Comments... and on the road

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!

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...

... 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....

... 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

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.