stars in a manner you're not used to!" I would have inner monologued more but I had to go and yell at some noisy French:

"Its past curfew - keep yer snail munching down our kids are trying to sleep!"

"But mon dieu! Ewer liddle chulrin - zay bee trying to eat zee snails!"

"TOUGH! AND SHUDDUP!"

We did some lovely hikes on out first day but the real highlight came on the second day as we headed up into the wild and remote (and horribly popular) river walk to the top end of the canyon. But we're not bothered by such little things as the end of the path - oh no - not us... we decided (along with pretty much everyone else) to just darn it all to heck and keep walking... off the end of the world and into the great unknown known as the narrows. The canyon narrows so much that the river actually fills it up: theres no paths where we're going Marty...

We slog through the water, gazing up in wonder at towering cliffs and sideways in annoyance at passing french. Its great here - you could walk all day in the water, its exciting and dangerous, cool, fast, slow, deep, shallow, forgiving and relentless all withing the space of just several... well hours, turns out what we thought would be a morning diversion ended up taking all day. But it was amazing, if you're ever this way you HAVE to see Zion and try the Narrows walk. The river is stunning, but the cut it has made in the landscape that towers hundred of meters RIGHT above you is humbling in a "I'm not humbled I'm bloody slogging along fine here just look at me go! WOOHOO!" type way...

Seeing how the river cuts the rock, and being within it at the same time is very rewarding, the girls absolutely loved it, and though Lucy did fall asleep and have to be carried out deadening my arm for days, I'd do it again in a flash. Its one of those real HEY THIS IS AWESOME type adventures that only reveals just how awesome it is at just the right moment - when you're right in it - loving it and wishing it would never end (and that Lucy would wake up - she's bloody heavy).

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.........

2009-08-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

Jue has mention how much there is to see in this pocket of the world. We can also add Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks National Parks to that list. As we drive West from Canyonlands the terrain becomes more and more...well...just plain odd. It's almost possible to convince the girls we're on Mars or the moon.

At Capitol Reef, once again, we take turns to yell "COOOOO-WE" up into the cliffs. Jamila gains another Junior Ranger badge after completing a booklet of age appropriate activities and making a pledge in front of the witnessing Ranger that she will continue to learn and take care of the environment. This is a tremendous program for up to 12 year olds that we first found out about on an episode of Bindi the Jungle Girl. Each park has its' own unique activities and badge. We sight petroglyphs left by Ancestral Puebloans. At the historic house that was once owned by a polygamist - not unusual for around here, I buy myself a rhubarb and strawberry pie (yes it does taste as good as it sounds!)

From there, Bryce Canyon takes us to another planet. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Just like Daedalus planned...

2009-08-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

Its almost as if we stand still now and this amazing landscape moves beneath us, showing us new vistas and marvels every day. Its hard to believe coming from Australia that there could be so much to see in such a relatively small area... mesa verde, monument valley, natural bridges, arches national park and now onto the poetically named "Island in the Sky" in the canyonlands National Park.

All these places are similar... Yes its just rock we're looking at mostly, and yes its just red mostly... yet from point to point on the map, with each park we progress through this red and this rock is put together in so many variations that its almost every material of every colour, built in the most grand fashion that the eye can hardly take it in on viewing, we constantly have to remind ourselves that what we're seeing is *real*, its here in front of us.. if I could brave the miles, if my feet could leave this viewpoint or this roadside stop and step onwards into that red wonderland I could, if I wanted just walk on out into into vastness before me and never stop.

Unless that is, its Canyonlands that happens to lie before me, the Island in the Sky. It would take a great deal of stupidity to venture out into that vista, firstly the incredible drop would surely kill you, and if not, then the untouched, winding morass of ragged ravines, crevasses and dusty rubble filled washed would turn any soul brave enough to venture in hopelessly around like Theseus with no string...

Theres not much walking to be done here unless you're very fit and very adventurous... much to the girls delight as we viewed a lot of this incredible world from the cool confines of the car... and even I had to admit that this was not the kind of place to strike out on some foolhardy trip from an unknown trailhead, this is harsh and very hot land.

Yet looking out upon it from the grand view brought a kind of peace that more than made up for the lack of physical activity. You can see so far, you can see so much, and of such variety and wonder that its very heartening to know its there... that such places exist - even here in America and its overpopulated National Parks, this is one place where far less than 1% of visitors get into the heart of. And yes, we didn't get near the heart of this wilderness on our visit, but from that vantage point we could glimpse it, imagine it and carry it away with us so that when we're back in some office or classroom back in Australia we can remember it and recall that wonder and peace we felt as we looked upon it for real, the soft wind sighing through the gaps in the rock, the heat shimmering on the plains below and the 99% of other visitors who were experiencing it with us.

Breakdown

2009-08-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

The sun rose over the desert and right into our hotel window... blazing like some open furnace door, and lighting up the surrounding stone cliffs in its industrial glow.

It actually wasn't all that hot in the early morning - but there was the promise of heat to come, and by the time we headed north out of Monument Valley - leaving the red rocks and soft sand behind us it was over 90 degrees (or 32 Celsius - but 90 sounds hotter).

We travelled though the town of Mexican Hat, visited the amazing goose-necks state park (where the San Juan river meanders through some very soft rock and leaves an amazingly twisted trail) and then north onto a road that I'd been thinking about since we started planning the trip. The Moki Dugway wonders some 600 vertical meters right up the side of a cliff, even as we drove towards it I could not see any route up - it looked like the rock just swallowed the road like a Nargun from the dreamtime... but the road was there - and up it wound its 1100 feet of fun to the top.

We dawdled through the national bridges monument before making our stop at the dusty and interesting town of Moab - build on the dollars that uranium mining brought... and very close to one of the most visually stunning places I've been, Arches National Park.

From here on we entered what I call "Breakdown land"... winding blacktop cutting through thin red soil, stone clad gullys and abandoned farms... this is the place where one of my favourite thrillers Breakdown was filmed (watch it - its a cracker). Thankfully the locals are not as unfriendly as in the movie.

The locals live in and around the rock ringed town of Moab, built with dollars that Uranium mining brought, and living now off the thousands of tourists who come each day to visit the Arches National Park...

And whoo boy - I can see why they come in their thousands. Its amazing, from the moment you enter you're confronted with twisted landscapes of rock in all its hues... this isn't like monument valley, this is not just on the grans scale - but every scale, small boulders teeter on top of needle like plinths of rock, enormous spans of ribbon like rock reach across impossible distances to form graceful arches, and the sense of time, time passing, time past, weighs heavily.

We explored in depth, the girls again playing in the fine sand and having a ball (and getting filthy - but hey - its only sand) we walked through thin shaded gouges in the rock, the air cool in the shadows and looked out from our haven upon the endless expanse of sand, rock and hazy distance that stretched out from our oasis of shade.

Lib and I took turn to walk in the heat while the girls played in the car and then, as the sun began to sink we walked out again into the desert air and across the grassy plains to watch the sunset from "the windows", high up on the mesa that makes up the park. We followed a jackrabbit and the girls played in the sand again.

We sat in silence as the sun turned blood red, fringing the distant and low clouds in gold. The girls made wishes under the "magic wishing arch" that they in their wonderful imagination had found (Lucy a little sad as her chocolate chip cookie didn't instantly appear)...and as darkness fell and stars began to appear we listened to the cooling land and the distant cry of some lonesome desert bird.

The Searchers

2009-08-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd be missing the forest and mountains by now. Missing the cool air and the flowers... but I'm not. The desert out here is stunning, and amazingly alive. Alive with colour, sounds, sights and hidden goings on of the secret animal world.

Out of the shimmering lines on the road as it stretches into the liquid horizon of mid-day loom monstrous shapes. Shapes dredged up from the psyche, planted there by every darn western movie and image of the west as it never really was. Towering and majestic buttes and mesas of powerful red rock thundering up from the sand and dust and heat glazed highways...

This is Monument Valley, home of THE image of the west. It adorns movie posters of yesteryear and guide books of today, you'll have seen this place even if you have no idea what I'm talking about. As we speed in from the north even I feel like I *must* have been here before, the road stretching across the plain towards, and seemingly into, the ancient red plinths.

We're on Navajo nation land, marked by dusty private roads firing into the wilderness in dead straight lines, and twisting old wooden shacks on the side of the highway selling every type of jewellery imaginable as long as its made of beads... Its hot. Its bright, like fresh molten steel covers the sky, it hurts to look up, and its just amazing. Lines of cars on nearby roads back up to gaze in wonder and they all twinkle and sharply flare in the sun while they shuffle past.

We retreat into our hotel room for the afternoon (yes - hotel - its too hot to camp here!), and venture out towards sunset to explore the area on the *very* rugged loop road through the valley. Its wonderful. Bumpy, but fun, and a jaw gaping view at every turn, heads craning upward to try and take it all in. The monoliths are even bigger up close (obviously...much as Father Ted would explain to Dougal about cows). We get snap happy during the magic hour and get some alright shots, which is inevitable if you take thousands of pics law of averages says at least one has to be good...

We strike some luck, and as the sun dips below the sandy horizon we're left by ourselves on the valley floor, standing in the warm sand, bare footed, the girls playing and looking for animal tracks... theres evidence of life everywhere here... coyotes, lizards, jackrabbits, beetles... crickets singing softly... The air cools and the sky turns a bruised purple and all that's left is silhouettes, stars, the low smell of the stunted grasses and warped and hardy trees and the happy sounds of the girls as they jump around in the deep sand and try to follow lizard footprints in the fading light...

From on high

2009-08-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

BOOM! And just like that the cooling, embracing, jagged peaks that had been our constant companions for the last week are gone. We wind our way down from passes cold and clear, sprinkled with wildflowers and hardy whisper pine, down and back into the warm and dry world of real summer.We leave the mountains with a pang of regret. Its like nothing we have in Australia, and it would be a completely new experience to see them in winter. A new, and COLD experience.

The large towns seem to leave the real mountains alone... The high passes and valleys, the meadows and jagged rock seem to drive them off, so when we get back to "solid ground" in the town of Durango its back to traffic lights, traffic snarls, fast food joints and supermarkets that actually have what you need at a price you can afford... so its bittersweet... its also *noticably* warmer...

After stocking up on camping food (cheerios and chocolate chip cookies) we head back towards the L.A. side of the street and the ancient cliff dwellings of mesa verde. They cliff dwellings were built between about 800 and 1200 A.D. and are pretty impressive (not so much the buildings themselves - hey, Rome came a long way before these huts) but for their location and for the fact that this is a bloody dry and hot place, and *somehow* these tenacious people managed to farm and thrive here, on the dry plateau for over 500 years, moving on only when the soil became nutrient depleted or fire fuel bacme too rare (the trees grow SLOW here)...

Did I mention their location too? Location location location... this is frightening stuff for a guy who's used to walking 5 minutes home from the bus and the hardest thing to negotiate is the steps to the front door. These amazing villages cling to alcoves far up canyon walls, the inhabitants having to climb by toeholds in the cliff up to the mesa top to do their days work and them scurry back down again (the joke goes that scientiest worked out the leasing cause of death here was sleepwalking...). Lord knows I had enough trouble getting down to them - even with all the ladders and chains the NPS has put in. But its stunning here. It's a brilliant place to visit, and another of those points on the map that I would look at and wonder what it was like... now I know... I'm glad I don't have to live halfway down a cliff, but I'm amazed at what we saw, and thankful for the priviledge of seeing it.

We camped in the park, the high and cold end of the mesa. Being in a tent, and it being so cold helped me get over my nostalgia for the mountains. Outside at elevation at night is a chilly experience...

As the moon rose over the bluffs that ringed the scrubby campground the evening story teller shared the tale of the stars, of orion's belt, the bear, the buffalo, the eagle and the wolf, the earth and the air... (the totems of the compass in the medicine wheel) and the first story teller as related to her by the descendants of those who used to live so close by...

Scared of heights...

2009-08-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just need a holiday from your holiday. We knew that on such a long trip we'd get a bit weary and need a place to recharge our batteries and just have a bit of a kick back...

I thought long and hard about where we'd stop to take a breath, and there were a few places that seemed like they'd be a good spot, but there was only one that really stood out as a spot I'd love to stay for a week. You see, as some of you may know, I can get a bit fidgety... I like to move around... I can't even stay sitting down at work for very long without having to go and check on tapes or just shoot the breeze with the developers...

Its the same when I'm on holiday. I'm *not* a sit on the beach for two weeks kind of guy. I'd go a bit mad. But... I knew we'd need a break from being the road warriors so we had to find a nice place that could keep us happy, and keep my feet from wanting to wander for a good restful week.

The town we chose is Ouray. We're at about 8000 feet in the western rockies, the lush part, the exciting part, the part full of history, old mines, huge mountains, tall tales, big steaks, places with the name "gultch" in them and a WHOLE lot of jeeps.

We made our way here from Canon City via the Royal Gorge. I've no idea why its called Royal, but I've now got a good idea why the Gorge part is in there. Its home to the highest suspension bridge in the world, the gorge is about 400 meters deep, a cleft in the world that pops out of nowhere: rolling hills then BAM. STOP. BIG GORGE. The bridge wasn't really made for any other purpose than to draw visitors, and once there it does its best to scare the crap out of them. Its very rickety, the supports are all steel but seemingly thats where the money ran out as the span is comprised of old planks of wood, with a handy couple inch gap between each one, just so you can experience that vertiguous look down 400 meteres drop with each freaking step. Thank you! The girls liked it though as there was also a petting zoo and a merry-go-round. (It is actually worth a visit, the bridge is quite spectacular when you're not on it and praying...)

Then on we went to our Ouray. The countryside changes as we go, becoming more lush and green as we work our way west and though the rain shadow that those westerly mountains create. The West Rockies is a far different beast from the east. It probably isn't any higher, or steeper, but maybe it just feels that way... Ouray is surrounded my huge cliffs or red, grey and bleeding yellows on all sides. The sun doesn't seem to rise above them until well into the afternoon, and often sets even before then... Its beautiful - like no town I've ever been to. Some houses feel cosy, they're surrounded by trees or bush, this whole town feels cozy, no matter where you walk you're surrounded by visible nature, you really have to crane your neck to see above the mountains... its weird for a boy from Canberra...

Everyone in Ouray is four wheel driving mad. I can see why, there's literally hundreds of old mine trails, wagon trails, old toll roads cut into the sides of cliffs, ghost town waiting to be explored, high and distant meadows to be visited... and all only a few short miles off the highway... a few short possibly terrifying miles. Most of the trails are fine, we've even done some up into the mountains around Ouray and the scenery is breathtaking: rolling meadows backed by sharp red rock walls punching up to 14000 feet, blues and yellows, strange grasshoppers making even stranger noises, crystal clear streams meandering their way through the basin, tumbling cold and down toward the valley floor in hundreds of waterfall steps...

But its not all fun and games. There're roads out there with a reputation... they talk about them in hushed and reverant tones in the saloon... road with names like Poughkeepsie Gultch... Imogene and the worst... Black Bear Pass. They dont sound like much, but the locals wont mention their names without making the sign of the cross... their paths on the map snake across topographic lines so close they're almost a sea of black... "WARNING EXPERIENCED 4 WHEEL DRIVERS ONLY" shout the signs at their starting points. So of course every two bit 4x4 hack from out of town tries them and ends up paying to have their cars pulled out, driven down by someone else... or worse...

You can see these roads from certain viewpoints, looking like some trick of the light, or april fools, cut into cliffs, or hanging from mountains so steep you feel giddy just looking at them. I'll leave them for next time I'm here...

Besides, we're far too busy taking in the sights that dont risk life and limb... like playing in the local hot springs, visiting the toy shops, reading books or visiting ghost towns like Animas Forks or taking photos of wild flowers and abandoned mines in the high country on one of the more moderate roads... I actually dont mind the off road stuff... I could get into this. I just have to find several 14000 feet mountains to explore back in Australia... By the way - theres no good hot dogs in town so I made my own: Standard hot dog buns, Ball Park all beef Franks *grilled*! Cook one cob of white corn and cut off kernals, save. Pan fry one medium onion and 1/2 green pepper finely chopped until soft, add cooked corn kernals, 1/2 cup shredded monterey jack cheese and 2 finely chopped fresh roma tomatoes (chilled), add a little mexican hot sauce and dollop all over the top of your grilled frank in its warmed bun. Try to serve while onions, pepper and corn are hot and tomato is chilled... Very nice - even if I do say so myself.

Canon City Storms...

2009-08-03T22:52:00.001-07:00

There's something about lying on your back, on your bed, in a motel room. This one just happened to be in Canon City, an anywhere town in the middle of Colorado, the praries before it, the Rockies rearing up behind it.

You pay for you room. It's your bed. It's your sheets. It's your bathroom... but like some vaudeville act in a small town it's "for one night only".

Orange-aid sodium light seeps in around the smokey curtains. The storm that lorded over the town like a monster, blotting out the setting sun as we approached has broken and passed. Angry bolts whipping the ground with light and fury as we gazed out the windows of chinese restaurant we had been pointed toward by the young guys behind the motel desk. "It's right on the corner. It's like... in a shed, well a small building, you wouldn't know it was a cafe! But its good..." And it is. The owner and cook's kids watch us from the small kitchen. A small child slumbers on his mother's shoulder as she brings spring rolls and excellent sechuan chicken.

The storm punches the ground with its fists and we watch it move on, lighting up the night and exciting children in another town somewhere to the east... if there is one. We leave and the children from the kitchen come out and wave us off from the window, the lurid red "OPEN" sign flickering off as we round the corner.

And now the trucks pass the motel room on the highway outside. The wheels pffffssssssh in the wet and the engines clamour as they decelerate into the heart of town. The traffic lights that impede them casting their red, yellow and green glow onto the oil slicked and glistening road, swirling with the neons of the "no-vacancy" red motels, jiffy lubes, burger kings, chick-fil-a's and all night pharmacies... The kids have swum in the pool. Made five-minute-friends and taken turns seeing who can splash the roof. A slick haired guy hops from the sauna to the street for a quick smoke in the cooling air and is back into the sauna to sweat again. Some kind of ritual or pennance. In the spa, he chats with Lib and tells her how everyone else here is having fun. Wants to be here. Likes to be here. He'd want to be anywhere else really. A freak storm wrecked his house, and his neighbour's... and his neighbour's neighbours... "Red tape" he sighs. "Could be six weeks til we know whats happening" and offers her a Bud Light... an impossibly large woman floats by... "Could have been worse though - I was going to paint the house that weekend - don't have to do that now..."

The girls get fitful and we put them to bed. Lib writes about Salt Lake City. I lie on my back. Listen to the trucks outside... to the aircon... to the kids still in the pool. It should be closed by now. The outside door squeals and I imagine it's the man who didn't have to paint, sweat from the sauna chilling him as he sucks on a cigarette, in the orange light of the car-park. "Thank God for insurance," he had told us while drinking his Bud Light, his feet dangling in the pool, "thank God for insurance."

It's your bed. Your sheets. Your aircon and TV... you paid for it right? You get what you pay for though. One night only. In the cold steel grey of early morning, like a visiting circus, you pack up and move onto another town. The only people who get to stay longer are those who don't really want to...

Pikes Peak or Bust!

2009-08-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

From Vail we swing south, through the high and bleak but interesting mining town of Leadville. We visit an old opera house, the faded photographs of dapper chaps and glamourous songbirds of bygone days gaze down at us like benign ghosts.

The hall itself is cold, though full of life and colour and the residue of happy evenings. Jammy and Lucy have great fun on stage, singing and dancing to an empty hall and banging away on a battered old blue piano which sits on the stage. Leadville was almost 30 thousand people at one time, and this was the best darn opera hall west of the Mississippi!

We have a breakfast of steak and eggs and english muffins in the very up to date cafe next door. They claim to be something to do with Doc Holiday, but I don't think the doc was much into english muffins...

From Leadville we tramp east, towards the edge of the rockies, and through the high valleys. A huge grey wall of thunderstorms follows our every step, we get the occasional spatter of rain on the windshield but stay on mostly dry roads until we get to the North Pole and all hell breaks loose...

That wall of noise, light and water, the thunderstorms have caught up to us and caught us off guard. It PELTS down. The skies go grey, then black The views across the valley we're winding down, minutes ago a picture of verdant green grass and forest, begin to grey and then white out completely in the deluge. There is nowhere to take shelter except the North Pole...

The North Pole, a wonderland for kids I'm sure, is a very tacky attraction on the lowest slopes of one of Americas most famous mountains, Pikes Peak (the place that inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write "America the Beautiful"). I tell the girls that Santa doesn't live here, just people pretending to be him to make money. But we need to use a restroom and there're are none nearby save here... they kindly let us in to sue them - though it invloves a mad dash through the rain, and past empty amusement rides and silent dripping food stands. The girls are not amused to find that the toilets are "automatic" (they flush when you're finished, or just about, and give the girls the screaming mimis..." but we make it out alive, and without having to resort to buying any tacky Christmas oddities.

The rain eases, but Pikes Peaks is still hidden in the low clouds. It's not the highest peak in the state - but it's for sure the only with with a freaking road all the way to the freaking top. The grizzled attendant at the gate informs us the road is not open all the way due to the weather, but that at least it's half price, say 10 bucks. (Thats 90 bucks cheaper than taking the very cramped but rather famous cog railway to the top... being the cheapskate I am though, that was never an option.)

I have faith though. I hand over the 10 bucks and we begin winding our way up from 8000 feet through glorious forest and past chilly lakes. The sky is still low, and rain still flecks the screen, but a solid and reassuring line of blue is proceeding from the East in just the way the British forces never did during the war of independance.

Its needed thought as the road is like 'Going to the Sun' but worse, switchback after switchback, muddy and slippery and distinctly lacking in guard rails... but by the time we get to where the road should be closed its gloriously sunny and warming up, we ushered on on ON! by the ranger at the last checkpoint and begin our switchbacks up beyond the timberline and into real alpine territory. The views are stunning. I can see Denver over 80 miles away, we can see the storm, almost below us now, and lumbering out into the praries, we see lakes, forests, small towns, hundreds of them from so far up... at 14,100 feet we top out... its stunning. You can see forever, I've never been on such a high road, not 'going to the sun' nor 'beartooth' was anything like this...

We stop at the top - I open the door... and its almost ripped from its hinges by the gale that is blowing (where'd that come from! I think) papers, toys and screams fly around the car until I slam the door. We rug up and then make a break for a concrete bunker up here that houses the obligatory souvenier shop. Even amongst the tacky nick-knacks we can see what is so inspiring about this place...

After catching our breath we slowly wind back down the mountain, in the sun, and work our way toward our stop for the night, the town of Canon City....

More boring travel news with no mention of hot dogs

2009-08-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

We were to camp in the Rocky Mountains National Park however due to some very inhospitable weather for campers we changed our plans. The alternative, hot dry days in Salt Lake City. The extra hours in the car felt as nothing in the grand scale of our journey and the fascinating mountain and desert scenery melt the miles. It was also a chance to give a place on the map that only made me think about MORMONS to show its' true colours. Perhaps like someone giving SHINY BUMS Canberra a chance. I'm glad we went there but unless someone's a hungry skier for some 100 plus slopes it's not a required place to visit - however it would look rather beautiful in winter.

We took the girls to a variety of fun places, one of the best being a play area like Mini Q but this one had a full on little peoples' farm and supermarket. At the mormon temple I met a former member who was there with a friend taking pictures for a photography class and had an interesting chat with him. He shared an electrifying theory.....apparently the temple (which public are not allowed to enter) has been built on a fault line... has been made out marble... with a very high quartz content... has a gold plated statue sticking out the top, and just may, in the event of an earthquake go....ZAP! POW!!!!!..with lightening bolts shooting out of it and everything!!!! How cool would that look? His background in electrical engineering gave him a deep understanding of Piezoelectricity (i.e.

the ability of some materials such as crystals to generate electric potential in response to mechanical stress).

After three nights we left for Vail, Colorado to return to the Rockies. Such a beautiful area. I'm not a skier and even I was salivating at the multiple bowls of slopes. A free gondola ride took us to the top of a mountain where Jamila loved watching a very special wedding take place. To keep him company for a day, Jue bought a 50cm long sandwich/ hoagie with several layers of ham, turkey, roast beef, two types of cheeses, tomato, lettuce, mayo..... He has magically transformed from Clark to Homer!

All through the night

2009-07-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

One thing about driving the great distances over here is that I get to listen to a lot of radio - and as you know I've found a station that plays nuthin' but 80's ALL THE TIME! One song has come back to me that has struck home more than most I haven't heard since those halcyon days...

Cyndi Laupers "All through the Night" is a great driving song... though it tends to make me too contemplative. I remember as kids you were either a Cyndi fan or Madonna fan... needless to say I was in Cyndi's camp.

As we drive theres more music though, a lot more (its amazing how much hair-metal there was in the 80's!)... passing the time... thoughts and memories as our little car segues from hour to hour, day to night and state to state, grinding away the miles through flat praries, deserts and stunning mountainscapes. Past bustling towns, abandoned gas stations, properous farms and desperate homeless...

Seeing things we may never see again and in a way we definately wont be able to again, with a wonderful 6 year old and 3 year old.

I wonder if driving this country is much different to what it would have been like if we were listening to these 80's songs when they were new, and I wonder what will be here for my lovely daughters to see if they should come this way again. Will they remember any of this? I hope so, I'd like to think that some of the wonderful memories they're helping me build will also be there for them.

This trip was always about more than just discovering America, its more about discovering our daughters and hopefully letting them discover a little more about us. Its going by fast, but as Cyndi sings "Until it ends there is no end..."

Tumbleweeds

2009-07-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

Its becoming obvious to me that eating well in the U.S. when you're travelling is an impossability... it all came to a head in the Nebraskan town of Alliance which we dragged our road weary feet into late in the evening after hopping all over South Dakota and Nebraska... we snuck up and down the main drag looking for a nice looking restaurant only to be greeted by hamburger grill after steak house after hot dog stand (which I know I should be writing more about but I'll get around to it...). We finally decided to hell with it and at least we'd have an experience by pulling up to an old style, neon draped road side "drive-up" food stall.

In the late evening summer glow with a glorious sunset behind us you can imagine our suprise to find the menu littered with such healthy looking treats as grean beans, broccolli, cauliflower and baked potatoes! Yumm - a nice heathy snack with a bean burrito to fill the gaps... how bloody wrong can you be.

Never. *!NEVER!* in my life have I had a meal that was totally deep fried... but thats changed now (if you can call it had). The meal arrived eventually in a series of suspiciously greasy and see-thru white paper bags. Burrito - fried. Green beans - fried. Cauliflower - Fried? Yep? Deep fried cauliflower - and it tastes as good as it sounds. ie. Crap. We made an effort to pick off the fat smothered bread crust but enough was enough... we gave up, leaving behind piles of grease sodden paper bags filled with perfectly good vegies that had been ruined... I'll never knock back a salad again (unless its deep fried that is).

Alliance is a nice town though - it was such a refreshing experience to drive past acre after acre of lush green sprouting corn, alfafa and golden wheat... lets hope our farmers get a break from the drought soon.

From Alliance we trooped onto the city of Cheyenne (pronounced shy-anne) for the biggest wild west celebration and rodeo IN THE COUNTRY! THis was going to be the wild west at its westiest and wildiest. Its a tough town, on the cold high praries... tubleweeds visit in the millions and buffalo used to roam these lands...

Trouble is, those days are gone. There is no real wild west any more, not that one can easily find. Its packaged up in easy to digest servings in themed family restaraunts and glizty expensive country and western stage shows... I think the real wild west might still be out there, riding fences and camping rough, but its not anywhere we'll find in a guildbook or festival or historic town.

Which is why Cheyenne felt a bit like the royal Canberra show - but with a smaller side show alley and no stunt cars (stunt horses sure - but they're not as fast nor dangerous). The rodeo though - when we got to it was good fun to watch, the bull riding is very exciting, the crowd all get to their feet and roar as the rider approaches the 8 second mark of being thrown around like a stick of celery in a blender - until we started wondering about the animals' (and the riders!) welfare. Some of them get pretty beaten (particularly one rider knocked out cold) around, and the wild horse race is a threat to life and limb for ALL involved, so many tough cowboys strewn over the field - and I dont think they're known for milking a penalty... The locals are very friendly though and the rodeo - I'm told - is the best outdoor rodeo in the US.

One thing that we all though was pretty good was a HUGE free pancake breakfast the town puts on for all comers. In two hours they serve 11,000 PEOPLE, mixed in a concrete truck mixer and cooked on huge bbqs. It was all over too soon though - we got served in record time, wolfed them down and then we hustled away as downtown Cheyenne quickly reverted back to its standard quiet and lonesome status. I kept waiting for the tubleweeds. Some poor local soul had scrawled, in obvious frustration on the window of a failed business "WYOMING SUCKS". I dont think thats true, Wyoming is an amazing place, from rugged peaks to sweeping praries to bone dry desert and dry rusting railcar after railcar this IS an interesting and engaging place, built upon the sweat and fading photographs of those who came before by foot, wagon or steamtrain - but the strain of trying to live the wild west dream after its long gone would be a tough life.

Something more sinister

2009-07-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

In the vast landscape of my childhood fears, there was one dark obelisk that haunted my dreams more than any other. Out past the backlots where ghostly fire engines and demonic vacuum cleaners lay rusting... out far over the horizon, distant, hazy, so far away that I rarely worried about it, yet so impossibly large that its gravity would affect my dreams, lay the place I visited today.

The flat, grassy and welcoming plains of South Dakota. Flush with wildlife, farmers, small towns and friendly faces. Even in my childhood though I knew that under these plains lay slumbering titans whose awakened fist would crush the world. Minuteman Missiles.

I used to imagine what it would be like to live out here. Whether you would wonder about them being here at all... worry about seeing them leap into the sky, a smokey rumbling lance of impending and unstoppable doom...

We visited the sites where these slumbering titans used to lie today. It was not as I expected. There is no menace here. No lingering evil nor sense of what might have started here... A simple fibro shack with a few rooms connected to a remote silo where two bored Air Force personnel would while away the "hours of boredom between seconds of sheer panic". It all seemed a bit... less threatening now. After the SALT agreement in the early 90s they were dismantled and most of the silos destroyed. One was left open to the public, but after seeing the mundane control room I saw no need to visit that. My fears were banished.

I thought how the world had changed and that children now dont have to watch films like Threads or The Day After in school and live with the constant possibility of nuclear war... How much nicer to not have that constant fear. To only have to worry about sex, meth, marks, uni scores, house prices, the global financial meltdown, the ashes...

As we were walking out of the builing a movie on the project was finishing up. It concluded with the cheery message that although the minuteman silos have been abandoned the project lives on with the minuteman III, now "in the field 'til at least 2050..."

That dark obelisk on the horizons foundation's are slowly being laid again...

The things you can do in a day...

2009-07-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Its amazing the things you can see in a day when you get motivated... well, maybe not motivated... maybe more crazy. For some stupid reason we decided to bugger all our plans to hell, jump in the car and "zoom" across the whole state of Wyoming so we could see a mountain with four dudes faces on it (where do I put the possesive apostrophe on that?).

Being the aesthetic that I am I choose the most scenic (and painfully long) route , out of yellowstone up the beartooth highway, up over amazing alpine meadows and lakes, down through hair raising switchbacks and mind numbing roadworks. The views up on the pass are stunning, this is what I thought Yellowstone might be like, but here at least I got to see the grandeur that that the area is known for. We also became VERY well aquainted with some less scenic parts of the road as we dawdled along behind trucks or were made to wait interminably by malicious and EVIL road workers (to whom I hold no grudge - or not much of one)

Its about then, after 4 hours on the road and a 3rd of the distance covered that I began to think... "Now hey, its all well and good to be crazy and impulsive but I have to do this driving..." I actually DID start to act like Clark Griswold, urging th family on at every stop "we have to keep going!" I ended up in a crazed trance like state behind the wheel, determined to everything in my power to get those miles down as quickly as possible. I actually was greatful for the wide and welcoming lanes of the interstate for once!

It was worth it though. Only some 8 hours after leaving yellowstone the huge plinth of Devils Tower rose into view. Its pretty bloody cool to see it look exactly as it did in one of my favourite episodes of the goodies (about 2:30 in). It might also have been in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After a brief walk around the tower to take it all in and look for that hidden military base we struck onwards towards Deadwood, and all its glitzy Casino filled glory. Its the old west as it really used to be, if the old west was crammed with poker machines, casinos owned by Kevin Costner and cheap buffet meals... the buffet was pretty good though! (The meal that is, the town is worth driving though though - its pretty on the outside...)

Next morning was off to Mount Rushmore, its exactly the size I thought it would be. The four figures inscribed upon it actually do instill a feeling of respect, even for an outsider like me. The information boards as you walk around outlining why each Pres is there and his greatest achievements make you realise what an impact these men had on their country, and really, to the rest of the world as well. (I doubt Saint Kevin will be inscribed on any mountain any time soon - put it that way).

While chatting to a lovely lady from Minnesota we got caught up in YET ANOTHER stupid decision - to hop in the car and zoom to the very close (on the map) Black Hills National Park... it was only an hour and a half out of our way. It was worth it though, stunning and strange twisted magical sandcastles in the afternoon light, prarie dogs popping up and down like a game of wack-a-mole and ramrod strait dirt roads flying off into the distance with a lone car raising a trail like a lone rider in the days of the Pony Express. This was wide open country, nothing to blemish the green sweep to the horizon but the occasional farm, haystack, and... something more sinister lurking under the thin soil...

We then struck out south into Nebraska, where our second huge day-on-the-run ended with sunset at a most strange monument. Carhenge... a wonderful recreation of stonehenge in all its mystery and grandeur but made out of cars. But this one was better than the original, as you can WALK RIGHT UP AND TOUCH IT! Take that U.K. National Trust and your stupid rules...

We now rest easy in the quiet and pleasant middle of nowhere town of Alliance. I wont be making any more last minute decisions though. The things you can see in a day are amazing, but the petrol costs are killing me!

Yellowstone National Park

2009-07-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

Shortly after we arrived at Yellowstone, a lightening storm hit us forming a striking setting for some shots of the white thermal terraces against the dark grey sky. Between showers we managed to get the tent up, see some impressive lava lined gorges, breathtaking waterfalls and have Jue cook a delicious meal over the fire. Jamila had "the best day ever" on her birthday. She had a party with her toys near the lake, a wander around deep springs, licked chocolate icecream at the Old Faithful Inn (stunning log lodge) and saw old Faithful geyser blow it's top - "It's saying happy birthday to you Jammy!" To finish up, spotting a couple of bears in the wild (a black and grizzly) made for a perfect day.

Missoula Summer Saturday

2009-07-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

It's rest day between camping. Jue has checked us in to a nice hotel, we've showered, washed clothes and the girls have watched way too much Sponge Bob Square Pants on cable television. We're keen to see what this town has to offer but it's 97 degrees Fahrenheit outside - so we just do what everyone else is doing... and that's toobin' down the river.

The water is cooling beers and the edge is busy with tatooed teenagers smoking, swearing and spitting. Groups head off with eskies tied to their inner tubes. After we've refreshed ourselves (looking out of place in our sun cancer aware get up) we are ready for the next National Park.

Ricky Ponting you bloody rippa!

2009-07-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Just when I'm in danger of being totally brainwashed by American culture, food and cars, Ricky comes along to remind me JUST what it means to be an Australian! Bloody oath he does! No matter where I am in the world I can rest easy knowing that there is always a little piece of Australia , a cultural touchstone and SOLID WAKE UP CALL that says "MATE! THIS IS HOW WE DO IT IN AUSTRALIA!!!"

Apparently how we do it is to bitch and moan and act in an unsportsman like manner on "sportsmans day" at the ashes... I thought it might take until at least the 3rd test this time around - but he's gone beyond even my wildest hopes and dreams by starting his brilliant whinging form with the first test and continuing on well into the second - and that's just for starters! I can't wait until England start winding him up with that old substitute fielders trick of his or how he'll react when Rudi Koertzen is named man of the series. I just wish I could be at work so I could send out inflammatory emails calling for his dropping for the 3rd test along with Mitch J... except this time they wouldn't be inflammatory - more likely just a statement of plain fact - am I right!? Still - he hasn't been this entertaining since that transsexual knocked him out in front of the 'Bourbon in Kings Cross... Happy times.

As for the U.S. well, apart from being distracted by the Ashes, and trying to work out just what the hell time it is in the UK, we're getting ready for Jamila's birthday which will be in Yellowstone National Park on the 20th. I've arranged to have the park closed so we can hold a private party for just her and the animals. Should be a real treat.

We've also been a little humbled by just how big some mountains over here can be - we took the drive of our life in Glacier National Park, and as Lib was constantly reminding me as we struggled up the crumbling goat track named the Going-to-the-sun-road, it could well have also been the last... imagine the road out to the cotter river. Now make it about 2/3rds of the width it is. Now imagine pinning it to the side of a cliff with the skill of a drunken Australian Cricket Captain circa 1978 on a Qantas flight to the UK (not the sober whinging type they have now)... NOW imagine filling it with oversized "utes" driven by slack jawed yeeehaws looking up at the snow instead of at the damn road and you have an idea of what driving this road is like. Sheer drop one side to certain death, craggy sharp teethlike wall on the other just waiting to chew up your precious hire car and spit you out with a massive excess payment in US dollars...

And despite all that I'd do it again in an instant. We actually have done it twice already anyhow... The road might be tough but the views... the wildlife... is just stunning. Mountains, realt sharp mountains you can touch... that have a peak. Not like those try hard hill-upon-hill things we have back home. There's waterfalls, not just one or two - but hundreds of global warming-glacial melting thunderous falls exploding from every crevace and overhang. There are hidden lakes, grizzleys and mountain lions (we of course didn't see any, but being an Australian I'm glad of that - I'm sure these yanks would all expect us to wrestle it to the ground and then parade it around for everyone to gawk at...). I suspect the rangers they have over here *could* wrestle a grizzly - but would choose not to out of respect. The rangers we've met are all very cool, and have such wildly varying backgrounds as education, geology, biology and ice-cave and igloo building. That variety really goes towards making a visit to any park over here so interesting... talk to any ranger and you'll get a different viewpoint/piece of new information on any given subject... its all so... enlightening! Which is a pain, this is a holiday - we SHOULD NOT be learning ANYTHING.

It more than makes up for every strip mall and cluster of foul take away that besets you when you even think about visiting a city (except Seattle - which I really do still like). Its big. It FEELS big. Its not as old as Australia, but it FEELS old. You can see the geology here. You can see where glaciers slowly tore their way through this landscape, where tectonic activity thrust these giants upward out of the flat prarie... it... has impact.

But no hot dogs.

The lamp post.

2009-07-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

The North Cascades are one of the last great wilderness areas of the lower 48 states, sure a highway runs through the middle of it - but to the north and south of that highway are huge, impenitrable tracts of high high peaks and hidden valleys, and incredibly, over 300 glaciers... after summer the air grows cooler, the tourists drift away, and the huge amount of snow and diminishing returns on clearing the road close the highway for 8 months of the year. No one gets in here then, no one... leaving the wild mountains and valleys to only the wildlife...

But even in the heart of the wilderness, America throws up the occasional architechtural treat. Diablo dam was built in the early part of last century to help power the city of Seattle, its completion in the 1920s leaves it with some very nice art deco touches - my favourite being these totally out of place lamp posts that line the top of the dam, delivering their soft glow into the cold wilderness every evening at dusk, a string of lights in the middle of the wild dark...

Of course its not that wild, well not the part we visited anyhoo... Lib and I had some nice beers and hot dogs and the girls snacked on marshmallows and chocolate chip cookies just 6 miles down the road in the company town of Newhalem - and it *is* a company town - the only people that live their work for the utility company. Its kinda quaint, antiquated and also nostalgic at the same time - they're a dying breed.

And speaking of beer, I reckon the poor old US has been given a bum rap over the quality of their brews. I've had some very nice times, relaxing in our campgrounds, listening the the happy cry of nearby kids or the rush of a glacier fed river while sipping a local brew. That said, dont try any of the mainstream stuff (Miller, Budweiser, Coors) that stuff is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH and they deserve all the bashing they get.

One thing that deserves kudos though is the camping system and facilities over here, there's been literally hundreds of campgrounds we've passed with a wistful look wishing we had longer to stay and experience them, a lot with rangers in attendance who would give nightly informative talks around a campfire while sleeping bag snuggled families listen on... we dont really get that in Australia to the extent it is over here.. like New Zealand, the yanks really know how to make the most of their outdoors. Must be why we love it so much over here.

Its not all wilderness though, one of my favourite parts of our stay in Seattle was a trip underground, to the old forgotten parts of the city, abandonded after the city was rebuilt in the early 1900's after a disaterous fire. To rise above the tidal flats (and the associated problems they had with sewerage!) a series of sea walls were built, and the city roads all raised by 12 to 30 feet on landfill and stone walls. Thats right - the road only... the buildings weren't raised, you can imagine the difficulties this led to with horses and drunkards falling to their doom almost daily... finally at the completion of the plan, sidewalks were built from the roads to the edge of every building, much like a bridge, leaving what was the ground floor now a basement and the space below the sidewalk an empty hollow... what an exciting place to explore! We loved it - the corridors are thick with ageing detritus from times past, ancient graffiti insulting long dead sailors, huge rusting cogs, pumps and cables from disused and dismembered utility machinery... theres ghost stories, bordello stories, black market and crime stories, hot-dog stories - but you'll have to experience it for yourself if you ever get here...

One last thing -its our wonderful little nephew Louis' birthday today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOUIS! We all hope you have a wonderful day - here's a picture of Jammy with a squirrel! Did you see any when you were in America? Did you see any chipmunks too? Jammy and Lucy love squirrels and chipmunks. They wish they could give you a hug today but instead say "we love you LOUIS!"

That gum you like is going to come back into style...

2009-07-12T22:58:00.000-07:00

Twin Peaks was a real love of both Lib and mine for a long time, and it was one of those things we had in common to chat about when we were first getting to know each other. So it was wonderful to finally get to see some of the places it was filmed in over 20 years ago, and reminisce about the show and ourselves - time flies eh? It was an amazing program and was really for me the first "must see" television, and pretty much the only one until X-Files and Lost. Twin Peaks was a wonderful mix of nostalgia, horror, the wonderfully mysterious and the askew that came together in a brutal fashion in what I still consider to be the most powerful pieces of television footage ever shown ushered in by the "giant" and one of his mysterios clues coming true: "it is happening again", we won't spoil just *what* was happening again... I haven't linked to the full scene though as its a little *too* brutal... (you can always borrow our DVDs and experience it yourself!)

We saw the famous Snoqualmie Falls, the Great Northern Lodge (just above the falls), and the RR cafe which is in the town of North Bend... it all looks just like it did in the series, and is a great place to visit in person to boot.

The scenery in Washington is amazing, Lib has already mentioned just how dominant Rainier is, but also the surrounding areas and even Seattle itself is quite beautiful - this would be a great place to live if you didn't mind the fact that it rained for half the year... actually coming from Australia in drought that might not be such a bad experience either...

Leaving Seattle we passed into the beautiful Northern Cascades, huge moutainous chunks of rock piercing the sky, even now some parts still blanketed in snow... Lucy and Jammy were real troopers and marched their way all up a trail to the snow to make snowballs and snowmen... we had beautiful weather, glorious sun, a warm breeze, and freezing cold snow to slip and slide about on like a bunch of no-hopers...

Multiple Moments

2009-07-10T00:18:00.000-07:00

Praise the Lord! It's happened! I've been anticipating that I will have an ultimate experience while I'm over here - but, so soon!!!! No, I'm not talking about that! I'm talking about several days of me saying to Jue, "Been there, done that"..that has lead up to......TONIGHT. I've absolutely loved seeing Waikiki, San Francisco, The Redwoods, Crater Lake and the Interstate Hwy but I have seen it before. I've even been to the awesome display of force and distruction at Mount St. Helens before. I was impressed seeing where green had replaced grey. However, it was only 8 years after the 'event' when I last saw it, so a sick part of me took pride in the fact that,"I've seen it worse." Once again I went to Mount Rainier national park and once again found it covered in cloud. But tonight for the first time on this trip my jaw has dropped impulsively with an outburst of "OH MY GOODNESS" not once,.. twice!

Firstly, after going on a underground city tour of Seattle and getting $1 discount to go up the Smith Tower, I was standing on the observation deck checking out the sights from the road below up to the horizon. I glanced up to the sky......AND I SAW IT, the top of Mount Rainier. It dominates the skyline, it's as far away as Marulan is from Canberra, and it is STILL MASSIVE. No photo can do justice to first hand eye witness nor the deep sense of gratitude felt by seeing such an enormous volcano.

Secondly, we saw a ball game, we saw a home run, we saw the Mariners win, we sucked up the 4th of July x 1000 atmosphere and went nuts with the rest of the stadium and OH MY GOODNESS we got it all for free! After rejecting the purchase of $22 tickets just to watch the last half hour or so, Jue got talking to security officer Kelly. One thing lead to another and we got in. The girls were also given a stash of stuff including a certificate for first time attendence at a baseball game. Just like a photo, no words of mine could do justice to the high we all had tonight.

Comments... and on the road

2009-07-08T22:11:00.001-07:00

Apparently comments somehow got turned off, so for you thousands out there just gagging to comment on our travels you're now at liberty to do so...

After the success of Crater Lake we decided to make a double header of it and head right off to another volcano... this time Mount St Helens... far to the north and over the boarder in the state of Washington. We had a lot of miles to cover so I roused the gang early and asked them to make me some damn breakfast... that didn't really go according to plan so I got up and got some breakfast myself... ingrates.

When you've got a lot of miles to cover by car theres really only one way to go here in the states, and thats by interstate. Zipping along on 2,3,4 or more lanes at 70 miles an hour and over. Its fast, flat but far from fun...

The only fun to be had is looking at the blue information signs that start pop up as you near every major cross road showing every interesting fast food joint with names like Arbys and Carls Jnr.... I have no idea what these places sell but feel it would be interesting to find out sometime... in the same way that it would be interesting to find out how it would be to loose a finger... The fast food places swarm like gnats around these glowing intersections of commerce as the Interstate passes high above. The only sign we have from the car that theres any habitation nearby is the gangle of neon fast food signs jutting up on their long rusting legs.

Apart from this the interstate seems to have been designed to remove any possible driver distraction and all evidence of habitation while you drive... for mile after dangerously speeding mile all that be seen is the flat farming plains, truck after truck and the occasion strange twisting form of a willy willy tossing a frustrated farmers freshly cut hay hundres of meters into the air in some strange juggling game. Every town is either passed way over or hidden behind high sound walls.

Off the interstate though things get much more interesting. You can take any road, go in any direction and I bet that within five miles you'll come across some interesting new small town, with a colourful and intersting (though short) mainstreet with a bank, petrol station, pizza joint and a waetherboard bar, with ubiquitous neon COORS and OPEN signs flashing in the window. These towns are everywhere... in Australia even in the populated areas you sometimes have to drive for hours just to bo so bitterly dissapointed to find out the next town is Dubbo or Bungendore... but these small towns are the kind of place you just wish you had a few more moments to explore, or to talk with some of the locals.

But no, the svelte and sexy interstate with its sevently mile an hour allure is calling... and when you've so much ground to cover that 70 miles an hour helps make up for any missed opportunities... and there's always next time... right?

KABOOM!

2009-07-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

I've been to a fair few impressive volcanoes... not surprising when you love N.Z. as much as we do... but nothing could really prepare me for how incredible Crater Lake is... Lib has often commented how its one of the things that really stuck in her mind from her last trip - 21 years ago.

I would "oh okay" and "yeah yeah" and "hmmm, really?" to all her waxing lyrical about it. Its just another mountain right?... right? Well no, not really. Its a big mountain. Its a big mountain with no top. Its a big mountain with no top, no middle either and a huge, HUGE deep DEEP lake of the purest blue filling its explosivly removed heart.

Seeing it on a sunny day like we did was a stroke of genius on my behalf, and great planning, as shadows play across the rim and the sun strikes deep into the depths of the lake.

There's a lovely road that travels right around the rim of the crater providing amazing views... my favourite, interestingly enough, was not into the canyon but away from it, to the north. A huge forest expanding out towards the horizon with the occasional starry dollop of rock in the form of a huge and craggy mountain. The spaces out here are huge... and for the first time they *feel* huge. Here is the America of my childhood imagination writ large in the font of the U.S. State Parks Service and painted with the pallette of an old episode of Lassie...

We camped nearby, as I'm a cheap bastard at heart and didn't want to shell out $250US for a room for the night in an amazing lodge up on the crater rim... I almost regret that... but the fun the kids had identifying all the different types of biting insects at the campground more than made up for it.

I also made a stunning discovery - our car has *sattelite radio*! Its amazing! Now I can do the whole road trip never having to change CDs again as I've found the station of my dreams... all 80's all the time 24/7 everywhere in the US. The only downside is it seem so be interrupted by any passing planes, cars, telegraph poles, trees lights, buildings or excessive road markings...

Thats no moon...

2009-07-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

... actually it is. Its Endor, or more precisely the moon of Endor sight of a famous battle in Return of the Jedi. It was filmer right near where we're staying in the Redwoods State park. We had the girls keeping a keen eye out for any Ewoks so I could brain them and castigate them for taking the rightful place of the Wookies in the original script for the film (how much cooler would Wookies have been! than these little pests?!)

Today was a lazy day - Jammy spent some time with Libby on her schoolwork and Lucy and I took in the local strip clubs, dive bars and crack joints. It was a helluva day, and it sure is nice of the local sherrif to let me write in my cell, and have a cot in here for Lucy too - right hospitable!

I can hear the mournful toll of the fog horn from the harbour outside the window this evening. I heard it last night as well... all night.

Normally that continuous, precise type of noise is just the type to send me right of my rocker, like a ticking clock, a dripping tap, some annoying insect or the bass from some infernal party just on the edge of hearing... but this... wasn't so bad. I lay awake and thought about the thousands of boats who have passed out of this harbour, of the few who would have found their way back only by that distant toll through the thick fog, and for the few who would never have heard it again, lost on the sea. I thought about bout how, in this part of the world, that sound is as comforting to some as a home lighthouse is to others after a long stint on the sea... and here - unlike most any other place I've been, the sea is in the lifeblood of the town, a real and everpresent beating heart, and a rough and temperamental one at that.

Happy birthday....

2009-07-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

... to CAM! And America apparently. Things are going nuts at the moment. People are yee-haawin' and whoo-hooo'n their heads off. Its a real humdinger of an evening! Picture - if you will - several thousand slightly drunk parents, and their kids, crammed into the marina at Batemans bay, lining the docks yelling and screaming, cussin' and drinking. Pretty interesting? Then pile 'em up - WAAAYYY up with every illegal firework you can imagine and let em go nuts.

Thats pretty much what the evening of the 4th of July's like in Crescent City. Its... an education. It like, I imagine, being in Bagdad during "shock and awe" with all the shock and awe but a slighty reduced fear of imminent death... its bloody crazy, and very fun! Everyone seems to love it and the official fireworks get lost in the groups of youngsters trying to outdo each other with more and more wildly illegal firworks hauled in from Washington state.

4th July is a big deal here - we stopped at a town called Ferndale on our travels North today - and apart from having the best damn burger I've had in a long time, I really noticed the passion people had for the day. From dressing in red white and blue, to parading around town with huge placards proclaiming that big government is the death of freedom, and that "Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing its idiot" - I kid you not -thats a bumper sticker too. Theres beautiful cars parading around and almost every downtown building is done up with bunting and streamers. Was nice to be able to share such a special day with people who found it so important...

...until we got back into the fog that is. The damn cold fog rolls in whenever you even THINK about maybe going close to the ocean. Its dampens the air, chills everything right down, and provides a handy prop for a game we called "guess that official firework" Where several thousand of dollars of fireworks would shoot WAY up into the fog to boom and bluster and leave only a hazy fog induced afterglow of their true self to those watching below...

4th July is of course also Cams birthday - happy birthday Cam from us over here in the states! Lucy - and all of us hope you had a good a day as we did*

*(with less fog)

Blue yonder

2009-07-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

Fair dinkum, cities are alright but its out in the wild where America gets really interesting. We're up in redwood country now and this like nothing I've ever seen. Makes you feel small and insignificant standning next to some of these huge trees - now I know how Rich felt growing up with me as a big brother to look up to - just hopelessly outclassed...

Once we were away from the fog of S.F. the sun came out and things really warmed up... it was hot - damn hot. We slouched our sweaty way into out first WalMart (not the amazing experience we were expecting - its like Target or K-mart but without the pizazz but with actually helpful staff...) for our last camping supplies and then chugged down some sugary drinks and our first taste of jack-in-the-box... which was surprisingly pleasant - in a fast food near death fat overdose way.

Then BAM! I was floored, absolutely knocked out by how beautiful redwood country is. Lib LITERALLY had to take control of the car as I passed out from aesthetic overload and ended up "somehow" on the wrong side of the road for some reason. We got to our camp and realised that we were going to have a hard time topping this campsite on our travels as it is amazing... made us (well everyone except me) forget completely about the stupid amout of money we'd spent on camping supplies and carrying the bloody big tent halfway around the world.

We walked, we swam, we ate crappy American mashed potato powder that seems to include only glue powder and no taste, we swam some more, we ate horribly sweet american oatmeal with "real fruit!" blueberries (ingredients oats, sugar, colored flavored dried fig pieces) and we swam some more. The swimming was great. We also swam.

If you ever make it over this way I highly recommend camping in Burlington camp ground in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park.. but skip the dried mashed potatoes - they really do suck excruciatingly.

...the swimming is good though.

Gay Pride!

2009-06-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

San Francisco - whoo boy talk about my favourite city!
Cause after visiting San Francisco its still Kuala Lumpur...

Nah its pretty bloody good here. There's no doubt that its beautiful. Row after row of amazing and expensive houses until you just wish Flanders was dead. What has really hit me about downtown San Francisco is just how...bi-polar it is. Its beautiful, colourful, prides itself on its Liberal views, and yet, right in front of the Bently Prestige car showroom where you swoon over how cheap lovely cars are over here is a cadre of homeless people sleeping in the chill breeze... Two blocks from the most expensive shopping mall I've ever been in feels like a war zone with yells and honking and smells that would make a Bankok residend gag. Its beautiful sun downtown with the smell of hotdogs and popcorn on the air, flags flying, and a 15 minute bus ride away on the bride your freezing your arse off in the dense obscuring fog as you cling on for dear life to the famous "international red" handrails and look down at the cold, cold deep water so far below.

...and its all brilliant. Its an amazing mash of experiences, and theres no doubt as to why so many people love this place. It feels alive. No featureless plain of suburbs is this town, it rises and falls and twists and turns till your stomach (and legs!) just cant take any more! The food is amazing. The people, all of them, friendly and happy to talk. The views stunning, and the architechture breathtaking (personally I'm more impressed by the bay bridge than the Golden Gate - but dont let the authorities in on that).

One thing to be wary of over here is not to be too sensitive about your accent. None of these bloody yanks can tell the difference between Aussie, New Zealand, English, Irish - and believe it or not - sometimes even French and German... its not like I walk around calling these guy Venezualen or anything... one poor lady had no idea what I was on about when asking if she was using all the chairs at her table...
"Are you using all these chairs?"
"What?!"
"Oh... are you using these chairs?"
"WHAT?! I dont HAVE and cheese!"
"Nono! chaiRRRRRS"
...

...oh and its Gay Pride weekend... busiest damn day of the year here... nice planning Jue...

Donuts...

2009-06-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

I'd always imagined that the United States would look somewhat... different. A little more gritty than real life, a little more colour saturated, a litle more exciting. Kind of like living in an episode of the Banana Splits or the Beastie Boys video for "Sabotage". I thought it'd be jiving on the street corner with a gang in no time, yelling out "Fo' sho' Mofo!" and popping a cap in someones ass, or at the very least being asked to appear on LOST to make up for all the rubbish Australian accents they've had so far...

Its not really like that though, real life in America is very much like real life in Australia. Okay, theres a few obvious differences. For starters, the cars are WAY cooler over here. Where we have Magna's, Commodores and Falcons they have Mustangs, Chargers, Magnums, Flambangoes and Lincoln Town Cars . Those last ones are perhaps my favourite - not because they're amazingly cool or anything, but they're the car of coice for United States police forces... watching them cruise around Waikiki really WAS for a few short moments like being on the set of the Blues Brothers or Die Hard. American Cop cars LOOK like they mean business - even when the drivers are cruising past, one arm out the window and the other holding a donut - these are cop cars you dont want to mess with. They install fear with a single "WHOOP" at any and all hours of the day and everyone watches their step when they're around, and whoo boy - if they catch you driving a Flambango...

As for Waikiki - now that we're leaving I can say I liked it. Its like a great big happy version of Surfers Paridise that's about the same size and also about as happy. Lots of food, lots of shops and lots of boob jobs (not that I noticed, Lib just happened to mention it in passing... ahem). I feel that when we come back we'll need to explore other sides to the island, there must be more to it than just walking around smelling burgers and tanning oil and trying not to notice the boob jobs the whole time.

Aloha!

2009-06-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

Aloha!

We've had such a great start to our trip, that we're prepared for everything to go downhill from here. In saying that we're sure it wont! Our overnight flight to Hawaii was as good as can be expected and we landed smoothly listening to "Forever Young" which was playing on the loud speakers. Jue, as usual, has planned well for his family booking into a luxury hotel for the first few nights (it can be seen in the background of this photo).

The girls are making the most of their time here by establishing a relaxing routine of alternating swimming and eating sessions. Waikiki has fantastic swimming areas for children. Tanned buxom bikini clad bodies are everywhere and surfing schools also line the beaches. I have eaten my first condiment filled hotdog including sport peppers and pickles. A distinct lack of healthy breakfast cereals has delighted the girls who have now tasted Coco Puffs, Frosty Flakes and Lucky Charms.

Tomorrow we fly to San Jose and as we have already been through customs, it shouldn't be too difficult to then make our way quickly up to San Fransico. By the way, as we are travelling with children we were able to avoid the massive 1 1/2 hour custom queue. We were kindly taken to an express lane and only had to wait behind two people. We wonder if San Fran will have as many human statues as Oahu - hope not! Jamila is obsessed with them and our spare change is being spent seeing what they do when they move.

Fast Food Heaven

2009-06-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

While we're in the US one of our main objectives, apart from having fun, is to try to find the perfect hot dog. (I hear it may be a hard slog seeing as we're only on the west coast and the real hotdog havens are are all on the east coast).

While we're trying to find the best hot dog though - I thought it would be shame to neglect the U.S.'s other contributions to the culinary world. To this end, we'll be endeavouring to stop at at least one of each of the following fast food chains from the United States:

Actually, at 190 theres not only too many to list, theres too many to visit... what a shame, I was looking forward to that... it only would have been 2 a day...

The ironic twist to this though is the fact that the *worst* food for you in America is named the Aussie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing. Strange... I dont remember mum ever serving anything like that!

Vacation...

2009-06-19T05:07:00.001-07:00

So...
...here we go.

After almost a year of planning, FAR to much thinking about where to go and for how long we're just about to head off on our very first trip to the United States of America. The weekend has been spent packing... packing clothes, packing gear, packing tents, packing the kids off to the parents... but now everything is just about done, and all there is left to do is watch the clock tick down to takeoff time, and relax, safe in the knowledge that the only thing I have to worry about is the last day of work and having to try, most likely unsuccessfully, to look like I'm working (I mean hey - why start now?).

SO where are we going? How long are we gone? 106 nights, 12 states (feels like it should be more) and over 9000kms of driving... you'd think the sheer size of such an undertaking would be overwhelming...

Thankfully, its not - my limited intellect, along with my shocking memory combine to keep me blissfully unaware of the dreaful possibilities; What if I dont like American food? What if I dont speak the language? What if the kids come back with American accents? What if I don't like the beer...

And the greatest fear of all, given that its such a long road trip: what if I go slightly mad in an overenthusiastic dad type way and Libby starts calling me "sparky"...