365

2008-12-30T19:02:00.009Z

365 days, 16 countries and a full circumference of the globe. So how much would a trip like this cost? The tickets, 20 flights, cost almost exactly £2000. We bought a couple more, at about £120 each, along the way. A long van rental in Australia? Just over 50 days in the off season cost us about £1500 between us. Considering that was our accommodation as well it wasn't too bad. But if anyone if staying longer than a couple of months then buying a vehicle is the way to go.
Our American Subaru set us back a couple of thousand quid and we sold it in a rush for about £900 with it's nagging new fault!

So the real cost it just living. All in all I probably spent about £12,000 just on food, getting around and sightseeing. I bought only a couple of momentous from the trip as carrying the newly purchased items or sending them back expensively is a hassle I can live without. It was enough to carry a backpack and another bag in my hand on those long travelling days, not that they were packed with clothes. For the first 6 months I survived on one pair of boxer shorts!
Since I've been back in the world of odd new phrases like 'credit crunch' many people have asked me what my favourite country is. I've not even scratched the surface as far as world travel goes but I'd definitely like to see more of Japan and New Zealand. America's landscape is amazing and just everyday living in South America was for me the true spirit of what a trip like this is all about.

One person has asked me what my worst country is and to be honest that's an even harder question. I plumped for Bolivia because the people were miserable, there was a lot of civil unrest once we left, but there's some truly beautiful scenery there. The unwanted attention in China and the annoying con-men in Bangkok were only minor bugs in an otherwise exceptional trip. We spent a year almost constantly travelling and encountered only one dodgy situation and even that was not a full week into the trip.
Would I do it all again? Well, yes. I'm not sure if I'd stay away for as long as a year again but six months definitely. Although, for anyone who hasn't already done the year trip then I would recommend it unquestionably.

I've been set a back and left speechless soo many times along the way with soo many memories that keep coming back to me that will stay stored away in a dusty corner of my brain forever. I've come back a red wine and green tea drinker but other than that nothing has changed except for my massive appreciation for the great country of my birth. It's funny how much things about your own country you miss, good British ales for one, and how much the people who live here take everything for granted and really do a good job of putting it all down.
As I go about my daily business I often think that at this very moment there's guys in flip-flops and shades doing some welding in China. There's a bronzed, beer bellied 50 year old guy catching a few waves on his surf board. There's a tour guide explaining the Inca ruins in three different languages. There's a perfect Argentinian steak being served, a stunning American mountain range being snowboarded, a huge New Zealand glacier being explored inside and a funk band playing in the dark clubs of the white city of San Francisco. Whatever it is, wherever it is, when you're travelling there's always something going on and it's almost impossible not to love it.

An American tale

2008-12-30T18:31:00.007Z

So what of North America. We'd driven right across country dipping in and out of Canada along the way. We'd covered about 26,000 miles in the Subaru and a around 2,500 in hire cars in the 6 months we'd spent here. We'd visited around 31 of the American states, staying in some longer than others. We passed briefly through states like Maryland but stayed a month in California.
There's a reason for that, California has to be one of the most vast, varied and interesting states. It has the best city in the country in San Francisco and has the best national park, Death Valley. A state like this has everything anybody like me could want, surf, snow, winding coastal roads, Spanish towns, desert, cities, huge wilderness, large mountains and vast forests. If there's any state that can beat that I don't know anything about it.

As far as I'm concerened, the states of the west far outweigh the ones to the east for things to see and do. The east may have some picture box towns and a couple of decent cities but it can't compete with the sometimes wacky nature of the land of the west.

We kept largely away from the vast wilderness of Canada as the cold further south in the U.S. was as much as we cared to take. There's vast areas to explore there, maybe one day I will.
On the whole I hate North America and I absolutely love it. Over 90% of the towns and cities aren't worth visiting at all as they're all so generically the same. But it's the nature, the massive expanses, the unbelievable scenery and the feel of an endless outdoor playground that still make North America a place you must visit. If you can put up with crap food and worse culture then you will be rewarded with some of the most weird and wonderful landscapes on this planet.

The last leg

2008-12-18T18:08:00.012Z

One night left in Miami, one night left in North America, One night left of a year long trip. It's been a long and ever eventful journey.
Our last night was spent in South Beach Miami in a boutique hotel that bore little relation to all the other cheap motels we'd stayed in America. A bit of luxury for our last night.
Although the majority of Miami is dull sprawl, spending a couple of nights in South Beach is great. We're in walking distance of everything, including the bars along the front near the beach. It's a good, and rare, place to be in America where you can sit outside sipping cocktails in the balmy weather of a an evening. The art deco buildings surround the few streets around our hotel and the beach front with their neon glow at night. Starting with a free bar for an hour at our hotel we're merrily set up for an evening of reflection of the previous year and anticipation of going home the next day. Sipping Mojitos in South Beach is a classic way to end it all.
Another truly American experience was had in the morning of our last day, eating a full breakfast at an American diner. These places are fairly few and far between, a lot more so than I'd thought, but many chain diners exist. It was excellent to get into a proper independent diner and have 'the works'. Even more typical was the foreign owners, Cubans this time, as the majority of films would have you believe that America is run by middle class white folk.
We stroll the beach in the blazing sunshine and wonder if Manchester will be this warm, of course not! Still, I don't know what people are talking about when they say everyone around here looks like models, maybe they mean hand models because the majority are damn ugly.

Just before we leave a guy with designer clothes, brand new trainers, gold chains and a bag full of stuff asks us for five dollars, I tell him to sell his shoes.

On the way to the airport we stop off to have a look at the odd looking Bacardi building, I'm not even sure this has any other purpose than just looking square but it's decent either way. I didn't realise this was the base for Bacardi but it makes sense being so close to Cuba and the Caribbean.
So that was it. All that's left is getting our flight and wondering whether British Airways would massively charge us for getting all our luggage on board, including two snowboards and boots. Luckily for us they didn't. In fact it turns out that BA was probably the best airline in the world we'd flown with. They make American Airlines look like the Wright brothers on their first crossing.
Miami is an odd place, I like it and I thinks it's terminally dull at the same time. I couldn't help thinking of the tv series 'Nip Tuck' and wondered if it might have been better if it'd been shot in Clitheroe. But that's America. They paint an amazing picture of what isn't always an amazing place. Us Brits are better at saying how bad everything is and how much worse it's getting when the real truth is that we're living some of the best lives in the world.
I've got butterflies in my stomach with nervous tension about coming home. Back to the real world, working weeks, wages and the end of constant travelling. What lies ahead?

More beer please

2008-12-15T17:58:00.005Z

West Palm Beach sounds like a place dripping with cash, large holiday resorts and bikini clad models. Well it did to me. The reality is another story. Around our motel is apparently gang territory and it does look pretty run down. Even so it's not exactly the Favellas of Rio.
We're here to see one of my favourite bands, Pearl Jam, handily supported by another of my favourites the Kings of Leon. The venue itself is typical Florida, an outdoor amphitheatre. The lightening and rain has been lurking around today but as the dark sets in the weather calms down.
As we queue to collect our tickets a guy at the front is holding everyone up. He's a one-legged guy who's trying to get into the more expensive area to no avail. I can only describe him as the typical Vietnam war veteran you see on American films and TV. Tie-dyed head handkerchief, 70's rock t-shirt and a 'far out' Californian accent. It would've been more amusing if Kings of Leon weren't already playing we couldn't get in without our tickets.
Once in we realise that the Kings of Leon aren't as popular n their homeland as they are back in good ole Blighty. It's a decent set which is only let down by the dour American crowd. Ah, let's get some beers in to quench our thirst in this intense humidity. It's not that simple. For starters beer is £5 a pint. I can stand that on an occasion like this, and with a wad of cash that we have from the car sale, but the real problem is actually getting served. No-one is willing to serve us without valid I.D. We both have our UK driving licenses but when the bar staff look through their huge book of state driving license photographs, for recognition purposes, they don't have it. Understandable, I suppose, that they would have Hawaii state license pictures and no UK ones, even if the UK is about as close! Our only hope, as we're advised, is to approach the sheriff and see if he'll escort us to the bar. How ridiculous. We ask the sheriff and his idol looking deputies if this is possible but they tell us by law they can't do it. However, they do point us in the direction of a more lenient barmaid. We buy one beer and don't bother with all the messing about again. Disappointing and nowhere near rock and roll enough for my liking.
A great set by Pearl Jam that couldn't even be interrupted by a couple of large planes descending very low overhead on the way into land nearby. After the gig it takes around two hours to get off the choked car park.
Next day we drive south to retirement paradise Fort Lauderdale.

We go to have a look at the long beach but even though the sun is out it's far too windy to be hanging around. A woman tells us about the ills of sea lice that can get inside your swimming costume whilst you're in the sea, lovely. Let's get to South Beach, Miami.

Miami without the vice

2008-12-08T18:56:00.007Z

How do you sell a car in America? Good question. A couple of well known car sales chains offer to buy used cars but for ridiculously knock down prices. As I find out, local car sales firms aren't interested in buying cars unless you're buying one of theirs. When you don't have an American phone number or permanent address advertising the car can be difficult. Luckily there's a free classified ad website on which we advertised the car and hoped for a response. It was just at this time when a loud knocking noise developed whilst driving. Oh good.
We decide to spend the last few days of the trip around the Miami suburbs and hopefully sell the car. Miami and it's districts is absolutely huge. It's a shame that the only real good bit is so incredibly small at South Beach.

We spend a few days visiting car dealerships whilst stopping in the infamous Miami-Dade area. Infamous because during the rather dodgy Bush election of 2000 the whole country, and some of the world, had it's eyes on this county. Why? Because of the refusal to recount the votes or even finish counting the votes cast in this district.
Pretty much the whole of Miami is complete and utter dirge but there are a couple of bright spots. We spend an evening in Coral Gables which is an area of upmarket restaurants set within and around Spanish Colonial buildings. We actually get the opportunity to sit and eat outside somewhere in this country, which is very few and far between. Luckily our food isn't complete tripe either, unlike what we see on everybody else's plates.
We're having no luck with the car sale and consider that an auction may be our only way to get rid of it. Not that we can find the car auction. We spend a couple of hours trying to follow internet directions to no avail.
Upon returning to our motel we find that a couple of people are interested in our car from our web advert. After a few phone calls and an eventual meeting, we sell the car and collect the cash within a couple of days. With 3 nights left of a year's trip some people would consider this complete lack of planning to be somewhat fortunate. Me too.
With a hire car sorted for the last couple of days we drive towards West Palm Beach for yet another complete fluke, the chance to see one of my favourite bands at the first gig of their new tour. The timing is beyond jammy.

Into the wild

2008-11-21T17:12:00.007Z

Stopping off for breakfast on a tropical island sounds like bliss. It isn't far from it either, other than the nearby road. The heat is is already tremendous and the scenery of this Key is gorgeous.

Entering the nearby Everglades National Park the road seems just above the water and the seemingly endless marsh land all around us. The Everglades is the third biggest mainland national park in America and is full of all sorts of marine and bird wildlife but my main interest is spotting some alligators. A short walk along a boardwalk almost instantly gives me a glimpse of a couple of alligators ready to pounce on a wary bird.
As the walk continues it leads out onto a large pond that at first sight seemed quiet and empty. That was until we started to look more closely and spotted around 10 alligators smoothly moving through the water hardly creating a ripple and then dipping out of view beneath. A couple of gators rest and yawn a few feet away from us in the shade of trees. Some of the gators are huge, not somewhere you'd want to go for a swim no matter how hot it felt!

We consider camping and wander why no-one else has bothered, after all the weather is fine for it so we decide to pitch the tent. This is when we discover the reason the place is deserted, the bugs instantly gather round. All that stagnant water and heat mean a classic breeding ground for the little blighters. We pack up and drive on.

We end up driving further than expected and arrive in Miami late in the evening. I begin to think more and more about the end of the trip with only a week left till we fly home. With little left to see we have to sell the car within the week and to fund the last few days as money has almost run out. Maybe I shouldn't have left it till the last week to sell the car.

West Palms, South Beaches and Ocean Drives

2008-11-20T22:25:00.014Z

Through the city of West Palm Beach we drive along straight coastal roads that rarely give glimpses of the coast. When we do we stop off for a stroll along a very busy section of beach which has pretty cool Atlantic waves hitting the shores. We pass plenty of surf shops, but no actual surf, and mammoth houses right on the beach front. Through West Palm Beach, we think, is a Rodeo Drive-like road that is crammed with top designer stores all set in Spanish Colonial pristine white buildings.
We plough on through Fort Lauderdale, the retirement capital of America and quite possibly where 80's sitcom Golden Girls was based, but don't really stop to have a look round. There's clearly plenty of cash about though as mansions dot the roadside. This stretch of Florida then clearly splits in two. A large sandbar has developed off the coast which is joined numerous times by many bridges along the way. On this wide sandbar the ultra rich live, as well as the plush islands in between, unlike the mainland where people live in almost squalid housing and run down neighbourhoods with countless boarded up buildings and lonely Mexican and Cuban immigrants wandering about. The divide is enormous.
When we enter Miami this theme continues until we get into Downtown. This area is still pretty grim but has a few skyscrapers and business people walking around the frazzled homeless people. Miami is huge. The downtown area isn't but as a whole it's massive. Over the bridge onto the rich side of town is where the real Miami in the movies is. You have to go right to the beach to find it and even then it's only a small area. South Beach Miami is the place to be. Ocean Drive is the road to be on and only at one end. A clutch of Art Deco hotels line the streets and are lit up at night to great effect. This classic buildings where nearly demolished but were saved and refurbished to retain some Americanism as the floods of Cuban immigrants came here.
We stroll along the beach and into a chain burger/diner place that is within the building that featured in the film Scarface. If you know the film then you'll remember the chainsaw incident that took place here.
It's only a flying visit here, so after a burger and shake we continue south because we know we'll be back here as our flight home depends on it.
I never realised the Atlantic Ocean could look so blue and around here it almost looks like Thailand, with it's long beaches and stunning water and constant sunshine. We were told that most Americans live in Florida at least once, but not many stay longer than a few years. The humidity is a bit overbearing after a while.
We are heading to the most southerly point in the U.S.A., Key West. The Florida Keys are a collection of islands that leave the tip of Florida and extend in a curve towards Cuba beneath. A 'Key' is an island no bigger than 10,000 square metres, I think, and the Florida Keys number around 1700. The main 20 or so islands are linked by a road and many bridges, which means some islands are hardly bigger than the road itself.
Fishing and boating is very popular here and you can see why as the water is a magical pristine blue. Many islands are dotted around and are only accessible by boat so it would be handy to have one. If you see pictures of the Florida Keys you'd be forgiven for thinking it was some tropical paradise but the reality is that the busy road is never far away. Many of the islands look tired and have crumbling shacks besides beautiful palm trees. There's a continuing theme of tat and awful looking restaurants with bad lobster paintings adorning many places. We do, however, cross a fabulous 7 mile bridge that would make for stunning photographs, if only there was somewhere to pullover. The bridge starts at island level and continues for a while until arcing up and then down again to let large cruise ships through.
We arrive at Key West which has around 35% of all the Key's population and in turn is the biggest island. There's a trashy holiday feel to the place with knackered bars and beer offers abound. The streets beside look good though with countless palm trees giving the place a Caribbean feel. Some guy in a shopping centre wants people to pay him to have a photograph taken with him and his parrot. We walk out and see a group of real sponges arranged in the shape of a man. It's scorchingly hot and after an hour of wandering we've seen enough. Around the corner is officially the most southerly point of the U.S. There's a guy trying to flog paintings and a plaque telling people of the significance of this place. Right next to it is a group of satellite dishes pointed out at sea towards Cuba. As we stand we are nearer to Cuba than we are Miami so they like to keep a watchful eye on their Communist neighbours. It was from here that intelligence was gathered about the Cuban missile crisis of the 60's when they granted Russia permission to keep nuclear missiles on Cuban soil.
We camp that evening on another extortionate state park but the pitch is literally ocean side. Unfortunately it's also roadside on this small Key and the constant traffic noise, especially from the rather slow but loud Harley Davidsons that are everywhere, make it a bit annoying. We eat tea and the rain starts. Soon it's hammering us in the tent and the wind batters the whole thing about in it's sand moorings. The only thing stopping it blow off into the ocean is us inside.
We've gone as south as we can go so we head back north wondering how much left to this trip there is. One national park to go.

A beer rollercoaster, a shuttle and Hulk

2008-11-20T21:49:00.011Z

On the west coast of Florida is Tampa Bay but we didn't drive the hour or so to visit the city itself, or even the beach. We came to Busch Gardens, a kind of big scale Alton Towers with an African theme. You know, roller coasters and lions, elephants and log flumes. Busch, it soon dawns on me, is the owner of the brewery that produces Budweiser beer, which explains the many beer stalls dotted around the park. The queues are short in this off-season time and we get on all the insane rides and have a ride on a circular train around the fake African plain. All sorts of animals are munching grass besides giant high speed coasters. It seems ridiculous but it works. There's plenty of room here and the weather also has an African theme.
A great meal at an British colonial style restaurant is followed by more stomach sickening rides and unbelievable tidal wave based water rides. Definitely more adult themed and in turn more interesting than Disney. If you've come all this way to Florida you've got to make the trip here, that's if you like feeling a bit sick all day and paying for the privilege.
After a rest day we drive to the opposite coast for another first. We attempt to get into the Kennedy Space Centre to see the huge display of space shuttle equipment and shuttles themselves but are turned away. This turns out to be for a very good and well timed reason. We've managed to time our visit with one of the last shuttle launches for the next few years. And I thought we just see a couple of decommisioned shuttles.
We have to drive to a nearby town to watch the launch from about 10 miles away with plenty of people who've come prepared with barbeques and beer for a bakingly hot day. We have to wait around for 3 hours to see the launch but it was worth it. The huge rumble of the shuttles afterburners make your hairs stand on end and the sight of the shuttle arcing it's way up through the atmosphere is an incredible sight. The people on the ground are impressed too. A few minutes and it's all over and the traffic chaos back to base ensues. All the way back I can't help thinking how lucky we've been without actually planning anything.
Next day it's off to the very close Universal Studies for another day of theme park mayhem. The park is split into two areas that require more cash to enter but the whole thing again is superb. A lot of the rides in one park are movie-based and less like traditional rollercoasters and more like effects driven entertainment. The other park is more rollercoaster based with a couple of excellent rides of which The Hulk was the most shocking. After a couple of 3-D rides and the 4-D Terminator movie, in which a giant metal spider appears to walk out of the screen, we dash to try and get on some rides we'd missed before the incredibly early closing time of 6:30pm. Most rides are shut at 6pm which doesn't really give you enough time to see it all. Considering it was the most expensive place to visit and Disney was the cheapest you'd have thought they could at least match Disney's 12am opening time. You're chucked out of the park and into a horrible cheesy Universal Street that has ugly brightly coloured bars and restaurants that all look fast foody but charge restaurant prices. We end up eating badly at a TGI Fridays chain restaurant, again a disappointing mistake when we actually come to splashing out on food.
We return for our last night at Eric's house in Kissimee. The end of 10 days excellent accomodation and also a sign that the whole trip is drawing to an end. 11 days left when we hit the road once again. It was all so simply not having to find a place to stay every night but on we must go.

Kissimee quick

2008-11-17T19:29:00.009Z

Orlando downtown is uneventful and like any other but we're in this vicinity because south of here is the house we'll be spending the next 10 days.
It's on what looks like the typical American housing estate that you see in the movies but what we haven't seen since we've been here. The large white houses are dotted around an 18 hole golf course which also serves as the back garden's view. It's all lush grass, small lakes and sandy bunkers. Thanks to the hospitality of Eric we've got our own room in this excellent house with attached swimming pool. After the amount of miles we've racked up and the almost constant travelling we find ourselves getting some healthy sleep end up lazing about the pool for a good few days. Suddenly I've never felt soo tired.

OK so we had to do it. We were too close not to. A day in Disney World just had to be done, didn't it? It's a kid-based theme park really and only has a couple of traditional rollercoaster rides. The main attractions here are the film and cartoon based attractions by the way of new 3-D movies combined with indoor rides. We've not seen this many English people since we'd left home. They're easy to spot too as they generally have red faces and are seen walking, of all things, near wide, busy roads in town.
Disney do a fantastic job with detail and the effort put into every ounce of the park is impressive. It's no wonder that kids love it. For me it was a little dull, especially the nightly parade through the fake streets, but worth a visit just to see how good Americans are at this stuff. Either way you can't deny the showmanship all rounded off by excellent fireworks put on each evening. Going to Disney World is an occasion no matter how old you are but at least I know I'll never have to go back ever again, don't even think about children! It's a long tiring day in baking sun but some comedy moments keep it entertaining, like the lines of overweight people driving around the queues in mobility scooters whilst trying to stuff a Flintstone's style turkey leg into their cake hole.
On our budget a visit to Disney would be otherwise impossible but thanks to free lodgings we manage to save enough to be able to visit a couple of other local theme parks. Even now though we begin to wonder if we'll have enough cash left to see out the trip, unless we sell the car early.

More south than the south

2008-11-17T18:25:00.011Z

Florida is the furthest south of all US mainland states. Yet, the southern droll accent and the southern way of living that is always labelled with states like Georgia or the Carolinas has all but disappeared. I can only guess that this is due to Florida past owners, the Spanish. The landscape seems similar but, due to it's position on the trade route from South America, there's many coastal towns with Spanish influence as this was a handy stop off on the way back and to Europe.
Along the coast we drive long straight roads with a mixture of dusky baron and lush foliage and not much else for hours. We know the Atlantic is on our left but rarely see it past the privately owned land, many houses boast private beach access or at least a private boardwalk to the beach over the road from their houses.
I'd read that the city of Jacksonville was the biggest city sprawl in mainland America. Jacksonville was almost entirely forgettable other than for that fact. Oh, and it oddly had a lighthouse in the centre of it amongst the many homeless.

At dusk we enter the town of St Augustine. This is North America's oldest, continuous, settlement. I'd never heard of it. Possibly because it was set up and run by the Spanish to repel the English pirates trying to steal the gold on the Spanish ships returning from South America.
A fort in St Augustine protected the ships and the town for 300 years and is still there today. Just to the back of the fort is a small pedestrian street of Spanish colonial buildings with tat and ice-cream now being sold within. The town looks superb on the whole and is dotted with excellent buildings that reminds me of southern California more than Europe.
In the morning we take a look at the fort and watch a display of cannon firing. Unfortunately they don't actually fire a cannon, mainly because they say it has a 3 mile range, but the noise and procedure gives you a flavour of what once went on here. The fort was moderately interesting but in the end it lost out to the British and we burnt down the town in classic pirate style.
From here we carry on along the coast as the heat persists but the rain begins. By the time we reach Daytona beach the rain is flooding the streets in a monsoon style downpour. Daytona Beach is the home of American motorsports as it's here where the NASCAR race series was born. Racing on the beach has now been converted into endless racing in circles at 200mph. Fast, brash and insanely dull. The town itself is another Blackpool-esque affair but I do like the large colourful prints on the tarmac that adorn the numerous road intersections.
There's a smattering of art-deco style hotels but the majority are of the high-rise Costa Del Sol style. Surfer's Paradise comes to mind. Leather skinned homeless and shoeless cycling locals are the main populous we see but on a sunny day this may well be a different place.
It's away from the coast into the centre of Florida we drive. We go there for two reasons, one is that we've bagged free accommodation with a friend of Laura's dad, the other is that Orlando is renowned for theme parks and over the top entertainment. Now that's something the Americans excel at!

Georgia on my mind

2008-11-11T22:36:00.007Z

From smoking mountains we get deeper into the south as we drive along roads of lush tropical trees into Georgia. We are now within the humid realm of the southern states giving you about 2 minutes with the air conditioning switched off before that close clammy atmosphere seeps into the car.
Before we get into Georgia we pass through the southern Virginia city of Charleston. This steamy settlement is sprawling and has the feeling of Brazil. There's plenty of attractive buildings around the French Quarter but mainly the housing consists of tired shacks surrounded by overgrown vegetation. The contrast along the same road is startling. We can't seem to find a centre to it and end up riding around block after block of residential streets.
The tropical theme continues over the bridge and the large sea inlet into Georgia. We stop at a rest stop to cook some food and can't believe the heat outside of the car. It seems like we've almost been in a perpetual, but fairly dry, winter in America so this extreme heat will take some acclimatising.

Savannah is a true southern town. Hot, clammy, French architecture and plenty of shaded squares. We stroll along baking streets next to red brick buildings such as the cotton trading one below. This was once the second busiest in the world and it's no surprise as cotton and slaves were in abundance at the time.

The majority of the population here are descended from those African slaves. We walk to the waterfront through a whisping tree filled park.

The waterfront int Savannah look better on photos than it really was. Old warehouses have been renovated into dull shops or restaurants and look decent enough but if you could smell this place, blimey it's bad. Luckily, in a way, I had one of my first colds of the entire trip and a blocked nose saved me from the stench of Savannah, until I blew it that was. I spot the biggest cockroach I have ever seen meandering along the waterfront and imagined many more where that came from. The smell of rotten and warm sewers is a bit of a put off but the majority of Savannah is attractive.

We sit for a while in the leafy square on which Forrest Gump awaits his bus in the film. It's a rare thing when a city in this country offers soo many opportunities for people to sit and relax in picturesque squares. In this heat it's a real bonus!
There's a strange feeling as we get back into the car and head even further south from the old French colonies of Georgia into the old Spanish colonies of the last state we'll visit in America, Florida. The ideas had run dry and going to somewhere like New Orleans or deep into Texas or Alabama would take a serious amount of miles and time. I always considered entering Florida would be a signal that the whole trip was coming to it's end. But that doesn't mean there isn't plenty left to see.

Shmokin

2008-11-06T21:51:00.005Z

After mile upon mile of green mountain views that all pretty much merge into one along the Blue Ridge Parkway we end up at the Great Smokey Mountains. More of the same really. We've done about 700 miles along this stretch and it has stayed consistently the same view. We are changing states now as we head further south. From Virginia into North Carolina and briefly over the Smokeys into Tennessee.
We've already passed through a few towns that have now only photographs as memories and vague recollections of not much.

I do remember the struggle it was buying some milk after a night camping along the Blue Ridge Parkway. There aren't too many towns and when there is they are verging on hamlets. We find a shop that is high on art produce and vegan food but only has £2 soya milk. The only other shop in town was a cafe that kindly poured some of their milk into a take away coffee cup for a dollar. Odd.
Before we enter the Smokey Mountains we stop off at the North Carolina town of Asheville. The southern accent is now in full swing and people have started to look more and more like each other. Everyone's friendly enough though and we even get a free supper at the motel when checking in.
Asheville is an odd town. In a good way. There are no chain stores here and it was also once home to James Vanderbilt, a Dutch billionaire who built the biggest house in America. You can visit the house but I think it was $30 or something equally ridiculous.
Uptight business types speed walk through the main town square as numerous hip students and complete loons wander about in between. The sun is hot and buskers play in the background as we chat to a hot dog salesman who decides to go to work everyday wearing a giant chef's hat.
It wasn't long from here were we enter the uber-cheese fest of Cherokee. Named after the Cherokee Indians, this place is now a mecca to all that is tat and crass about the American Indian population. Tourism is number one here but the town still remains free of alcohol due to a similar belief held by the Aborigines of Australia, that it gets you hammered. Huge waddling people in Hawaiian shirts bumble about town looking at bad t-shirts depicting Indians with wolves and so forth. The town is also an overpriced place to stay so we're forced to camp just within the Smokey Mountain National park.

The rain stays away overnight as we struggle to keep our measly fire going. A fairly young couple on another pitch keep wandering into the dark woods to break off branches and dragging huge parts of trees to throw on their fire. Much giggling and the odd bit of maniacal laughter goes on during the couple of hours this goes on.
One road takes you across the Great Smokey Mountains into Tennesse and numerous OK views can be had along the way. The mid-point of the 30 mile winding drive gives good views over both Tennesse and North Carolina before dropping down into Tennesse and the town of Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg makes Cherokee seem like a quaint town. Like Blackpool with even fewer attractions.
The rain now is pounding the car and we take a scenic drive to make us feel better. It pays off as for the first time in my life I spot a bear living in it's natural habitat. Meandering about it doesn't pay much attention to the short line of cars now stopped taking photos. That is until I wind my window down and it begins to amble towards us. Let's go!
The rain is now a full blown torrent as we pass through the equally crummy town of Pigeon Forge. Much more interesting name than town. Although, this is Dolly Parton's hometown and where her own theme park and waterworld is based. Dollywood. It's along Dollywood Lane, who'd a thunk it? It's closed for the evening but I doubt even if it wasn't I would'nt have bothered going in.
To keep heading south we re-enter the Smokeys and finally see where the name comes from. The rain and the humidity create a smoking effect rising from the trees and above the mountains. Not a bad sight on horribly rainy day.

A royal front

2008-11-04T19:22:00.007Z

From what was old British settlements we drive toward what seems like old British landscapes. Britain at one time was completley covered in trees and now we've arrived at Shenandoah National Park it seems this is what it could have looked like.
We stop overnight in a small town with an odd name, Front Royal, which is said that it took it's name from a royal oak tree in the centre. As the car's brakes have taken a hammering over the past 5 months I enquire about a price for fitting new brake pads. I thought £80 was a bit steep so buy some pads for £10 and decide to fit them myself in the next couple of days.
Steep winding roads take us up above town and into the start of what is an extremely long road. This road connects the Appalachian Mountains that make up Shenandoah National park and beyond with the Great Smokey Mountains around 750 miles away. The shear extent of a place like this is what America is all about, massive distance like that is hard to get into perspective.
Just in the Shenandoah National Park alone there are 75 viewpoints that enable you to pull over and take in the endless green mountain landscapes.

We soon learn after a few of these viewpoints that they're all pretty much the same for a good few hours. The landscape is excellent viewing but stopping at each of the 75 viewpoints would be mundane insanity. The hills seem to just roll on forever.
After hours of small towns and endless scenery we drop down into another American sprawl that is Roanoke. It seems that some of the people in our motel are actually living there and sure enough the next morning large black women are hanging around complaining whilst their scrawny partners are trying to lug all their belongings into a hired removal van.
I attempt to change the brake pads on the car in the heat of a deserted car park. After discovering we have been sold the wrong pads, can't find the receipt and struggling with overly tight bolts things don't appear to be going to well. But, luckily the car parts shop we bought the pads from are a national chain and there is one store in town that exchange the pads without a receipt, very helpful they are to. We've wasted most of the day by now and after sorting the breaks we need to get some gas for our cooking stove. Another task that takes forever as no place seems to have the correct one. We end up driving to a few stores all across town before we can finally head up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and to a camp site just as night falls. Maybe we should be worried about bears again but the camp ranger tells me none have been spotted just yet although they are due.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is the road that links the Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smokey Mountains and in itself is a long road and not that different than the parks themselves. A couple of postcard style shots can be taken along the way.

The picture above has been used in advertising material for other states like Connecticut and Maine, which is a lie for starters. The fact that this water mill was moved from another site and completely reconstructed for tourists doesn't stop it being one of the most photographed buildings in the country. On to the Smokeys!

The new world

2008-10-30T22:17:00.018Z

Of an evening we will peruse the Michelin road atlas of North America to see where we can go next. We'll also have a flick through the thick Lonely Planet guide book for inspiration. In the West of the U.S.A there's an abundance of things to see day after but in the East things of amazement are fewer and farther between. With this in mind we continue southward toward some of the early European settlements that started the United States of America.

We pass through a couple of quaint towns, Fredricksburg, Virginia is one that comes to mind. These places at least look pretty enough, although it all seems a bit new and film set-ish and commonly deserted.
The state of Virginia is famous for it's tobacco plantations and at the time of independence was the richest of all the American colonies. George Washington, America's first president and general of the victorious army fighting the Brits, was a wealthy land owner from Virginia so you could say the roots of the U.S.A started to grow from this state.
We haven't travelled far but things around us have changed somewhat. The roads are flanked by
thick vegetation and the temperature has shot up. It's a weird thing to know that only a couple of days ago we were soaked and cold in Washington D.C. to now getting out of the car with a t-shirt on.
We arrive in Williamsburg at a cheap motel with an outdoor pool and holiday makers sunning themselves. Williamsburg is a year round destination, and not due to the weather. The attraction is Colonial Williamsburg which is a reconstructed settlement on the site of one of the early American colonies. Thousands flock to this town of white picket fences and well dressed colonial properties to get a taste of the life that the early settlers had.

Colonial Williamsburg is connected to two other nearby settlements, Yorktown and Jamestown, that also have some reconstructed buildings and plenty of information about early life here, including the Native Americans that inhabited the place originally. We decide to visit all three just because we can.
We stroll along a bridge from the car park to a large visitors centre that has prices up for various tickets of entry. I remembered reading a Bill Bryson book about this place so I was pretty confident that you didn't actually have to pay to have a look round, they just make it seem like you do. It turns out to be free but the limitations to that are missing out on seeing some re-enactments and entrance to some buildings. Oh, and you don't get to ride on the bus that takes you the 500 yards from the visitor's centre to the town itself. Big deal. I think for £25 a ticket I'll be quite happy with just having a nosey around.

The main street is a pleasant dusty road with pristine buildings dotted along either side. At one end of the village is a paved area of shops for people to fulfil their need of entering a shop every time they leave the house.
Everything is about the revolution here and the 'tyrannical' British rule. Seriously, if they thought we were tyrants I'd hate to imagine what they'd thought if the Russians or Chinese had control in those days.
For all it's fakeness and 'too clean' appearance I can't help but like it around here. The sun is blazing, lush green foliage and picture perfect houses and grounds are around every corner. It's not really somewhere you'd want to live but it's a pleasant place to visit.

We leave the period costumed Americans on horseback or at the reigns of a horse drawn carriage to visit nearby Yorktown for tea. We cook pasta, like the poverty stricken travellers we are, by the water looking over at a decent bridge as the sun goes down.

Yorktown is basically just a short street with a few colonial properties but it does have more of a traditional British feel than Williamsburg. The real visiting spot here is all the battlefields around town that you can visit but for me they all look achingly dull.
Next morning we drive the connecting road of these three towns, the Colonial Parkway, to visit Jamestown. Later that evening we read about the Colonial Parkway murderer who had been killing unsuspecting couples along this uninterrupted route and still was yet to be caught, ah well.
I was expecting a town in Jamestown but non such thing exists. Just foundations and a chapel remain and a load of information about the early settlers. This was in fact the first successful British settlement on the continent. Town decisions were being made here a year before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. So Plymouth not only wasn't the first settlement it wasn't the first landing point either so how it gained fame I've no idea.
Jamestown ended in failure eventually anyway. A couple of fires ravaged the settlement and those who didn't starve to death through lack of farming knowledge managed to move on. The local natives helped out the settlers and showed what was mainly a clerical population how to grow crops and when and where to plant. This help from the natives is where the American holiday of Thanksgiving comes from after the celebration of a successful harvest. Once the natives had helped the settlers and they could survive without assistance they killed or ran out the Native Americans. Yeehaw!

This settlement by the river eventually became another tobacco plantation after it burned for the last time. It's a humid place and I get the feeling that it's only going to get hotter for the final month of our trip.

State 1

2008-10-17T19:39:00.011+01:00

Washington D.C. is a small area which therefore also means it's hemmed in by neighbouring states on all sides. We passed briefly through Maryland to get there and over a bridge and we're in Virginia to then cross another bridge to arrive in the state of Delaware. Not the most well known of states but it's car reg plates tell us that it was the first state to be inaugurated into the United States. Things haven't improved on that fact since though. The street scene was pass through is of ramshackle wooden housing and raggedly dressed locals. Delaware, well the Delaware river, is where the defining battle against the British took place, which is probably why it was the first state. It is also the only state in the U.S.A not to have a national park. However, like most other states they have state parks. These are solely run by the state and exist without government funding. The downside to this is that any patch of land that is a park in the U.S.A. that is not national park land is state park land. This wouldn't be a problem but you always have to pay to enter and you end up paying double national park prices for camping.
As the rain was left behind in Washington we decide to try out a state park and camp. At $32, £16 at the time, it wasn't cheap. In fact, we stopped in a Vegas casino for less! Unfortunately for us it's a Saturday. Weekends are sometimes a pain when you're travelling as you quickly get used to most places being deserted. A busy campsite in America is not a quiet place, and not because Americans are having such a crazy time, no, it's they're just unnecessarily loud at all times of the night not caring about anybody else but themselves. Still, it's good to get out and camp again and the woodland pitch is nice enough. The sea is only round the corner and the next morning we take a short stroll in bracing wind along the beach alongside surf fishermen. An old-ish guy spots our Washington state reg plate and asks if I'm in the Air Force, I'm not sure why. I tell him we're from England, "How d'ya like us?", he asks. "Alright, not bad." I reply and he just walks off. I forgot I was supposed to act over the top but it's just beyond me.
From here we head back into Virginia after fairly unremarkable Delaware. After visiting Washington D.C. I was struggling to think of what else there is left to see. All the major cities and parks on the East coast have been visited and between here and Florida, where we fly home, there's nothing that stands out to me. Do I want to find out more about the American revolution and early settler's life? Not particularly, at this point I've heard far too much about American life to care. But, as we're not doing anything else!

A day with Washington

2008-10-13T18:32:00.015+01:00

From the state of Pennsylvania we enter the odd arrangement of Washington D.C. It's not really a state, the D.C. stands for District of Columbia, and it is tiny. You could drive through the area in half an hour to one of four surrounding states. The car registration plates read 'Taxation without representation' which refers to the former British taxes imposed on the American colonies for which they had no representation in British parliament.
The capital of the U.S.A. has another couple of oddities that we haven't come across anywhere else. For one, the museums here are free. This is good news for the tourist as there's plenty of museums here relating to the history of America and huge collections of items that were gathered by the government funded Smithsonian Institute.
The rain has increased to a constant downpour and the streets are filling with deep water. We drive from our expensive but very dire motel, that feels like it's probably seen numerous murders, into the centre. The night draws in as we catch glimpses of the White House, the Capitol Building, the Pentagon, the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.
I'd heard a few things about D.C. but the main thing that stuck in my mind was that it was once known as the 'Murder Capitol' as it was just behind New Orleans in yearly murders with nearly five hundred in one year during the early nineties. We even read an article about the Governor of D.C. boasting about the district's tough reputation for murder and violence claiming 'If you can't stand the heat then get out of Washington'. Further boasts about D.C. being the 'top dog' when it comes to being a tough city made the guy sound like a complete knucklehead. Imagine if Gordon Brown had come out and said something like that!?
But for all the hype Washington D.C. seems a very decent place around the centre. Grand Greek style architecture is everywhere and large parts of the centre are lush green park land. Splitting swathes of green are wide boulevards from which you can see the various monuments to former figures of the U.S.A. We cross grand bridges that seem to echo London, but without the people, and make our way eventually to our motel. We can only afford to stay here one night as it's more expensive than New York so we make the most of the next day.
Unfortunately the rain hasn't stopped. We start out at the large Lincoln Memorial which is a huge seated statue of the famous man within a Greek columned round building. His famous Gettysburg address speech is etched inside the high ceilings. A bit of information about the civil war and the racist split of America at that time is read by us and a good number of tourists braving the weather. In fact, it seems every one's a tourist.
Looking straight from the entrance of the Lincoln Memorial you see the large Washington monument, which is like the Cleopatra's Needle in Paris and London. Beyond that is the long Reflecting Pool and a the World War Memorial and beyond that is the Capitol Building of the Untied States. Walking from the Lincoln Memorial to the Reflecting Pool and beyond takes some time. On the way we wander past the excellent memorial to the Korean war veterans and those who died.

Flanking the reflecting pool are the many museums that make up the Smithsonian collection. We've no time to visit any but have a quick look in the visitors centre which looks strangely out of place as a red church. Nowhere else in America other than Central Park have I seen such large plots of land given away to green areas and monuments right in the heart of the city. The rain has thoroughly soaked us so we dry off in our favourite fast food establishment.
The downtown area of the city is like any other but seems to be bustling with restaurants and adverts for various nightlife activities. There's a healthy amount of students here too and it's all seems a bit cooler than I'd predicted. It's an attractive place too. The White House, not that you can even get close, and the memorials are just part of the attraction. The distinct neighbourhood of Georgetown is upper market and well kept in white board buildings and boutique shopping along fancy terraced streets of European brick. All very chic.
The river separates the city from the states around which means you're never far from anywhere else. I unexpectedly like Washington D.C. Only the high prices and bad weather put a bit of a dampener on things. In summer the place is supposed to be red hot. I thought it would be similar to Canberra in Australia. A sort of fake capital that was chosen so as not to favour one city over another, such as Philadelphia, Boston or New York. And although that was the case the Americans have made Washington D.C. a far more interesting city. The hordes of tourists help keep the streets alive as they could have easily been deserted at night as the max exodus of government workforce head for home in a neighbouring state at the end of the day.
I would definitely say that if you're ever in the area visiting Washington D.C. for a couple of days was worth it, even if it doesn't stop raining.

On the streets of...

2008-10-08T18:50:00.013+01:00

As soon as we drive out of New Jersey the rain begins. We've had a lucky run of weather whilst in New York but that's now over. Just down the road from New York is another famous city, Philadelphia. What it's famous for I'm not sure but it's always one of those places mentioned in films or songs.
It turns out that it used to be the biggest city in the British Empire outside London. It no doubt still is a large place but it's skyline is not really how I remember it from films, only a handful of skyscrapers are gathered around the centre and the rest is the usual American sprawl.
It's such a sprawl that we have to stay near the airport to get a lower rate motel room and even that's still expensive. By chance on check-in the local pizza guy was chatting to the receptionist and he offers us a free pizza. Unfortunately it's the normal pizza standard we're used to here, terrible. Even worse is our first encounter throughout the whole world of cockroaches in our room. One in the bathroom at night and then another huge one in the morning that seemed like it must have fallen into toxic waste and grown a few extra inches.
I complained and got our money back but even now I'm unsure if I did fully after a pay mix-up in the first place.
Next day we decide to just have one go at seeing Philadelphia and moving on to somewhere else as it's too expensive for us. Instantly the grand Town Hall impresses with it's white stone decor and statues but up close it's not so gleaming. Around it there's litter and the stone almost crumbling in places and clearly in need of a good scrub.
The long street leading away from the town hall starts well with some decent places but soon turns into an almost ghetto feel. Apparently you stay away from East Philly, crime is rife but not that we saw any evidence of this.
Away from the downtown commerce area of town we head to what all the tourists come here to see. There's many blocks of red brick terrace housing and tree lined streets. These are all considered pretty old here as they must be ooh a hundred years old or near.
Around here is where a lot of historical events took place as Philadelphia was the centre of the American revolution and the place at which most of the meetings about the revolution against Britain took place. Older buildings still remain, one being a meeting house of the founding fathers of America. Every other thing is about independence and none more so than the site of the Liberty Bell within Independence Square. A large queue around the block gathered to see the Liberty Bell. I know pretty much zero about the Liberty Bell and have little interest either. I do know it's supposed to have a crack in it and that the long queue of people waiting to see it will only see a replica.
The declaration of independence was signed here and around the area is where founding father Benjamin Franklin resided. The house in which Ben Franklin lived has since been knocked down and only now only painted girders in a house shape are left. Here and there statues of Ben Franklin are dotted about showing yet another invention from this multi-talented individual. We learn he even owned property in Preston at one point in his life. The man must have been truly rampant with thoughts. He invented the lightening rod, bifocal lenses, a carriage odometer, a stove, the Franking machine(after his name) and a musical instrument among others.
We stroll to the industrial and grey dock area where huge influxes of Irish immigrants arrived during the potato famine. A couple of monuments to the way they were treated by the Americans upon arrival and how they struggled to get work as the widespread 'Irish need not apply' signs went up at places advertising jobs. All that changed when job shortages increased and more people were needed for the expansion going on throughout America.
Back to the cobbled streets around Independence Square and the colonial buildings around. We avoid the various food stands selling the 'famous' Philly steak sandwich which is just a steak sandwich with America's favourite topping for any food item whatsoever, cheese.
In a day in Philly we've seen run down neighbourhoods, rough around the edges downtown litter dodging and well preserved red brick colonial buildings with some pedestrian cobbled leafy streets thrown in for good measure. A couple of pointed, glinting skyscrapers and the good looking Franklin steel suspension bridge all give a good overall impression of Philadelphia and it was OK. I couldn't see a point in staying more than one night and that's why we didn't. On the whole it's alright but as is common with these cities, they just can't live up to their Hollywood portrayal.

New Amsterdam to New York

2008-09-16T18:42:00.019+01:00

Inquisitive minds may wonder how New York started and became the largest city in the United States today. I am one of those minds so here's a brief overview.
Native American tribes who occupied the area first came into contact with Dutch and French settlers in the early 1600's. Dutch forts sprang up over the next 20 years but the area fell to the Brits who annexed it to their empire. The governor of New York State was apprehensive about joining the revolution as he feared that vital ties with Europe through it's port would be severed.

But it did join the revolution and became the seventh state of the U.S. Allies, and major contributors to the war against Britain, France donated the now world famous Statue of Liberty to welcome in the thousands of new arrivals to America that were now flooding in. Many people stayed in or around New York and the city grew to what is now one of the major world players in all things financial, cultural and commercial.
Before we returned to the city we had to sort out a new motel in New Jersey. One just down the road had a room that was cheaper than our last and double in size. Oh, and it also had a large jacuzzi in it!
Into the city we try and cover as many sights as possible so it's straight to Fifth Avenue to see what all the fuss is about. It's dull as hell to be fair. Just another shopping street that could be anywhere. At one time maybe this kind of thing was uncommon and special but now it rivals Preston for it's shopping delights, although with some slighter more upmarket designer labels flashing about. From the mundane to the more interesting East Village part of town. The streets are more familiar around here and the people have turned from fairly ugly smart dressed merchants of dull to hip young rockers and fashion trend setters, I hadn't realised how popular the cross-gender Israeli scarf has become! Leafy streets lined with tall terraced apartments with their obligatory metal fire escape staircases. And the sun continues to shine. We sit for a while in a couple of tree filled squares watching the world go by as we realise how tired we are from all this walking. The people round here are more hippy-ish too and it's probably where the sitar playing hippy we saw at Central Park by John Lennon's memorial lives. We briefly enter Greenwich Village and admire the people admiring the basketball matches. It's slightly grotty around here as most of the streets seem a bit rough around the edges.
We dive into the over the top decor of the Jaffa Cafe for a bit to eat in the sunshine of it's busy outdoor decking. People from all nations are represented here but I'm surprised how many Russian voices I hear, considering the yanks despise the communist superpower. Still, you can never tell a true American because such a thing doesn't exist. The sheer amount of world nations that have contributed to the U.S. means it really is a cultural melting pot, unless you're in Utah of course.
Straight from here we dive into a photo exhibition from a rock photographer of famous punk and rock icons of the last 30 years. Nothing much punk about the price of a print though, the cheapest and smallest size is $500! Next we visit your atypical New York independent music shop where the owner tells us of his trip to London and plays the latest tracks he's excited about. A splurge on CDs and we're off to check out the Rockefeller Centre back in the more touristy centre. John D. Rockefeller was at one time the richest man in the world and in turn America's first billionaire. He made all this wealth through oil in the 1800's and ended up with his fingers in many pies as he set up the Chicago University and funded immense amounts of medical research.

The Rockefeller Centre in New York City is a collection of buildings that to me look like they'd suit the gaudy facade of Las Vegas rather than here. An ode to making money is embossed before a tall skyscraper and a fountain in which gold statues are posing looking a little plastic. I'm not sure why there are soo many tourists looking around at this dirge but I suppose we also fall into that category.
We're blowing the budget fast here so settle for another excellent burrito outside of the public library on the lush grass surrounded on all sides by imposing skyscrapers. The night is still warm enough to be sat out and plenty of people are relaxing on the tables and chairs or busy on laptops buried in work. A nearby wine bar is heaving with suited loud Americans enjoying the balmy evening. There's a good atmosphere here and only San Francisco is in the same league as far as American cities go.
We elect to stay another night as there's still plenty to see and not enough time in the day to see it. It's that evening as we begin to fill the jacuzzi that we discover that the lush grass of the previous square is now the new home of Laura's cash card. After some panicky phone calls home and to the bank things should be back on track, not that the New York spending is helping.
The next morning we head straight for the ferry for our free trip to the Statue of Liberty island. Great views back towards the city across the water even though today is overcast. We wander around the small island that mainly consists of a huge souvenir shop and burger joint. You can't go up to the top of the statue like you once could due to health and safety and terrorism blah de blah blah concerns. You can gain access to just below foot level although you have to apply in advance and be security screened. Or if you're me you pretend to a be a dim witted Englishman and they let you in anyway. Not that all the security precautions and queuing is worth it as you don't really get as good a view up close to the base of the statue as you do from the lower island floor level. Still, the statue is impressive no matter how you look at it. The French gift has now become one of the most iconic images of America and is a great addition to an already attractive port. The boat trip included a stop off at the neighbouring Ellis Island which was once an immigration station to process some of the hordes of newcomers but now just looks like a slightly run down warehouse. We chose not to get off the boat as time was against us if we wanted to see a bit more of the city.
We step back onto Manhattan at the south tip for a a walk around the financial district around Wall Street and it's meandering narrowness. The stock exchange and surrounding buildings are OK but nothing special but the area as a whole is a decent stroll as the high buildings on the narrow streets make you feel extra small. We sit for a while on Hanover Square which was opened a few years back by Prince Charles. It's a tiny square but has a chiseled brick inlay in the rough shape of the British Isles weaving around it with every county's name inscribed on it. I never thought I'd see 'Lancashire' written in stone in New York!
We stroll along the water's edge to the iconic Brooklyn Bridge as the light fades. We've no time to go across to Brooklyn or to the other neighbourhood of Queens so at least there's reason to come back. In four nights you can't see everything here but we've seen a lot. We sit eating again besides public library whilst an odd photo shoot is going on with some of the ugliest old women I think I've ever seen.
New York City is in no doubt that it's a great city, even the evening news starts with the line "and what's gone on in the world's greatest city today?". Times Square barely gets a mention here because it's not really a square and is really just a small crossing of two long roads that happen to have a bit of bright advertising dotted about it. But most other things live up to their billing. The Empire State's great views, the classic buildings like the Flat Iron's triangular form or the shimmering Chrysler building, the varied neighbourhoods, the abundance of life and probably the best city park in the world.

All this does make it a great city but is it the greatest city in the world? Of course not. I'm not sure what is either but one thing that the most amazing cities have that nowhere in America can conjure is the vibrancy of life. New Yorkers are supposed to be rude and outspoken but I just thought they were as rude and miserable as every other American city we'd visited. From the packed slick cool of Tokyo to the in your face colour of Mexico City to the street music and random drummers in Buenos Aires, New York has tough competition. But when Americans are told that they're the best at everything I don't think half of them even think to look anywhere else.
However, I like New York a lot. I'd come back in an instant but I wouldn't be so sure if I had the choice between here and a handful of other cities. Is it even the best city in America? Possibly, but for me personally I think San Francisco just pips it. It has all the trappings of a city but with the benefit of being on the best side of the country in the best state and so close to plenty of stunning outdoors. No doubt I'll be back here again at some point, just next time I'll bring more money!

New York, New York

2008-08-26T22:17:00.025+01:00

The sun is reflecting off the large and long Hudson River to our left as it has done all day. It still seems a little strange that one of the world's most famous cities is waiting for us at the mouth of this river that is currently flanked by such greenery.

We pass over and past couple of bridges, the one above was especially picturesque, until we got within sight of the big apple.
New York City is within New York State, 'The Empire State' as it reads on the car registration plates, and is made up of five well known boroughs.
But before we even get to New York a couple of problems have to be addressed. When your budget is $100 a day for food, transport and accommodation you are going to struggle in America's most expensive city. To get a room for less than a hundred dollars a night would be possible but not advisable. To be a tourist at night in a dodgy neighbourhood of New York is just asking for trouble so we make a bold decision. We decide to stay across the water from Manhattan Island and downtown New York in the adjacent state of New Jersey. This sounds more extreme than it actually is. For starters, everything is much cheaper in New Jersey because their state tax is lower so petrol is almost a quarter cheaper. Not that you'd want to drive in New York anyway. Having a car presented another snag in staying within Manhattan Island as parking is sparse. Most visitors to this city have flown here for a long weekend and don't have to even think about a car as they'll be using the subway and taxis. New Jersey was the best solution all round and coupled with the shuttle bus outside our motel taking us into the heart of downtown NYC for only $2 for the 30 minute journey our minds were made up.
We check into our motel in a distinctly Mexican neighbourhood. I like being around the Mexicans, they still have life about them and all of a sudden taco stands appear selling Mexican food cheap to the many passers-by. Still, you can tell we're on the cusp of a big city, the traffic is heavy and there's plenty of full buses on their way somewhere. The sun is beaming and as we get on the shuttle bus surrounded by Mexicans we can't help thinking of Mexico city and all its vibrancy.
From New Jersey we pass through the very long Lincoln Tunnel and turn up and out into central New York. All of a sudden we're surrounded by skyscrapers and hemmed in by yellow taxis.
We step off the bus at 8th Avenue and set about finding the nearest Chipotle Mexican Grill for another classic burrito. After the most important thing is sorted we step out onto the bustling street and it suddenly dawns on us that we have no map or idea where we are. We've got used to small cities with nothing much of interest to see but now we're back in a proper city and totally unprepared. We head in a random direction and find ourselves at Grand Central Station.

A stroke of luck you may say. A double whammy really as not only is this a great building and the site of many an American movie classic, it also serves as a spot for gaining a free map and a bit of info about transport back to New Jersey. I've heard that Grand Central Station is smaller in real life than perceived in the films but I thought it was a decent size. Either way it's a good looking building and a constant hive of activity. You can't help feeling a bit of deja-vu as you wander the streets and see buildings like this because you know you've seen them before. I recall watching The Untouchables and a key scene that was shot here and now I'm standing in the very spot.
We scan the map for the big 'must-sees' of NYC and discover that the Empire State Building is on the same road as Grand Central. It might well have been but we couldn't find it, imagine that. Not being able to find one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world! We did spot the Chrysler building though and for me this is one of the ultimate icons of the new york skyline. Shimmering metal covers the building right up to it's half moon and triangular shapes atop. It's apprantly covered in symbols of the motor industry and we do spot the odd icon but we read that most can only be spotted high up alongside.
We continue looking for the Empire State building and don't spot it for a while. It dawned on me that maybe I've never really taken a good look at the building, I've seen it plenty of times on tv but have I really looked at it? It turns out not because when we do stand at the foot of it it doesn't even ring any bells.

In fact it looks a bit dire and understated in comparison to the superb Chrysler building. It didn't help that the ground floor was surrounded by scaffolding as it's undergoing renovation. We think about going up to the viewing area but as the sun has just begun to set and the queue is massive we decide to leave it until tomorrow.
We get take the subway to visit the Guggenheim Museum but that has now closed for the evening and also, typically, under refurbishments aswell.
The next day gets off to a great start, although I was mistaken for a German (not for the first time on the trip). This time it worked in my favour. A woman approached me at breakfast and told me her and her family were leaving that day and would we like 4 city passes. Of course I did! Many major cities offer a city pass within which you get entry to major attractions around the city but pay it all in one go and for a fair amount less than each individual attraction. Although the trip up the Empire State building voucher had been used we still had vouchers for a trip to Statue of Liberty Island, entrance to the Museum of Modern Art, entrance to the Guggenheim Museum and circle ferry tour of Manhattan Island. Not bad for free!
First up we want to take a good look around Central Park, it's certainly the weather for it as the sun continues it's uninterrupted beaming. We get the subway to the north end of the park and plan to walk through it's entirety. The New York subway system is bit over complicated and run down. The stations are dilapidated and the trains are noisy and old. In fact it is probably the worst underground system we've used. Considering there isn't that many stations there is no need for it's complex nature of lines, colours, numbers and letters. London blows it out of the water and both Shanghai and Hong Kong would fall about laughing at the state of it. But, as we've learnt, Americans are told they're the best at everything so they put up with it.

Getting out of the dimly lit passageways into the bright sunshine and abundant life of north Central Park is a bit of a shock at first. This is clearly a slightly poorer part of town but nonetheless happy. A lake is surrounded by people fishing, kids playing or taking part in a school lesson, old black guys laying back and chewing the fat beneath the sun. This may well live up to the hype and actually be one of the best city parks in the world.
We pass through curvaceous rows of blooming flowers and an Alice in Wonderland statue to a vine covered pagoda under which a solitary man goes through his tai-chi routine.
People buzz around preparing a marquee for an event whilst artists attempt to capture the glorious colours of the flowers encircling a fountain. The park is massive, there's no understatement here, with such a variety of activities going across it. A huge lake is constantly in view for the hordes of runners and roller-bladers whizzing around it probably not even glimpsing at the attractive skyline peering at the water.

We then take in another fountain that is surrounded by pink Spanish tiling and a grand staircase that leads into a covered archway in which a musician plays his way through some classical pieces amongst the faded frescoes.
Halfway down the park we dive into the Guggenheim Museum thankful that we didn't have to pay the $18 dollar entrance. Again we take the UK's free museums for granted and at least give the opportunity for all walks of life and wallet size to have a nosy into the world of art and culture.
The Guggenheim is a white circular building that for me isn't pleasing to the eye but the great exhibition of Chinese art made up for it. A horde of fake wolves, tigers covered in arrows and firecracker art make it worth the visit. The hanging cars in the lobby followed us all the way from the west coast and Seattle's museum of modern art.

By this time the sun is already on it's way down (which shows how big the park is!) when we stroll past baseball fields and a small wood to the end of the park and head towards the Empire State Building. The queues are immense and we have to walk the final 6 flights of stairs up to the sardine-packed viewing area for sunset. The views are spectacular across the city and the around the island itself. As the sun disappears the lights of the city begin to show yet another classic view of the famous city and we elbow our way to the exit and the bar. At the ground floor of the building is a bar which we dive in to sample some of it's brewed ales. And good they are too, it was just a shame the busy downstairs bar closed at half ten and everyone had to leave or go upstairs, very odd and totally against my European principals! Unfortunately we miss the last bus to New Jersey and have to wait an hour for one from a different firm.
Originally we were staying for only 2 nights but they've now passed and we've not even seen half of what we wanted, looks like we'll have to stay a little longer!

Small state to Empire state

2008-08-20T20:23:00.023+01:00

I didn't know which state was the smallest in America, probably because I didn't care, but nonetheless I know it now as we cross the state line from Massachusetts to Rhode Island. It must have taken about 30 minutes to reach the tip of the state and it's main town, Newport, but we do pass through some quaint towns along the way.

Fairhaven is the main town that springs to mind for it's general beauty and sedate nature. It feels like Britain years ago but cleaner and in more of a fantasy reality that never really happened kind of way.
Newport is yet another holiday destination for New Yorkers that houses huge mansions along the sea's rocky cliffs.
Newport is bigger than I initially gave it credit for as we find out from a long walk about town from it's small tree sheltered square. The roads are narrow and winding with a definite Britain feel. The houses are pristine and anything over a hundred years old has a sign attached to an outer wall to tell you that someone of interest lived there once.

Nearer the seafront is a long shopping and bar strip where we wander for a while in the chilling breeze of early evening. It's a weird fact of American towns that we stroll around without seeing more than a handful of people. A town like this would be teeming with life in England but here it looks like a deserted film set or a Walt Disney rendered theme park street.

More colourfully painted wooden houses back on to this row of bars and beyond that and up round the corner are cobbled streets and low lit cafes that lead up to grand mansions and their grounds with high walls to keep out the peasants. You can briefly walk along a narrow cliff path in front of some of these huge manors overlooking the ocean.

This does remind me of the America shown in many films, for this location I suggest some kind of college horror.
Newport is a nice stop-off and if the wind wasn't so unforgiving then the beaches around here would be worth a visit also.
We head back north into Massachusetts and to it's capital, Providence. The town seems decent enough with a youthful college streak but the rain is tipping down so we continue on. The town, or city I should say, of New Haven is next up. I'd heard of New Haven in a Doors song but never really considered why it was mentioned at all. It turns out to be the home of one of America's most famous universities, Yale. I also never realised that New Haven would be so big either. When we saw a handful of skyscrapers looming in the low rain clouds we were surprised. More leafy streets pass by with moderately cool kids hanging around and looking generally dopey. We spot a large student party at a detached house, it looked just like the movies!
We stop off later on in the grim town of Poughkeepsie. Normally we wouldn't bother getting out of town somewhere like this but we did notice that down by the river it wasn't too bad so we went for a walk. Kids and their parents were gathering in a small marquee at one end of the river walk preparing for the Mexican festival 'Cinco de Mayo', The 'Fifth of May' celebrations we find out later aren't really celebrated in Mexico, other than one city, with the common misconception being that this is the date of Mexican independence from Spain. In fact it's the date that the Mexicans defeated the French army, in the Mexican city of Puebla, when they stopped repaying a loan. Even then the French went onto invade and take over Mexico City for a while. Either way adverts for Mexican beer are all over and at least it gives the Mexican Americans a chance to celebrate their homeland. Although it's overcast the large suspension bridge and gathering Mexicans make for a decent walk.

We're right on the cusp of New York State here but visiting the most expensive city in America on the weekend is out of the question for us. Instead we head North West into New York State's lush green area of natural beauty, the Catskill Mountains.
The Catskills are a vast forested and mountainous affair that offer real tranquility in close proximity to New York City. We stay around the region for a couple of days. Starting in thick morning fog we negotiate hairpin bends that lead us into thickly covered green hills. We take a totally unprepared two hour walk up along a trail besides a ledge that looks out over to yet more rolling hills. If only we'd thought of taking some water or food at least.

Curving our way back down a mountain we stop off at a large reservoir that is perfectly still. A few people are strolling along admiring the dam and with good reason, it acts like a mirror beneath the green mountains and moored rowing boats.

A sign adjacent tells us that this in fact used to be the site of two towns before the valley was flooded, unfortunate for the inhabitants no doubt. Hopefully they could swim.

I didn't realise until it came to our attention on the map that this is near Woodstock. Soon we find ourselves passing a welcome sign into the aforementioned town that has made a name for itself by hosting two music festivals, the most famous being the original in the 60's. Although the festival was named Woodstock we hear that the actual farm on which the event took place is some 60 miles away, nowhere near but in American terms that's close! The main street of Woodstock is awash with old leather faced hippies with long, and now grey, hair and tie-dye t-shirts. There are some of the newer age of hippies hanging around and playing guitar. It seems strange after driving around the area and not really seeing much human life, it's been mainly farmland and cows, to suddenly enter a small town with one street and quite a number of people milling around.
We spend another day passing through the odd semi-rural town all wrapped in leafy surrounds. The time has come, we are too close to think about going anywhere else. Only one major destination in America left that I was really looking forward to, New York City.

Cod and chips

2008-08-13T18:44:00.013+01:00

Just south of Boston is the small town of Quincy. We'd read that this was a quaint and historical town that is the birthplace and former residence of one of America's revolutionaries, John Quincy Adams.
We stay in what seems to be the only motel within our price range and soon regret it. All the rooms we take a look at have severe mould and/or water damaged ceilings and the receptionist is surrounded by plexi-glass, never a good sign. Still the quaint town we've read about might be lovely. Wrong. I getting tired of the self promotion of places as dire as this. It's just another 'could be anywhere dull' town. But, as it's Laura's birthday we decide to go into a nice looking restaurant, a bit of a feat itself in somewhere like this. The Japanese place was decent enough, although I'm pretty confident that the waitress and kitchen staff were Chinese. We eat huge amounts of sushi from a large boat shaped tray on our table whilst reminiscing about Japan.
We left Quincy's persistent rain the next morning after briefly stopping at the uninteresting home of John Adams.
On the road we stop off for fish and chips in a restaurant on the docks of Plymouth. Not bad either but that wasn't the real reason for stopping off here. Plymouth rock is supposed to be the point at which the Pilgrims first landed from Britain to start a new life. I say 'supposed' because in fact it's all bollocks. There is a rock, and even a replica Mayflower ship, but it was undergoing a make-over for future visitors. We learn that the rock at the landing point in fact was only named the landing spot a hundred years after the landing itself. Then the rock was split in half, half outside the town hall and half at the water's edge. A chisel was kept close by so visitors could knock a bit off for themselves to take home with. And then it turns out that a rock was never mentioned in the early reports of the landing. It goes on. We then discover the pilgrims landed further down the coast at Provincetown first and moved up here later. Even worse was the fact that a village even further down the coast had been inhabited for a year by struggling Brits. So you may come to think what is the point of Plymouth Rock and why is it so well known? I wonder this myself as we get back in the car from the rain and speed away from what is otherwise is a nice looking bay.
A few well dressed towns are passed through before stopping at the largest town on the peninsula named Cape Cod. The land mass is shaped like a muscular arm showing it's strength to the Atlantic. Cape Cod is a a popular holiday vacation area for the surrounding major cities. You can see why as there's 20-odd miles of undeveloped coastline that has been set aside for preservation under the national park scheme. Former president, JFK, designated this area to the national parks service, unsurprising as as he enjoyed many a break there with his family.
The weather has improved, blue skies and sunshine feel the norm here, and it feels good again to get away from a city.
We stroll along reed beds and beside inlets of clear water before it all opens out before us at one of the top 10 beaches in the country. A long undeveloped stretch of clean sand that meets more bluer than blue Atlantic waves. The wind is a bit chilly but that can't take away the beauty of this relatively deserted beach. A rarely seen red and white striped white house sits well back from the shore. I don't know why but I've always had an image of New England's coastline of lighthouses, rugged shorelines and pretty towns. All but the lighthouses is true. It turns out that adjacent to the lighthouse is the point at which the transatlantic telegraph line to Europe was attached. This reduced times of communication with Europe significantly but it didn't last long.
We follow the coast a bit along the road to the tip of the cape at Provincetown. This place is a gay haven, so we've heard, but it's also a rare type of town in the U.S. Narrow, one car-wide, streets weave between quaint buildings that lie metres from the water's edge. It's almost like a fishing town of coastal Britain but with loud fat Americans. It's a bit touristy but it looks nice enough. I keep wondering where the hell all the fish and chip shops are? We're right next to the Atlantic in towns with more fishing boats than cars and still not a chippy in sight. A small town like this has at least 3 pizzerias but not one chippy. There's a bit of an artsy theme going on, some better than others, around the residential streets and the spring scene of blooming cherry blossom trees helps the whole Cape look like colourful painting.
Right on the tip of the cape is a wooden tower that you can climb for great views of the peninsula and back towards Provincetown and it's high granite tower. Apparently, this is the tallest all granite tower in the world, who cares? It was built in tribute to the pilgrims that landed here from jolly England. It wasn't explained why there's a fair smattering of Portugese restaurants and flags dotted about the place.
We move on in search of an elusive portion of fish and chips and strike it lucky with the only place we see on the whole peninsula. There's a definite change in people's accents here. From the generic American accent we hear everyday a slight twang has appeared from Boston to here. The decent bloke in the chippy gives us a large portion to share and insists that our pancake-like fish batter is how they eat it in England, I disagree but it isn't too bad at all. The girl behind the counter then tells us about her fried burger meal that she'd eaten in Newcastle, 'Is that how you eat hamburgers in England?'. Odd.
Cape Cod is a picturesque line of beaches and towns and is worth a visit off-season. I imagine when the summer comes the place is bulging with the many vacationers from the large metropolises nearby. Fishing boats, lighthouses, blue ocean and whiteboard houses. Sounds like a watercolour right there.

Tea, massacres and magnolias

2008-08-01T18:14:00.012+01:00

With the state of Maine behind us we enter Massachusetts and it's most famous city, Boston. Images of Boston have beamed through our television for years in the shape of a couple of well known sitcoms, Cheers and Ally McBeal. Other than TV I know that this was the kicking off point of the American revolution and their sporting teams are the Red Sox and the Celtics. The latter being a nod to the Irish contingent who crossed the pond here and now reside in their faux Irish thousands. In fact more Americans now claim to have Irish blood than the actual population of Ireland.
Again our budget is struggling to meet the high prices of a city like Boston so we're forced to stay out of town, luckily it's not too far though. In fact the are in which we stay is a nice neighbourhood, Watertown, which is just a stones throw from the famous Harvard university.
We park up in the leafy, floor filled euro-style streets of the edge of Boston downtown. Tall brick terrace buildings flank the streets upon which fresh colourful flowers in full bloom run the length of the path. It's a picture book scene of spring in an eastern American city.
A large park and gardens dominates the city and makes for more good photos and a pleasant stroll. It's a welcome change to be amongst a park in the centre of a city once again and the surrounding terraces of red brick buildings give the place an air of London. From here it's into the main shopping street and downtown proper. The streets are clean, relatively busy and surprisingly tramp free. The mainly dull shopping area has a sprinkling of older buildings and we have a look for the Boston Massacre site that started the revolution in front of one of the oldest city buildings, but we couldn't find it. Ok, so we try and find the boat that started the Boston tea party from which British India tea was thrown into the water in opposition to a British embargo, but we couldn't find it. Both of these crucial moments in American history aren't signposted and even though included on a map are impossible to find. We end up stumbling upon a rather a fairly lifeless market area that has a great looking colonial building adjacent, Faneuil Hall.

For a time we wondered if this was the massacre site, but it wasn't.
If you're wondering what all this massacre business is all about then I will explain. If you already know then be prepared to be mesmerised by my description of events! Ok, maybe not. The Boston Massacre was influential in America becoming separated from British rule. British soldiers on nightly watch outside the old state house had become points of frustration for the Bostonians and we're a target for venting local grievances about the British taxes and so on. One cold night this abuse escalated into a barrage of thrown items upon the troops along with torrents of abuse. A soldier was knocked to the ground as a crowd gathered taunting the soldiers to fire upon them. The soldiers did and 5 people perished. The soldiers were sent to trail but a Boston lawyer saved them from prison. This lawyer, John Adams, eventually become a leading player in the move to split from British rule and even at the time of the trial his brother, Samuel, was heavily involved in the beginnings of revolution.
We do eventually happen upon the spot of the massacre at a rather overshadowed old state house that's now seems miniature in comparison to the large sky scrapers either side. There's a plaque on the floor that we can't quite see as it's surrounded by construction works and jostling people rushing into the old state house as it's now a tube station. In fact, this pivotal point in American history was almost flattened to build offices but when Chicago offered to buy it, transport it and rebuild it brick by brick the people of Boston held firm and the powers that be just flattened everything around it instead. This is the American way.
It's even more odd that this building came so close to demolition considering that America's first official president, George Washington, was inaugurated and made his first speech here! More of the same continued at the waterfront. The ship, which is depicted on our colourful map, that was the site of the Boston Tea Party was also nowhere to be seen. We heard much later that the ship had actually burned a few years ago and no-one had thought to rebuild it. This again is massively influential in the formation of the United States of America. It was this ship on which the British India Tea Company was transporting it's goods into the harbour. This aggrieved the Bostonians as they were not allowed to import and export goods other than those to the British Empire. The British India Tea Company had been granted sole license to trade. The already annoyed locals decided to board the ship and throw it's cargo into the cool waters below. The captain was apparently covered in hot tar and then stuck with feathers and paraded through the streets. But did we find any of this out in Boston? Nope. I'm sure their museum would've told us but by this point we'd read a fair amount on the subject anyway.
We get one back over the Yanks by getting another parking ticket of which we had no intention of paying, what revolutionaries we are.
Overnight we get some complete lunatics stopping next door to us who drunkenly argue like true demented loons for hours. At one point it even sounded like the woman of the couple was being strangled. You know your motel is going to be a bit dodgy when your room door is metal. Next day we head out tired and grumpy looking for Harvard University. It should be right near our motel and we head glimpsed it the day before. True to form here in Boston, we couldn't find it. It's no wonder though, the road signs here are frankly woeful. They tell you were you want to be going for a couple of miles but when the road splits or comes to a T-junction all the signs disappear and you're left with total guesswork. Invariably the guess is totally wrong and you've wasted 3 and a half hours of your day trying to find something that you weren't really that bothered about seeing in the first place. We do, however, take a stroll around the student town of Cambridge for a short while to see if we stumble upon the University amongst all these students. All we find is our faithful burrito chain, which made us happy enough. The manager of the place chatted to us a bit about his friend from Manchester. 'He still thinks he's in England because he watches football and wants to go out and start a fight.' You can take the man out of Manchester....
Boston, I'm not sure I get it. A couple of days here was enough as all the sights around downtown can be seen in a day and then the next day is spent tooling around the plain neighbourhoods. There are some decent looking buildings, the streets seem clean, the tramp population is minimal but on the whole it's not somewhere I'd recommend. The lack of general life is a failing of America and Boston doesn't escape it. From a place that is home to the American revolution I expected much more in the way of historical interest but it turns out otherwise. It's also bloody cold, the North Atlantic really doesn't take any prisoners here.
And what of the famous Cheers bar? Well, the bar is still the same from the outside but inside it's totally different as the real Cheers was filmed in a set. Some entrepreneurial soul has thought it wise to build a replica of the set over at the market, which is housed in glass through which you can peer inside at what looks nothing like the fabled bar of the 80's sitcom. The disappointment continues. To be honest, there's nothing really to come out of your way to Boston for. If you're in the area then why not but otherwise I can think of at least 10 far better cities off hand.

and not a chippy in sight

2008-07-30T18:08:00.006+01:00

New England is famed for lobster, as well as other varieties of fish, and clam chowder. Fish soup really isn't to my taste and we can't afford lobster so a simple fish and chips would do. But alas we scour every town we pass to no avail in a vein hope of seeing that allusive chippy. It's just not the done thing here and even when it is the chips aren't chips at all, they're fries.
On we go to an overnight stay in Freeport. On the face of it this white board town is like all the others we've passed through on the east coast but no. This one is much odder. The short main street has shops on both sides, nothing strange about that, until you look closely and realise every building is the same. They all seem to have been painted white on the same day and built in the same style. In fact it's more than that. Nowhere have we seen so many designer named brand shops in one small town before. It transpires that Freeport is a bit fake. It's like an out of town retail outlet that forgot to move out of town and became the town itself.
This all started way back when a bloke called L.L. Bean started selling outdoor equipment here. His store was popular and just kept expanding and expanding into all sorts of other areas like fashion and kitchenware and so on. The popularity of the store drew in people from around the area and other brands latched on to what is now a small town with 120 retail stores. And on the whole they're all completely bland and uninspiring. L.L. Bean's massive store didn't even sell camping gas, and this is supposed to be an outdoor based shop!
That night we try and buy a pizza but the shop is already closing at 7:30pm. Typical. We settle for McDonald's as it's the only thing open and is actually a really flash building inside with a proper cafe look about it.
Next day we fail to find a watch for Laura's birthday in more abysmal shops and head a bit further south to Portland. Downtown Portland has the usual grim and dirty look about it but further on in the Old Port area things improve. A handful of cobbled streets house various interesting shops and restaurants that far outweigh anything Freeport had to offer. We buy a watch from a small jewellers, they're just about to close on a Saturday at 1:30pm, before diving into our second Irish bar on the trip. I hate Irish bars. For one, they're all over the world. In any small town anywhere there's an Irish bar. They're like the McDonald's of pubs. In America it's worse. Everyone likes to think they're Irish in someway and couldn't pull it off worse. There's almost always nothing Irish about these places either, except that maybe they sell Guinness. After average food and slightly better beer we head on.
Further down the coast the towns take on the look of English seaside resorts that over the years have been left to go a bit mouldy around the edges. The unpronounceable town of Ogunquit was our next stop off. It has a couple of beaches that are rough, blustery and pretty cold. But still there are a few people knocking about and over a sand bar it's a bit sheltered from the gale hitting the shore. We stroll about and notice two lads in their late teens playing catch. They could even be in their early twenties. Now playing catch at this age anywhere else in the world is quite clearly ridiculous. But here it's fairly normal as the overly dull sport of baseball is popular. I wouldn't normally mention these two lads at all other than on this occasion they seem to have left their ball at home and decided to throw a shoe at each other. I ask you, who throws a shoe?! We contain our laughter walking on toward the end of the sheltered beach. Unfortunately, this meant we have to walk back past these buffoons on the way to the car. Only this time the shoe throwing has become old hat and they've taken to throwing an ungainly large stick at each other. Then one of them picks up another equally large stick and the topless pair are now whacking each others sticks in a sort of blind man joust. This whole scene makes no sense to me at all.
With this bafflement still fresh in our minds we stop over in York. I've not even been to York in England but I'm sure it's nicer than the American counterpart. Still, it's not a bad town and even has a small beach and park from where we watch the sunset, it's a shame that even small parks like these are charging a fee just to enter. There's no doubting the quality of the facilities but free parks for all is somewhat of a non-entity in this country. It makes me feel like I should take our free parks a bit less for granted when I get home.
From this mix of seaside towns we head to three large and famous cities in close proximity to each other. Maybe one of them will have a chippy.

An island idyll

2008-07-25T17:43:00.005+01:00

The reason we headed through Bangor and toward the coast was because there's one of very few national parks on the east coast here.
Acadia National Park is an oddity as far as American national parks go as people actually live here. On the whole the parks are vast expanses of ageless wilderness in which you could clearly get lost backpacking in and no doubt be eaten by a peckish growling animal. Here it's more like the Lake District. There's a couple of established towns and a road linking them to and around the island, on which the park is based. It's an island linked to the main land via a small bridge so it's not exactly a triumphant paddle steamer of a river crossing.
National parks here are great, there's no denying it. As soon as you enter one you get a good feeling. A feeling that you really are miles away from some of the most boring towns of existence known to man.
Acadia is picturesque, resplendent in deep greens and all the while you can see the blue Atlantic and the odd smaller island just off shore. For some reason I'd completely omitted this place in my travel diary and I just can't think why.
We drive the ring road around the island and take walks on rough beaches and cliff edges. The sun is out but the Atlantic is still whipping an icy breeze around us. A short circular walk takes us to the top of the highest point, Cadillac Mountain, and we're rewarded with great views and windburned faces.
We stop overnight in one of the main towns, Bar Harbour, in a flash old looking whiteboard hotel. Reasonably priced too. The town itself is fairly sleepy but has a couple of streets worth a stroll to look in the specialist shops leading down to the harbour itself. Food is mainly way out of our price range here so we again settle for a Subway sandwich. But at 8 o'clock the town was shutting down so unless we wanted to pay gourmet prices it was the best on offer. I keep forgetting the annoyingly early nights in the U.S. Nightlife of any sort is massively limited. There would be an uproar if even a Leyland pizzeria decided to shut at 8pm, besides it would be commercial suicide.
In the morning we take a stroll along the water's edge by another grand hotel and then up past some large houses of the millionaire type. Apparently, Bar Harbour was a popular getaway destination for the rich in Boston, Philadelphia and New York and hotels used to be scarce. In the 50's the hotel we stopped in was build and many more followed shortly after to accommodate the influx of wealthy city dwellers. After a fire wiped out a lot of the town only a handful of hotels were rebuilt and instead the rich folk from the city built grand mansions on the cliff edge. To a point you can walk along the edge through some of these extensive gardens until a wire fence prevents any further public infringement on rich mans property. You can see why the decided to do it though. The sea is still a constant vivid blue and the ever pounding water against the rocks provides a soothing relief from city life.
We've entered into a land where American towns look like they do in the movies. It wasn't all a lie. These towns were settled many years before their western counterparts and all posses a white church and pointed steeple and sprinklings of well maintained residential homes with hanging baskets and pristine gardens. Far from the half derelict shacks over the other side of the country.
We leave Bar Harbour and Acadia National Park to pass through more picture perfect towns along the coast with more and more British names, Belfast, Camden, Newcastle, Bath and so on. This got me thinking that maybe this is the trade off. The west has fabulous landscapes of unparalleled beauty and plain awful towns whereas the east is far more populated, thus being a bit short on natural beauty, but well kept and pleasing towns. Hmmm, we'll see.

The King of New England

2008-07-11T17:47:00.003+01:00

From Quebec over the river and along the highway back towards America the road is fairly uninteresting. It only becomes undulating and tree filled as we reach the US border. We stop off at a suspermarket before crossing the border to get something decent to eat. Still inexplicably French the young girl at the check out couldn't speak English. I got my French mixed up and tell her, "You don't speak French." Who cares? By this point we're almost at the border and instant English.
At was worried about the border crossing. This route isn't a particulary busy checkpoint and we only see one car drive through in the 10 minutes at the duty free shop in which we get rid of our Canadian change on chocolate.
I was worried because the crossing from Canada last time into Washington state was a hassle and took forever with endless questions about how we came about owning a car in the US. This time it was different. The guys on border patrol were much more laid back and didn't ask us once about ownership of the car. They did search the car, take our keys and ask me a load of questions though. "Do you have any food in the car?",
"Yes, cereal" I reply.
"So you have milk then?".
"No."
"Then how do you eat your cereal?".
"We buy milk, we have no fridge in the car."
And so on.
Once through the border and into the state of Maine the road cuts through large forests and up and over numerous small hills whilst we glimpse at an abundance of lakes and rivers, some still with thin ice on top.
We stop over at Bangor. I'd heard of this town only through fiction. The horror writings of Stephen King were based around the area and Bangor has featured in a few stories. Not only that but this is where he resides, complete with a spiders-web front gate, not that we saw it. We spent half an hour looking along a street for it but it turns out there are two streets both named the same but on different parts of town, brilliant.
The town itself is fairly small but nice enough. Brick buildings mark the couple of blocks of the centre of town and large wooden residential houses are the norm in the widespread outskirts. Although the centre is almost deserted two guys are enthusiastically thrashing away on acoustic guitars and belting out tunes. There's an abundance of large homes here, more than we've seen anywhere else in America. It does remind me of the typical scene in films of kids walking home along wide leafy pavements towards their large whiteboard houses. Generally America is nothing like this at all. Pretty much all across it the houses are small and flimsy looking. Maybe this is a sign of things along the East coast.
We're embarking on a trip down the coast through the major cities and towns that were the first major settlements of America. Most of these are well established towns in comparison to the many new sprawls of the west.
Bangor is ok enough but we're only passing through to get to one of only a few national parks on the eastern seaboard. The west of America certainly has the winning hand when it comes to areas of natural beauty and wilderness.
The next few days are spent on the road passing through the quaint towns of New England. I thought New England was a state but in fact it is just the name of a collection of states in the area, for now we're still in Maine.

More French than France

2008-07-06T13:04:00.007+01:00

Normally I haggle a bit on the price of a motel. This almost always works except for here in Quebec. All English has all but disappeared and the abrupt attitude of the people towards our Englishness means no discount for us! Again we look around a couple of motels, neither of which offer non-smoking rooms, and settle for one rather nice place outside of town. I attempt speaking a bit of French here and there as I desperately try to remember the school days. It seems that I can do nothing but think of the Spanish for everything which makes it all the more confusing. There are benefits to this French speaking madness as it does feel like a break from the Americanised world with a bit of a taste of the good living of Europe once again.
Instantly Quebec is a quieter and better looking city than we've come across in Canada. In fact it feels a lot more historic and European than anywhere we've seen in North America.
Quebec is also the name of the territory in which Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec itself resides. Some years ago the idea of Quebec becoming a separate country in it's own right was put up for vote. The majority decided to stay with Canada but it just shows how the Quebec people feel about themselves and their territory. Unlike other areas of Canada where signs read in both French and English here the English has been dropped altogether. There's no compromise. It's French and that's that. Again, it seems no-one told these people that the British won and in fact they've been part of the British Commonwealth for hundreds of years now.

The downtown area of the city is typically dull but at least this time 'downtown' is the right description. The real heart of the city is high above on and around a large hill overlooking downtown. It's an old walled city that includes a fort that was built to fend off the British, it failed but still looks great. Once you're within the old city walls everything changes and you're thrust into a French town complete with cobbled streets narrow alleyways and tall thin stone buildings. It's unashamedly European and I love it. Unfortunately it's much chillier than Montreal and up here on the hill ice still remains. We dive into a pizza restaurant where we eat the best pizza we've had or seen in North America, nobody yet has managed to beat the Peruvians on quality pizza making.
In the daylight of the following morning we get to see Quebec in it's real light and much warmer sunshine. Lots of places here declare themselves as being 'National'. Like the parliament, which blatantly isn't national as that is housed in Ottawa. National this and National that just really means that is the capital of the territory of Quebec. Great buildings though and a large square houses a mixture of these 'national' structures but it seems one has had a recent fire and all but the stone frontage has succumb to the flames. It turns out to be the once grand looking army barracks.
We take a stroll over the park where the English defeated the French toward the river. It's another murky looking thing that looks less appealing when that wind blows. We follow a boardwalk that is built along the edge of a main wall over the river and spot some graffiti reading, "Go home Canadians". This is followed underneath by, "I am home". This again shows a little bit of the attitude of the people. Not all of them really consider themselves to be part of Canada. It's all very odd to me.
We walk around the grand green roofed chateau overlooking the water toward a street of outdoor cafes. This feels just like Europe.
And, like Europe, the food is right on the money too. Finally we're eating good bread and pastries again. Just to have a sandwich here is great. I've no idea how America got used to being fed such bad overpriced bread and poorly baked pastries and cakes but they think everything they do is amazing so nothing has changed. Once over the border and into Canada the food instantly improves. Supermarkets have butties and other such take-away items that are totally edible and there's plenty of choice too.
In Montreal there was the small old town area but here it's vast. Street after street looks superb, although street parking is somewhat expensive. At this point we decide to only put minimal amounts into parking meters. I like these things because quite often you turn up and the previous driver has left some time on the meter. We duly get a parking ticket for leaving the car for four hours and only paying for one. The ticket is for $25 and totally written in French. I'm sure this should be illegal. Either way we're not paying it.
A bit lower down from the large Chateau is the Small Champlain area, named after a French explorer. This is a pedestrianised collection of alleys, narrow shopping streets and squares. Brilliant. Americans can't get cities right, except for a couple of exceptions, so coming here is like a breath of fresh air. It's funny how we've thought that some of the best cities in the world have some flavour of Europe about them. We can't help but think how lucky we are to live in such close proximity to vast array of great places Europe has to offer.

Flash boutiques, clothes and ice cream shops are dotted around Small Champlain, aswell as the odd well finished wall mural.
The outdoor life is part of the French way of life and translates well here. I like this place a lot and it without doubt is one of the top cities in North America.

We heard cheers from a pub the previous night due to the Montreal ice hockey team winning the famous Stanley Cup. The celebrations were later shown on TV. Around downtown Montreal police cars were over turned and set fire too and windows were smashed in and places like 'Footlocker' were looted in full view of tv camaras. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the police and so on. I'm glad we left when we did!
Before leaving we drive along the waterfront, the city has a large river or two flowing around it, to view the most expensive and highly sought after accommodation in Quebec. These blocks of flats were built in the 60's for the World Expo that was held here. They were hailed as a marvel of modernist design for their grey quirky boxy nature. They couldn't look more grim if they tried. A large industrial silo stands a hundred metres away and other large industrial rusting structures are all within a stones throw of these multi-million pound apartments. Overpriced and pretty ugly. It's such a shame that these are consider the place to live when old town Quebec is clearly a far more attractive proposition.
Quebec is great but our budget has been hammered by consistently overspending in Canada. It's not far to the American border from here and that's where we're heading. I'd have liked to have seen more of Canada but on this budget we could only see soo much. But still it was enough to make me come to the conclusion that I quite like the place. The vast wilderness and unfathomable expanses to the North will have to be savoured on another trip, one with a more forgiving budget.

The more east the more French

2008-07-06T11:58:00.004+01:00

I don't remember a thing about the drive from Ottawa to Montreal, the freeway is incredibly dull. Once we do arrive it doesn't improve much. The outskirts of town are a mass of crumbling graffiti-strewn overpasses criss-crossing around us choked with traffic and the now standard crazy driving. Downtown Montreal could be anywhere with it's long shopping street of the usual high street stores that ebbs away into unkempt buildings and littered streets. It's certainly busy though.
We try a couple of hotels but they're way out of our price range so it's an out of town motel once again. This is also pretty expensive in comparison to the US as well as being vastly worse. In fact it's one of the worst we've stopped in on the whole trip. It resembles one of those on-site cabins used by construction workers but a lot smaller, with the addition of water damage and mould along with a bullet hole in the window.
We escape the depressing accommodation to stroll around downtown and see what this place is all about. I was under the impression that Montreal would be full of French style buildings and cool streets but it wasn't at all, it was totally unimpressive. The French has stepped up a notch again here as although people can still speak English you can tell they're not too comfortable with it.
From the main shopping street we explore the small Chinatown, just one short pedestrianised street, and dive into a busy looking restaurant to eat some surprisingly great food. Things are looking up.
The sun of the day fades into early evening as we head to the Old Town area. This is much improved and is nearly what I imagined Montreal to be. Narrow cobbled streets shouldered by stone French buildings that have low lit restaurants full of grand artwork and people with a lot more money than us. Small boutiques leave their windows on at night to show of their window displays of quirky sales. Almost pub-like wrought iron signs swing from many a shop front along the streets that lead up to a large church and then down a wide pedestrianised collection of bars towards the waterfront. Winters here are also long and very cold, so on this moderate night it's no surprise people are drinking outside bars while they have the chance. The street is short, steep and lively and also marked with a statue of Nelson at one end. The French didn't seem to take too kindly to this so erected another statue to commemorate a French General that defeated the English. We continue on as a homeless guy approaches and begins to speak in French to us. We look bemused and just as he asks, "English?", I respond, "Don't bullshit me man, I don't care." His face took on shocked look and he seemed put a back for a moment. My patience with these people has completely run out. I have no interest in their business or time for their stories of hardship and lies. Back on the main shopping street we pass a lad in his early twenties crouched outside a shop shaking a tub full of change. I had to take a second look as this beggar was watching a film on a brand new iPod! I stop and look back. He turns to me and says, "It was a present". I laugh at the sheer ridiculous nature of it all. We pass another girl reading a book with a cardboard sign which reads, 'Need money for travel'. I've had enough of this. I need money for travel too but I'm not going to beg on the street for it. Besides, it'd probably be easier to just get a job. Further along another guy has a cardboard sign reading, 'Need money for pot'. It's all I can do to stop myself shouting in the faces of these people. From the horrors and misfortunes of Chinese beggars to seeing this lazy display of 'the world owes me a favour' attitude the people really do nothing to endear me to the Canadians or American way of life.
We have a quick look around the dull waterfront area before heading back to our hovel for the evening. We were originally planning on a two night stay here but we really have no reason to. The next morning we have to take a look at the city's parkas we'd heard good things about it.
Mount Royal is the park's name, which I presume is actually the name of the city itself once translated. It's a park on top of a hill that looks over the pretty dull city. The large lake here is still frozen which goes to show just how cold it must get here in winter, no wonder it's a popular cross country skiing place. From up here we can see the Olympic Stadium and the cycling velodrome, which has now been turned into a Biodome in which tropical plants of all types of boring nature now exist. In Manchester when we held the Commonwealth Games we built a velodrome. Instead of turning it into a greenhouse we used it for cycling. Seemed a bit more like common sense to me. As Britain has the best velodrome cyclists in the world, who train at Manchester, it seems to have paid off. Maybe the people of Montreal have now become world class gardeners.
Only the Old Town and the Latin Quarter save it from being a Toronto style waste of a city.
The Latin Quarter is a couple of student filled streets with more appealing buildings and restaurants and full on French everywhere. It's still a bit littered and grimy but at least it has more of an interesting youthfulness about it.
I expected far more than I got from Montreal. There are a couple of OK areas but on the whole it's a bit dull. The Mount Royal Park, designed by the same guy who designed New York's Central Park, fell short of all expectation and really was too far out of town to be considered a city park. Paying for parking once we got there was just adding to the annoyance of having to drive in the first place.
We were certainly glad to get out of our motel and back on the freeway. We had one city left to visit and after seeing this place we weren't getting our hopes up.

Where?

2008-07-01T18:27:00.004+01:00

Quick geography question, what is the capital of Canada? Come on, Canada is one of the biggest countries in the world. It's bigger than the U.S.A and still I had no idea what the capital city was, I originally thought it was Toronto or possibly Vancouver but no. Ottawa is the somewhat subdued capital city, a bit like Canberra in Australia, it goes unnoticed internationally and has never come up as a tourist destination. But as it wasn't too far from Toronto and on our way we thought why the hell not. We'd heard, like Canberra, that there's not a great deal to the place but it's always best to find out for yourself. Besides, we've got a lot of places to compare it to.
First thing's first and sorting accommodation is priority. We look at a couple of overpriced dire rooms, one motel even had a filthy office toilet on display next to the garbage filled counter and chain smoking owner, before settling in a reasonable place out of town. Just over the large river is central Ottawa.
A row of kebab, or kabob as they call them here, shops and a few grimy stores line the roadside before things improve up a small hill. On this slight elevation is the grand parliamentary buildings with their definite French style of green copper roofs and elaborate masonry. We are slowly entering another realm, one dominated by the French. If you didn't know, France used to own huge chunks of Canada but lost out to the British a few hundred years back. For some reason it seems no-one told them they lost. Smatterings of French were about in Toronto but not so much you'd really notice or care but clearly the capital has just that little bit more. You hear French being spoke by all ages all over the city but they still speak fluent English too, they just prefer to speak French. It's all a bit strange really.
Swarms of people are flooding the streets in the hot weather and many gather outside the huge parliament building to picnic or throw a ball about on the grass. Behind the building is a pathway which overlooks the fast flowing chilly river below.
For some reason the people are much more attractive here than I've seen anywhere in North America. It also seems that the nightlife is pretty good and during the day aswell many bars and restaurants are crammed in the outside seating areas. The weather is again good and after the especially long winter here many must be making up for it. Talking to a bar waiter he tells us that the seasons are extreme here, well below freezing in winter and upto 40 degrees centigrade in summer!
After eating in a bustling but disappointing take-away curry house we wander the still warm evening around the bustling cobbled streets surrounding a market area. We return in the sunshine the day after to check out the food at the market and buy a croissant to see if the French influence really has affected the pastries. Oh yes it has. Americans can't make pastry, fact. Canadians can. I'm inclined to believe this is the closer European influence here, which may also explain why there's loads of bars and outdoor places to drink and eat compared to the morose dark bars of America.
We blow some money on a couple of decent ales and a handmade pizza sat outside an almost English style pub. Then it's just over another river to a park that has a long pedestrian and cycleway running alongside the still very fast running water. We stroll along the popular path as rollerbladers and cyclists zoom past as the sun sets over the water. After a day of strolling around European looking buildings, a bustling market and drinks and food outside a pub this seems like a good ending. Back into town and amongst the large residential buildings, mainly occupied by students standing outside drinking, we get a cracking bit of take out food called a Shwarma. This is a Lebanese sort of pita wrap thing that's more akin to a healthy type of kebab.
We left with a good feeling about the Canadian capital. It has a youthful vibrancy of a student town with the nightlife to go with it. With the addition of the great looking national buildings and some narrow cobbled streets and outdoor eateries. There's always plenty of people wandering the streets rather than the frankly deserted American cities, although it doesn't take too long to walk into some rough looking areas. The edges of downtown quickly become dirty and forgotten but around the heart of the city it's clean and characterful.
I really like it when you never know what to expect from a place and it surprises you into being a decent destination. There was no hype about the capital, in fact we'd only heard negative things, so it was all the better once we got there. But it's expensive and for that reason we have to plough on to another couple of cities before heading south again to the cheaper life in the USA.

Typical Toronto

2008-06-30T19:09:00.006+01:00

The Toronto skyline looms in the hazy distance as we negotiate the hectic freeway. The driving here is clearly insane. Everything is frenetic as cars constantly weave in and out of lanes full of traffic breaking the speed limit by at least 20 kilometres an hour. A stressed city this surely is. It's also an expensive place, the dearest in Canada, meaning our already stretched budget is breaking here. Thankfully we've amassed loyalty points from the many motels we've stayed in to book a couple of free nights here. The downside is that our first motel is way out of town but on the same road that runs directly through the center and to the waterfront. The traffic is beyond terrible and it takes us a good couple of hours to get about 15 miles, we've not seen traffic like this since Bangkok. At least Bangkok was strange and new to us, Toronto looked like everywhere that has a litter strewn shopping street, tatty undesirable buildings and horrendous traffic.
We take the free accommodation as an opportunity to go to a restaurant and get something decent for once. We'd been cursing the bad food we'd been eating the last couple of days so it was excellent to get some great food at an Ethiopian restaurant, who'd have thought they'd have such gastronomic delights!? The area around the restaurant is clearly the student end of town and it's very busy as a result. There's a youthful cool vibe on the street even though the buildings are run down and it all looks fairly dirty. I expected Toronto to be swish, modern and clean but it's the total opposite. Although I like the student area it still needs work to make it a worthwhile visit.
The next day we move into yet another free nights stay at another motel. Driving anywhere in this city, or on the freeway next to it, is a massive headache as we get stuck in jam after jam whilst impatient Canadians thrust their way into different lanes on a constant basis.
We take a walk around the downtown area hoping for something of interest but find nothing. The large CN Tower that dominates the skyline would be more impressive if we hadn't seen soo many others just like it.
The weather is at least hot now so we venture to the large park on the cusp of downtown. This too is busy as we walk by pens containing various animals in a free to the public zoo type affair. It too has rubbish wafting around and the animals don't seem to impressed either. We walk by a murky lake that seems to be contaminated with oil. Still, it's popular with mothers pushing prams but maybe they're making the most of the good weather. In Winter Toronto gets freezing and there's an underground shopping mall to accommodate those icy days. I can't remember off-hand how cold it gets but I'm sure it's somewhere round -16 degrees Celsius, either way it's damn cold. Which then begs the question why would anyone want to live here? The answer to that I have no clue.
Toronto is a massive disappointment, overtly expensive, dirty, choked with traffic, run down and just plain dull. We drove all over town and didn't seen an area of worth. Even with free accomodation and decent food the place couldn't improve. I was glad to leave. We did have one last bit of food before departing though. Fish and Chips from a so-called proper 'chippy', of which you don't really see in North America and Canada. £5 for decent fish but burnt chips. That was their style apparently, everybody had overcooked chips. I can't dislike this place enough.
Let's get to Canada's capital quick sharp!!

Poor Niagara

2008-06-19T16:54:00.005+01:00

After a couple of hours drive we arrive in the town of Niagara Falls. We knew that we were going to compare Niagara Falls to Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Brazil and to start off with there are similarities. Like Iguazu, Niagara Falls borders two countries and in a similar way one side is better to view the falls from than the other. But unlike Iguazu, the falls aren't set in a stunning remote landscape. Instead they're right next to a road and casino on the cusp of a town that largely resembles Blackpool on a really cold day. There's no denying the falls are impressive and our first glimpse is from the car whilst heading down toward the river. It comes as a bit of a surprise to see two large water falls gushing with thousands of gallons of water just over the edge of the road but that's just the way it is.
Downtown Niagara is run down, over priced and grim but there are a couple of passable streets nearer the falls themselves. A couple of streets of tat and awful attractions lie abit further on from our motel.
The sun is shining but the wind is cutting as we take a stroll along the river's edge for a closer view of the falls. A rusting barge sits stuck in the flowing river just upstream from the main mouth of the falls. The boat's crew were rescued by using a zip-line from the shoreline water turbine company's building, a day after they were stranded! The thoughts going through those guys heads must've been awful. To know that any moment the powerful river could carry their boat off and over the falls where a huge drop into icy mist would be the last thing they saw.
You can see the US side of the river from Canada and it looks no better. The city of Buffalo, in New York State, is apparently much worse than it's Canadian counterpart and we know it's pointless crossing the border to get a different perspective of the falls as the snow is incredibly deep over there around the viewing areas and we could do without the hassle at customs.
We get up close to the falls at which frequently freezing mist is sprayed across the path and road. A decent walk along the river it is too, obviously I was willing to walk here as parking for $16 is just not in me. There are tours that take you down to the foot of the falls but at this time of year the snow has still overwhelmed the viewing areas by a few feet. Even the edge of the river has ice floating around in it, certainly not somewhere you'd want to be stuck on a boat.
We don't plan on staying long, after you've seen the falls during the day you go back at night and that's your lot. I don't see any point in staying longer so I'm confused as to why it's a popular honeymoon destination. We splash out on a restaurant that night and wish we hadn't after the plain awful pasta we consume. Then it's back down to the falls to see the multi-coloured lights that are beamed on them from the casino each evening. It's an excellent novelty and looks good but standing around for any length of time is a mistake in these temperatures and when that biting mist covers you it's time to leave.
Although there are similarities, in the end Niagara and Iguazu couldn't be more different. Visiting Iguazu is a full days worth of walks through tropical jungle and views of many different falls surrounded by little else other than lush greenery. Niagara is just a grim town with all the class of a rubber plunger that just happens to be alongside a couple of large waterfalls. Still this place is hyped, and therefore world famous and busy, but in comparison doesn't stand a chance against the latin american wonder.
Supposedly, American first lady Eleanor Roosevelt saw the vastly larger Iguazu Falls and declared, "Poor Niagara!". I can do nothing but agree.
Before rushing off immediately we pass through the wine region and town of Niagara on the Lake. It's supposed have the best persevered 19th century buildings in North America but I again think the people who write these things have noses longer than Pinocchio. Still, the town is nice and there are a few good looking buildings lined along the main street. There's a British theme going on and we can't resist going in to a British shop to get a Double Decker and a Crunchie. Oh how we reminisce over jam, mustard and Fawlty Towers. I also take the opportunity to buy a chicken pie, unavailable in most places we've been, and instantly wish I hadn't when the innards resemble, in taste and looks, a tin of Pedigree Chum which is then wrapped in pastry that clearly shouldv'e been involved in a Chinese dumpling.
We mourn the poor food we've had over the last couple of days whilst sitting by the deep blue lake. People have chosen to swim across this huge body of water, all 52 miles of it, and not one them has been British. 'Maybe I could be the first', I thought, 'Maybe that pie has affected my brain!'. The water is terribly cold and certainly not for the weary traveller.
We leave the white buildings of Niagara on the Lake with the odd English accent hanging in the air as we press on to Canada's most expensive and packed city, Toronto.

On to London

2008-06-12T15:41:00.004+01:00

First things first. I'm now back in Blighty, which shows how far behind on the blog I am, however I have to finish this thing and as I use my diary and photos to write my blog it doesn't make any difference. The other thing is that the photos for the next few entries are currently unattainable due to being on my laptop for which we don't have a British plug for. But soon I will.
I'll start with another amzingly useless fact: Detroit is the only American city that looks south onto Canada. This is due to the position of the land around the huge body of water in-between the countries. Right in downtown is a tunnel to Canada, we accidentally turned into it one night and had to turn around swiftly. There's also a long bridge and that's the one we take to leave the US customs construction zone to enter Canada for the last time. The Canadian customs official seemed confused over our car ownership but not too concerned to keep us longer than 5 minutes.
The landscape broadens out and has a flat green Belgium kind of look to it. Our first destination is London in the state of Ontario. London is in the county of Middlesex and has the Thames River running through it, how twee.
It's a half decent looking city if a bit rough around the edges, bits of rubbish float around as agressive looking homeless trawl the streets giving abuse for tips. But it's good to see a lively place again with hordes of people on the streets shopping and going about their business. Canada definitely has a more Euro feel to it than across the border.
We underestimated how expensive Canada is in comparison to the US. We were struggling on our budget enough in America but now it's even worse as accomodation prices have soared and quality plummeted. A long jaunt in Canada is not really an option for us.
We check out town with a brief walk around the park, war memorials and a proper tank adorn the place, to then walk the few blocks making up downtown. There's a student-rocker population about and plenty of dingy looking bars for them to occupy. The Greeks also seem to have taken a stronghold in town and judging by their food rightly so. We try a Souvlaki, an excellent sort of pork donner kebab style thing. In England this kind of thing would be inedible and only passible when you're devoid of all taste, and balance, on a night on the ales but here it's quality food.
We're only really stopping over in London to get somewhere else but I don't mind it. We attmept a stroll along the river the next morning but the Thames is murky and the banks are overgrown. We walk over a rusty bridge, complete with large rusting industrial pipe, while the icy wind blows down the back of my neck before we give up and move on.
There's a couple of major places we have to see in Canada while we're here and the next world famous one is a couple of hours away along a flat and featureless highway.

Put your hands up for Detroit

2008-06-09T02:36:00.012+01:00

Detroit, the home of the American motor industry's big three companies General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, is just down the road from Chicago. We skirt Indiana to get into the state of Michigan to be here. We stop off at the great named town of Kalamazoo for a bite to eat just off it's totally dead main street district. What a great place to say you're from.
As in Chicago we stay out of town to keep costs down and this is our first encounter of a motel that has bullet proof glass to protect the receptionist. Needless to say we have a crap nights sleep with various comings and goings and loud hip-hop music pumping around the motel. There's something like 80% of the population here that is African American, I've no idea where the other 20% are.
We change motels next day and head into the deserted downtown. Some decent buildings and some money has clearly been spent but there's no-one but the odd crazy homeless guy hanging around.
We drive up towards the large buildings, that have now been let go, of a residential area in which the large Institute of Arts is housed. This is a large building that includes one of the finest murals on earth from one of the world's best, Mexican master Diego Rivera. It's huge, filling an entire room on all walls. This is the Detroit Industries mural and tells many stories from the era of the Ford Motor Company's factory and the effect on the people who lived and worked at the time, good and bad.
Even a homage to the five workers shot to death in a strike have been included. It was a very controversial mural upon release. The uptight Americans even considered the inclusion of female breasts as pornographic. But even though Henry Ford is depicted as a bit of a tyrant his son was the main backer for the Diego murals. Unlike the Rockefeller Mural in New York that was considered too controversial and not completed. A tremendous piece and a handy free personal hand held guide walks you through the different aspects of the mural and some of the meanings behind the images.
The rest of the institute has classics from some of the most famous artists who ever lived. Funnily enough this is the only place where we see white people. Where the hell are they the rest of the time? This also makes me realise the odd balance of black and white in this country. African Americans live across the country yet we've only seen one in a National Park in over 20 that we've been in. I'm not sure what this even means but I find it very odd.
We have a quick look along the couple of streets of Greek Town. Almost unmemorable if it wasn't for an incident we witnessed. An elderly couple shuffling around the back of their car to extract a zimmerframe. Unfortunately for them some random hobo had spotted this and used his opportunity to sneak in and get out the zimmer himself. Seems friendly enough, until he won't realise the stability device to the elderly woman until he gets some money first. I hate this kind of thing and you spotting this thing before it happens. It's just like when I know some tramp is going to ask me for change, I can see something in their face.
We don't have time for much else other than getting some new front tyres for the car. I figured if this is the home of the motor industry then tyre places would be everywhere, there is certainly a lot. The other reason to buy them here was that we didn't want any reason for the US customs to pull us up when we return back from Canada, which is where we're heading next.
Detroit has seen it all. From the industrial and economic highs to the job cut and crime ridden lows. Huge axes at car plants resulted in widespread unemployment that even made the backdrop of former Detroit resident Eminem's film '8 mile'. 8 mile is the road that splits the rich and poor here but I couldn't tell the difference between 8 mile road and 11 mile road or the other way. The nearby industrial town of Flint was most affected and was featured in a Michael Moore documentary. With the American car industry faltering Detroit went the same way.
But in the end Detroit was alright and I expected it to be worse than it was. I wouldn't see a need to go back but there still remains one of the car industry's biggest exhibition here and the start of the car production line and Henry Ford's brainchild. I did think that the home of cars would have better roads but than this. Without doubt the worse roads we've driven on with highways full of massive holes for long periods. Maybe this is where the cars are tested.

Through plains and winds

2008-06-08T03:30:00.013+01:00

From Missouri we pass into Iowa. I know little about this state other than a high percentage of it's land is fertile for agriculture and author Bill Bryson is from it's capital, Des Moines. Frankly, this is all I need to know. It's dull.
We drive 170 miles or so of interstate that looks the same. We reach Des Moines after what must be some of the worst roads in America, pot holes shouldn't exist on motorways. What a bland capital this is. Although, the capitol building has a few gold covered domes that stand out a mile, literally, from the buildings and streets of downtown. There's also a few other government buildings and memorials around the capitol building, one of which is an incredibly bad version of the statue of liberty in miniature.

From here we stop over at a small town, Grinnel, that has some almost film set looking streets of coloured wooden houses and a main street that again has a flash Masons building. The Masons are huge here. I don't know massive amounts about the masons but it seems they've got their fingers in a lot of pies and have something to do with the success of America.
There is a reason we've been driving for a few days of brain numbingly boring landscapes, it's to reach the windy city Chicago.

It's still a fair few miles of boring driving before we get there though. We cross the Mississippi River into Illinois, 'Land of Lincoln' as the state plate reads. You can see Chicago from a good distance. The buildings look sleek and stylish, shimmering in the sunshine besides the deep blue Lake Michigan. It looks more like a sea than a lake.
There was a haze hanging over the city from a distance but now we're beneath the skyscrapers it's as clear as a bell. All the images I had of Chicago being a icy cold city may well be shattered as people bike, hike and rollerblade along the waters edge in the sunshine.
Chicago is home to the Sears Tower, once the tallest building in the world but it didn't really seem that big. Maybe Asia has spoilt me but the skyscrapers and tall buildings aren't massively awe inspiring. There's still a great look to the place and a good mix of old and new too.
We have a stroll around in the sunshine and take a look at a huge art installation called 'The Bean'. This is a wicked looking shining bean shaped lump of metal. Not only is this thing very cool but it gives warped mirrored images of the skyline and becomes like a kaleidoscope once you get beneath it.

Can I find a join or weld anywhere on this thing? Can I buggery.
There is also a modern amphitheatre built here that hosts various shows and gigs, a real good idea right near the heart of downtown. I like the look of it, reminds me of Terminator for some reason.
We needed to find somewhere to stay but this was a problem. Chicago is an expensive town to stop in and our only chance is staying out of town. We try just north in a cool student part of town but it was still too expensive. We end up staying a fair way out of town to keep costs down. It easier to spend half an hour to drive into Chicago and pay half the accommodation costs, we have the time but not the money.
It takes us a while to find somewhere that isn't in a rough shod neighbourhood. The outskirt streets of this part of Chicago can be awful. The streets are littered and buildings run down. At one set of traffic lights a guy with one leg is pushing himself down the middle of the road in wheelchair. It's annoying really as the houses around here are quite attractive but they've just been left to rot by their owners and scattered rubbish around the front yard is common place.
We keep driving.
We stay in a decent neighbourhood about half an hour out of town.
The next day the wind has blown in the clouds. The higher buildings are now immersed and the rain looks sure to follow. Is Chicago's moniker as the windy city fitting? Oh yes. When the wind blows it seems to pick up speed in-between the walls of buildings surrounding you. It's a chilling wind too.
As we walk around the city the main downtown area is ringed by 'the loop', the overground metro system, called Metra officially, that is built above the road on metal girders. It's a bit of an eyesore but is ingrained in Chicago and featured in many a cop drama car chase scene.
The streets beneath the loop are dark and dank being hemmed in by the buildings and devoid of much sunlight any time of the day. It's gritty but I like it.
Chicago is a proper city. Only a handful of these exist in America so it feels good to be back in a place with life and energy. There's a smattering of interesting history here and great buildings too. The place was built and run by mobsters, it's home to some excellent modern and gothic architecture and it gave the world the deep pan pizza.
The great Chicago Tribune building has pieces of other famous buildings and structures from around the world embedded in its exterior walls. Westminster Abbey, the Pyramids at Gisa, the Great Wall of China and so on.
There's a long street of shops of the usual variety but it eventually leads to an underground pedestrian tunnel that brings you out onto a beach. A beach! Right on the main outer road of the city is a beach on the edge of Lake Michigan. It's not the weather for it today but you can imagine this small stretch being crowded when the sun is out.
We dive out of the rain and into a bar down town. I still don't like the idea of waitress service in bars where everyone sits down. Not only do I not like tipping it also gives places a pretty dull atmosphere. Pubs in England far surpass this in my opinion. Prices are the same too so it's not exactly a bargain option.
A few districts make the city whole and after down town we have a look at Old Town. A small area of trendy shops and arty goings on. We had to compare the ale here so found ourselves in another darkly lit bar. Not bad really even if the place was filled with terrible paintings of people in various sexual positions, maybe it was the owner's handiwork because I can't see why anybody else would want these horrors.
And just like that we leave. A couple of days is enough on our budget. I like Chicago, not a destination I'd go out of my way for but a decent couple of days stop over.
Next up is the home of the motor industry and then we get out of America!

Put yer red shoes on

2008-06-05T14:38:00.011+01:00

East of Colorado we begin a couple of long driving days to cross the flat plains of Kansas. This is a place where you can tell a small village is coming up because there's a grain silo on the main street. This is a place where the land stretches out to the horizon and has no remarkable features for hours of driving. This is a land where in schools they're trying to stop teaching evolution in favour of only teaching the next generation that Adam and Eve are the reason we're here. This is the land where the Wizard of Oz was set and this is because we're entering Tornado country.We stop over at Dodge City. This place is moderately famous in America as the setting for a TV series in the 50's called Gunsmoke. The main street is named after it and the adjacent one is named 'Wyatt Earp Boulevard'. I've heard of Mr Earp and I'm sure he has some connection to the old west and gunslinging but after a mesmerisingly dull drive I don't care.
Dodge City is OK. A small town with cobbled streets and a bit of a crummy western style shopping area that costs something like $8 to park in. One thing you do notice here is the amount of Mexicans, there's hordes of them. We read that the Mexican food here is famously good but we don't want to overspend on the budget to find out, besides we've been to Mexico.
Out of town the landscape returns to it's former blandness. After a while we stop for petrol in a small middle of nowhere town. The usual barren land has become even more so and the trees about town seem twisted, bare and strange looking. Inside the petrol station I'm surprised how busy it is and how extensive the store is, considering there doesn't seem to be anything around here. At first it strikes us as another grim American town and we see that next door is the old supermarket that is now just a shell of wood and iron. We think it would be funny to drive down Main Street and mock it's run down and awful looking appearance but as we turn on to it something in my mind suddenly clicks. Before us is a main street consisting of two brick buildings, one boarded up, and nothing else but debris. This town was the unfortunate victim of a tornado in May 2007. It destroyed 95% of the town. Not much seems to have improved since then. I still don't understand the American way of building the majority of houses out of plywood. It's no surprise then that those buildings are wiped out and the brick ones survive. Still, it's a very unfortunate position to be in and the chances of a tornado wiping out a town are slim. Now a TV documentary has been released about the rebuilding of this place as a 'green' town. I'm not even sure if they're building it in the same place.
On we go through Wichita. I like the sound of this place and it's not too bad a city but like many others it's completely devoid of people. It's like they built the place and then moved. There's a strange mist hanging over the city and for miles around it smells like pipe tobacco, odd.

What's the capital of Kansas? Kansas City? No of course not, it's Topeka. If a more plain and dull state capital exists than this then we've yet to see it. This place can't even manage to string a decent street together and the standard capitol building is now looking as dull as all the others.
Avoiding the toll roads we take the backroads and Kansas is suddenly a lot more hilly than it seemed on the interstate. The roads lean left and right and up and down all over the place and makes for a more interesting drive, well it stops me falling asleep at the wheel at least.
We arrive near the state border of Missouri and Kansas City. This is strangely confusing to me and even now that we've been there I still don't understand what it's all about. Kansas City is in both Missouri and Kansas. I think there are two Kansas Cities but if so they are right next to each other on the border. The Kansas City in Kansas seemed to consist of nothing but interstate, that is to say we couldn't find it. The Kansas City on the Missouri side is in fact a proper city. How all this came to be I don't know. I do know that the road signs around here are the worst we've encountered and although we have a detailed map we get lost often.
Kansas City, that's in Missouri not Kansas, is not bad looking. The sky is grey and it's threatening rain around the high buildings and the odd bit of Gothic architecture. There's smatterings of art about as we take a look at the river front area, which is grim and industrial which looks even more so with the start of the rain. Still, there's sprinklings of cool stuff in-between the terminally run-down buildings. It feels like a city built on industry that's only recently begun to modernise itself into being a hip town.
And just like that we've left Kansas and are speeding through Missouri and into Iowa. The dullness continues!

Great sand and snow

2008-06-05T01:40:00.008+01:00

Alamosa is south of Denver and much warmer. It fells like we've headed back into Arizona but the snowy mountains reassure us we haven't. It's a small town with zero to offer. We're here because of what is on the outskirts, Great Sand Dune National Park. Not only does Colorado have world class snowboarding on huge jagged peaks it also has the largest sand dunes in mainland America. Upon entering a motel we notice signs on the doors detailing a water problem in town. It turns out the council had discovered the town water was contaminated and are now in the process of dumping serious amounts of chlorine into the town's system. This means the water is undrinkable as well as inadvisable to wash in and brush your teeth in. We'll be staying just the one night then.
It's a bit out in the middle of nowhere here, we passed just two tiny hamlets in 70 miles to get here, so away from the main street it looks a bit tired, like the inhabitants, but there's a healthy mix of Mexicans and Americans here as the Mexican border used to be north of here. But, there isn't a great deal out here. Let's get to those sand dunes then!
You can see the dunes from the road into town but it's not until you drive the 15 miles toward them that you realise how big they are. Even then it's deceiving until you're stood at the foot of them. Of course we had to climb them. It took around an hour and a half to get to the highest dune in North America. The sand gets deep in places and the wind gets stronger nearer the top spitting up sand in your face regularly. All this made harder by carrying my transport back down, the snowboard.
Great views at the top run on for 30 square miles of sand dunes toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It really does look fake and difficult to comprehend it's size but it's bloody windy and I'm sliding down this thing on the steepest grade I can find. There's a few people out on the dunes but we've been alone now for a while and don't really come close to anybody until we reach the car. Some families are out with their sleds and trying to get some speed up on the dunes. I get about 10 runs down various dunes until reaching the flat sands to where water running from mountain snowmelt is creeping along it's way. In a couple of weeks this will become a raging torrent, well almost. It'll still only be a few inches deep but rushing fast. The river is in fact a phenomena. It's pulsating motion has scientists intrigued and so forth and so on.
Beneath the large grains on the dunes is snow. Yep, snow. Climbing out of a large sand shaped funnel the sand shifts and white glistening snow appears. Odd but true. It's hard to describe this place as after all it's just tons of sand being constantly shaped by the whistling winds around the mountains. It does mean that this landscape is ever changing. If you went today the place will be different, the dunes could have grown or receded and the river could be pulsing away to it's own beat. What an amazing place.
So, what now? A couple of days of driving the flat plains of middle America. Into Kansas it is then.

Red is the colour

2008-06-04T13:47:00.009+01:00

I don't quite understand that Colorado is supposed to be named after how the Spanish described it. Colour Red. From my jumbled Spanish knowledge I was of the belief that it should be named 'Colorojo' with the 'j' pronounced like a 'h'. Maybe someone misheard, or maybe I'm wrong, but one thing that is correct is the description. Of course not the whole state is red. Half of it is flat green plains and the other half is large sharp pointed mountains. But there's plenty of red rock thrown in for good measure and the state slogan, 'Colorful Colorado', continues to ring true.
First stop is the university town of Fort Collins. A long main street of brick fronted shops with local stores offering goods from student fashions to high price bicycles. A short pedestrianised section includes the dull chain stores, and wandering hoboes, until it all peters out near the university. There's a strong youthful energy about the place with cool kids abound. This is a rarity in the US. The opposite of the trendy and fashionable people of American TV and film applies. This is one of the least trendy and attractive nations we've visited. TV and film is packed with the image of the beautiful people of America but in reality around 95% of people look as if cruel experiments have been taken upon them whilst single-handedly robbing them of any sense of style. Ok so this isn't the most important thing one can note about a nation but until this trip I didn't realise how different people in Europe can be to the rest of the world. At times it often feels like a step back in time, as it did in Australia, to see how we used to live but have now moved on.
This is why Fort Collins is a decent place. Pockets of hip youthfulness help give energy to a place and keep it bouncing along rather than stagnate into another one of many flat lining American town.
We have another reason to like Colorado. It's the home of what has now become our favourite cheap food haunt and that has saved us from the depths of fast food depravity we've been locked in for months. Chipotle Mexican Grill started here and offers us huge burrittos of, as they declare it, gourmet quality for only slightly more than a limp slice of questionable meat slapped between fake cheese and a couple of dough based products they like to call buns. If this type of food was readily available in England someone would make an absolute fortune and its the cool kids of Colorado that helped the success of the chain that was originally located near to universities. The bad skin I am trying to fight off here from all the corn syrup in everything we consume has cleared. It's no wonder that all the countries we've visited most people look 10 times healthier than that of the American people. Bad skin here is endemic to bad diet and huge amounts of people into their late 30's and 40's still seem to be struggling with acne. Maybe if everything didn't come with melted cheese on it they'd be a lot nearer a solution.
Fort Collins is also home to many micro-breweries that carefully create wide varieties of good tasting beer. The towns of Colorado keep impressing.
This run of cool towns had to end but I didn't think it would end at the oddly named place we pass through, Loveland. I heard on the news that this place gets huge amounts of post redirected though it's office at Valentine's just so it can get the 'Loveland' stamp. And that's all I remember. Oh, it did have a great shop named 'Loveland Pawn' which tickled me but that's about your lot. It also has the honour of being an 'All American City', which I gather is an award of sorts handed out to a different town each year. We've passed through a few already. I'm not sure what the criteria for becoming an 'All American City' are but from what I've seen I think your town must have one fairly long dull main street. One or maybe two hanging baskets. Plenty of Amenities; Walmart, KFC, Burger King etc. and be a place you go to die(or want to die in).These plainly mediocre towns seem only to be inhabited by white folk, but maybe that's just what we saw passing through and not a true reflection of the societies living in these lifeless blocks of uniformity.
Colorado Springs is the next town, it's probably a city, that we spend a couple of days at. The downtown area is like many others and does include some nice looking establishments and a couple of grand museums. The real draw here is out of town. Just on the edge of town is a free park that is full of red rock formations that just seem like they're growing out of the green landscape around the area. The obligatory overnight snowfall shows the park in it's best light and the sun is out making for a great stroll around. A decent loop road also takes you around the sights, the large balanced rock being a favourite. With snow still on the nearby mountains these rocks stand out even more, no wonder it's a popular visitors spot. We'd had a quick look round the park the previous afternoon as the light rain became snow. It wasn't the best conditions for a stroll but today with the luminescent blue sky and dazzling sun coupled with the snow still laying about waiting to melt it couldn't have been better. What a difference a day makes.
Colorado Springs has another trick up it's sleeve. Pike's Peak that looms high over the town is a famous timed rally spot. The road leading to the top hosts a gruelling event annually but anyone can drive up it for a fee. As the fee was over $35 it was something we'd have to miss but we did get up to the small village at the foot of the famous peak. At this point I was glad we didn't attempt the drive up the peak once the snow got had begin to get thicker and thicker.
The village of Manitou Springs is the point from which a cog train takes tourists to the top of Pikes Peak but we can't even see it now due to snow. The place itself seems quaint and has a bit of a wizard and fairy sort of theme about, we walk around for 15 minutes or so before the snow gets even heavier.

We grab a burritto before we go and scoff it outside the decent looking Pioneer Museum downtown. We sit in the car gorging on the Mexican delight whilst traffic builds up at the nearby lights. A woman decides this is the opportunity she's been waiting for and gets out of her car to flash her bra at her friends following behind. They find this even more hilarious when they spot us two right next to them. There must be something in the air around here as in the ice cold Rocky Mountains I spot a girl in her early twenties wearing a skimpy black top and just her knickers.....in the snow!! Someone is taking photos of her while she poses but it's not even in a discreet place, it's right next to a car park!
It's time again to head on and we've got one last National Park to visit before heading east. It'll be the last park we'll see for a while as the excellent run of parks in the west has come to an end. Thankfully this one is a corker.

on the road again

2008-06-04T02:54:00.011+01:00

Leaving the mile-high city of Denver we soon enter back into the state of Wyoming. The American interstate system is good for just ploughing ahead but don't plan on seeing a great deal. Dull is the best word to describe most outlooks from the interstate but at least it's direct.

The yellow grass plains of Wyoming start displaying signs of snow and the more west we head the more the snow appears. By the time we reach the small town of Rawlins it's freezing and ice surrounds the crummy motel we stop in. Rawlins is one of those American towns that is terminally ugly and unfathomably expensive. Why in this dead end backwater are all the motels soo pricey I can't comprehend. After entering the petrol station to the sound of the black toothed cashier swearing her head off, then her total lack of being able to understand a word I was saying, I was glad to get out of the place. In many places, more often in small towns, people seem to have no clue what the hell I'm saying to them. Tuna isn't that far away from the American pronunciation 'Toona' but still this baffles hordes of backwards born hicks. My refusal to repeat it the American way sometimes drags things out but I feel it must be done. This is probably caused in part by the lack of worldly knowledge they have. Any programme on TV featuring foriegners, even English, speaking English has subtitles along the bottom. This kind of forced laziness is farcically annoying at times when I have to prepay for petrol by announcing I want, '40 dollars on pump 5 please' and getting responses like, '15 dollars on what ya say?'. I'm surprised I haven't bitten my tongue clean off by now but I'm at the whim of these morons as I need what they're selling.

We leave miserable Rawlins behind on a snow covered highway on which the wind is throwing snow around like a white sea. Further on heavy road salting leaves the road looking not dissimilar to a scene from 'The Fog' with it's rising swirls of steam.
We spend the night in another 'anywhere America' town named Pocatello. It's much better than Rawlins at least but the sun from the late afternoon doesn't continue into the next day and we once again awake to heavy snow fall. We make a decision on the car's starter motor, if it doesn't start first time this morning then we're buying a new one. The reception clerk helps us push start it in the falling snow on our way to the car parts place.
Thankfully for us my mum had found a second hand starter motor on the internet a few days earlier. And where could we buy this vital part from? Pocatello handily enough. After we'd found the place and they'd returned from lunch the part was ours at a third of the price of a new one, excellent. Now all it needed was fitting. We decide to buy some tools but put off the fitting for a couple of days in the hope that the weather just gets a touch warmer and we can make in time before the Craters of the moon visitors centre closes.
We re-enter Idaho with a different view from two weeks previous. Last time we were here every single piece of ground was layered in thick snow. This time the pale grass is showing prominently through and the snow has receded. I begin to think that snowboarding may not even be an option but as we close in on the visitors centre we see the large cinder cone of weeks before still wearing a blanket of snow. Granted it's nowhere near as thick but it's good enough. We get to the visitors centre and gratefully retrieve the boots, in the exact same condition we left them, then quickly repeat our previous snowboarding attempts on the cone. It's easier to walk much higher on the cone this time but I didn't forget that the higher altitude make the trudge just that much harder. In places the snow has become packed ice which I duly test the strength of with my skull , knocking me into a daze for a few minutes. Maybe a helmet would be a good idea.
After a couple of hours of hard work we drive out of the barren middle-of-nowhere setting to the town we stopped in last time, Idaho Falls. This time we stay in a nicer motel, not that the last one was bad, with a Mormon Temple view and recover from the battering we'd inflicted on ourselves.
Right, the moment of truth. Firstly, will the newly purchased starter motor work? Secondly, will I be able to fit it myself. It gets of to an OK start on another chilly morning until failure to reach the last bolt means scouting around town for a shorter spanner. Of course we can't find one, not even the local tool shop sells many items smaller than my forearm. So I put the bolts back and head back south through Pocatello once again. Here I get what I need and attempt once again, swapping the starter motors, in the icy breeze of the middle of the day on a Walmart car park. Oh the joys of travelling. But when I turn the ignition key all is good with the world and we've just saved ourselves a bundle of cash.
Back on the interstate we drive south out of Idaho into Wyoming, briefly skirting Utah, to another pointless town, Evanston. This woefully grey town was briefly turned lighter when we arrive out our motel and get chatting to the friendly Indian owner. His vast travelling, along with being able to speak 7 languages, gives us reason to talk for some time and leads, more importantly in my view, to him offering to give us some of his wife's home cooked food that evening. All at my favourite price, nothing. He even delivers it to our room, brill! It's been a long while since we'd had decent Indian food so the pakoras he gave us were very appreciated.
The next morning brings the usual heavy snow fall and the true test of the new starter motor, it works like a charm. A good way to start the day. Another good start to the day is leaving Evanston, which offers almost nothing from memory. I do like Wyoming as a state but for it's natural beauty alone as it's towns are just plain awful.

Now with the boots reclaimed and some extra miles under our belts we can get back to where we left off in a state that seems to have a lot more good places than bad, Colorado.

Cowboy town

2008-05-23T14:34:00.015+01:00

To get to Denver we cut through more mountains beside gushing rivers and blue lakes before descending down into the town of Boulder.

There's a good vibe about this town and it's hip clean streets. The proximity to the Rocky Mountains and the 200 miles worth of biking and hiking trails means everyone about town is slim and into a sport of some kind. The town consists of a main pedestrianised street and a few less busy offshoots. Around every corner are tidy wooden panelled houses and people biking somewhere. There's a bit of an arts scene going on in town and it also attracts some big name bands. Buskers play guitar, one guy has dragged out a piano, around the leafy streets lined without the usual chain stores with the addition of quirky little cafes and restaurants. This would seem a great place to live, not far from the city of Denver, right next to the Rockies, an interesting mix of happy looking folk and decent suburbs. A good compromise between city and back-country living. But they do have some serious winters. On to the home of the cowboys.
A couple of Denver facts for you. It's the Colorado state capitol, the most educated city in America and it has the thinnest populous of all American cities. This is no doubt due to the location of the city to the Rocky Mountains and the hundreds of trails around. Cycling is quite big judging by the amount of cycle shops and the numerous people partaking. There's also plenty of joggers and cycle lanes which make it quite different from the anti-people cities we've come across so far.
Initially Denver reminded me of Manchester, it has a vibrant arts and music scene, nearby mountains and a youthful appearance alongside some grand government buildings. But as it's American it does lack that certain liveliness and hustle and bustle of an English city. But there's still plenty of night-life and people mooching around just not on the same scale.
The first thing you see of Denver are the shining glass office buildings and, when you get closer, the angular shapes of the art museum.
We plan to stay a couple of days when, after unloading the car, it occurs to us something is missing. Laura's snowboarding boots. We'd not taken the snowboarding gear out of the car for a couple of weeks so only now have we realised their absence. We think back to the last time we snowboarded and it was two weeks ago in Idaho we changed into our gear at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't quite nowhere, however, as the Crators of the Moon National Park visitors centre was a hundred yards down the road. Our only hope is that someone passing through spotted the boots and chose not to steal them but to hand them in at the centre. What to do then we'd have to decide, it was after all 700 miles away.
Next morning we ring the visitors centre and amazingly the boots had been handed in and were waiting for us in Idaho. So what do we do? Driving that far would take a couple of days and cost us in petrol and accommodation way more than the price of the boots. We consider the options and decide on the least rational one. After Denver we've got a 1400 mile round trip ahead of us. Besides, we're not exactly in a rush and it'll give us a chance to do some snowboarding again, if the snow is still there.
Right, let's get on with Denver. No, wait. First I have my first haircut on the entire trip. 9 and a half months of hair growth is starting to look a mess. The new haircut definitely has a 'feminine' quality about it but I assure myself it will grow on me, literally.
Into town and an up close look at the jagged art museum said to resemble the Rocky Mountains, I don't know if the person who thought that was demented but it looks good either way.
The capitol building, just as in every other state, is a copy of the nation's capitol in Washington D.C. but this one has 200 ounces of gold coating it's exterior dome. Very impressive and over the top. As usual with government buildings we get a healthy dose of drunken homeless with baked faces and scraggly beards, and that's just the women! We hadn't been asked for change for weeks as our stint in National Parks had been tramp free. Arriving in Boulder and then here changed that. The sad fact of American city life.
We have a quick nosey inside the capitol building but the over elaborate nature of it soon tires. Another way to quickly dull the senses is to venture to the shopping district. Like any developed city in the world you find the same street with the same shops, only the façades are different. Denver has a couple of decent buildings here, the best one of note being a Masonic Temple. A handy, and free, shuttle bus takes the weary from one end of the long shopping street to another aswell as stopping at points inbetween. A tower copied from the design of one in St. Mark's Square in Venice is also here and is said to be that tallest tower west of the Missouri river. I'm sure Vegas would disagree but never mind.
Denver also has a couple of liveable districts akin to the apartments of Manchester, which also explains the higher ratio of foot traffic here compared to other US cities. A huge outdoor sports store is in one district that is also home to a few funky stores and great looking suspended footbridges.
The Mexican part of town is a bit shabby but OK if you want to buy a car judging by the amount of dealers along here. Lakewood on the west side of Denver is much better though. Stylish bars, restaurants, lively theatres and gig venues feed the large student population.
Denver used to be a bit of a cowboy haunt but not much of that seems to remain these days. A lot of modern trappings of major cities have taken a foothold here. But city life here still seems more day to day liveable than any other city I can think of. It's the mix of mountain air, modern and slightly older architecture, youthful student exuberance and speedy access to terrific scenery. Maybe it's the altitude, it's nicknamed the mile-high city for good reason, but I like this city and that's not something I say often in America.
Ok, so we've got a few days of driving ahead of us. Hopefully the car's starter motor will hold out but I'm starting to lose hope. We had to start the car one morning by rolling it down a slight hill first. A big forkout looks on the cards.

Coors is crap

2008-05-22T04:43:00.012+01:00

Further toward the centre of America is the almost unmentioned and oft overlooked state of Nebraska. Heading south through Nebraska there are no highways or interstates so it's back road driving all the way. Nebraska is known as a bit of a dull state but contributes massively to the American economy. The rolling farmlands here, that are currently undergoing controlled burns to rejuvenate the land, cultivate much of the beef, pork and corn that America consumes. America loves it's corn. If you've ever tasted American chocolate you may have wondered why it's so utterly terrible. This is because it's main ingredient is corn syrup. This awful ingredient is in almost everything they make and generally complete crap because of it. They have maple syrup, without any hint of maple as it's corn syrup. There's butter substitute, corn spread, there's non-dairy creamer, main ingredient of course corn syrup solids. Look at any chocolate bar and a corn based product will be first on the list. Have a drink of fruit juice and more often than not high fructose corn syrup is in it. I'm not sure if this explains the absolutely dire breads and pastries here but the majority of food is definitely some of the worst we've had on the trip. But saying that we can't afford fine dining here so I'm sure there are improvements somewhere. Oh to be eating in Argentina again.
The quiet back roads of Nebraska provide an insight into the backbone of the country, sort of. To be honest it's fairly bland but at least the people seem friendly enough, judging by the waves we keep getting from the local cap wearing pick-up truck drivers.

In the middle of nowhere we come across an old fort, Fort Robinson, that has a chequered history. This place was a German prisoner of war camp but before that was a Native American prison. Cheyenne Indians were held here when they'd fled their reservations. Some Indians escaped the Fort and were soon massacred in the following chase and battle.
Further down the road laid across the yellow grassy plains we stop off at another National Park. We had no idea this place existed but it provided a bit of a break from the mundane driving. Fossil Agate National Park is home to some ancient fossil finds from animals that exist nowhere else on earth. Animals lived around here and were wiped out by years of drought, or so it's thought, and never to return. The ranger tells us about his meeting with David Attenborough and how this site assisted in the making of one of his BBC documentaries.
20 million year old fossils are all well and good but our real destination is the Rocky Mountains. We pass through Wyoming to get there and yet again reach 'Colorful Colorado', a very apt state slogan.
Coming towards the jagged high peaks of the American Rockies, the mountain range runs into Canada, we follow a flowing river of run-off snow melt and are plunged into a world of shrouded mountain peaks and wildlife bounding around without a care in the world. The clouds move quickly over the mountains and the weather changes from bleak to sunny in minutes. The wind is whipping around us and is chilling to the bone to boot. We stop in a small and quaint enough town on the edge of the park and put off any walks for the day after. As so often has happened in the last few weeks when we peer out of the window the next day the scene has been changed by yet more soft snow.
We walk to a place where many rocks have been deposited from a lake on a higher elevation in a flooding a few years ago. The wall of water created from the flooded lake pushed it's way down the mountain killing a walker and flooding the town we stopped last night, Estes Park, in 6 feet worth of water.
The snow is coming down off and on as we take a long walk through the forest besides a stream that at points is completely covered with this powdery white stuff. Wind blows up and down the valley and we see snow being blown off trees around and on us as well as clouds of snow being pushed into the air across the mountainside. The whole area is stunning. Colorado gets off to a good start, it's just a shame that at this time of year the highest road in America, that traverses the Rockies, is closed due to snow. Seeing the place at this time of year makes up for it though.
So, Coors is crap. It's made here in Colorado and the Rockies are depicted on the beer bottle itself. To be honest I've not had it for years so really I should make another judgement while I'm here but I just couldn't bring myself to it, damn American beer! One last thing that I can't shake off from here was the incredibly annoying driving from the American buffoons here. It's a National Park so no-one should be in a rush to get anywhere but people still drive right up my exhaust pipe even when I'm doing the speed limit. There's frickin deer bounding around here and still these idiots are overtaking me on blind corners, genius!

A day in the life

2008-05-17T13:44:00.016+01:00

What's an average day on an American road trip like? As the last couple of weeks have been spent almost entirely in National Parks it's hard to say 'average'. But as this run of visits is almost over I thought I'd write an account of an almost typical day before heading into the middle of the country that everyone tells us is not worth stopping the car for.
We start the day like every other, at a motel that isn't at all bad. In comparison to England it's incredibly cheap too, at just over £20 for the room for the night and a sort of continental breakfast.
After a bit of cereal and toast for breakfast, whilst trying to ignore the 4 month saga of presidential election news on tv, we go through the daily process of shifting our bags and other such items into the car.
Once the car starts, it's been having a bit of trouble of late, it's off into town.
Rapid City springs another surprise on us as it is home to a part of the Berlin wall on display in a park Downtown. It's an interesting exhibit and on the face of it an odd choice to be one of only a handful of places in the world to have a section of the wall on display.
It transpires that the wall is here due to the various secret missile defence locations in the South Dakota plains that apparently symbolise peace and the protection thereof. We knew one of these missile control centres was near to Badlands National Park but we couldn't find it. It's certainly a good place to hide a missile compound in amongst the endless plains and farmlands.
Like every other day we fill up with petrol. It's true that in America petrol is a lot cheaper than good ole Blighty, about two thirds cheaper, but there is usually a much larger distance to drive here. Everything in the west is spread out so each day a few hundred miles on the clock is no surprise. Even so petrol here is rising daily and is becoming a constant bug for the American motorist. Unfortunately for all their complaining and thinking that they're the most influential country in the world they are helpless when it comes to petrol prices. They've tried to lower petrol prices for the last 7 years by appealing to petrol companies but these pleas are happily ignored year in year out.
So on the road we go and towards one of the nations most famous monuments, Mount Rushmore. Unlike other national parks or national monuments Mount Rushmore is free to get in. But like most things here all is not quite what it seems. We have a national parks pass so an entrance fee wouldn't bother us anyway but it turns out that this pass doesn't cover us for the parking charge implemented at the site. Now this is the ridiculous bit. To see one of the iconic examples of Americana and images of the men who made this country free you have to pay $10 to pay to park in a car park that was subcontracted by the parks service to be built and run. You could say fair enough and pay the $10 to park in the awful looking multi-storey car park or you could consider why you're paying at all. At least 3 million people visit this park every year. The parking fee is said to cover the maintenance and construction of the car park. So that means it costs $30 million a year to do this. Somehow I don't believe it. As we've discovered on this road trip America is the land of the free, but you have to pay for it.
So, we park down the road for nothing and take a 15 minute walk in the sunshine to enter the monument.
There's no denying it, Mount Rushmore is impressive in many ways. To even conceive the idea of blasting a mountain and sculpting faces of famous presidents into it is one of immense audacity and vision. The execution of the project is equally stunning. 14 years of explosions and meticulous carving created these likenesses of four US presidents. The original idea was to bring in tourism to the Black Hills of South Dakota and you have to say that it fulfilled this goal spectacularly. It probably wouldn't have worked as well if the first idea to create typically South Dakota based characters faces in the rock, such as Wild Bill.
I normally don't like too much interference between mankind and nature when it comes to beautifying an area but it certainly works here.
The heads of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln all look great and are huge in scale. You can take a short walk to the foot of the monument for a different perspective and read a bit about the process aswell as a bit of American history in the visitors centre. Sculpting this thing in a mountain of this size looked incredibly tricky from the pictures on display and needed a few helpers who all fell under the controlling eye of master sculptor Gutzon Borglum.
From here we continue south, we're nearly in the middle of the country now and a plan to where we go now is becoming more and more vague. There's so much to see in the west and we've seen soo much of it that it's almost left us thinking what do we see from now until New York on the other side of the country?
We briefly stop off at another National Park, Wind Cave National Park, but can only go into the caves with a ranger and it's too late in the day for that.
So we pull up into a small town, Hot Springs, and settle in for the night in a standard chain motel. A walk around the main street and along the river is a nice relief to being stuck in a desperately barren town for the evening. It still ain't great but ain't bad either. We end the day with a sandwich from Subway, living the high life I tell thee. Not bad for a day's work but a long driving day is ahead before we enter our last national park and major city in a while. After that, who knows!?

Black Hills, Deadwood and Badlands

2008-05-05T05:05:00.013+01:00

South Dakota has a couple of surprisingly famous landmarks and one excellent national park. First off we drive through the Black Hills along a scenic byway alongside gushing rivers and rugged cliffs. Trees line the top of the canyon and we pass the odd frozen waterfall, yes it's still that cold.

We pop out of the surrounding scenery into the town of Deadwood. This was sensationalised in a recent TV series of which I saw nothing but I do remember it starred the guy who played Lovejoy in the series of the same name in the 80's. Anyway, this town is infamous for Wild Bill Hickok and the gold rush. Cries of 'there's gold in them there hills' and so forth spring to mind.
Wild Bill was the sheriff of the town and an avid gambler, explaining somewhat the cheesy casinos along the small main street. Before his time the land around the South Dakota black hills was Indian owned. The government gave them rights to the land but once gold was found here everything changed. People rushed in from all over the world sparking vain attempts by the government to stop the influx with the military being involved. This lead to fighting between Indians and the new settlers for years. This is pure Wild West with gunfights, Indians, wagon trains, drinking and gambling. You know, the good ole days. Wild Bill ended up getting shot in the back whilst sitting in a casino and is buried in the cemetery just above town. The wooden houses off the main street and dotted along the steep side streets are decent looking but the main street itself is a bit tacky. The streets around it look a lot better though.
This also seems to be a haunt of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, we passed through the village of Sundance just before here, as well as Calamity Jane. Believe it or not Butch Cassidy was a citizen of Salt Lake City, his parents left England due to their Mormon beliefs. And where did they leave behind in England? Preston. Well I never.
We carry on through rolling hills of yellow prairie grasslands to Rapid City. I like the name. We take a stroll round the deserted streets the next morning and realise why no-one's about, it's Easter Sunday and everybody's at church. Classic. For heathens like us this is great. The lack of loudmouth lumps for a few hours is a nice break. Rapid City itself isn't too bad either, brick buildings and bronze statues of former presidents adorn each corner. We turn down a back alley that is full of graffiti, seemingly allowed by the council and renamed 'Art Alley'. Some great stuff and some terrible but at least it brightens up the look of a normally gritty alleyway. It's in stark contrast to the clean streets and general uniformity of the place, good stuff.
An hour out of town is Badlands National Park. For the hour we drive we see nothing but the wide plains of South Dakota rolling off into the horizon. All of a sudden we're in Badlands and the landscape is drastically changed into a vast canyon of epic proportions.
We do a couple of short walks before the hordes arrive from church aswell as taking in some of the great viewpoints. There's an array of landscapes here from quiet rustling prairie to multicoloured hills to natural arches and canyons.
There's also a bit of natural history here in the strange fossils they've found here from animals who lived in the region around 20 million years ago. These animals are said to be related to various animals living today such as the modern day horse and wolves but died out in a series of drought ridden years. Whatever happened, these animals never returned.
This place has a similarity to the bizarre landscapes of Death Valley, but a bit colder, and I like it all the more because of it.
Badlands is a huge and, for today anyway, fairly quiet national park that is definitely worth a visit. Whether you'd ever find yourself in South Dakota I don't know but it does also have one of the world's most famous monuments, which we visit the next day.

A close encounter

2008-05-03T15:05:00.017+01:00

Into Wyoming once again and to the small town of Sheridan. It possibly is better looking now that a layer of snow has been laid overnight upon this Western town. The brick fronted buildings have an air of the cowboy about them and the bronze sculptures dotted around not only attest to this but also to various things related to Wyoming life. The main sculpture being the onlooking life-size cowboy standing admiring the main street.

Flakes of snow continue to fall as the icy wind goes through us, it's time to get in the warm car and move on.
It's a slushy ride on the freeway as the unexpected snow has caught out the snow ploughs. After a while it begins to clear up until the snow all but disappears a couple of hours down the road.

The next port of call is a national monument named Devil's Tower. It's shown on the Wyoming state plates so we've seen it in a smaller version for some time.
It's basically a square-ish rock that sticks up from the surrounding flat ground seemingly out of nowhere. Up close it's even odder. Geologists say that the earth around the rock was up to a mile higher than it is today and the result we now see is a once buried lava chamber. The rock looks like it's pushing up into the air and isn't what I expected at all.
It's also one of the only places on earth that has this type of rock formation. The rock has cracked into hexagonal columns, some can be seen on the floor near us, as water has seeped through the cracks. It's no wonder Steven Spielberg chose this rock as part of the location for the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We take a walk around the base of the rock seeing it in different lights and angles, the sun is shining but the path in places is still covered in thick slippery ice.
On the edge if this park are thousands of prairie dogs. These look a bit like a rat that stand on their back feet. They live in dug passageways and always seem to be on the look out for something. It's amazing how none of them seem to run out onto the adjacent road but they don't.
We drive on from the bucking bronco and odd rock state of Wyoming to a state I knew absolutely zero about, South Dakota. Not before passing yet more oddly familiar named towns along the way.

Where are we?

2008-05-03T04:42:00.007+01:00

Around Yellowstone it dips into different states in which we float in and out of and can sometimes lose track of which one we started in. But we're still in Montana and on our way East, not before a rest stop on the freeway in which we get offered free hotdogs, home-made cookies and hot drinks. Excellent stuff and all in the name of god and Easter weekend. Good on 'em, nutters. At least they weren't ramming the lord down our throats like the insane preachers on tv everyday. Not a day goes by without hearing about the lord in some capacity or other and it grinds. No other country seems to do this and yet it's America that seems to want the whole world to be part of the Christian church.

So, on into the wide plains passing ugly looking industrial factories and equally ugly looking towns that serve these factories on the way.
What is the state of Montana famous for? Hmm. Well before arriving I had no idea but once here I realise I had heard of one thing here, the Battle of Little Bighorn. This is the site where Indians hammered American soldiers and was also known as Custer's Last Stand. Although General Custer seems to be somewhat famous around here and to be held as a kind of hero, almost every state park in the area bears his name, he was actually killed early on in the battle and was reported to be a bit useless.
We visit the battlefield just as the place is closing so have to rush round the large hilly site. It seems an odd place for a battle but it's hilly nature would be good to retreat into.

It resembles the green undulations of a train set, I presume General Custer was the fat controller, but a bit brushy looking rather than lush English green.
The story, as I briefly got it, was that the Indians were sick of the poor land and conditions of the reservations they were forced onto and off their land. They decided to slip away from these reservations and the Americans didn't like this. They planned on rounding up the Indians and placing them back into the reservations whether they liked it or not, which of course they didn't.
The whole thing comes about after years of oppression from the Americans. When the first Europeans landing on the East coast of America it was the befriending of the local Indians that saved them from starvation. They were shown how to cultivate crops on this land and so forth. Once the white man had his foot in the door it was time to turn on the Indians, snatch their lands and chase them out of town. White man speaks with fork tongue you know. This went on through the years in the 'trail of tears' in which President Jackson evoked a law enabling the westward movement of the Indians onto the baron and somewhat uncharted lands. It also meant that anybody had free reign to slaughter Indians if they attempted to take back their lands. And so this went on for years as the Americans were unsure of what to do with them. Reservations were set up and the Indians were corralled into them to keep them away from what the Americans considered their god-given land, i.e. the whole continent of North America. Land was afforded to Indians, then taken away when gold and the like was found. Many stories exist of battles between the Indians and the invaders and generally they get the rough end of the wedge in the Western movies of Hollywood.
So, it was here that the Indians won one of their most famous battles against the Americans even though they were severely out numbered.

The U.S lost the battle but won the war in the end. Reservations still exist today and now and again we see tv programmes about the poor quality of life on the harsh landscapes. But these mutterings are barley prevalent among the constant complaints of hardships from the former black slaves of America. I still can't help thinking the Native Americans are largely ignored in modern history and are poorly represented in every department of US society. Much the same is the aboriginal scenario in Australia and I doubt anything will be resolved or balance readdressed in the short term. Many countries throughout the world have had the same issues over history and some still are fighting over land today. In relative terms the formation of America is still a new country, therefore the scars from the last few hundred years of bloody history are still real.

Where's Yogi?

2008-04-30T04:27:00.016+01:00

Yogi isn't here because that was Jellostone Park, not Yellowstone. Still we're here anyway Yogi or not.
At this time of the year most of the park is still closed, the altitude means thick snow for long periods of the year, but the long north road is ploughed for visitors.
Yellowstone was the first national park created in the world. Franklin Roosevelt conceived the national park system and Yellowstone was the first to be inducted in 1872. It's also a giant volcano. It could even be the starting point of life on earth as a massive explosion from here could have changed the air content on earth to the fine balance of gases that now enables us to breath.
Just before we enter the park we drive slowly past large Buffalo grazing around in a nearby children's playground. As soon as we drive beneath the Roosevelt arch into the park we encounter plenty of Bison, or Buffalo depending on how you feel, strolling in groups along the road. We later find out that the Buffalo in Yellowstone and around the park aren't native to the area. They were brought in as the original 3 million or so Buffalo in the area were hunted with no thought that the population would die off. Genius. You can get quite close to them but it's not really advised, they may plod around like cows but they can get aggressive and are pretty speedy with it.

We also spot cow elk, it's hard not to when they gallop out in front of you as you round a blind corner.
Through the park runs the Yellowstone River, this meets Boiling River with dramatic steamy effect. It's called Boiling River for a reason. The reason Yellowstone is so popular is due to this hot stuff. People are bathing in the sulphurous water even though there's snow everywhere and I'm wrapped up in hat, coat and a scarf.
In the visitors centre is a display of stuffed animals, Americans love to shot defenceless animals to make themselves feel manly and then display their proud kill. The young deer elk is especially grim. In another room is an artist's display of paintings from the park from the late 1800's. I don't like the style but it's interesting to find out the artist was from Bolton.
Near the centre is Mammoth Hot Springs, now that's a descriptive name right there. Boiling water pours out from the earth and runs down the hill side creating levels of residue in which blue, red and green pools of water, similar to that of New Zealand, sit melting the snow around and solidifying trees in it's wake. It's a film set moment yet again.
We drive along the 56 mile road encountering bison every 5 minutes or so. I've never seen so much wildlife roaming around, it's like Knowsley Safari Park! Stag and elk are grazing on the hillsides and as we head further along the road it becomes more and more like wilderness. As the roads quieten and snow covers everything from the fields up to the bottom of mountains it feels like what I imagined Alaska to be like. Then we see some wolves in a pack running along the river's edge to confirm the view. Yellowstone is a massive place and we've only seen the top quarter of it.
The icy road runs out in the small hamlet of Cook City, not a city at all. It's blocked off from there beyond and only inhabited by snowmobilers and us in the only moving car.

Back through the park, avoiding the hoards of bison, to stop in Gardner on the outer edge just as the sun goes down. The chilly wind has picked up and blown snow across the road we came in on.

Yellowstone is without doubt stunning and we've only scratched the surface. Once the full park is open the huge lake and geysers make up the huge geothermal crater that's one of the highest visited parks in the land, but that's not for another month at least but at least we've seen something. It's thought that an volcanic eruption from this place could very well change the earth's atmosphere no matter what us mere mortals did to try and change it and unsurprisingly it's overdue another explosion.

A hole in Wyoming

2008-04-27T02:11:00.011+01:00

Wyoming has the best car registration plate in America. No arguments. It's got a huge rock, featured in Steven Spielberg's 'Close Encounters of a Third Kind', and it's got a cowboy riding a bucking horse. Classic. Most other plates are drab, California just has the name on it, Oregon has a tree on it and New Mexico's is just yellow. Wyoming's only challenger is Utah which has a rock arch from the national park but that doesn't beat a cowboy and a square lump named Devil's Rock.
Only an hour or so out of Idaho Falls and we're into Wyoming and the small town of Jackson. It's also known as Jackson Hole as it sits in a dip at the bottom of surrounding mountains. It's a very decent place and has no doubt become so due to the influx of cash from the few ski resorts right on the edge of town. Not only that but the sharp mountain peaks Grand Teton National Park is only a few miles out of town.
The town has a small square, a rarity in towns we've seen so far, that is covered in lights and and elk antlers. Don't worry no elks were harmed in the making of the four antler archways cornering the square. There's a large elk refuge just outside town and the antlers are collected by boy scouts, once the elks have shod them of course, and sold for donations to the local council.
A more famous park is situated just north of Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone. At this snowy time of year though the south and west entrances to Yellowstone are closed to all but skis and snowmobiles.
With the snow coming down heavily we visit the Grand Tetons. French explorers named the mountains 'Les Trois Tetons'. To those in the know this means 'The three tits' or breasts, whichever you prefer. Those French explorers must've been mighty lonely to think that these jagged mountains look like breasts but I'm sure it got them through those cold nights. Again most of the roads are closed to snow but one is open and we drive it to see what we can see. Not a lot it the answer. Cloud covers the top of the peaks and the snow is getting progressively worse throughout the day. A huge lake is laid out before us but you'd never guess it as it's completely blanketed in soft snow. This kind of snow is great for the ski resorts but not for the sight seeing. Still you can tell it's an impressive place. I try my hand at a bit of snowboarding on yet another thickly covered hill with little success.
The dark rolls in and soon we find ourselves struggling to see more than 10 metres in the now sideways blizzard. The wind is blowing snow off the edge of the road into the cars path like a snow-making machine. Roads that were clear that day were covered the next morning in a good few inches of soft white powder.

At least the next day gives us a brief view of the breasts, I mean peaks. Impressive they are and I can imagine that when summer arrives the park will be even more stunning with the huge lakes and green fields that are currently lying under all this snow.

From the morning in Wyoming into the afternoon into Idaho to enter Montana and West Yellowstone. A small village covered in house-high snow where lanes are forged out beneath glowing motel signs. The west entrance is still closed and we head on north to a small town called Livingston which carries on the dull tradition of western towns. At least from here it's only an hours drive to the only year round open entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

Famous Potatoes

2008-04-27T01:09:00.012+01:00

The land either side of the road is less populated as we drive north into Idaho. It's getting visibly colder too. Undulating fields covered in thick snow go off into the distance. The only area uncovered by snow is the road we're travelling on.
I know nothing about Idaho other than what it declares on it's car state plates, either 'Famous Potatoes' or the very descriptive 'Scenic'. Neither sound as exciting as Utah's 'Ski Utah!' or New Hampshire's 'Live Free or Die!' plates. Idaho is scenic I'll give it that.

We're here to visit Craters of the Moon National Park. Another volcanic landscape of hardened black lava and domed peaks. Pretty much all of it is still closed when we get there though, due to the snow. Still, driving through the white landscape that occasionally breaks for the streaks of black volcanic rock is a sight in itself.
Towns are few and far between here and when we do pass through a couple they're essentially outposts and little else. One of the towns has a great name though, Atomic. This is the first place in the US, maybe the world I'm not sure, to be totally reliant on atomic energy. This reminded me of being back in Vegas and reading an information sign placed on Fremont Street. It told of the atomic testing that took place in the desert in the 1950's. The mushroom cloud from these bombs could be seen a hundred miles away and had the knock on effect of smashing the glass of some downtown casinos. Now and again we come across posters in Utah, Nevada and Arizona asking for people who'd been around at the time within a 500 mile radius if they'd suffered any ill effects from the tests. It's a bit scary when you're own government is testing bombs out in the desert and isn't quite sure of the adverse effects yet. They even let people watch the explosions from 7 miles away at viewing areas, in which protective goggles had to be worn. Radiation must've surely got to these people too.

Back in the National Park we chat to the ranger and he tells us that it may be worth climbing the largest crater and snowboarding down it. As this is free and is located just behind the visitors centre we can't pass it up. Boots on, boards out and up we go. A tough climb in sometimes waist high snow gets me 3 quarters of the way up before it's impossibly steep. The hard work gives me great views of the surrounding peaks.

The snow is thick and nice and soft to fall on your face in, as I do often. After climbing up and boarding down a fair few times I'm completely knackered and we drive off away from the sunset to Idaho Falls.
This town sounds better than what it is, the falls in the name are man-made and unimpressively short. It's not totally dire though, half decent half grim. Although Idaho is probably worth more time we've one of the best ski towns in America to visit in the nearby state of Wyoming.

Utah Saints

2008-04-19T16:31:00.013+01:00

Salt Lake City is known for a few things. It's Utah's state capital, it held the Winter Olympics in 2002, the nearby slat flats hold land speed record runs and it's the home of the Mormon church in the U.S.
The snow is coming down thick as we drop down a never ending hill towards the city. Apparently the temperature and the moisture content around here mean that the weather system produces quality snow powder. Coupled with the world class ski resorts around the city and it's easy to see why the Olympics was chosen to be staged here.
A dominant feature of the skyline is the Mormon church that took 40 years to build before the turn of the 20th Century. It's an impressive building and is housed in it's own square in which other buildings connected to the church surround. There's a lot of stigma about the Mormon religion, the Church of the Latter day Saints, and we take a free tour around the Temple Square to find out more.
To be honest Salt Lake City hasn't got much else going for it other than snow related activities, the downtown area is bland and empty even on a Saturday. This is mainly because everybody is strolling around the paved shopping street a few blocks down dressed in awful green garb, it's St. Patricks' Day. In England we use this day as an excuse to get hammered but here in Utah they use it to wear orange wigs and green shorts, I know which I prefer.
The tour around some of the Mormon buildings and temple square must have to rang as one of the most uncomfortable things I can remember for a long while.
We listen to some mildly interesting information about the setting up of Utah by the head of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith. Then we get to hear a load of tosh about how this Joseph Smith fella and another conman Brigham Young are god like and have received messages from god and blah blah. We then sat through some comic sermon from a Jesus voice from around a statue of the bearded dude.
Whilst we filled out comment cards about the tour the two guides, both young women as they always are, sang some god song of some sort. At one point I thought they were going to ask us to prey, I was about to swear loudly but it was all over. The nightmare hadn't ended yet as we went into the Genealogy building to find out some family info for Laura. The Mormons are keen on family history and the like and it soon occurs to me why. They have vast access to family history so that they can look back into the past to, wait for it, baptise their dead relatives to become part of the Mormon church. No wonder they say 14 million people are part of the religion, they never said they were alive or not!
The whole thing is entirely mental and ludicrous. The Mormons kept banging on about being moved on and persecuted for their beliefs, which is clearly more insanity on a part of the Christian nutters already living in America. The way I see it is that one bloke, that Smith and then Brigham Young, decided it would be a good idea to become idolised by a load of people and make some cash in the process. Smith then invents some balls about god coming to him and telling him the true teachings of the bible are not be followed how he intended. Then he sets out to set up a new town, unfortunately not many think this and they think it fit to throw him and his followers out of town. Smith dies, whilst also denouncing polygamy to his death. Brigham Young carries on to the West until they happen upon a flat land beneath the mountains that is some what desert like and unforgiving. They set up the city around a grand church, that is in fact an impressive build. They name the place Deseret. Off the wall Brigham Young now becomes first governor. This guy not only dressed up as the dead Joseph Smith to pretend he'd returned from the grave to declare Brigham the new leader but also that Brigham is now god. Obviously. This all went down well with the willing congregation who took it all in, if only they'd had Google to research this charlatan. The guy had a history of trying to make a quick buck and this was a serious way to get a load of it. So now with God Brigham at the helm he announced polygamy was the god given way. Talk about brash, this guy not only has a wealth of followers, excellent living and the run of the town he now wants to have as many wives as possible. I've always that that this was a fast way of gaining more followers to your religion, by having lots of kids.
The state of Utah was, and to an extent still is, run by the Mormon church. A law unto itself. They were supposedly t-total, alcohol was banned, but as Mark Twain found out they had made a substitute similar to whiskey. The self ruling nature of Utah has run them into trouble a few times. They'd made agreements with the local Indians giving them permission to attack travellers through the state for their goods. Hundreds of people were killed by the Indians aswell as the Mormons themselves. When they wanted to become a state and therefore be a part of the United States the government were not interested due to their legal polygamy stance. Knowing that being assimilated into the union would benefit the state Brigham Young suddenly decided he'd got a message from god saying that now it probably wasn't the best idea to have 60 wives.
The government declared the state to be called Utah, after the local Ute Indians, and not Deseret as the Mormons wanted. But still once Utah became a state it was pretty vicious toward non members, aswell as Brigham's outspoken attitude toward African Americans, calling them 'dumb brutes' among many things.
The government wanted Young out of the seat at the head of Utah and sent in military protection for a new governor. The Mormons fought against the troops for some time until Young finally stepped down as governor. As a side note he also travelled to England to convert more gullibles and many of them moved to America as a result. Preston is said to have the longest continuous strain of Mormon belief in the world. This is probably because at this time Salt Lake City hadn't been set up.
Still, strange things have been known to happen in Utah. One related by Mark Twain was of a friend of his with a telegraph pole contract. This was the introduction of cross country networks in which Mormons were enlisted to erect through Utah. The Mormons decided throw all the telegraph poles into the desert and off mountains and return to their daily business. Apparently this was because it pleased them to get a gentile, non-Mormon, to commit them to a contract in which they felt they had no duty to fulfil. At much distress and cost to Twain's friend. He decided to approach Brigham who then decided to order the Mormons back to work. And that they did. But it just goes to show how they revelled in a feeling of lawlessness toward the Federal government.
Now the church is the centre of Salt Lake City and it's disillusioned believers. It offers people from around the world to come and study here, which is why our tour guides were from Samoa and Kenya. A great way to get new followers is get into the poor areas and offer them a new life in America, must be hard to say no. I've seriously had enough of all this bollocks after half a day and I'm glad when we head out of the place. Utah is an amazing state naturally but the rest is complete guff so it was good to see the salt flats.
The flats are about 2 hours out of town along the humongous Salt Lake. It's a short turning off the freeway to drive up a dead-end road to where the fastest land speed records have taken place. The Bonneville flats are the official name and are prepared each year for summer high speed runs. It's a vast plain of hard salt but it feels incredibly mushy near the edge. Many tourist's cars seem to have got stuck here but I couldn't resist pulling a doughnut out on salt, obviously in an area I'd walked on first. It's hard to imagine the fast land craft in the world has reached upto 600mph here on the mile track. It's straight one way and then another run back and an average is taken of the two runs.
It's freezing here and the wind really does whip around this strange land. It also happens to be near the Nevada border, as the large Casino attests. What's the deal with the gambling fixation here?
We drive back along the wind exposed road surrounded by white flats running into the distance. That's enough nutty religious stuff for me, we get enough in America as it is, so we leave Utah for the state to the north that's 'famous potatoes' weren't famous to me at all.

The Switzerland of America

2008-04-18T02:52:00.005+01:00

High into the dense snow of the mountains we curve along steep slippery roads partially covered in slushy ice.
Up and down we go until we arrive at a small town at the foot of a sharp peak. A decent little place that has multi-coloured houses as we head down the short main street.Most places are shut and the roads deserted. We later find out that this small town sometimes gets soo much snow and is that isolated that food has to be helicoptered in.
We carry on as the light begins to fade over another mountain pass to the self named 'Switzerland of America' Ouray.
An alpine looking town with excellent buildings along a short main street that seems well looked after. The whole place is also surrounded by high peaks seeming right next to the edge of town.
Our motel has the air of an alpine chalet about it. The twee décor and piped through swing music, mainly Sinatra, all add to the throwback cosiness of it all.
We awake in this soft warm haven to look outside at equally soft snow coming down into the pocket of flatland on which this town is built.
Large flakes are silently covering the streets around town. It's a friendly place and certainly looks the part but whether I could live out here for any length of time I doubt very much. We leave Ouray and the snow behind us and into the flat plains that also make up 'Colorful' Colorado. We pass through some dull backwater towns, one comically(so I thought) named Dinosaur. Imagine that, 'I'm from Dinosaur.' What a great thing to be able to say.
Unfortunately the town itself was tiny and horrendously grim. Dinosaur footprints and fossils have been found around this area and a few lame dinosaur models stand out in front of crappy tourist shops.
And just like that we're back in Utah and the state continues to unimpress with it's decaying towns and people. Vernal is the town we decide to stop overnight in but, as we soon found out, the expensive motel rooms due to a local construction boom move us on. I'll admit it does look like a building site.
I would rather drive on to a town where the motels are half the price, particularly when most of these places are particularly dull. So, by this ideal we drive on for a couple of hours deeper into Utah.
There isn't much in-between the towns other than pristine white snowfields that resemble white sand dunes and equally as thick.
Altitude is obviously a major factor in the snow coverage here as we descend for mile after mile in ever decreasing snow until we're into yet another bland city that consists of the usual chain everything and roads, not much else.
One saving grave is at least it's a cheap place to stay. The other advantage is that it's close enough to check-in and then have a look around our next and quite controversial destination, the capital of Utah and the home of the U.S. Mormon church, Salt Lake City.

The stuff movies are made of

2008-04-13T05:17:00.018+01:00

We're now into Indian territory and back in to the state of Arizona. We drive through a couple of towns in a few hundred miles, Blanding(aptly named) looks like the edge of a scrapyard and Monticello, which looks like the scrapyard itself.
We drive through a baron landscape of not a lot until the sun begins to set and we suddenly drop down between a huge cut length of rock into the small town of Bluff. This is like many other towns in size and relative dustiness but manages to have a charm about it. One restaurant, one petrol station(that also doubles up as shop and pizzeria) and a friendly old wooden motel with tumbleweeds bounding about the car park beyond an outdoor jacuzzi lit by a trail of lights in a small garden.
The reason we're in Bluff is because the road through it leads on to the place above, Monument Valley. This place has featured in most Cowboy films over the years. Many a classic shot from any one of those films would show the enigmatic hero astride a horse with these horizontal rock formations standing up in the desert landscape behind. Thing is those very same cowboys were usually kicking up dust trying to find and fight with those belligerent Indians. How ironic that now the land is Indian owned, Navajo tribe in fact, and they're the ones charging film companies to come in and shot those type of movies. Well sort of. They don't really make em like they used to so the last major film that extensively used Monument Valley was Back to the Future 3.

Unfortunately for us the Navajo ownership also means that it's not part of the National Parks system so we can't use our annual pass and have to pay $10 to get in.
There's not a massive amount to see once you're in and driving around on the bumpy dirt road. A few classic shots and it gets a bit dull. It takes the sudden add of the foot on the accelerator and the imagination to become the late great Colin Mcrae and in a heartbeat we're now competing in the Monument Valley World Rally Championships. The competitors? The lumpy Americans in their oversized sloth-like 4 wheeled drives of course!

Leaving a trail of dust behind we drive on through some third world country looking towns until we arrive at Four Corners. This is the point in which four US states converge at one point. Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Typically the actual point is also Indian owned and you have to pay for the privilege to stand in the very spot. I wasn't that bothered and after driving a few metres into New Mexico we turn round and face the car towards Colorado.
We enter into the town of Cortez, it's probably called a city but as we now know in America that means nothing. We've passed through 'cities' with under 100 inhabitants. Cortez isn't a great looking place although it does have a great mountain backdrop but the usual line of fast food chains and obligatory huge Walmart spoil the view.
We're here to visit Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde is again Spanish meaning 'Green Table'. This name is probably due to the green flat top mountains around here. You climb up into the park getting wide views of the flat plains you've left behind you. The warmth of those plains is also gone and been replaced by snow and a severe wind chill.
This area is all part of an ancient American civilisation. No-one is quite sure why these peoples left the site, I reckon it's because it's frickin cold and they hadn't invented Gore-tex to keep them dry. But they did leave behind various large dwellings, the best being the cave village behind the visitors centre.

It's a complex set of buildings and small courtyards that have survived all conditions the past few hundred years have tried to throw at the sheltered cave. In fact some of the 4000 ruins that exist here date back to around 300A.D., the latest being up to 1200A.D. and are in very good condition. Some restoration has been undertaken but not massive amounts.

It's thought that around 35,000 people, Pueblans as they like to be named here, lived around the area. It seems all the more odd when you realise only 25,000 people live here now. Where did this large population go and why?
Mesa Verde, as we read in the park newspaper, was voted the best National Park in America last year. Fair play I suppose but at the end of the day I was a bit ruined out and almost glad that some of the huge site was inaccessible due to snow.

We descend from the snowy heights of the park back down to the relatively warm plains of Colorado towards distant mountains. After a few hours these mountains are all around us as we ascend back into snow and narrow mountain passes. We have entered yet another world that couldn't be more different than the one before.

Arched Utah

2008-04-07T16:19:00.014+01:00

We've seen the Arch image on every car registration that has gone past us in the last few days whilst in Utah. It's one of many red rock arches within the unbelievable Arches National Park. Just off the highway is the entrance to this stunning park. You instantly begin climbing the u-turned road into another strange Utah world.

We're soon presented with tall and narrow slabs of red rock rising high above our heads. Rounding another corner shows us the distant mountain peaks and the foremost towering red monoliths of the park. Five minutes in and this place is cracking already.

Okay, so it is busier than the parks we've visited in the last few days but that just doesn't matter once you start seeing the crazy natural arches around the place.

Every rock and shape in said rock has been named, some with better names than others. So we have Park Avenue because the rocks look like a City Skyline. Then there's Courthouse Rock, which looks like a courthouse.

Double Arch, which is two arches close together and of course Balanced Rock, which is well you guessed it. But then there's Broken Arch, which is an unbroken arch. Odd. One thing they all have in common, apart from being arches, is that they're all superb looking. Just seeing all these naturally formed red arches below the deep blue sky in the sun of the day is a great way to spend a day, or two as it turned out.

There are over 2000 natural arches within the park in what is another humongous expanse of land.

We walk a few trails, one to Pine Tree Arch(it has Pine trees in it) another to Tunnel Arch(it's an arch shaped like a tunnel) until we get a bit lost on one trail and end up walking in the hot sun for a couple of hours. We slide in-between upright smoothed rocks, scramble over petrified sand dunes and mope across hot open land and through a campsite before arriving back at the car totally knackered. Excellent.

Just 2 miles down the road from the park entrance is the town of Moab. Not a bad town but not a great one in any respect but it's definitely clear that the main business here is related to the park and that mainly consists of mountain biking. Plenty of shops and tour companies also exist for quad bikes and Jeep tours. Arches National Park is yet another giant playground. Not just for overgrown kids either, under one arch a group of kids are sliding and digging around in the sand.

It gets incredibly hot here in summer so I'm glad we're here now, it's hot enough. Saying that, if there's a place to come back to for some amazing mountain bike action then surely this must be one of the spots on the earth.

Before leaving the place we have some soup and bread in the sun overlooking the perched Balanced Rock, that surely would fall if there was a slight tremor and would probably be rolling through town if an earthquake hit.

As for the Arch featured on the Utah registration plate, it isn't that great but it's a simple instantly recognisable symbol of one of the best places I've seen on this trip.

Although the towns of Utah so far have been dull and uninspiring the landscape has been continually amazing. There's still more to come too but we just have to pop out of Utah before we come back to see it.

Another canyon, another river

2008-04-06T03:40:00.027+01:00

We stop for a couple of nights in the dilapidated town of Green River. It's nothing more than a street of ramshackle buildings, a petrol station and a couple of motels. We didn't stay here for the dusky ambience no siree. We stopped for a couple of reasons, one the motel is actually decent and really cheap and the other being it's proximity to yet more wonders of Utah.
A German guy chats to us about his U.S. travels and of the small German towns he's visited whilst here. He seems slightly mental but we later realise he could be just slightly pissed after the brewery visits he mentioned in the late afternoon.
We miss breakfast that morning, a damning blow on this budget I can tell you, due to the clocks going forward of which we had no idea.
But the day wasn't to be cursed and soon we were in the stunning surroundings of another National Park which we knew nothing about, Canyonlands. Great name. I could only guess that it was land with many canyons?
At the entrance we see quite a few cyclists preparing for a day out in the park, not altogether common on this trip. Not far from the entrance is a couple of large red rock buttes, these are huge rectangular shaped lumps of rock jutting out of the desert landscape.

Across from the visitors centre there's a decent lookout and our first real glimpse at the land we'll be seeing today. Our first impression is like that of a smaller Grand Canyon but obviously not as wide and cluttered. Either way this place undeniably huge.

Thankfully the park is fairly quiet for a weekend, there are people about of course but it's certainly not busy by any means. It makes for a more peaceful visit away from unbelievably loud Americans, the shear size of the place helps.
We drive the 12 mile scenic drive to the end of the road at a 360 degree view of the canyon and the surrounding area for miles around. This is an odd vast flat land that appears to have just sunk straight down in the places where the river winds it's way. It also turns out that the whole canyon is a lot wider than previously thought, by a long way.
It's a lot easier on the eye than the Grand Canyon too, or maybe I should say it's just different. It definitely looks more defined, the edge of the canyon has a white rim that seems to highlight the view much more clearly than that of the Grand Canyon.

I really shouldn't compare the two as they're different landscapes but I just can't help it when one place gets soo much hype and the other goes seemingly unnoticed. But the fact is that not every place in this varied West of America can be in the forefront of promoted U.S. destinations around the world and the Grand Canyon is one of those quintessential icons for a reason.

We walk for an hour and a half to and back from Upheaval Dome. This is a large crater of sorts seemingly filled with a series of peaked earth of pale blue, yellow, red and grey colours. There is a couple of explanations as to how it's here. One of which is that it's the result of a meteorite impact that unearthed the salty soils beneath the surface.

The other scenario has almost completely left my mind but I'm sure it had something to do with erosion and wind, the usual. Whatever the cause the smooth rock scramble to view it and the sight itself was tremendous.
It's clear that Canyonlands is not a one trick pony. Mountain bikers and old guys in Jeeps ride around the unpaved ridge road. It's a fairly serious undertaking to take on the whole length of it, even overnight camping can be involved, but I didn't pay too much attention to that as I knew it was out of the question for us.

The views keep on coming of this immense land carved by the Colorado and Green Rivers. The power of water and time is an amazing thing.
A shorter walk takes us to a wide stone arch looking out over the canyon and mountains formed by our good old friend wind and time and all that. I take a photo, as often has happened around the world, for some random people stood together on top of this arch. This gives me the idea to scale it myself. For some reason my fear of heights briefly left me. On the other side of the arch is a shear drop down a smooth canyon wall. Yikes! Photos taken I can now climb down. The views were awesome non the less.

There's clearly plenty to do and see here and the long ridge road could be explored without being dull for years if you lived here.A huge varied park that is reasonably quiet and yet stunning.
Utah just keeps on surprising and the next place is featured on the state's car registration plates so it must be good, surely.

Bryce and the Capitol

2008-04-03T03:33:00.017+01:00

From Zion we enter Dixie National Forest which has stumpy pinnacles of red rock that could've easily featured in the Arnie film 'Total Recall' as a landscape on Mars. It all looks even odder with the thick snow lying atop the red sand under foot.

An 18 mile road leads one-way along the rim of Bryce Canyon. This place just happens to be stunning as well. Again this is another place I never thought existed on this planet. Thousands of rock pinnacles, called Hoodoos, stand up against the wind in a naturally rounded amphitheatre of the canyon.
Because of it's altitude, just over 9,000ft, and position Bryce Canyon gets around 200 days of icy conditions in a year. Snow lies on parts of the rocks and the different shades of oranges and reds look superb as the light fades for the day.

That night we stop in the tiny hamlet of Tropic on the edge of the national park. Luckily we just get into the only open restaurant before it closes....at 7pm! They sure know how to live it up here! At least the food was good and the motel room had a good heater, handy in this chilly climate. Just when we had the slight inclination to camp for the night the temperatures up on the bulletin in the Visitors Centre instantly put a stop to that. -14 degrees Celsius overnight. No thank you.
More stunning views from various view points along the icy edge of the long canyon's edge before we move on. The stunning views continue outside the park and through the couple of small settlements along the road to Capitol Reef National Park, of which I knew nothing about.
It turns out that Capitol Reef is in fact a huge crease in the landscape due to large shifts in the tectonic plates. The land has a Death Valley quality about it with multi-coloured layered walls of rock all over the show. In many places large straight-edged red rock shoots up vertically towards the sky and fans out nearer the floor showing different layers of colours.
We drive along a narrow road that soon runs out of tarmac and becomes a dirt trail squeezing between overhanging rocks and cliff faces. We take a walk along a dry riverbed and scale up smooth rock to water pools spotting petrified trees along the way. It's hard to imagine that wood thousands of years old turns into rock but it does and looks superbly yellow, black, purple and green striped.
We also see ancient petroglyphs carved into the rock by native Americans centuries ago still looking vivid on the rock face. Characters are visible, possibly hunting, along with the odd sun depiction. Further along the trail are the wall inscribings from the late 1800's from American pioneers who forged a trail along the riverbed. Not quite the same as the petroglyphs, a bit like 'Jeff was ere 1880' and so on.
We walk a trail along a gushing river leading up towards a huge natural rock arch sculpted by wind over many years. It's huge and voices, mainly of obnoxious teenagers, echo around us.
On the way to Capitol Reef we'd seen a few trucks pulling trailers with ATV's and scrambler motorcycles on. We stop overnight near Capitol reef in the middle of nowhere at the only open motel and it's packed full of bikers. A few older guys who seemed to have biked straight here through the mud are hanging around the entrance and trailers full of bikes are everywhere.
The landscape around Capitol Reef is grey and strangely undulating. All of a sudden we see where all these bikers are spending their time. Guys jump over huge mounds of earth by the side of the road and off into the distance. Motorbike trails cover the whole area. The whole area is a giant playground and it's just a case of parking up getting on yer bike and ride. There's almost a quarry look to the place but somehow it all manages to look good.
Then we're back on wide open plateau again with distance mountains ever present in the background. A policeman has pulled someone over nearby an overlook to the mountains where we're parked. By our car is a conglomeration of animal skin and hooves but no blood or flesh. Odd.
Further down the road a group of young lads of about 16 are chasing each other by the side of the road near their huge brand new pick up truck. I just knew that one of them would run out into the road and of course that's what happened as I approached at 65 miles an hour. They didn't even look once. If I'd have arrived in that spot a couple of seconds later there would've been a serious mess. Thankfully we were just far enough away not to have to swerve into the sand of the roadside.
We drive on as black clouds point down at the desert and tumble weeds roll across the road at speed, a storm is brewing.

Iron like a Lion in....

2008-04-01T04:36:00.019+01:00

Driving on through the Grand Canyon we pass the nearby Glen Canyon Dam which we were told was letting a huge amount of water out for 36 hours in a 5 yearly release to maintain water levels. It turns out that nothing was happening and we only saw it on TV days later. Still, the Glen Canyon seemed picturesque enough with it's deep blue contrasting with the red surrounds. Clearly a popular place for boating too. Bloody windy though.

Zion National Park is in the South Western corner of Utah and it's nothing short of stunning, no surprise then that it's Utah's most visited park. Huge scarred mounds of rock tower over the narrow strip of tarmac weaving it's way through the park down below.

The smoothed domes of rock once were mighty sand dunes and over time have solidified.

A mile long tunnel cut into the rock in the 30's delivers us into yet more monolithic stone, some vertical and smooth others craggy and triangular.
Even just entering Utah can't help but be staggering. Red, and sometimes yellow and purple, landscapes with scattered Indian habitations. Stepped red rock mountains and wide dusty scrub land make up an hour or so of driving. Sometimes the road ends literally where the vertical precarious rocks begin and it's clear rock slides are common.

We pass through a majority Indian town called Page. This was an odd place in a way as it's the first predominately non-white town we'd seen. The kids on the streets seem happy enough unlike the adults who seem largely miserable. The housing is dilapidated and overgrown with weeds wrapped around rusting vehicles of all sorts. This seems a common theme in many towns we've seen, shells of cars rusting away and seemingly thrown about the area randomly.

Back in Zion, the name actually mean 'Heaven', and we take a couple of walking trails through the snow and ice and past semi-frozen pools of water atop soft sand, also covered in snow, on which freezing clear water falls.

Groups of Antelope prance around looking nervous at anybody or thing that gets close. We pass under stone arches and caves in the rock dripping with ice cold water that seeps through feeding hanging moss and the plants below.
We walk along a fossilised sand dune trail leading us around the edge of a deep canyon which brings us to more stunning views. This place truly is jaw dropping. I think we've taken more photos here than any other single place and I'm not even totally sure why. I think it all came together at once, the good weather, the stunning place and the relative quietness of it all.

The sun constantly changing the rock faces in front of us throughout the day and the shadows of mountains flung across oppositely faced mountains.

It's difficult to rely the beauty we saw in the two days we spent here. Utah is off to a great start.

The big dip

2008-03-30T04:46:00.009+01:00

One of the big ones. One of the most commonly pictured and referred to sights in America. It is the Grand Canyon.
A couple of hours north of Flagstaff is the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, the North Rim is not accessible in Winter. We pass a couple of view points along the way that have Indian stalls set up hawking jewellery. This is indeed Indian land and it almost has a South American quality to it, run down shacks selling rubbish near amazing scenery. The Grand Canyon National Park does not allow such sales so at least you're spared any hassles here like you possibly would be at other major world sights.
We arrive into the park and walk to the first view point of many throughout the day. To be honest it wasn't that impressive at first glance. Many people have said they were awestruck and the like but I felt a bit 'blah' about it. There's a watchtower built next to the lookout and we climb it in hope of a better view and it is slightly. It all seems a bit unreal. Luckily along the scenic rim drive the many lookout points get better and better to become spectacular views over differing parts of the vast canyon.

It's a wide canyon for sure and the river that caused most of the carving, the Colorado, seems but a thin brown line at the canyon's floor. It's a bit messy at points meaning that getting a good photo is difficult in that the whole thing is just too vast and has too much things going on for the camera to capture.
You can see the lines of rock in distinct colours along the canyon's face and pillars not yet eroded fully by wind and time. Some parts of the canyon have eroded faster than others creating many 'islands' of rock that seem to jut out from the ground. It seems strange that the top layer of land is completely flat all the way across the canyon. Yet the floor seems to just drop away at given points uncovering layers of rock beneath that are all in a perfect line also.
The whole place seems like someone has put a huge photograph in front of you. Walking into the canyon would probably give a more real perspective to this huge place.

Snow lies around the start of most trails into the canyon itself and it's a long hike, not that we're going to attempt it in these conditions. Besides it's a much longer hike back up than down and camping in these cold temperatures didn't appeal. People are doing it though and you can see the donkey trains carrying the baggage down below, from the cliff edge they look like ants.
We stop at a variety of lookout points with a variety of idiots from around the world, one guy climbing over a wall next to me slips on ice and staggers towards the edge of the canyon. I felt a cold chill pass over me at what I thought I might see next but the guy regained his balance in time. At another lookout a group of American Pensioners are feeding a crow cheesy wotsit-type crisps and gasping with delight, the bird has probably since fallen to the floor of the canyon from gastrointestinal disease. After a few hours I've seen enough.

We do stick around for the sunset and although it is decent enough I've yet to see any sunset in the world to rival that of the stunning sights over the Lake District.
We try and stop overnight in the park but the lodgings are just too expensive and we get a much cheaper deal just on the edge of the park in a small town.
The next morning we head back into the park for some breakfast over looking the canyon. It is an awesome sight, of that there is no doubt, but I'm not wholly sure it ranks up there on a world scale of amazing sights.

I've started to think that the Colorado River may have carved this huge canyon but it was the American hype machine that made it.
Thankfully the great American hype can't ruin everything and we head North over the border of Arizona into some of the strangest and most stunning landscapes I've ever seen. All this in a state I know only a couple of things about, and one of them is that it was set up and run by Mormons. Hello Utah!

Not that canyon, yet

2008-03-27T04:24:00.011Z

Surrounding Flagstaff, Arizona, is a couple of decent national parks and monuments, the monuments being not big enough to qualify for national park status ,probably.
Anyway, Walnut Canyon is a place where native American people once resided in houses cut into caves on the canyon face. Native American may not be the right term as they're not quite the same as the Indians most of us think of but they're said to be related and they did live here before Europeans so it's fair enough. The name of these peoples is 'Sinagua' which was given to them by Spanish explorers meaning 'no water', which explains their surroundings.

Unfortunately due to a rock slide the main path is closed therefore we can't walk down to the cave dwellings. We can see them from a lookout enough to realise that life here must've been very hard. Living on the cliff face in a cave can be treacherous and the weather conditions in winter could be harsh. The people most likely left the area due to lack of food and water rather than being attacked by another tribe. The homes they left behind in the cliff have lasted for hundreds of years in the natural shelter of the caves and must've been a tough task to construct on the cliff edge.
They're not the most advance of structures although from the canyons edge we can't really tell, but the surroundings are OK so I don't begrudge the visit.
From here we drive north to Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monument. This is a sort of joint park that includes nature and old civilisations rolled into one. First up is the volcanic activity. All of a sudden we're driving alongside ancient black lava flows that have long since turned to ragged rock.

The landscape varies from black, red, dots of green and sprinklings of white snow amongst the trees and shrubs trying their best to survive. The main feature is Sunset Crater which is a volcanic cinder cone created from violent eruptions that deposit black and red ash in a cone formation. There are many in the area but Sunset is the most impressive. The wind really pounds us as we try and walk to the foot of the crater but it's just too icy to continue. The volcanic rock covers the floor like giant black pumice stones and is warm to the touch from soaking in the sun's rays.

Doney Mountain is another such cone, in fact two cones, that are similar and thankfully less chilly to climb up. Sunset Crater is out of bounds to climbing to preserve it but Doney isn't.

Once at the top you can see the lay of the land and the distant volcanic San Francisco(named after a guy not the city) peaks.

Further up the road is the houses of an Indian civilisation called the Wupatki. In the flat land a red bricked house built onto rock stands out. Due to it's position it was thought this was a look out post for the natives but it is a three storey construction which suggests it was more than that.

Behind the visitors centre is a larger living area and more signs of a community of people including a ball court and meeting place. The multi-room building which makes up the main building was also inhabited by U.S. Park Rangers in the 1950s to look after the site. Oddly enough they lived inside the structure and even fitted gas and installed a fridge. They've definitely made some odd decisions over the years.
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It's too cold to stick around any longer and we head back to Flagstaff all in a days work. On the way we pass the Ski Bowl where skiing and snowboarding take place. I never once imagined that the state of Arizona, which has a desert scene complete with cactus on it's car registration plates, had a ski area. But now I'm here I can believe it. The sun may be strong but the ice cold wind is stronger.
This is the start of nearly a month of spending every single day in a national park of some description. That goes to show just how amazing the land of western America really is. One of those amazing features is world famous and our next destination.