10 Years more?

Well hello there!

Long time no see, welcome to 2024 and to another period of Waddup’s travel blogs.

Well almost, this is the precursor to the trip itself, and the one that will tell you where we are going and when we are likely to be there, all things being equal.

If you want to get updates of when we have published another page, type your email below and hit Subscribe and you should get a notification. (if it works).

The USA visas have been renewed after what started out as a fashion, and in the end the passports were sent and returned within 9 days with a new 10 year visa enclosed! The USA Visa application website is a nightmare to navigate and the questions so ambiguous, that apparently we answered several questions wrong.

By getting them wrong, it prevented us from a non-interview renewal in London and we were booked in for the 26th May. However, I managed to get hold of the London Embassy (Pictured below) and talked to a real human being who sorted it out for us and negated the planned trip to London.

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So this trip is starting a little later this year, and that is so that we can spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with our daughter in Texas, something we have not been able to do for nearly 5 years.

The week before Thanksgiving….

So what is the plan, where are we going and when?

We fly out into North Carolina in July, and will stay with our cousin for a while before heading south, down to the Florida Keys and our first National park of the trip, “Dry Tortugas”. We will spend most of August, September and October in Florida.

Hopefully we will be catching up with a few friends down in Florida on the way down and the on way back up through.

Rob and Tiina Chapman, who helped us from the start of this journey, and without their help it would have been a lot harder!

The Hayes family who we met and experienced their kindness when I fractured my pelvis on the very first trip!

Donna & Rich, Dan & Cindy, maybe Chris & Perry, and Judy Kaufman too. There maybe more we will see.

We are then heading to Arkansas and Tennessee, for another National Park, “Hot Springs” and some more friends in Tennessee, (including Miss Lola and Gary).

From there it’s then across to the Dallas and Waco area of Texas, where we will stay until January 2025.

So here below is a rough guide of our trip.

This is our planner of where we will be staying;

This for us is a shorter trip, and despite us ticking off another two national parks, this trip will be about the people, as we will be catching up with many friends and we are looking forward to seeing them all again.

Prior to this trip, we have the end of an exciting football season (come on you Leeds) where our team may get promoted to the Premiership (again). Three more trips to Leeds, Elland road and just a total of six games left.

We also have a trip to Spain in May to see an old work colleague.

We hope you will join us again, and please if there is ANYTHING that you would like to see in the blog, please let us know, it would be fun for us too to see/write about different things too.

All the best for now

The Waddups

Virginia, & to Texas and back.

After Williamsburg Virginia, we took a shortish trip down to our penultimate campground, a place called Lake Gaston. Just 130 miles down the road.

This was always going to be a short stop and a campground we had been to before. It is a very pretty campground right on the lake.

We spotted a camper for sale right on the edge of the lake and were interested to know how much it was, so we enquired with the owner, he certainly had a great view.

Now the site is NOT his, but he can sell it as long as he has it until the rent is due, (Next year it’s $7,900) and the campground is only open 8 months of the year.

His trailer, was a 2010 model worth approx $12,000.

He was selling it for $80,000!!!

Needless to say, it was not for us.

After a short stay here, we needed to move down to Camping World in Greensboro for an appointment, as back in 2015 during a storm, our awning flipped over the roof and cracked one of the skylights.

I managed to patch it up for the last 8 years, but on occasions it has leaked and stained the ceiling, so I would reseal it and re-clean the ceiling. So it leaked again this year, so we bit the bullet and made the appointment. I had priced the skylight a couple of years ago at $600, so was expecting a bill somewhere north of $1000. Camping World found a skylight that they had hanging around for an age for our type of rig, and let us have it for free, so we only paid for fitting it …$400. Result!

After having that fitted it was a short 20 mile drive to our cousins for a few days before flying out to see Kathryn, where they were kind enough to let us leave the RV on their drive for the 6 days.

While at Bev & Kev’s we took a day trip up to Hanging Rock state park, for a great six mile hike to see the fall colours.

We were not disappointed.

We flew from Raleigh in North Carolina with Delta Airlines, and all went well until we got to the runway, when the pilot informed us the aircraft was in for maintenance the night before and had not been put back into the system, so we had to wait for ½ an hour to get it re-registered, and back in the system.

It’s funny some of the things you see from the air, makes you wonder sometimes.

The flight was good after that and Kat met us at Austin to pick us up.

We got to meet her new dog “Marshall” or as we called him “Slober-chops” We had a great time, with her Tristin and his son Hudson over the 6 days, and me doing some D.I.Y with little or no tools (have to sort that out next time) and some baking of sausage rolls.

We managed to fit in a nice dog walk, some retail therapy (although I thought we spent too much, I’m sure Kat enjoyed it).

Mum & Dad mucking about!

Thanks for the ice cream Tristin!!!

On top of that Tristin even entered us into a “Corn-hole” tournament. Where he won $100 and Kat and Hudson both won cash prizes in the beginners section too. Gill and I were useless!

In Texas, they have to take there cars in for an annual “MOT” check this out.

We also ate out a few times, this is how some places serve food (a bucket, this is Texas after all) and even did a quiz where we did abysmally too!

It was good to catch up with some of the extended family too at a picnic we had, in a park close to Tristin’s parents home, playing some corn hole and generally chilling out.

Here is yours truly keeping Gabriella & Nathaniel occupied, before the very nice ribs appeared that Tristin had prepared.

All too soon it was time to head back to the RV for our final 10 days in her, and then back to the cousins for thanksgiving, some alcoholic beverages and a few rounds of Euchre. I even enjoyed doing some yard work.

We did manage to fit in a concert, for those of a certain age might know of “Foreigner” a rock band from back in the 70 & 80’s. It was a great concert and it is their final tour.

Urgent

Juke box hero

There are more videos on my youtube channel if you want to see them.

The 10 days at the RV was spent organising what was going home and packing everything away and winterising the RV for her winters stay in North Carolina, and we met with Craig, Debbie, Larry and Joyce a few times for dinner, which was fun, and great to meet up again.

These are all the areas/states we visited this year.

I’ll leave you with a few of the signs that made us smile during this trip, apart from the parking one that did not make us smile! The circular one was a pressie from Debbie and Craig (thank you both).

It’s now time to come home, see some family and friends for coffee and drinks before we do it all again next year.

Thanks for following, we hope you enjoyed the blog and maybe some of you will join us again on our next adventure.

Terry & Gill xx

🥲

Washington continued;

While at Harbour View campground we also got around to visiting George Washington’s birthplace, (1^st President) James Monroe’s Birthplace, (5^th President) and followed up with a visit to George Washington’s home and Burial place; Mount Vernon.

George Washington’s birthplace, whilst a pretty location, we thought it was not worth the visit. The reason for this is, although it is where he was born, there is nothing here apart from a few reconstructed buildings (where they may have stood) in the period style.

Entrance to his birthplace.

However, his house and where he lived and died, Mount Vernon, is well worth the $28 to visit. You get a tour of the house, the extensive grounds and lots of information.

George’s house.

Inside George’s house.

Some of the views around his grounds.

Alas, poor George died young and quick at the age of 67 after going for a horse ride on December 12^th 1799, the weather shifted from snow to rain, and rather than be late for dinner he dined in his wet clothes. Alas, he then got a throat infection and died 2 days later.

Or it may have been “Man flu” as we know how serious that can be!

This time our travel to Washington and back went a lot smoother and quicker, we also took the bikes into the city and had a cycle around. Again we went to the Department of Agriculture for lunch as it was so convenient and good value for money.

After that we went into two of the Smithsonian museums, the American History and the Natural history museum.

We saw the Hope Diamond and a few treasures in one of the Museums.

One of my cousins daughters, Elizabeth gave us a few tips for DC and one of the places she told us about was “Georgetown” a lovely little suburb with high end shops and pretty little buildings.

The last time we came to DC, geocaching ended up taking us to Ford Theatre, where Abraham Lincoln was shot and across the road to the house where he was taken and where he passed away.

While we were at the campground we met up with Kevin & Kim, a couple from Florida who we had not met before but we started chatting and got to know them quite well over the time we were here.

We shared a BBQ meal with them and had a few drinks over the campfire, and also went for a cycle ride and lunch with them.

Kevin is busy planning a trip to the UK, Europe and Alaska, (and has the spreadsheets to prove it). We may end up going up to Alaska in 2025 and meeting them on the way. We may also meet up with them in April when they come to the UK too.

View on our walk

Another view on our daily walk

Baily

Yuk….Just Yuk.

This place was for sale and sold before I could even get my cheque book out, it must have been for the view but it went for over $650,000 !

And anyway, we did not win the 1.7 billion so the cheque book had to go away anyway.

It was time then to move on down south again, this time back to Williamsburg, Virginia.

We have stayed at this campground before, but its in a nice area, so why not.

This is the area of Yorktown and Jamestown, that of the settlements of the Plymouth Settlers.

We had obviously done most of the things to do around here, but I did get to go metal detecting with Dan again. We went once on the beach and once “Relic hunting” as they say over here.

Gill wanted to go back to the “Christmas Mouse”store where as you can see you can decorate your tree in any theme you want from the pictures below.

Just down the road is York river state park, so we decided to visit there and their fossil beach, and I managed to find some fossilised clams but no sharks teeth. We also did a couple of nice hikes in the park too.

On the RV the windscreen washer cap has perished and is holding on for dear life by its finger tips, despite visiting 4 different car part vendors and trying 5 different caps, I have yet to find one that fits! How hard can it be? Why would Winnebago build an RV on a ford F550 base but decide to not use a Ford windscreen washer reservoir! It beggars belief!

Any chance this would get through an MOT back in the UK?

After reading up on things to do outside of Williamsburg, (Considering we had seen all of Williamsburg in our search for a windscreen washer cap), Gill came across an advert for a place called Smithfield, which was a short but free ferry ride over the James river. A quaint town, with some very pretty (1 million dollar houses) properties.

Cotton field

Jamestown

That is about all folks, apart from there was a solar eclipse over here last weekend, but we were well outside of the maximum area but Kathryn our daughter did get a picture of it;

5 weeks until we are home so until the next one.

Take care

G&T

New Jersey

Another move, and again down towards the south, this time we headed to The New Jersey shore.

This is our penultimate state, number 49/50. This was one of the aims that developed as we started this trip and on this blog, it will have been completed.

We headed south east and ended going through Philadelphia, which was fun in the rig, as we were hoping to skirt around the city, but it is so big you could not help but got through it. Previously the nations capitol until 1800 and the 7^th largest city in the USA by population of 1.6 million.

Our campground was south of Atlantic City, on the southern coast coast of New Jersey, and about 143 miles south of New York City.

We loved this area, the beaches were stunning, the houses were pretty and parking was free!

We took a ferry ride across the bay into Delaware just as a day trip to a place called Lewes, and on our next move to just south of Washington, we will take the RV on the same route, and that will be all the states done!

Driving through the campground one day, we saw a sign over one of the sections and stopped to read it, “Halfway to St Patricks day celebrations” and we heard someone say come over later for food and drinks….so we did.

We had a lovely evening with these people, any excuse for a few drinks!!

While we were at the campground we ended up being in the middle of tropical Storm Ophelia, bless her cotton budded clouds, she managed to give us 2 leaks in the RV with all the rain and also blew down a branch on the back end of the car where we had the bikes.

Luckily it only wrecked Gills bike seat and busted the front tyre on mine!

We already had arranged to see someone about another bike for Gill, as hers was too low geared and she couldn’t keep up with me. So we gave hers away and paid $50 for a great bike, which she cycled 8 miles the following day, doing this row of geocaches with me.

I saw this one on our cycle ride, I think I need one of these that Alvin has!!!

The storm kept us inside the rig for 3 days, and on one of the nights the winds were meant to be strong, so we took the RV and car a mile down the road into a Supermarket car park away from the trees for the night!

We managed to play Pickle-ball at Avalon, and I managed to put my back out. The local Chiropractors wanted $150+ to see me, but a guy on the campground told me about one 60 miles away, and he saw me for $40, it’s better but still not 100%.

I did get to go metal detecting on the beach here a couple of times, and found some loose change and one cheap ring.

After Sea Pines we headed south down to the ferry terminal the night before our early morning crossing to stay overnight, we did not fancy pulling out of the campground in the dark with it being so tight with trees.

When we got to the terminal, we popped into the bar/restaurant for a bite to eat and they had a quiz going on. So we partook, and came last! Too many American themed questions and country music, and everyone knows that the first property after “GO” on a monopoly board is “Old Kent road” apart from these Americans who decided to call it something else, and that wiped out our total score for that round!!!

We headed from New Jersey, across the ferry into Delaware, through into Maryland and stopped in Virginia, at a place called Colonial Beach, some 70 miles south of Washington DC, another 4 state day!

Our last big city to visit was Washington DC.

We headed to it for our first visit and the 70 miles took 2 ½ hours to get to Arlington National Cemetery, the traffic is horrendous getting there and it was just as bad coming back out.

In fact it is one of the top 3 worst cities for traffic in our opinion behind Houston and LA!!

We parked at Arlington to visit the cemetery and it was only $12 to park all day and also a short walk to the start of the mall and the Lincoln Memorial.

At the Cemetery we visited the graves of J.F.Kennedy and Jaqueline Onassis, we also found the memorial to the Lockerbie Pan Am Flight 103 disaster. We also watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

From here we walked across memorial bridge and onto the Mall to visit all the well known sites, Lincolns Memorial, the World War 2 memorial, Washington monument, and the US Capitol, followed of course by a view of the White House.

We saw two purple hearts had been left at the memorial, it turns out they had been left there that morning by two veterans who had no one to leave them to.

We also found a great spot to have lunch at 1400 Independence Avenue SW, which is the address for the department of Agriculture, but they have a large food hall where the public can go through security and use their facilities. Lunch was cheap at $26 for the two of us.

T.B.C

We will go to Washington again soon to visit a few more places, next time we will take the bikes as we walked about 10 miles that day!

And finally……..After 35,716 miles, we have done it, we have visited every US state, Delaware being our last.

This turned into one of the targets as soon as we started this travelling experience.

It’s started;

Until next time.

G&T

To the Big Apple,1st time since 2003

Before leaving Massachusetts, we decided to visit the spit of land that is Cape Cod. It was not what we were expecting. I think we were expecting a spit of land with viewable beaches either side.

We drove about three quarters of the way up, visiting a few scenic spots and beaches, but the road was tree lined and no views. Had we gone further up it may have changed. We did spot these along the way, something different from pictures of nice houses, don’t you think?

Don’t ask, she is having this one played at her funeral!

Our route across to our next spot took us through Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York State and into the north east of Pennsylvania. A campground called Timothy Lake South.

On the way across we stopped off at Camping World to get a new antenna fitted, as we had stopped receiving any channels whatsoever. An expensive stop, but as long as we get some News & Weather channels we are happy.

We went to a Cracker Barrel in August and we came across Xmas, ya’ll know what I think of Christmas!!! It’s bad enough in December let alone the summer month of August, bloody commercialism!

We also overnighted in a Walmart carpark, which was well worth it, as we spotted this young Osprey getting ready to leave its nest.

On the way across we had to stop to top up the RV with fuel. Now bear in mind our rig overall is 54 foot and the pumps on this forecourt were about 6 foot apart, so there was no way not to block one side while we filled up. So when some woman drives onto the forecourt in her lived in van, with at least 6 cats and starts on us with a verbal foul mouthed tirade for blocking the pumps on one side, I was a little at a loss for words, (Only for a short while). I did try and explain the size issue, but I don’t think she was listening. I did say to her that her language wasn’t very lady like, her response? “I never said I was a f*****g lady” So I wished her well and told her where to go!!(In the same language she used). The drivers up here have been a tad rude, but this one receives first prize!

The RV has been stuttering a little in its first 20 miles after a lay-up, so while at the campground, I changed out the fuel filter, don’t you just love Youtube! I have become quite the mechanic, willing to try to fix most things since doing this..LOL

One of the early nights at this campground we were awoken at 3am with what we thought were fireworks behind the rig, we got up and there were flames a leaping from some structure 50 yards behind us. We didn’t know what it was so we quickly mentally planned an evacuation in case it spread. Luckily the emergency services got there and suppressed the flames. It turned out to be a winter retreat place for someone.

We had a great storm come through on one of the days here, it came so quick and looked quite scary!

Above is a short video of a storm coming in, I hope it works, normally I just put a link in for videos.

This is a still shot of it I managed to take before the wind and rain hit us.

On Tuesday the 12^th we took a day trip into New York. We last went there in 2003, when they were still clearing the site of the Twin Towers, so we wanted to go back and see the memorial.

Guess how our trip went?

It started at 05.30 on the road down to Dover to catch a train into Manhattan, the tickets cost us $28 in total for a 100 mile round trip for the 2 of us! British rail take note. A good start don’t you think?

We then headed toward New York only to go past 4 stations and for the train to break down…here we go, the Waddup’s travel disaster strikes again!

We had to get off train, cross the tracks and wait for another train to pick us up, which it dually did, we were off again, back on track as they say. ½ an hour behind schedule.

Broken down train!!

We entered the tunnel under the Hudson and near the end we were stopped again, the train in front of us had derailed, (made the news too).

https://abc7ny.com/penn-station-derailment-train-nj-transit/13771950/

Our train then had to back up out of the tunnel about a mile and a half, and wait for 4 trains to pass us before we could switch tracks and continue. Arriving in the end about 2 hours late at Penn station, New York, which is attached to Maddison Square garden.

Eventually!

The issues continued on our way out too. We had to go to a totally different station and take a different route initially back to Dover. But we did get a great view of Lower Manhatten that we had not seen before.

I shall have to investigate this large face on the net, I just think it is a stunning image.

The main reason we went into NY was to see the 9/11 Memorial;

We started walking uptown and came across this…

Ghostbuster!

We then for a “stroll’ from the memorial towards the “High-line walk” which first started taking shape in 2009 on an old elevated railway line. It is now a lovely green walkway, an oasis in an urban jungle.

It was then back on the subway up to central park for a walk;

A few random pictures of some of the central park features above.

There are lots of these cycles around Central Park, but I never realised how expensive they were to take a ride on…..$4.99……PER MINUTE, as Robert Redford said in “A Walk in the Woods”..”YOU GOTTA BE SHITTING ME”!!!! That would equate to just under $12,000 a WEEK. No wonder there is a cost of living crisis, not for these guys clearly!

And I am glad we did not drive into NY.

Anyway, apart from that we are doing a lot of walks and hikes, a bit of shopping and lots of reading outside in the chairs when the weather permits on our campsite…Oh, and a few alcoholic drinks occasionally.

Until next time, stay safe and we miss you all.

G&T x

Masssajewses…Masachusess….Massachusetts :-) Got there in the end!

This is an urgent request; After our stay in Canada and the north east of the USA…..

Please send blood as soon as possible, we are running out and the Mozzies seem to have an insatiable appetite! All donations greatly received, and if anyone enjoys doing dot to dot, we can send pictures of our legs, arms, necks!

We had a nice stay at Pumpkin patch Rv park for a couple of days, but it was time to head south down the coast to our next stop. We had 160 miles to go but had 2 days before our check-in, We used our app called “I-overlander” and found a nice spot at a harbour in Rockland ME.

On the way down we went over this bridge, usually the supports or high bits are on the outside of the bridge. This one was a little disconcerting ;

From there it was down to Moody Beach, near Wells, Maine.

Our Booking was for 10 days here and we managed to spend a day down in Boston, Visited Salem, and spent some time being a tourist.

A visit to Lowes for some DIY stuff and we spotted this (In August)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MWNRT0vCAAY

We managed to find a restaurant that Guy Fieri of diner, drive ins, and dives visited called the “Maine diner” another very nice. place for seafood.

Boston.

When we got to the city we pulled into the first place we found to park, followed by another car, so I had no choice but to enter. It cost us $42 for 2 and a half hours (£33) It tops out at this price, so we could have stayed a lot longer but by then we were hot and our feet were killing us!

The prices are ridiculous in Maine for parking and it is the first place we have complained about the price of parking, and at $6 an hour at the beach it is justly complained about in this blog your honour!

We are not lovers of Cities, but Boston was a pretty city. We geocached around the city enjoying the sights and history of the place. The State house, the Harbour, where they still re-enact the Boston tea party, and parks.

Interstate under the city!

One geocache took us to 470 Atlantic avenue where you can enter the building and use their observation deck for another good view of the city for free.

We could have spent a lot more time here, but for the next city we will plan the parking a little more!

We then headed north to Salem, which is now just a normal town, apart from the site where 19 “witches” were executed between 1692 & 1693.

Looks like one witch got away!

Locally to where the campground is, the traffic is horrendous, as it is the only free road north/south here. The I-95 is mainly toll so everyone uses the 1.

I did manage to get to this place, fantastic way to memorialise people.

Collage created using TurboCollage software from http://www.TurboCollage.com

We explored the area a bit, taking in Places such as Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Arundel, Biddeford, Scarborough, Portland and Ogunquit.

Some of the houses In Kennebunk.

Ogunquit had a nice walk along the coast called the Mariners way, where we were lucky and bagged a free 2 hour parking spot and walked it down to Perkins cove.

Which was full of artisan shops and expensive sea glass Jewellery! I may have to try selling mine again!

The local beach, again is a nightmare and expensive to park at; $6 an hour, so we cycled down, and walked a mile along the beach and back.

After 10 days here, it was south, back down through Boston with the RV, which was a high stress drive to Rochester, Massachusetts.

This was our base to venture over to Plymouth (famed for it’s Plymouth rock), Martha’s Vineyard, (also known as Amity Island from the film “Jaws”) and a day trip down to Rhode Island.

Marthas Vinyard

This involved an early morning ferry across to the island, where we caught a bus across to a town called Edgartown (First settled by wealthy Whaling captains) We didn’t take the car as that would have cost over $100 for a 40 minute crossing.

Some of the properties seen on Martha’s Vinyard.

When we got to Edgartown we started walking the coastal road back to Oak Bluffs, a walk of about 8 miles in total.

It was a hot day and a hard walk, but it was a beautiful beach to walk along. We also ended up crossing the bridge used in the original Jaws film, where lots of children were jumping off.

Marthas Vineyard was very pretty, with some stunning properties. (Just seen Obama is selling a house on here for $17.5 million)

But it is a little to touristy if you stay in the towns.

Plymouth

Plymouth in Massachusetts is where the Plymouth rock is, alleged landing of the pilgrims from Plymouth UK, in 1620.

But if you read this document, it reads somewhat different. http://ptownchamber.com/wp-uploads/PILGRIM-BROCH.pdf

While in Plymouth we also came across a Yellow Deli, of which there are 17 in the usa, 5 in Canada and a smattering of locations around the world including Brazil, Spain and 1 in each of Argentina, Japan, Australia and one in the UK, in Honiton.

It is run by a religious cult or community called “The Twelve Tribes’ founded in 1972 by a guy named Gene Spriggs,

Now without going into the religion or politics of the group, whenever we go into these delis the people are friendly and the food is first class. So if you haven’t tried one, keep an eye open for them. The one in Honiton is lovely.

We walked into the one in Plymouth and got talking to the guys in the bakery and we mentioned it was our anniversary and they gave us a $6 loaf of bread and other gifts for our anniversary, such a nice gesture.

Rhode Island

We took a day trip down to Rhode Island, where we had lunch at “George’s” at a place called Narragansett, a seafood restaurant on the seafront next to a harbour. Stunning views and great food.

From there we headed across to Newport for a cruise around.

We ended up on Ocean drive a place of many mansions where we got talking to a security guard who told us about a walk called cliff walk, which took you for a walk along the coast and in front of the mansions!

Oh my word!!

These are not my pictures, as the sun was behind most of them on our walk and it was hard to get a decent picture.

Would we want one? No!

But I wouldn’t mind putting a log cabin at the bottom of their garden over looking the ocean!

But with all the properties we have seen you can imagine how the conversation goes between Gill and I…..Oh my look at that….oh its not fair……the size of that place…..oh my word……..That one will do me…..

etc,etc.etc.

Finally the car of the day is this one,

That’s all folks

xx

PS Leeds united won 🙂

Canada, that’s a Titanic wrap!

When we had finished Cape Breton, we drove down as far as Truro and parked up for a couple of nights in, yes you guessed it a “Walmart” carpark.

We didn’t want to drive down to Halifax, Nova Scotia (new Scotland) with the Rv only to retrace our steps with her.

The one thing we wanted to see in Halifax, were the Titanic grave sites, of which there are three.

It was a 63 mile drive from Truro, so we took the car down and spent the day Geocaching and sight seeing.

The first geocache we did was actually at the main gravesite, in Fairview cemetery with 121 graves.

Crowded!

When we arrived there were 2 coach loads of people there. We found out later that a cruise ship was in port, the “Caribbean Princess” which carries 3140 guests and 1200 crew!!

Spot the ship!

The graves here are laid out in the shape of the hull of the ship.

It was interesting to listen to their tour guides though, who explained that the “J.Dawson” grave was not Jack (Leo DiCaprio, as per the film) but Joseph Dawson, who was a coal shoveller in the bowels of the Titanic!

Apparently, since the film, his grave gets lots of Bouquets of flowers from visitors thinking it was “Jack”.

Some of the graves have no names on, some have been identified via DNA since the tragedy.

There is a piece in the movie of a woman on a bed with her 4 children as the ship was sinking, that was based on “Alma Paulson” who was sailing over to be with her husband who had already gone to the USA. The movie depicts it differently to how her last moments were spent. Apparently when they unlocked the steerage, she went topside and realised all the boats had gone, so she sat with her children and played a harmonica to soothe her children. The harmonica was later found in her pocket!

The two other grave sites were Mount Olivet cemetery with 19 graves, of which 14 are identified and the Baron de Hirsch cemetery (Jewish) with 10 graves, of which only 2 were identified.

From the information board at the Baron De Hirsch cemetery;

From the information board at the mount Olivet cemetery;

If you have watched the film, you may remember the part played by Kathy Bates, “the unsinkable Molly Brown” who was the down to earth first class lady in the lifeboat number 6 who pleaded for them to turn around and pick up survivors, only to be told to sit down and shut her cakehole or she would be shot and thrown overboard herself!!!

Well Mrs Molly Brown and her daughter visited the Fairview cemetery at a later date and placed flowers on EVERY Titanic grave!

A few of the other graves;

Another place we came across via Geocaching was a memorial that talked about the Halifax explosion!

Halifax explosion? What was that about then?

I guess like us, some of you knew nothing about this. Apparently one of the cannons on one of the ships was blown in the blast 3.5 miles away and an anchor landed 2.5 miles away. More can be learnt here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

A few random pictures from Halifax

After doing Halifax we headed up to Moncton again to stay in the same place we had stayed on the way up, a very large Casino where we could stay for 7 days if we wanted. Pictures this time;

Casino in Moncton

We headed back into the USA after overnighting at Saint Johns, New Brunswick and then headed over the border and back into the USA at Calais in Maine. From there we went to Bangor, Pumpkin patch RV park which was our base for a trip to Acadia NP.

Acadia was only about 45 miles south east of us, so we toodled down there for the day.

For those that know me a little probably know that I do not like heights! So why I chose to do the beehive hike I have no idea, all I can say is that it is a good job that i went to the toilet in the morning otherwise i may have soiled my pants!!!!

At the top!

Zoom in.

Did we really just “hike” this???

Mountain goats are we.

If you zoom in on the above pictures, you may see my vomit or even little people scrambling up the sides of cliffs!!

Not a bad hike for a 60 year old acrophobic and a wife who has a broken thermostat!

Bar Harbor

Oh Bouy!

Is fall on the way?

It’s goodbye from her…..

Not much planned for the next 2 weeks so we will leave you alone. Next will be Boston, Salem and anything else we find along the way.

G&T xx

Canada part 2

Maine to Prince Edward Island & Nova Scotia.

We had stopped off at Bangor in Maine and spent the night just at the side of some disused buildings of a Mall. We managed to fill both vehicles with gas courtesy of a loaned BJ’s card so got the gas cheaper. (thank you Donna & Rich).

One of the caches we did was a Challenge coin, which was at the airport, an interesting video is here………..https://youtube.com/shorts/VQf_fWlVnY4?feature=share

We headed off on another scenic route towards Canada to cross the border at a place called Saint Croix.

The scenic was just that, very scenic.

It does come with some caveats. Driving on these routes for example, they can be rougher roads, and if you break down it’s harder to get signal on your phone, and it could take longer to get recovered. The other issue is, you never know who your going to meet.

We decided to stop at a scenic lakeside stop, put the kettle on and we were going to sit at a picnic table and enjoy the view.

However, just after we pulled in, an old car pulled in with 2 male 25 ish year olds, and shall we say mountain folk/undesirables and popped their hood as if they had an engine issue. Just after that another truck pulling a trailer/caravan pulled in, stayed for 5 minutes, and the 3 people in that left after having a cigarette.

Meanwhile, one of the guys allegedly checking something on the engine, kept looking at our rig and talking to the driver of the car who then kept looking over too.

Now I think I’m a pretty good judge of people and I did not like what I was seeing, so I decided it was better to remove the topic of their discussion and any ideas that they were coming up with. So my coffee and Gill’s tea were poured down the sink and we headed the next 5 miles to the Canadian border with my eyes watching the mirrors!!

Better safe than sorry.

We arrived at a place called Fredericton in New Brunswick, and stopped for the night at a casino, come entertainment centre, where Gill was in her confused element trying to play Bingo for the evening.

From there we headed on another scenic route North East on the 10 and 116, and then South East on the 126 to Moncton. Another casino stop over, a nice buffet meal and a few geocaches around the city were done while we stayed there for 2 nights. You could stay there for up to 7 days free.

While we there the geocaches that we did included one at a place called Magnetic Hill, where allegedly you car rolls up hill…..the video can be seen here…..https://youtu.be/plKaxRzo8aY

One of the other caches was at a tidal bore location which is meant to be one of the biggest, but I thought it was not as powerful as the Severn Bore in the UK. Again another Video……….https://youtu.be/A7Q9a8Mc6KI

It was then on to PEI to meet George the Geocacher, who I met on September 14^th 2008 in Torquay doing a night cache. I always said if I was in his area we would meet again.

We stayed at the Brudenell River Provincial camp ground which had a great view to wake up to.

George showed us around his area of PEI, and we also met his lovely wife Rosemary when we went out to a great seafood restaurant called the Clam Diggers.

We visited a few Lighthouses, including one that was the first to receive the “Mayday” signal from the Titanic.

In one of the lighthouses they had a collection of sand & Sea glass from around the world, so I

donated a handful of my sea glass to their collection too.

When we arrived on PEI, we took the bridge over and the intention was to return that way too, but that would incur a $110 (US dollar) toll plus 177 miles in the RV.

So we changed tack and decided on the ferry from PEI to Pictou in Nova Scotia, which cost us $118 (US) and only 20 miles in the RV!

A few random pictures from PEI;

Funny cars

Memorial to lost fishermen

Me waiting for Gill to catch up with me!

A doerupper!

2 Otters, taken with my phone sorry!

Lovely sunset

There is lots of planning and conversions up here in Canada as to the cheapest way to get around Kilometres to miles, Canadian Dollars to US dollars, Litres to US gallons.

The ferry trip was good and we then drove across to Cape Breton Island to do the “Cabot Trail” LINK here.

We Boondocked all around Cape Breton, staying at some wonderful spots with fantastic views of the sea.

Below is one of the beaches we parked at, some of the rocks were stunning;

At the top end of Cape Breton is a national park called The Highlands, and a couple called Daniel and Joanne from Quebec who we met told us we should do one of the hikes up there called the Skyline. We did do the hike, but we were in the clouds for 50% of the walk, but we did get some good views at the halfway point.

On one of the stops as we drove around, we had just pulled into an overlook of the ocean and within 5 minutes, we spotted a whale spout, immediately followed by the whale breaking the surface and leaping into the air. We did not get it on camera, but we think it was a pilot whale.

We stayed there over night and never saw another!

Cape Breton finished and the gas tanks were empty so we had to fill up, for those that follow me on Facebook you will already have seen this, but it cost us $417 Canadian dollars to fill the RV, thats $315 us dollars and £245 quid! (Here we are with the conversions again) That was $5.54 U.S per gallon or £1.08 per litre, so it’s still cheap v GBP but expensive v the USD

Belted Kingfisher

Thats it for this blog, I will do Nova Scotia next time.

Goodnight!

G&T

P.S The house quiz question in the last blog was answered by 1 person. Thanks Adrian who got it correct.

Virginia, Canada & 4 more US states

We left Hershey, Pennsylvania a day early and headed north towards Buffalo, New York.

Last year while we were doing Niagara Falls we met some people there who we hit it off with, so we promised them we would meet again.

It took us 2 days of travel to get to them from Hershey, so we stopped off overnight at a good old Walmart.

Where I got to see several of these creatures again (Groundhog), a neighbour of ours wants to know what they taste like with french fries? Anyone ever tried them?

Just for you Lynn!!

On the way north the weather at one stage was pretty bad and we have a dash cam and after careful consideration I have uploaded a clip to Youtube. If you are easily offended by bad language turn the volume off before watching it. I apologise for my foul mouth! https://youtu.be/gyXC0NZdozc And this is meant to be a professional driver!!

We headed to the border at Lewiston, where we managed to find an Indian reservation with gas at $2.90 a gallon. Thumbs up for that stroke of luck.

Crossing the border went fine, but finding the campground went a little wrong, as the satnav took us into a small sheltered living complex.

We had no way out, so for the first time ever, we had to take the car off so that we could reverse out!

We eventually got to the campground called the “NET” and met up with Teresa and Mike again. For those of you that followed the blog last year, it was he who got us very drunk on “Fireballs”

We spent 5 days camping with them, and it was a great laugh and they are friends for life!

We also met up with Kevin & Crystal, who we also met last year, and spent some good times around the firepit drinking and eating and having a laugh.

We also managed a spot of fishing and I think Gill won that one, although she was scared to death to hold it “In case it wriggles””

Kevin holds a pig roast every year and people bring groceries so that Kevin can donate them to a food bank. He holds the pig roast on his property and he has built these 2 items, the first is the roaster itself, made out of an old propane tank.

The second is what can only be described as posh “Portaloos” $600 to purchase on an old trailer and he has made it into restrooms for his event.

I think they are fantastic!

Huge thanks to them all for their generous nature, great friendship and Teresa’s cooking, it was a fantastic time.

Gill(as I sometimes call her) Crystal…Kevin…”Fireball Mike” Teresa and the good looking bloke on the end is me 🙂

If you ever want a trip organised at Niagara falls, Teresa is your person, I have her details if you need them.

But all good times have to come to an end, and we had to head back in to New York state to our next campground for a few days.

Someone had told me to check out the “Finger lakes” so that is where we stayed at Sampson state park on one of the lakes, Seneca lake. https://parks.ny.gov/parks/154/

Sampson park used to be a military base and covers over 2000 acres.

I guess dogs this size need somewhere to roam!

This is “Duke” and I believe the saddle is just out of the shot to the left, he was/is massive, I don’t fancy picking up after him!

It was a lovely park, where we chilled (ate some of our own food Teresa) and explored the area. Including Rochester, Geneva and Waterloo.

I did a few Geocaches and one of them took us to a bridge that was allegedly the inspiration for the film “It’s a wonderful life” It must have been before my time, as Gill remembered the film very clearly!!

We also spotted our first and second snake of the trip so far.

This was one of them, the other I did not get a picture of. It certainly kept me out of the water!!!

After Sampson state park our next booked campground was up in Prince Edward Island, (PEI) Canada.

Talking of Geocaching earlier, I met a cacher some ten years ago from Canada that was geocaching in the south west of England and he said that we must visit if we ever get to PEI, so that is the aim.

We had 6 days from Sampson state park to get to PEI, so we just drove, and made it up as we went along!

We travelled across New York State, using the scenic routes through the Adirondack Mountains, (Pronounced Adder-ron-Dax) we overnighted here for one night, just parked by a lake. It was so quiet and peaceful. Check out this video on Youtube https://youtube.com/shorts/nFSGBV_xDO4?feature=share

The Adirondack’s is a beautiful park.

From there it was into Vermont, again using the scenic routes and into New Hampshire where we wanted to drive the Kancamagus highway through the White Mountains, but due to recent floods and storms, some of the road had been washed away and there had been some landslides here too as well as in Vermont.

But we still managed to find a nice a scenic route, through both Vermont and New Hampshire.

We stopped overnight again in Bangor, Maine and came across this house….

Now as Llyod Grossman would say; Who? Lives in a house like this, if you think you know, please leave a comment on the blog.

Obviously, as I am driving I can not take pictures of the various sights as we travel along, so Gill uses my phone.

Here are some of the quality results that I get to go through and choose the ones deserving of their place in the blog.

On this edition these have made it as they are the best of the bunch!!!

That’s it for this edition.

Next time it will be New Brunswick, PEI and Nova Scotia.

Thanks for reading and we hope you are enjoying the blog?

Terry and Gill

Hershey & Gettysburg

Firstly on this edition of the blog, I apologise for the lack of maps that someone asked me to include, which helped them see where we had been on our trip.

So I will include them going forward.

If there is anything that you would like to see in the blog, please let me know and if I can, I will.

So this is our route so far….from Advance, North Carolina to Lynchburg Virginia,

Then Lynchburg to Front Royal,

Followed by Front Royal to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

At Hershey we pulled in and picked the first site we came to on the campground as it was nice and open and level. A little while later, a couple were moving into the space opposite us (apparently this was there 3^rd site in the park in 2 hours!) The wife who was helping him back in started to talk to us about how mad she was with her husband Barry, and it turned out that we had a mutual friend who is going through cancer treatment and who we were meant to meet at Hershey, but that had to be cancelled due to her treatment in Florida. Our prayers are with her at this time.

We got to know Barry and Donna over the next few days, and they took us to a lovely Ice cream place.

We are both glad we went for the small size!

While at Hershey we obviously had to visit some kind of chocolate place that was nearby!

The town even had it’s street lights shaped like Hershey kisses.

We also went to a free concert by the Hershey Symphonic orchestral band at the Pennsylvania hospital, it started at 19.30 and finished about 22.30, the Americans like their free entertainment and we enjoyed it too. Typically very country patriotic and very much so towards their military too.

The tour of the virtual chocolate factory was free, but the amusement park was $79 each if you are ever interested.

Also not too far away was the Gettysburg civil war battlefield site.

A battle that lasted 3 days in July 1863 and claimed the lives of over 7000 soldiers, and over 32000 injured.

The town of Gettysburg can get very congested because of it’s role in the battle and it certainly was on the weekend that we went, which was the weekend before July the 4^th. and the 130th Anniversary. This was one of those places that despite it’s sadness and loss of life, it has become such a tourist attraction.

You have to pay just to watch the movie explaining the battle, and to see the Cyclorama, a painting of the battle of Picket’s charge, the climatic ill fated confederate attack during the battle of Gettysburg.

Fun facts for you, the painting is 377 feet long, 42 feet high and weighs 12.5 tons!

We found it a little more confusing than either the Shiloh battle or the Corinth one. The battle ground itself is littered with memorials and statues all over.

Gill was happy though, she found some more men in Uniform!

There was meant to be a July the 4^th parade at a little town called Lititz just 20 odd miles from the campground, so we went down to watch that and the concert that was happening after the parade.

We drove down there, had some tea and then watched as the police went up and down telling everyone that it was cancelled due to in incoming storm. The whole street was lined with chairs and blankets which people had set out ready for the parade. What a bummer.

So we headed back to the RV, but not before finding petrol/gas for $2.99 a gallon.

When we got back it was going to be time to move, and funnily enough Barry and Donna were moving….again, as Barry had found another site that he preferred! LOL

Thats all I have for you this time.

Next time its Canada

Remember to say if you want to see anything particular in the blog.

Bye for now Terry & Gill

On the road North

After we had the rig all set up, we stayed in North Carolina and had another visit and meal out in Mocksville with Debbie & Craig, who have said we could park our RV at their house if ever we need to, which is very nice of them.

While in England, I had spotted a post on FB on one of the RV pages about some step supports, so I ordered them off Amazon, picked them up when I got to Bev’s, and fitted them recently, feedback from me is they are great, they stabilise and solidify the steps, and are fully adjustable.

We also had another brief stay with our cousin as the weather was so bad where we were, with warnings of flash floods and no sleep for 2 nights due to the rain, (It’s very loud when it hits the roof of the RV.)

After parking on their drive for 2 nights it was time to start our trip proper and head north to Lynchburg, Virginia.

Gas prices last year started at $4.88 a gallon, this year they have been around $3.25 and at Front Royal, we managed to get gas for $3.09, but it depends what state you are in. Pennsylvania and New York states both look like they have gas around $3.60 to $3.80 a gallon, so we will be shopping around with an app called “Gas buddy”. Update; We just got gas for $2.99 at Sheetz, (who also did a daily special on the 4th of July for $1.77.6 for gas and diesel).

We stayed just south of Lynchburg at a place called “Gladys”. The campground was pretty rustic and another place where the midges just aim for those little pools of fluid called eyes and they just dive right in!!! Little S***’*.

We spent a day out and about in Lynchburg, visiting a farmers market and then went to somewhere a little special called Appomattox.

At the market we purchased some “Brunswick Stew” a so called “World famous” dish which I have to say was rather nice. This one was made with chicken rather than squirrels or “Tree rats” as I call them. I would have tried the squirrel one to be fair if they had it.

We had a stroll around the town, walking up 132 monument steps, which serves as a war memorial at each landing dedicated to a particular conflict.

Then we had a walk out to Percival’s Island, followed by a visit to the old cemetery where there were over 2200 confederate soldiers from 14 states buried. The enclosure where they are buried have roses all around dating from 1581 to the 1900’s.

On the way out of Lynchburg I spotted a sign for Desmond Doss, he of the “Hacksaw Ridge” film and Medal of Honour winner, apparently Lynchburg was where he was born and raised, and it was quite a satisfying feeling to know that we had also visited his grave in Chattanooga earlier on our trips.

We drove down to Appomattox (pronounced App-o-mattox). This was a very important site in the American Civil War, as it is where on April the 9^th 1865, General Robert E Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, thus making it the beginning of the end of the souths ambitions to create a separate nation.

Grant allowed all of Lees men to leave and head back to their homes, and not to take up arms against the United States. Any soldier who had a horse was allowed to keep it, and every soldier was given a “Parole” to grant them free passage on the way back to their homes.

The generous terms of surrender began the process of reunification. By June 2^nd the other armies had all surrendered and the war was over.

Some of the birds we have spotted in the last 4 weeks for our twitcher friends out there.

Collage created using TurboCollage software from http://www.TurboCollage.com

Moving North from Lynchburg to a campground near Front Royal, and the reason for the stay here was so that we could do another National Park, this one was called Shenandoah.

This is part of the Blue Ridge mountains and consists of a road called the “Skyline drive”. A scenic drive of 105 miles with lots of overlooks into the valleys below. We did not have great views because of the smoke from fires in Canada that was drifting down and making the views somewhat hazy.

Collage created using TurboCollage software from http://www.TurboCollage.com

None the less we did some good hiking in the mountains, including the man in the picture above in barefeet!

For some unknown reason I was attacked with no provocation whatsoever on my part by a branch while trying to find a geocache. The assailant has been reported to the local law enforcement for the assault, log no 763489!

We saw a couple of species of wildlife, including a groundhog, a Racoon and a Deer on some of the hikes we did.

I guess i need to leave a picture of some kind of vehicle as we did last week, so I found this one with a leaky radiator;

Next issue will be from Pennsylvania and include Hershey, Gettysburg, ice-cream and more, until then take care

G&T

And so it begins….Slowly

So, here we are, we have made it to the other side.

Albeit after a long journey. We left the house at 1am and waited for a taxi that turned up late, which took us to the Heathrow bus, that was also late, which took us to the airport, where we were due to catch the plane to North Carolina USA, which was also delayed by 2 hours, so it turned into a 27 hour bed to bed trip!

We have not used the National Express bus to get from Exeter to London before but we have to say, it was quite a pleasant experience, (and about 1/3rd the price of hiring a car) apart from sitting next to someone at 2.30 am who was watching his girlfriend sleep via his phone for the whole 3 ½ trip….creepy or what?

Our Cousins picked us up from the airport and we had a lovely 5 days getting over the trip.

Drinking “Old Fashion’s” “Long Island sweet teas” and a few “Manhattan’s” followed by some wonderful cooking by Bev.

We also caught up on some of Ted Lasso and played some Euchre.

No this is not Cocain…..It’s Johnsons baby powder to stop the playing cards sticking to the table!! Thats my story and i am sticking to it.

A very pleasant few days.

On one of the days we borrowed one of their cars and headed down to the campground to pick up our car, and luckily for us both the car and the RV started first time with no issues.

It was then time to leave Kevin and Bev’s and head to the campground to set up for our first Campground of the year. A place called Forrest lakes which is 8 miles west of Lexington, North Carolina.

Luckily for us, everything worked and within 24 hours we were all sorted and back in the groove, with a full fridge and freezer and all the groceries got.

And Gill is straight back into normal routines….eg..3pm sleep mode

Perhaps it was down to our re-acquaintance to the camping world before we left with Geoff and Michelle up at Samford Peverell for a weekend in their motorhome that all went well for us the USA side of the pond. Michelle also gave us a little rainbow for our camper which is now on our cabinets together with the remnants of our las Vegas style cards and slots.

We were invited back up to the my cousins on the Saturday to chill out with them, along with Grace their daughter, who had just passed her entrance exam for a registered nurse, and is due to start her new job in Charleston, South Carolina. Congratulations to her.

As soon as we arrived at there, we had a crisis….. Grace was dog watching across the road and they had found two Racoons and were trying to catch them.

Kevin & I went across and managed to save them from the dogs. The first one was gripping on to part of their pergola, so I just grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and bagged it, Kevin then put it outside the fence of the garden.

The second one was a slightly more vicious bugger, hissing and snapping at us, eventually we managed to get it under a towel and he/she (probably female, considering the temper) was bagged and also put outside the reach of the canine hunters!!

International rescue does it again.

We went to a Farmers Market and Mike’s Vegan Restaurant,

and managed to watch a further 2 episodes of Ted Lasso (3 left for November), and had a lovely dinner and Blackberry cobbler. Then we set off back to the RV and will catch up with Beverley, Kevin and the family in November for Thanksgiving.

A very nice wooden style Audi we saw!

It is Father’s Day today, and we have spoken with our daughter, Kathryn who has sent her Dad a voucher for the Cinema, as Oppenheimer will be showing in July, which looks a good film, thanks Kat xx

She also sent us some pictures from a recent storm she got caught in the other day in Texas, now we know they do everything “BIG” in Texas, but this is taking it too far!!!

Until next time which will be after we travel a few hundred miles…thats it for the first blog.

G&T

Time to complete the US States puzzle.

Hello and welcome back to the Waddup travels blog update, simply typing this means we are not far away from another trip!

As is usual practice we have planed the trip and started booking the campgrounds.

So a brief overview of our itinerary is as follows;

We fly into North Carolina at the beginning of June, spending a couple of weeks there before starting our trip to the north east of the USA and a couple of little incursions into Canada.

So it is North Carolina heading north into Pennsylvania, picking off Shenandoah National park on the way. Then it is New York state and into Canada via Buffalo and Niagara falls again to catch up with some Canadians and some fireballs!!

From there we head back into New York State and the Finger Lakes. Followed by Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Our northernmost point will be into Canada and Prince Edward Island, where we will meet up with and old Geocaching contact.

We will then go down to Nova Scotia and Halifax to see some of the Titanic historical exhibits.

From there it’s down into Maine again and Acadia National Park, down to Boston, Massachusetts, (Salem) down into Rhode Island and Connecticut.

New York state again and maybe to Long Island and the Hamptons, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

And our last new state will be the District of Columbia and Washington DC, where we will do all the usual touristy bits as well as Arlington cemetery.

And that ladies and Gentlemen will be all of the 50 states done!!

So that is a brief synopsis of our plans, maybe we will bump into some of you on purpose maybe some of you by accident, lets hope we see you either on the road, in the campgrounds or maybe just following the blog.

If anyone has any tips or ideas that we should go see or do, please let us know.

Enjoy the ride as much as we will.

G&T

And finally…for 2022

After New River Gorge National Park, we headed down south east to meet up with Dan and his family in Bristol, Tennessee.

He had cleared his drive so that we could park the RV there. This allowed us to spend some quality time with him and his family, including 9 cats. Unfortunately his wife Alisha was working away, so rather than leave Gill alone; we did not go wild camping this year.

We did however have some quality food, Ribs, Bear meat, and a seafood stir-fry.

Dan has started making Native American jewellery, which we negotiated a swap for some of my sea glass jewellery. He sold some of my jewellery at his work place, and I can’t believe the prices he got for them!!

We also went kayaking on the river and some artefact hunting on the riverbank, where Dan found a couple of spearheads.

Dan has another son called Brian, who hosted us for an evening meal with his wife Anna, which was a lovely evening.

We enjoyed our stay with Dan, Vincent, his girlfriend Corrina and Thomas, and we are already looking forward to next year when we may get a three day river kayak trip in.

Then it was the last drive in the RV, 200 miles south west to Advance, North Carolina, and a place we had been to before.

When we arrived Gill noticed that our main TV looked out of kilter.

When we investigated it we noticed that the back of the TV had come away from itself.

I’ve mentioned before how rough the roads can be here and here is the evidence.

Another job that had to be fixed!

Talking of jobs that needed fixing, were those damned engine lights on the Rav4.

Well just up the road from the campground was a garage that only worked on Toyotas. Toyota wanted over $1200 just for the parts alone, plus labour at $170 an hour, these guys did it for less than $1000.

We got them to do some other work on the engine mounts too; the car is now running so much smoother, ready for next year. However, we are thinking of changing the car at some point, but at least I can sell it now with a clear conscious.

We made new friends at the campground called Craig & Debbie and Larry & Joyce. We also dined out a couple of times with them, once in Mocksville and once in Lexington.

While here we managed to get a flight out to see Kathryn, Tristin and Hudson in Texas for a week. We flew with Delta airlines and Kat picked us up at Austin airport.

It was great to catch up with her and Tristin and his son Hudson. Tristin cooked a nice shrimp boil and another meal of sweet potato gnocchi and pork tenderloins. Kat and I made sausage rolls and they were fantastic, and Kat had a traditional turkey dinner with us for an early Thanksgiving meal.

These were very very very good!

Kat & I having a massage

I was told this was someone being a “Dick” in Dicks

We also had a great laugh playing a new version of Monopoly called “Monopoly for sore losers”; if you haven’t tried it I can highly recommend it. I hate playing the normal version, but this speeds it up and is a great laugh!

After flying back to North Caroline the RV has been put into storage and we drove out to stay with our cousin for Thanksgiving.

We went out most mornings to play pickle ball, and we introduced Bev and Kevin to the game too. It is such a huge sport over here and it is also the fastest growing sport in the country.

We had a lovely stay with these guys and it was nice to catch up with Grace, Tristin and Elizabeth, their 3 children, all back from their respective jobs/colleges. We are very blessed to have such lovely family over here who we also class as good friends. it is lovely to spend some quality time with them, trying new foods, playing Euchre and drinking “Old fashioneds”

Above from left to right..Moi, Gill, Bev, Kevin, Tristin, Elizabeth and Grace.

From left to right, Mr Darcy, Butler, Mr Bennett, Mr Bingley, and Leo.

Once thanksgiving is over the Xmas decs come out;

Marry Christmas Ya’ll

Its now time to fly home, we’ve done 8 new states and approximately 5500 miles in the RV. This means that we only have 11 states left to do, all in the north east of the country.

We also managed to pick off another five national parks, Cuyahoga, New River Gorge, Isle Royale, Voyageurs and Indiana Dunes.

So that’s it, time to come home, home to being retired/unemployed not sure which one yet, and also to the big “60” in 3 weeks time (Sad face).

Gill is off back to work again with the same employer so that I can be supported to the lifestyle I am accustomed too.

Thanks for following, we hope you have enjoyed the blog!

New England next year baby!

G&T

Penultimate post of this trip

This was from Michiana, and a town called Buchannon.

We also visited an RV museum, very interesting to see they had travel trailers of sorts from as early as 1913.

Well after our stay in “Michiana” it was time we moved back east to Ohio which was our penultimate new state for us this year, and if you look at the map, you can see that it was somewhat of an error in planning!

But it had to be done to pick off another national park.

This one was Cuyahoga Valley NP. We stayed jut 6 miles from the park at Silver Springs campground, near Stow.

The national park is basically a steep sided valley where the Cuyahoga River runs through, and Cleveland sits at the top of it on lake Eerie.

This park used to be very contaminated from industrial use and waste, but it is now back to nature. No entrance fee on this park as it is open and has communities within it.

We did several hikes through the valley and visited several waterfalls, but the Brandywine falls were by far the nicest.

Gripping to live

Don’t ask me, she looks high!!

Brandywine Falls

It was a beautiful to park to hike in at this time of year as the trees were lovely. There was also a covered bridge.

Covered bridge

From here it was true south, straight down through Ohio stopping off overnight at Rippling Waters campground, which was very picturesque.

Rippling waters campground

We also met a guy named “Key” here; we got talking as we recognised his trailer and he had been at a couple of the other campgrounds we had stayed in.

West Virgina, mountain mama, take me home country roads!

After that it was south again down to a place called “Beckley” of West Virginia, again this was a short two night stay for another national park.

We stayed in Beckley itself in a municiple campground on the site of an old coal mine.

We ended up dog sitting one night for Mark and Maryann and their little 15 year old dog named “Wiley” who just sat on my lap and watched their RV the whole time.

Wiley

This is a newish national park called the “New River Gorge”NP, a very steep sided forest covered gorge with a large river at the bottom.

Once a booming coal mining area with over 80 mines, like Cuyahago, it too has now gone back to nature.

Grandview overlook

Sandstone falls

So that is for now, it’s south again for us next down to Bluff City in Tennessee to meet up with Dan and his family, a flight to the daughter in Waco, Texas and then a visit to my cousin in North Carolina for thanksgiving before flying home and relaxing for 6 months. (LOL)

Our map, that is almost complete, next year it should be done!

Until the end of November

Terry & Gill.

Niagara Falls to USA

We left Niagara Falls and headed to our next destination, back into the USA via the border crossing 60 miles north of Detroit at Sarnia, Canada.

These were some of the ships and a house on the St Clair river USA. The river runs from Lake Erie up through Lake St Claire into Lake Huron and the rest of the great lakes.

As normal with these crossings it was a long queue and it took us about ¾ of an hour to get through, but at least this time we did not get pulled to one side for a grilling!(Proper English term for an interrogation) not the steak or chicken type!

We did not get pulled by this one

Thanksgiving is coming, we called him “PAXO”

This happened coming towards us.

Luckily we did not have far to drive once we crossed the border, staying just west of St Claire for 20 days.

And i worry about the condition of my rig!

A time to relax, get some jobs done on the vehicles and watch the pound slide to the lowest level we have seen since we cared about the exchange rate. I still say Sunak would have been the better option!

Our visitors this month

While here we have managed to get a lot done, more jewellery made, ice hockey game booked, flights booked to go and see Kathryn, toppers changed on the slide outs, and those pesky engine lights on the Rav4…..Well they are going to cost at least $500, it turns out we need to replace the” Evap system” This aids fuel economy and emissions allegedly. It may be a job I do myself as its only 3 bolts 2 hoses and an electrical connector. I also just had to replace the rear brake pads on the car too, so I did that job myself, and saved a few bucks.

We had a day trip into Detroit and got one of the RV blinds restrung. We could have done it ourselves but there’s not a lot of room in the rig so we dropped it off at 9am and it was done by 3pm.

We spent the day looking around Detroit, and Grosse lsle, one of several islands on the Detroit River, a beautiful place with some lovely homes, just yards from Canada, and they too are into Halloween!

We also spent the day Geocaching in the city. Then in the evening we went to our first Ice Hockey game…ever! The Chicago Blackhawks V the Detroit Redwing pre-season friendly and it finished 3-2 to the Blackhawks.

Made using TurboCollage from http://www.TurboCollage.com

Better than the baseball and American football we watched that’s for sure!

The campground we are staying on closes in the middle of October, so it’s very quiet.

But at least they are trying with the entertainment, group fires, ice cream socials, bingo and lots of trick or treating (because  of the early closure) and some great Halloween displays.

Once we had done 20 days here, we had to almost retrace our steps across to near Chicago to do another national park “Indiana Dunes national park” which is right at the south of Lake Michigan.

So the campground (again closing at the end of October) is near a place called Buchannan in Michigan but just north of the Indianan border. They call this area “Michiana”, but very pretty being on St Joseph’s river.

We literally only came back across for the National park, as we hadn’t done Iowa we did that on the way up and we probably should have just driven the car to here when we stayed west of Chicago. A little planning error really on my shoulders!

Some of the fall colours are amazing at the moment, and the temperature is certainly falling.

Lake Michigan is our favorite great lake, such a pretty place with some lovely houses.

We have decided that Gill and I are both going to go back to work in some capacity due to the financial situation of the pound and the cost of living at the moment. However Gill will be going to night school too, If anyone knows of any classes where they can teach someone how to navigate or more importantly tell their left from their right I would appreciate you letting me know!

When we get to a junction and someone puts their arm to the right and tells you to go left when you have a 50 plus foot setup, I think they need classes.

She wanted to drive home the other night on her own, so I let her, she never made it in one piece…..she crashed her car!

Probably mixed up her left and rights at that diversion!

We heard this morning that one of our friends who we first met in 2015 passed away recently, we were lucky enough to meet Bill & Judy for lunch back in July. We will miss Bill and will always remember his catchphrase of “It is what it is”

He was a lovely person and we are glad to have met him. RIP Bill.

Bill & Judy

Until next time, take care.

The Waddup’s

The Queen & Commonwealth

Our latest trip =

After doing Isle Royale national park we returned east through the upper peninsula of Michigan toward Sault st Marie and Canada. The upper peninsula was so pretty and the beaches were sandy long and empty, perhaps somewhere to return to.

A place in Canada, called the tourist trap.

Upper peninsula beach, on lake Superior

We stopped off before we entered Canada to fill up with gas and have lunch, as we were entering Canada we heard over the radio that our dear Queen had passed away.

It was a very sad moment to hear that, and ironically enough as we drove through the border the first street we entered was Queen Street.

We, as most of you, have only ever known her as our Queen. I only served for her in our armed forces for 5 years, she served her country for over 70 years

It’s just a shame that some people can not respect the passing of our Queen & someones mother, grand mother and great grandmother, without putting disrespectful pictures, or comments on social media! Shame on them!

We have managed to keep up with the proceedings on the TV as they have all been showing extensive coverage of it all.

May god rest her soul.

We had 512 miles to go and we had booked into a campsite in 5 days time, so we stopped off at a Casino, boon docked for a night and then another 3 nights in another Casino, before heading into the campground just south of Niagara Falls.

The colours are starting to come.

We were going to stay in Toronto but when we hit the 16 lanes of traffic in the place we changed our mind and headed out of the city! Did you know that Canada is bigger than the USA and has a tenth of the population, just 36 million and 5 and a half million of those live around lake Ontario….we think they were all on the road the day we drove to Toronto!

Toronto traffic

Horse racing at the casino

random good looking guy out caching

The birthplace John Macrea, author of “In Flanders Fields”

While at one of the casinos near Toronto, we headed off to do some Geocaching, which took us to a place called “Grimsby”. Where we came across this most stunning little enclave of properties.

Collage created using TurboCollage software from http://www.TurboCollage.com

Our campground near Niagara was called Windmill Point campground on the site of an old quarry and it was lovely. It was also very close to Lake Erie, our last great lake, we have now seen them all.

At the campground itself, we were invited over to Mike & Teresa’s place for a few drinks on the evening before our trip to Niagara, thanks to Mike we nearly did not make it, why he spiked our drinks I will never know!

Some random shots of the moon , with no added colours.

We booked a tour through “See Sight tours”. Our tour was for approx 5 hours and included “Behind the falls”, “Maid of the mist” equivalent boat ride into the falls, also a tour of the area and a ride to the top of the “Skylon tower” our tour guide also gave us complimentary tickets for the tower again so that we could go up later and watch the firework show and see the falls at night.

Collage created using TurboCollage software from http://www.TurboCollage.com

The night before we left the campground, we were treated to a fish fry evening by Dan & Beth, attended by Mike & Teresa, and Crystal, Kevin & Noah. It was a lovely evening and we all contributed to the meal and the Walleye fish that Dan cooked was lovely. We also did a spot of fishing in the lake too.

I would have added a link to some videos I took, but the pc is playing up, so I will let you find them on my youtube page. Go hunt them out.

G&T

The trials & tribulations of trying to do the National Parks of the USA!

It was time to say goodbye to Sturgeon Bay and get on the road again.

It was time to go visit the first of our national parks on this trip…….or so we thought!

We headed south first and around the city of Green Bay, home to the “Packers” and then, rather than cut straight across Wisconsin we headed north and went in the U.P (upper peninsula) of Michigan.

We thought this would be our only opportunity to go there. (how wrong we were).

Largest Hiawatha in the world?

The U.P was nice and we stopped off at a Casino for an overnight stop for $15 with water and electric. We got to use the facilities while there including the swimming pool, free coffees and soft drinks while at the casino.

I wasted all of $5 on one machine and to show how bad we are at gambling, Gill said “I can’t even work out where to put the money in!! But I did get to watch Leeds United on the TV. We lost!

It was then another boondocking in a Walmart car park before heading to a state park on the shores of Lake Superior.

Now bear in mind one of the main reasons of coming this far north was to do 2 national parks, Isle Royale and Voyageurs NP. https://www.nps.gov/voya/index.htm

That morning before moving off we got a phone call from the park service to say our trip to Isle Royale had been cancelled, why? We still don’t know!

Anyway we decided to still use the state park we had booked, 4 nights for $99, we drove up the coast of Superior and got to the park.

When we got there, they wanted to charge us another $56 for permits for the 2 vehicles for the 4 days. I, Terry, was fuming and refused to pay, considering our trip had been cancelled and it was a wasted stay, we cut our losses, cancelled our stay and left!

Americans and their bloody permits, you even needed a permit to use a “Wayside” (lay-by for the English readers) nearby.

I have just applied for a permit so that I can pass wind without the fear of a citation from a wind monitor!!!!

Do i need a frog permit too?

After much re-jigging and phone calls to sites and trip providers we altered our planned route and went to Voyageurs NP first, in Minnesota.

We stayed for a couple of nights in a state park called Woodenfrog SP, https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_forests/forest.html?id=sft00027#cmp00032 (no additional charges at this one) doing some hiking and sightseeing.

Number 36 national park.

Tried to capture an image of the milky way, but the battery ran out on my remote, so had to do it manually.

We, well I, also made the decision to dump the Porta-bote, https://portabote.com/ alas she had cracked on the rear end and I had lost all faith in her. We are on the lookout for another or even a kayak.

They even tried to charge me 4 bucks to dump her! But he couldn’t find the credit card machine….haha!

After Voyageurs we headed back into the U.P to a place Copper Harbor for a trip to Isle Royal. We managed to again stay at the casino we had been at before and again managed to watch the Leeds game again. I’m never going back there, 2 games 2 losses!!

We then went further north, overnighted in Houghton for 2 nights and then to Lake Linden for 2 nights.

Lake Linden is where we were staying to do Isle Royale National park from Copper Harbor.

This area is very reminiscent of Cornwall, with all of the mine ruins.

We drove up early in the morning (both with long trouser and jackets, its cooling down!) Caught a boat and headed to the island. A 3 hour trip there, 3 hours on the island and 3 hours back. A beautiful day travelling on Lake Superior. But it was also a strange day, to be 6 hours on the water, its hard to get your head around that this is a freshwater lake, no dolphins, no sunfish, no seagulls, very few birds and very few boaters out there too.

Number 37 national park;

From the little time we had at Isle royal, https://www.nps.gov/isro/index.htm it was a beautiful place, and so much more deserving of the 3 hours we spent there. It’s 45 miles long and 9 miles wide.

We stopped off at a tourist trap on the way across the upper peninsula;

Crazy stuff!

One thing i do like about the upper peninsula is………I FOUND PASTYS!

I have to say they are very good, but very expensive….$7.40

We are now headed into Canada and down to Niagara falls.

Our wanderings since the last blog!

We will update the blog in about 4 weeks.

Enjoy yourselves

G&T

Up to the Windy city of Chicago

Hello everybody.

A trip north-east to a place called Sabula lake park was our next move, this was cutting west across Illinois into Iowa, a somewhat necessary trip as Iowa was all out on it’s own on our map, and it needed to be filled in.

Sabula was basically just across the border of Illinois and almost an island on the Mississippi, the trip went well, but we did have to stop off at an Rv repair place…again. This time it was just for a blocked jet on the fridge. Basically, the fridge/freezer either runs on electric, the generator or propane gas when we are travelling and the jet had become blocked and not letting the gas through.

A quick stop off at Tri-counties RV Peoria, and they had it diagnosed and the jet cleared in 20 minutes, highly recommended Rv repair spot.

A nice relaxing stay in Iowa for 3 days before our next little move, westwards to about 60 miles from Chicago to a campground just south east of a place called Belvidere, which had lots of murals around.

We were here for 2 days and did 2 trips into Chicago.

The first time we just went to downtown, Grant park, millennium park and to the top of Willis tower. (Formally Sears tower) Which in 2002 cost $9.50 to go up, now its $35!

Gill got up to her usual shenanigans again; Men in uniforms!

We also went to the place where the great fire of Chicago started, which is now a museum and fire station. https://www.britannica.com/event/Chicago-fire-of-1871

Just up the road from our campground was a county fair going on which we decided to visit, it was $8 each to get in.

Now if any of you readers laugh at the next paragraph, one will be most upset!

Being still in my/our 50’s (which ends in December for me, and your all invited to my 60^th) We got to the entrance and just waved us in, it was free for the 65’s and over!! I was hurt, gutted and wanted to pay my 8 bucks!

If anyone wants to see some “tractor pulls” I filmed a few and they can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqsESlKYVqFP1wHwOJEf5kw

It was great to visit the city of Chicago and experience the challenge of driving around it. The view of the city and lake Michigan was outstanding.

The second time we went into the city was to meet up with my 2^nd cousin to watch Leeds V Southampton at a pub called AJ Hudsons, a pub of about 50 tv’s all showing different matches. We then went for walk with Tristin and his dog Leo, and we saw this house, worth approx 25 million bucks!

After this it was time for another move, again North. Up into Wisconsin (Another state ticked off) and up past Milwaukee and Green bay to a place called Sturgeon bay, right on Lake Michigan in Door County.

It was time to try their cheese, cherry wine and fish boil.

And they sure liked their Cherries as you can see from this picture, they had these sculptures all along the town. You could buy pretty much anything made of cherries, pie, jam, wine, whisky, etc etc.

Collage created using TurboCollage software from http://www.TurboCollage.com

We also managed to get into playing pickle-ball again in Sturgeon bay.

Sturgeon bay is a really nice area, but I do get very envious of people living on the waterfront with their nice boats, I think that would be my ultimate happy place, but I am also very thankful for what we are doing.

The fish boil was held in Ephraim, The Old Post Office, and they had been doing it for 40 years, apparently it was the main meal for the Scandinavians when they settled this area in the 1800’s and worked in fishing and logging. http://www.oldpostoffice-doorcounty.com/fishboils.htm

It was a nice experience to have a traditional meal, the fire is caused by a can of petrol being thrown on at the end to make it boil over and gets rid of the dirt, ash and scum from the top of the boil.

Collage created using TurboCollage software from http://www.TurboCollage.com

Finally for this blog, I went and did a 12 mile cycle ride doing some geocaching along the Ahnapee trail. Gill does not drive over here but this time she had to as I was not going to do 24 miles in this heat. Gill drove down to the 11 mile point and waited for me. When I got there, she was sat there with another cyclist. He had come from Algoma, 6 miles away and had a puncture, his wife had started to cycle back to get the car to pick him up.

He had no way of repairing his puncture, so I let him have a spare inner tube I had and fixed his puncture for him so he could catch up with his wife.

My good deed for the day!

Anyway about 3 hours later while I was metal detecting on the beach at Algoma, this couple approached me and presented me with a bottle of wine in thanks. Gill had told him what our plans for the day were and thats how he found us.

I’ll leave you with these 2 pictures, make of them what you will…LOL.

We will be heading into Canada in a weeks time and will have less connectivity, so until next time..

Cheers for now!

T&G

Children of the corn (Indiana)

Driving through Indiana,& Illinois there was so much corn and soya, we had to do this, didn’t have baseball gear otherwise we would have done field of dreams!

If you remember from the last log we had headed north from Tennessee towards Kentucky to a place called “Diamond Caverns” for a week. This was a place we had been to before and it is within the Mammoth cave national park. Luckily a long distance away from the severe flash floods that killed at least 28 people.

We picked up cheaper gas on the way up, when we first started this trip it was $4.88 a gallon and we are now down to paying $3.50 ish.

Diamond Caverns has a golf course attached to it, so I managed to get 2 rounds of golf in with a colleague who stays there most of the time, anhe also looks after the grass on the course so they were freebies, the knee held up but the golf wasn’t that good LOL, but then it’s a while since I have played.

While staying there we visited “Glasgow” and Bowling Green, and basically chilled in the pool.

Next up was another move north but this time to a new state, Indiana for a short 5 day stay.

We tried to find the grave of an auntie whom we’d never met and who died in 2012. We went to the graveyard but did not find the grave, that was followed by a visit to the post office and was sent to an olde wordie hardware store. The lady there was very helpful, phoning this person, and that person, getting a local genealogist in on her day off. Well to cut a long story short, it ends up she was cremated and is still sat on a shelf somewhere at one of her sons houses!!

We did get to meet another cousin while in the area though, Tracey and spent some time discussing a very fractured family which I can relate to! We were hoping to return some of her ashes to the Uk as she had requested but alas we heard nothing from the family so her request goes unanswered. (sad face)

We were very unlucky not to win the Mega millions lottery which stood at 800 million the first time and 1.025 billion the second time and out of the 50 numbers picked over the 2 attempts……..we got 1 number!! 2 bucks!

I haven’t done much geocaching while over here and Gill wanted to see some of the covered bridges in the area of which there were a few. Luckily there was a geocache at most of the bridges, so it was a win win. The bridges were all of the same design here though, Oregons were a lot more varied and interesting.

Just north of us was a state park called “Turkey run” state park and it was the location of the oldest geocache in the state. We headed up there and came across hundreds of people doing a lazy river there. So we went for a walk, found the cache and then paid 25 bucks and spent 3 hours floating down the river, what a way to chill out!

The temperature so far on this trip has gone from 43 degrees C with 80% humidity down to a very pleasant 26 degrees and minimal humidity. It’s at times like this that I do miss my motorbike…..

I know someone in my old workplace that would enjoy these bikes! Chris.

We’ve also got a little more organised inside the rig, (It’s only taken us 7 years!) as you can imagine space is a premium and every little bit helps.

Here is a selection of this blogs wildlife;

Downy woodpecker

Plover

slimy horrible snake

American Goldfinch

Red winged Blackbird

So on the last night at Horseshoe lakes RV park we were rudely woken at 00.15 by a loud crack and something hitting the rv. It turned out a large branch had broken away from a tree behind us and slapped the back end of the rig. luckily for us, very little damage was sustained, but we did not feel comfortable there so moved the rig away from underneath the tree. However, very little sleep was had after that, as you can imagine!

And here is a video explaining what happened https://youtu.be/qX3J1KTMHJc

Until next time…..if we survive!

T & G

Heading North from Florida

We spent the 4th of July here in Orlando and decked out the rig with some American flags that Gill had been given at work (thanks Mid Team).

We eventually left Orlando and Donna & Rich, it was good to see them again,

Then it was time to start heading north, where we were lucky enough to catch up with Bill & Judy for lunch at a “Cracker Barrell” that place of a 1000 rocking chairs .

Cracker Barrell

and luckily enough there is RV parking (overnight, if you want it) and I must say some very nice meat loaf.

Then we went to Madison, which is nearly on the pan handle of Florida to catch up with the Hayes family. We first met this family in 2015 up in North Carolina when I was hobbling around on crutches. Debbie was keen to show us much of the local area and took us to lunch at a remote BBQ place called T&T BBQ.

Cowboy fries

The second picture shows cowboy fries and they were fantastic!

Quintin is also keen to take up metal detecting, so we went out and had a go with his T2 detector, but alas we did not find our fortune. Quintin also gave me a few gifts which I was appreciative of.

It was good to catch up with these guys and Big Paul and Owen too.

Owen is 14 and is soooo intelligent and curious but with him and his mum, you don’t get to say much, as we didn’t want to interrupt, Debbie herself said she “could talk the hind legs of a donkey”! And Owen takes after her.

Owen, Debbie Big Paul, Quentin me and the missus!

We also ended up lunching on the second day with Quentin and cousin Calum at O’Neal’s country buffet which was awesome, including the banana pudding.

Banana Pudding!

This time it was only a 2 day catch up, hopefully next time will be longer.

Some of the nice properties in Madison FL;

The day before we left, I was checking an issue with the brakes and spotted the radiator expansion tank on the verge of exploding, so that had to fixed. with a lot of help from Quentin and Calum.

Just look at those cracks!

Then we still had an ongoing issue with the A.B.S on the breaks from 2019 and we phoned about a dozen places on our route north to try and get this resolved, what turned from a leisurely drive north over a couple of days turned into a 513 mile long day to get a slot to get it dealt with.

And dealt with it was with a 2 night stay on a garage lot in Corinth Mississippi while waiting for parts.

Then it was a short 40 mile drive into Tennessee to meet up with Gary & Lola for a week at Cherokee Landing. This place has about a 100 spaces and there are probably about 30 rigs here.

Gary is a bit of a chef and he did ribs on his smoker and made some orange and peach ice cream. Yummy!! Most days they kindly fed us and gave us cake which was lovely.

The ice cream maker

Lola, me Gary and Gill

I also managed to get a little maintenance done on the air conditioning units in the rig. Bet you all in the UK wish you had air con right now don’t you?

This episodes wildlife pictures;

Great fun watching the humming birds

We have now moved to Kentucky and will update ya’ll in another few weeks

Take care and stay cool.

G&T

And …..relax!

Ok so now we have been here for just over a month and after our first blog, we still had a few issues to sort out.

We now have 6 new tires on the buz,(for someone who does not speak correct English) which we were going to get changed back at the start of our 2020 trip, so that was always budgeted for. I mentioned in the last shortened blog that we had a couple of other issues to sort out e.g. the generator would not start and the batteries were being drained by something.

Across the road from where we were staying was an RV repair place, so we took her over, bit the bullet, and got the jobs ticked off at the princely sum of $175 per hour!!!

Anything that had been stored in the rv that had batteries or rubber on was ruined and had to be thrown. All the food that was in date when we left had to be thrown, including (breaks my heart to say) my Marmite 😦

As you can see Gill has not taken the first few weeks very well.

This is her at just about 3pm every day!

We managed our first meal in Gills favourite place “Olive Garden” thanks to Kathryn for the gift card back at the 2019 xmas time.

Not sure if this was her 3rd or 4th soup!!

We moved down to Orlando where we planned to stay for at least 3 weeks.

This is where we planned to catch up with as many people as possible.

Our first reconnection was with Rich and Donna, who helped us get the rig moved in January 2020, due to the storage area being built on. We camped right opposite them and spent a lot of time just chilling and swimming with these guys. We also went to “Boston Lobster” for an all you can eat seafood buffet, for Rich’s 80^th birthday, followed by a quick visit to Disney Springs. If you ever go to Orlando, Disney Springs is worth visiting and it’s free, including the parking!

That was followed up by catching up with Rob, Tiina, Zak & Anya, first met 18 years ago and we always try to catch up with them. 1^st up was on the eating out crusade was a great Mexican called “Don Julio”, followed by a stunning pizza place called “Mellow Mushroom” and all finished off with a place called “Twin Peaks” All 3 had lovely food but Twin peaks was our favourite! We also played virtual golf with Nic one of Rob’s friends back in the UK. Anya made us a nice mirror for the Rv and sugar cookies, and Zak(18) managed to put Windows on my mac machine, so that I can run some window programmes on the Mac.

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Despite lots of visits to Orlando, we had never been downtown, so we did head down there and check it out too.

We also caught up with Miss Barbara,Bob and Sheba and their friends, Sandy and Okie.

Followed up the day after with lunch with Chris and her new husband Perry.

Here are a few shots of the wildlife seen so far, including a Coral snake, which is venomous.

Cardinal

Coral snake

Went to a Movie Theatre to see Top Gun and Elvis. Seating amazing, with recliners for all.

I guess that is all for now, we are starting the journey proper on Friday when we head north, our next main stop is Tennessee for a week.

Until next time

Wadders x 2

So it begins…..

So here we are the first blog of our actual trip in the USA, and an update of how it has gone so far.

But we need to start the day before we left really, which was an eventful day.

A lot had to be done, cars put in storage, hire car picked up and the obligatory Covid test before we flew. (Which, now we have landed they have scrapped, typical).

To be fair that all went reasonable well, apart from trying to check in on line for our flight, which we could not start until 2pm, at 19.30pm I gave up!! I have to say every time I have tried to do an online check, it has either failed or made no difference whatsoever to the process.

So at 19.30pm I thought I would quickly check my emails before hitting the sack for an early start the following day, only to find a “Sorry you are leaving us” email from our energy supplier.  After trying to get hold of both the current supplier, and the ones who thought they were taking over, and driving out to see the new tenants of the house (who had made no changes) we were no further forward. So guess what we were doing in the airport, Yep, sorting that out.

Enterprise car hire to the airport went ok, apart from no one to handover the car to at Gatwick airport south terminal, so we went to the North terminal and could find no where there either, so we went back to the south terminal and dropped the keys in a drop box!

It was a good check in with British Airways, and a smooth flight, landing at Orlando, and in and out of the airport in 20 minutes, which was unreal. Another car hire this time Budget (LMAO) booked at $165 turned into over $300…robbing {@?}}]

Then it was 90 miles up the road to stay over night with some friends, Dan & Cindy.

Wednesday was our first visit to the RV and car, which thanks to Dan & Cindy organising new batteries for both, they both started straight away.

We were pleasantly surprised at the condition of both vehicles, the RV got a good wash down and had been dusted and hovered by Cindy.  The car and tow dolly were driven down to a tire (tyre for us Brits) place and they both got a full check over and new tires where needed. Then it was another 2 house batteries for the RV, so far with the tires and RV batteries that was $700 and we hadn’t even started travelling yet.

There are still a few issues to deal with in the RV, e.g. the generator won’t start yet and a few parts need to be replaced. The car windscreen washer would not work, so that had to be replaced. As we speak the Rv is hopefully getting her new tires fitted while we are sat in the library catching up on admin stuff.

But we are getting there.

Our first grocery shop has been done, and we filled the RV with fuel.  A friend then asked me if we needed anything, so we replied YES, a bigger bank balance please.

The rise in the cost of food and fuel is shocking since we left, as fuel has more than doubled and food is ridiculous.

So yes, we have landed, we are getting ready to travel, and the blogs have started.

A huge thanks to Cindy and Dan, who for 2 days put themselves at our beck and call to help us get started again, and without them, we don’t know where we would be right now. We are very grateful.

For any Brits reading this, the current temperature here in Wildwood, Florida is 95 degrees (we love our weather reports)!!  Hope the UK is not sizzling too much.

Sorry this is a basic post, with very little meaningful content and pictures, they will improve i promise.

All keep safe,

Terry and Gill

The lost years.

Well here we are in 2022 and things are looking good for a trip this year, so good in fact that the flights are booked. June this year and we will be over there, pulling the ivy off the rig and kicking the racoons out of the bedroom!

As long as there are no snakes in the place i will be happy…er!

However after so long of not typing one of these blogs, I am sat here wondering what to write?

I can tell you that after joining B&Q back in 1987, I have decided that I will not be going back this time. They have been incredibly good to me in allowing me to go back after my last 4 trips and I think it is time that I do not outstay my welcome.

Since we came back in 2019, I have utterly loved my role and where I worked, and in the main, the hours I worked. I can honestly say it’s been one of the most enjoyable roles I have had in my time at the store. But now I am a season ticket holder at the mighty Leeds United FC (who may yet be relegated this season) so I need my weekends free. I have met many wonderful people during my time there and made some great friends, a lot who have now left, I fully intend to do my part and keep in touch with them.

So this could be it, this could be retirement, we will see if I can find enough to keep me busy or whether I will need to go out and find something else to do, but at the grand old age of 59, I can live with that.

So a lot has gone on in the world since I last sat in front of the keyboard and tapped out a few lines for the blog, namely Russia invading Ukraine and despite it being 1700 miles away from us and 5500 miles from Florida it still is affecting us all. The cost to those Ukrainian people is immense, some are losing everything and some are losing more than that! What gives Putin, a dictator the right to invade a peaceful country for no justifiable reason, but let’s be honest, it’s been coming for years. He has changed the rules so that he can rule until 2036!

Talking about the cost, the cost of everything is rising especially the price of fuel. It has reached an all time high here in the UK and an average price in the USA at $4.27 which is almost double what we were paying in 2019 when we left. It’s still cheaper than the UK price (Approx $4.93).

Those prices do not help when your vehicle does 6.5 to the gallon and you have a trip of some 5000 miles planned!

So where are we going? Well we are going back in time, back to a time of January 2020…which is when we published this blog https://wordpress.com/post/twaddup.wordpress.com/5492 and this route;

This is our itinerary.

Don’t panic Bev, I still have to tweak this.

The first few days/weeks will be an anxious time for me, worrying about the state of the rig and the list of things I will need to get done and the worry of the what we will find, not just the racoons in the bedroom….but how many of the buggers there will be!

Flat batteries, new tyres, vehicles serviced and I am sure things we are not expecting too.

So with less than 6 weeks left, it’s time to make sure we have everything we need for the trip, covid tests, attestation forms etc etc.

I shall post the blogs on here and you can subscribe to them, I will also post a link on Facebook so that you can find it.

To all our friends across the pond, we are looking forward to seeing you all soon.

T&G

Blog revival?

Welcome to this hospital ward, here you are in ICU and in bed 3 we have the Waddups travel blog. The blog has clearly had some issues lately and has only just come out of the self induced March 2021 coma!

It is functioning (barely) but has had very little to say for itself of late.

Mr Blog

If the blog is anything like the owner of said blog, then it is probably, down, depressed, frustrated and any other feelings that don’t give you a lot smile to smile about.

It has been a tough 2020, and a tougher 2021, not just for us but for everybody.

In the previous blog, back in March this year (me bad) we mentioned that Gills mother had just turned 90 and was on what we called the downward spiral. Alas in June of this year she passed away.

As we mentioned, we would not have left the UK with the way that she was anyway, but the house certainly feels different now.

There were 4 of us and two cats and now the house is down to just me and Gill (and Brian the spider, who lives in the downstairs bathroom) Honest…here he is;

Brian

The cats, Tuxedo and Custard also had to go, just in case the border did all of a sudden open up. They had to go back to the place where Kathryn (daughter) got them back in 2015 or 2016 before she flew the nest to the US. (but they have just been re-homed) 🙂

Custard

Tuxedo

We thought we would get across to the USA this year, even if it was for just a couple of months in September or October. It would have given us the chance to sort the rig out, moved her to new storage in North Carolina and a chance to catch up with family and friends.

But alas, the reopening of the USA border will not happen until at least November (allegedly). It was announced on the 20^th of September that it would reopen in November, but as of October 1^st, still no exact date has come out of the White house!

So what does that mean for this blog writer?

Well it means we are not going to the USA until 2022.

We cannot gamble on it opening up, booking tickets, giving notice at work only to have the proverbial rug ripped from under my smelly UK size 9 feet, and if it was to be November it does not really give us time to get the RV sorted out and moved. If we stayed for too long this year it would impact on our planned trip next year.

So what does the rig need doing on her?

Before we left, we knew it was time to change the 6 tyres (translated to USA speak…TIRES), we did manage to get the RV moved 70 miles in January, and she had to have a new battery to get her started.

So by the time we get over there in June 2022, I’m really not sure what we will need to get done on her, and to be fair I get quite worried and anxious just thinking about it.

We know we will have to get the tyres done and checked on the car and the tow dolly, the brakes on the RV need checking and all the vehicles will need a good checking over and servicing, eg oil changes etc…..and I don’t think I want to dwell on that anymore.

Hope this is not her!

But if anyone in the USA wants to help us out and get this done before we get there, you have no idea how happy you would make a grumpy old English guy!!

We had moved 3 or 4 camp ground reservations from 2020 to 2021, so now we have managed to get them moved to 2022. We had also paid for 6 months RV storage in North Carolina and are in the process of trying to get that changed to next year too. It’s just a pity that so many American companies at the moment are doing the “call back” service… “We are seeing a higher number of calls than usual at the moment, please leave your number and we will call you back as soon as we are able”

Yeah, well that is not going to work is it, because I doubt very much that you are going to phone my UK mobile number are you?

All very depressing this blog isn’t it? Sorry.

We are hoping that due to us not being able to across we may get to see Kathryn come over to the UK either for Christmas or the new year. After not seeing her for 2 years that would be a happy moment.

There is not a lot of other news to tell you about, hopefully the Blog will be out of ICU soon and back to normal functionality.

We cant wait to get back over there and resume our dream travels and to see so many friends and family over there that we have missed dearly, dearly..dearly missed, during this pandemic.

The trip is planned(again), can see the details of next years trip in the “Welcome to 2020 January 23, 2020”

The itinerary is all laid out on a spreadsheet and it wont be long before we start looking at booking flights for June.

Until the next time.

G&T

2021, Will we? Won’t we?

Hello and welcome to another first for the year, my first blog of 2021, still in Covid lockdown, and still no nearer to continuing our travels.

At the end of 2020 we had the pressure of getting our rig moved from where we had it stored since November 2019. They decided that they wanted to build more sites in the campground and that they wanted to use the land that the storage area was. This was no easy task, being elsewhere and having to try and organise this. Thanks to some very good friends who we trusted and were on the same park who managed to help us out big time. Not only did they mange to find us a new storage area, we sent them the keys and they sorted out both vehicles ready for a move. They even had to go out and buy a new battery for one of the vehicles as it would not start. At the start of January the rig and car were moved to the new site. The only disadvantage is that it is a further 70 miles away from the airport when we do eventually return. However, we are very grateful to them both, Thank you Donna and Rich for your help, as you know it was very much appreciated.

Rich, trying to get the rig started.

As you may have seen on the news the vaccine is being rolled out at pace across the United Kingdom(not that there is anything else on the news other than Covid). Now we are not part of the European Union, the Europeans are moaning the fact that we have more vaccines than them and they are throwing their dummies out of the proverbial pram and trying to stop Astra Zeneca exporting from Europe to fulfil the orders we have placed with them!

If there is one thing that this government did do right in this crisis, it was pre-ordering millions of doses of a vaccine that was not even developed at the time. To date we have all had our first vaccine in this household, which means that we should have our second by the middle of June. So where does that leave us in the quest for the USA this year?

You tell me!!

The government has made it law that anyone going abroad prior to June 21st without an acceptable reason (holiday, not being one of them) will be fined £5000. As of the 21st of March the American border is still closed to anyone flying in from abroad (but apparently they are streaming over the Mexican/USA border in droves but that is another story)

We do have a flight booked for the 9th of June, and so far it has not been cancelled, although we fully expect it to be. So let’s say the government allows holidays and Biden opens the borders, alas there is still another stumbling block. Gills mother who has just turned 90 has had a fall and is not too well and is on what is known as a downward spiral. She is obviously reluctant to leave her at this stage of her life, so we will have to wait and see what transpiers.

Covid has certainly changed the world in the last 12 months and affected so many people in so many different ways, in fact if anyone says they have not been impacted in anyway, then they must have been on the space station for the last 12 months!!

Although we talk to Kathryn most weeks, it is still hard not seeing her for the 18 months. If we do get there this year we will defiantly catch up with her for a hug, whether she likes it or not. We obviously miss her a lot. As we do with a Lot of other friends and family over there, this pandemic has highlighted how much our friends and family mean to us and how much of a bearing they have your own mental health.

I managed to catch Covid while in work, luckily for me it was a mild dose and I had no debilitating symptoms, and although we were in close proximity, no one else in the household caught it. However, at this point I do want to mention that we did lose someone to covid that touched our hearts very much.

Her name was Judy Cosby, and we met her and her husband John on our first trip in the RV in 2015. It’s a story that I often tell and I will tell here again now.

We were caught in a traffic jam on the way to Chattanooga where there had been a double fatality. My RV window was open and we heard the lovely southern high tones calling ” Ya’ll know what’s going on up here”? I saw Judy looking up from their car and I responded that “I thought you may be able to tell us, we are from England and not from around here”. Two days later we were around Judy and Johns having an evening meal, (you just know that would not happen in the UK) There begun a friendship that would last until Covid took her away from her family and friends. We met them several times over the last 5 years and I cherished the time that we spent visiting them. I gave Judy a seaglass necklace the last time we saw her in a place called Bear Paw, in the Appalachian Mountains where they had a cabin near a lake. Judy rushed around the house looking for a reciprocal gift and gave me something that hangs above us in the conservatory. She always used to say to us “May Angels surround you” When I look up, I see this.

Judys’ gift to us, probably something made by one of her children or grandchildren.

Judy, John and us at Bear Paw

RIP Judy.

If you have lost someone to covid, perhaps you too might want to leave a few lines in the comments at the end of this blog in remembrance to them.

Well, thats it for this blog, hopefully do another one once we know what is happening this year.

Take care

The Waddups

The “Not” the American trip

Well as you can tell with the subject title, we are not in America.

Sadly it was Covid versus the world and Covid won, or at least is certainly winning

So far there have been 3 flights booked for us to go to America, and we have had them cancelled 3 times.

Will we try again? maybe once more for 2020, but this all depends on talks that are going on between the two Governments about an air bridge being created between New York and London, but Covid is making a resurgence in the UK, across Europe and much of the world again.

However, in the meantime it was our 35^th wedding anniversary this year, and we were due to spend it somewhere along the Trans-Canadian highway heading towards Winnipeg!

We did have a trip planned up to Leeds in the North of England for Gill to watch Leeds United V Stoke city back in April, it would have been her first football match. I want her to go and watch a football match at their home ground to get an idea of the passion and the atmosphere that is generated there, but because of the lockdown that did not happen either, all fans were banned when the football resumed (and Leeds beat Stoke 5-0) and all the hotels were closed down too.

So I decided to re book the weekend away but just to explore some of the North of England, staying in York on the weekend of our anniversary.

We stopped off at Leeds United football ground….Hallowed ground, where we also had a lunch of Sausage chips and gravy.

We had a nice walk around the city on the Roman walls, visited the Cathedral of York Minster and spent some time strolling around the wonderful medieval streets. This is York;

There was also a day trip to Seaham to search for sea glass, which it turns out is not Gills forte. After Seaham we went to visit the Durham Cathedral, Angel of the North, and also the Penshaw monument.

We had a lovely time up there and Gill bought me a nice watch and my gift to her was a trip to Gibraltar. It was somewhere on her bucket list so it did come as a bit of a surprise.

We flew out to Gibraltar from Bristol Airport, a short albeit early trip leaving home at 03.30am. The flight was not full, but there were some youngsters who found a way of not wearing a mask, just by drinking for the whole flight!

We landed and this is the Rock;

We were staying on a boat and this was it, something a bit different.

The Rock itself has a huge military history, and we spent one of the days walking up to the top, exploring the tunnels, doing a sky walk, looking at the views and meeting the apes. We ended up doing 11 miles walking in total.

This was where we started, from the tip of Gibraltar, which as you can see is where there is a large Mosque, which as a friend of mine mentioned, it has a huge Middle Eastern influence since 711.

Some of the views.

 

My favorite view, taken from the Sky walk.

  

An Ape relaxing and…………….              hear no, see no, and speak no evil…     

  

If you haven’t been to Gibraltar, we can highly recommend it, just 2 ½ hours from the UK, very British, take the pound, and they speak Queens English. Drinks are cheap with spirits from as little as £3 a litre, and there is an eclectic mix of food to be had and proper British Bobbies on the beat.

On another day we went to Catalan beach and spent the morning there before walking back and exploring the town centre, which seemed to be lot more vibrant and busy then Exeter’s city centre, lots of jewellery shops, a Matalan, Peacocks, lots of British pubs and Hotel Chocolate while also having a meal in Grand Casemates Square.

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As I type the latest update on the USA opening up is not good and the USA – Canadian border remains shut for another month and will be reviewed on the 21^st of October.

Stay safe everyone.

G&T

xx

2020 False start…Viral!

Hello everyone, well that has been an unprecedented time in our generation and we hope that you have all come through it unscathed.

Clearly all of our lives have been affected to some degree and the way we live them looks like will be different going forward too.

We were meant to be flying out on the 11^th of June to start a trip that took us north to the great lakes, in to Canada and back around to Niagara Falls and down to North Carolina.

Well the old Corona virus put paid to that idea along with the POTUS who put up a “Closed” sign over the East coast of the USA. (And who can blame him)

The UK decided to continue letting in people from overseas (18.1 million of them between January and March and only 273 were quarantined ) and only now are saying you will be quarantined for 14 days when you fly into the UK!

Talk about “closing the barn door after the horse has bolted” (English saying)

We have been really lucky where we live in the UK as we have had a very low infection and death rate, probably one of, if not the lowest in England.

So what happens now?

British Airways have said they will be flying from the 1^st of July and flights are listed on their website to the USA.

However, that closed sign still hangs over that east coast and I dare not book anything yet, otherwise it’s another fight for a refund or re-booking yet another date.

We are debating coming over later in the year if things do not deteriorate again, perhaps mid to late August and tootle over to Texas to see our daughter Kathryn, then mosey on back over to Tennessee and North Carolina.

Why come at all and not just cancel this year’s trip?

Well I have already paid for RV storage in North Carolina and where I have it stored now; the company wants to build on the land where it is sat!  So it’s a case of having to really, even if it’s just to move the RV.

2020’s trip will be done next year instead, and will start from closer and will have nearly 600 miles saved.

Here is the trip we are contemplating, and to all our American friends, if the route is near you or would like to liaise with us we can try and meet up somewhere along that way.

2020 route

So its looking like Mid to late August to the 1^st of December for this years trip, that is all depending on so many things right now though.

We hope you continue to stay safe, keep 2 meters apart and don’t go catching or spreading that virus.

Keep you fingers crossed for us.

We will update everyone on here once we know more.

Terry & Gill

Welcome to 2020

Well here we are in 2020, firstly we hope you all had a great Christmas and we wish you a happy & healthy new year.

Since getting back to Great Britain, we have both started work again, albeit part time for me, which I must say I am enjoying.

Our 2020 trip has been planned and we just have to start booking the campgrounds and tweaking where it needs to be tweaked.

2019 was about catching up with friends, and the whole route was pretty much centered around being where our friends lived or would be at a certain time. It proved a fantastic trip and we only missed out on one that we had planned.

This trip is about new states and national parks.  If our paths cross or we can bump into each other that’s great, it will be great to see you.

Here is our route;

 

We will be flying out of the UK on the 11^th June and heading to Orlando where the RV is stored. After getting the tyres changed on the RV (Tires for you Americans) and a short stay, we will be heading North through Georgia, Tennessee and into Kentucky, doing a couple of little stops on the way and staying in Kentucky at Mammoth Cave for a week.

It will be then into Indiana and stopping at a campground near Terra Haute for 8 nights, then into Iowa for a few nights and then across to a place near Rockford, Illinois which is about 75 miles from Chicago. We will stay there for 12 nights and hopefully get a couple of trips into Chicago. After that it is north to Sturgeon bay, Wisconsin, very close to Lake Michigan for 11 nights.

The next 12 days sees us heading North West, taking in the town of Duluth, Isle Royal National Park and Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota.

Then it’s into Canada and a trip to Winnipeg before heading east for a couple of weeks over the north of the great lakes on the Trans Canadian highway down to Toronto and Niagara falls. From there its 3 weeks just north east of Detroit, at a place called Sarnia, and then across to the east coast of Lake Michigan near a place called Bridgman (My surname used to be Bridgeman) for 3 weeks. From there its down into Ohio and another National Park, this time Cuyahoga Valley NP, just south of Cleveland. From there it’s then south to Bristol, Tennessee, and then our final campsite of Forrest Lakes in North Carolina.

After that it’s a brief stay with my cousin and family for Thanksgiving before we fly home on the 1^st of December.

All in all a trip of just over 5100 miles in the RV.

Here is our Itinerary;

It should be quite a trip!

We have had a few suggestions of things to see and do on this trip so if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions please feel free to let us know, either on here or one of the many other ways of letting us know, Facebook, email, phone etc etc.

Take care everyone.

T&G

Final blog 2019

Well here it is guys, our last blog of our 2019 trip.

We are finishing up in Florida, where it all began 5 years ago.

 

It was a short trip in the RV from 3 Flags where we had stored her last year to the Orlando RV Park where we are storing her this year. (don’t ask me why I call the RV a “Her” I don’t know why) we can stay here for 3 weeks but then have to move out to another park for 7 days before coming back in for the remaining 18 days.

 

So far we have caught up with a few friends but there were still a few to catch up with.

So since coming down to Orlando we have restarted playing pickle ball in the mornings, and playing games with Rich & Donna, and Cindy & Dan in the afternoons. Games like “Sequence” and “Phase 10”.

 

We have also bought a couple of things to make life a little more comfortable in our outside living; a gas fire pit and a screen tent so that we can sit outside without being bitten alive!

I also did a short video of the RV as we pulled into a site to set up, that can be viewed here Click this link

 

We took a trip south to catch up with Chris and Charles who RV, but have purchased a property to spend some time in. Chris used to be my insurance agent before retiring and we met them in Alaska in 2017.

We had a lovely day and really enjoyed our catch up.

 

Now the last time we saw Kathryn was when she surprised us and got married in Florida in June at the start of this trip. We wanted to see her again before we left the US, so we managed to get a really cheap return flight from Orlando to Austin, Texas with “Frontier” airlines for $153 total for both of us.

 

Kat picked us up from the airport and we stayed with her and Tristin for a few days. We also got to meet Tristin’s family who were kind enough to put on a BBQ and get all the family together, we also met Tristin’s son, Hudson. Hudson got into the habit of saying “Whasup Terry”. We managed to get Tristin & Kathryn out to a quiz too.

It was nice to see and spend some time with Kat again.  We went out to some stores and to a National park historical site that has the remains of some Mammoths. 23 have been found here; they got caught in a muddy slurry pit and were trapped.

We also visited a holy grail for some Americans, called the “Silos” it is the retail area of Waco for the interior designer “Chip & Joanna Gaines” call me ignorant, but I had never heard of them!

All too soon it was time to leave Kathryn and her new family and head back to Orlando.

 

So when we came back it was Halloween and the Americans certainly enjoy celebrating this one.

 

Our penultimate move was down to a place called Peace River, about 80 miles south of Orlando. The weather here is still nuts, November the 5^th and it was over 27ºc and very high humidity. There is a large river of the same name, where I went fishing but watched my ankles because of the alligators hanging around.

                           

I did catch one large mouth bass.

Some people said it was boring at this campground, but we have found plenty to do.

We made a trip out to Tampa and a place called “Lazydays” where we had a look at loads of RV’s.  We then had lunch at the Hard rock Casino with an all you can eat buffet for $16 each (like I need more food!) We then headed to a beach to watch the sun go down.

Where we saw no Manatees, but there was a snake…ON THE BEACH! What the heck was he doing there!!

I don’t think Gill will need any more food either!!

Nearby the campground is a town called Fort Meade and near there they have a large event 3 times a year in January, February and November for 4 days each month and it’s called the “Florida Flywheelers” and they have a large yard sale/swap meet.

They have hundreds of antique tractors, engines and machinery and there is also a reproduction village with old collections of just about everything.

They also put a Model T Ford together and drive it in 1 minute 35 seconds! (Takes me that long to put my seat belt on) J

We had got back to near where the car was and decided to catch a shuttle that went right around the whole site to look at the whole site, it got to the furthest point in the park and ran out of fuel, so we had to walk all the way back again….Just our luck!

We then headed back to Orlando where we will store the RV for the winter and head for home and for some relief from the constant heat that we have had this year.

We met up again with the Chapman’s and had another go at fishing at the lake behind their house where we managed to catch 5 turtles but no fish. It was also good to meet up with Nic & Dawn, some friends of Robs who are debating RV’ing at some stage and also met Rachel and Kevin her husband.

Tiina had prepped a hardy English type breakfast and then cooked Quiche for us later too.  Thanks Tiina!!

They came over to the campground too the following weekend where Anya caught her first ever fish, and we are awaiting a picture from Zach when he catches his first.

 

We had a nice surprise while we were in the park as Miss Barbara had pulled into our campground; she was the lady that used to work for Disney and took us into Epcot free of charge last year, and we were not expecting to see her this year.

This year we spent a day with her at Animal Kingdom.

I also found this strange wall, you stand by it and creates your better side and puts up a picture of you….

I also spent a few hours with a guy called Jim, who like me is a Geocacher, but unlike me he has found over 95,000. On our geocaching trip together I managed to add another 83 to my meager tally of just over 7,000.

 

We did go to see a couple of films at the AMC in Disney Springs, Gill saw “Harriet” and I went to see “Midway”. We saw a bit of Disney Springs on that evening but went back and spent a day wandering around looking at the stores and sites.

 

So now we are down to our last weekend in the US, it’s time to come home to see friends and family back there.

It has been a special trip this year catching up with so many friends that we have made since we began this adventure.

Just up the road is Lake Louisa State Park..here are a couple of photos, including the strange coloured water.

 

Thank you for boarding our train during our journey and we hope you have enjoyed it, it will leave the station again next year for another (even more exciting) trip.

As you can see, after spending 6 months couped up with Gill, I have got a little rough around the edges and aged somewhat, hopefully by the time I get to England I will have recovered somewhat!

 

God bless you all,

Have a great thanksgiving and Merry Christmas

Stay happy & safe

 

Terry & Gill xx

 

More Sea & more Friends

This is the penultimate blog for 2019.

 

We had extended our stay at Keaton Beach, not once but twice, as it was Passport America and 50% off, it was not too hard a consideration.

Our neighbor Ken and his wife Joan also extended their stay so Ken and I fished our little hearts out!

We had seen sharks coming and going several times, and I don’t mean “Big whites” but sharks nonetheless that come in and feed on the smaller fish in the area.

 

Ken and I went out in our little boat and it was a bit unsettling to see a shark fin circling my little 10 foot boat. We both ended up hooking a shark at one point or another, only to have our lines break after a long fight. Kens shark ended up taking us out to sea by more than a mile! It was nice to have company while fishing there.

A guy called Russ also took us out in his boat, (Somewhat bigger than mine, size does matter) fishing for a few hours, and when we left Ken had the opportunity to go out with Russ again.

This is Russ with a fish; I did not manage to catch, a “Redfish”.

 

What I did catch however was the elusive “Green Flash” again which is a natural phenomenon that happens sometimes when the sun sets.

 

We had to leave at some stage, we had not caught up with our friends the Hayes, but we made new ones in Russ, Ken and Joan. It turns out that Paul Hayes did not like the job up in Georgia and they are coming back to Madison, FL, so perhaps next year!!!

I wonder if they found the message we left them on their front porch?

 

We headed south further into Florida until we were about 20 miles south of Ocala, to a place called “Three Flags” at Wildwood and for those that have followed the blog for a while will know that this is where we stored our rig at the end of our last trip and obviously where we started our trip this year.

I love this Spanish moss that hangs from so many trees in Florida, its hard to capture in a decent photo though;

This stopover for a week was to catch up with some friends who we first met in 2016 in Arizona and again in 2017 in Alaska, and 2018, Tom and Becky. At the end of our last trip just before we put our rig into storage here Tom and Becky introduced us to Issy and Dave and we have all had the opportunity to get together again before we pack our bags and head for home.

Tom, your meant to look at the camera!

We have managed some Pickle ball with Tom and Becky, spent some time in the pool at their park, and also caught up as a six some when it’s “Five O’clock” somewhere. Dave and Issy fly home 4 weeks before us, and Dave is teaching me a lot about what to do and not to do on the RV. Dave decided to do some work on his awning and took out a bolt that held the spring and managed to end up with 20 + stitches in his hand as well as a broken hand. On top of that he had appendicitis and ended up spending nearly 10 weeks in a place where they were only going to spend 2 weeks.

Cars just drive anywhere nowadays;

 

We took a couple of trips out while here, one was to a place called “Silver Springs” in Ocala. The water was stunningly clear.

This bird is called an “Ahinga”

Caption it……

Mine is “The fish got away…..it was this big”

A lovely statue in memory of an officer that was killed in the line of duty;

We also caught up with Brandon, Sam and family who we had parked next to in Alabama. Sam network markets for a living, they have 4 children, (2 adopted) and they home school and full time RV…..Respect to them! I could not do that.

 

Now we are back in Orlando for 3 weeks where we have already caught up with Danny, Nan and their son Daniel.  I went metal detecting with Danny up in Williamsburg, Virginia. They were down here on vacation, so we caught up with them for breakfast at “Golden Corral” before they headed back to Virginia.

Brand new pickle ball courts.

Just gotta be near Orlando, right?

back at the first place we camped back in 2015.

The same day we went to a campground 2 miles from ours to visit Rich and Donna, whom we met in Lake Conroe Texas.

Rich has just had the all clear from Prostate cancer as it was caught early.

Have you been checked? I have! Don’t get caught guys. Early detection is a huge life saver with this disease.

One of Gills ex-workmates was over in Orlando with her husband doing the parks, Claire and Andrew, so we caught up with them for a meal and a few drinks.

These are the first people we know from the UK that we have caught up with in the US in five years.

We were near this on I-Drive, and no i did not go up on it, funnily enough Rob, who we also met again was trying to persuade me to go up on this as well……..NO CHANCE!

We spent a day with Rob,Tiina,Zach & Anya, eating at Chedders, drinking “Painkillers” and then teaching them how to fish.

The “were” British and are now “Americans” family.

Zach also took his drone out for a flight, the video can be seen here;

Drone flight

We have been doing this for 5 years now and i thought it was about time that i did a few videos of our setup, this is the first of them.

External Rv

So that it for this one, there will be one more short blog before we come home at the end of November.

 

Wadders

Alabama & The Gulf Coast.

Kentucky is now behind us and somewhat North of where we have moved to.

We headed south straight through Nashville and Tennessee to a place called “Arley” on the banks of Smith Lake, Alabama to Hidden Cove RV Park.

Cotton fields…

 

A covered bridge, not far from where we are staying;

 

It is a quiet park about 80 miles North of Birmingham, Alabama; it is strange sometimes when you drive through all these places with English place names. On the trip down we went from London, Somerset and Glasgow (I know Glasgow is Scottish, before some wise ass pipes up, but you get my point) in the space of an hour, if only driving was that easy in the UK. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the traffic back there!

While we were here, we took a day trip to Birmingham, a city that was built on the back of the Iron ore industry, but we never expected to see this;

 

You have to respect people that do not have the perfect body, but still choose to express themselves however they want.

Birmingham from high;

 

Birmingham

Iron plant

We went to a place called the red mountain that had a tower on top that you could climb the 159 steps and get a great view of the city.

A video of said tower and a puffed out me can be viewed here;

https://www.facebook.com/wadders/videos/10157905965611833?sfns=mo

We also went to “Leeds” just for a photo op;

There was also a place called “The English Village”, wow there were some nice houses there!

Another day we headed up to Huntsville to the space center, which although was $40 each to get in, it was a great day and well worth the money.

I even got Gill to climb a climbing wall, and got her into a simulator for a moon landing!

 

I went into a ride that simulated the pressures you get at 3g, it was a strange feeling not to be able to lift your arms or legs!

 

We took a trip out to a place called Natural Bridge, which funnily enough had a natural bridge.

 

 

On the way we came across the oldest surviving wooden jail in Alabama.

 

 

We managed to get out on the boat a couple of times at the Lake here, but alas the fish were hard to come by.

 

Jupiter and 4 of its moons, taken at Hidden Cove.

 

Leaving Hidden Cove we decided to have a big day mileage wise and do the 434 miles in one day, we left at 06.30am and headed south.

As we were driving along after 200 miles with the windows open feeling the breeze I heard someone shout and it was a car alongside “Your wheel is falling off, your going to lose your car”.

We pulled in within 50 yards and one of the wheels to the tow Dolly was leaning at approx 60º to the road.

I took the car off and jacked up the dolly, the wheel literally came off in my hands.

50 yards up the road was an RV garage, luckily for us they recovered the dolly and had us back on the road 4 hours later and over $500 lighter, but it could have been so much worse.

Repaired Tow Dolly;

About a month ago I greased the bearings on the dolly, so it seems it was just one of those things!

Well we eventually made it to “Old Pavilion RV Park” which is in North Florida and right on the coast, so close to the coast I can cast my rod from the RV if I want to.

Video of where we are, click this link;

Old pavillion RV park, Keaton Beach

We came to this area in the main to catch up with Debbie, Paul and family, (the Hayes’), who we first met in 2015 at Green Mountain in North Carolina. At the time I was hobbling around on crutches due to a fractured pelvis, and these guys were very generous and helpful with their kindness.

However, when we got here and contacted them, they were up in Georgia (6½ hours away); they had gone up there as Paul had a work trial up there, and try as we might we could not get anything to work so we could meet. We are very disappointed but totally understand that a job is more important than meeting up with us. Maybe next year!

However in this vicinity, Bill & Judy Kaufman lived so we took a trip down to see them. We have met them twice before in 2015 & 16. We had a great lunch and catch up at the “Suwanee (Pronounced “Swany”) Belle Landing” a great setting and a very nice meal watching the Sturgeons jump.  We also spent a while at their lovely house and got to see Maggie their dog again, which was great.

 

Lot of the time here has been spent fishing and watching the sun go down.

The fishing has been done via our little boat or off one of the piers here.

 

One of the problems here is that the pier gets very crowded at times;

We Met Ken & Joan who are our neighbors here on the park and we have been fishing together.

They have a lovely 1992 40’ Grand Marquis RV and they tow a 1946 Chevy.

 

I’m guessing boat storage here is a big thing….

 

So as we have no one left here that we can catch up with it is time to head south again towards Orlando, where more friends await.

Only one or two more blogs this year and our trip will be over, this trip has been just about catching up with friends;  next years trip has already been planed and it just needs refining and tweaking before going full live planning.

Until next time

T&G  xx

 

 

 

 

Friends & family reunited.

It was time to go and meet the family after Williamsburg, so we headed to my cousins house near Greensboro.

We first met these guys last year and we all clicked straight away. Bev & Kevin are in the position that their children are flying away from the nest one by one. When we got there one of their daughters Grace, had just left so they were down in the dumps and we came as a “Distraction” at just the right time.

 

It was nice to get there and just chill out, and watch the birds and wildlife in their garden and a good old catch up over “Margaritas” and an “Old fashioned”

 

We did have one major storm while we were there, and even Bev & Kevin said they have never had so much lightning in such a short period of time.

500+ lightning strikes in the last 5 minutes!!

While we were there it was our 34^th wedding anniversary and they very kindly treated us to a very nice dinner at the Green valley grill in Greensboro where Elizabeth joined us too. (Don’t tell Bev but it’s her turn to fly the nest next year)

 

One of Gills anniversary presents.

Woolworth’s, an old favorite of a lot of us, and also a key place in Greensboro of the civil rights movement.

We also found time for several decent walks; I found the inspiration from Kevin to start my running again (the weather helped as it was a lot cooler)

A few random pictures of our time with the family.

It was sad leaving my cousin, but we will see them again next year, hopefully for thanksgiving.

 

We headed across to Tennessee to meet up with Dan and his family, who had very generously booked us into a campsite for 6 nights.

From across the pond we had taken some decent English cheese, some more mustard, a very nice bottle of Monkeys shoulder whisky.

This is less than half of their cats!

Alisha picked out a very nice sea glass necklace I made, a unique colour and I am sure she likes it very much.

Dan took us out on the first day up at a place called Bays Mountain Park & Planetarium, where we saw their Deer’s and Wolves.

The planetarium had an interesting show on about space travel and I’m sure that some of our party nodded off during that show!

Lunch was had on one of the days at a place called the “Purple Cow”, which is a one off and is a drive through only.

Once we had our food we parked up and ate, but the lads decided they wanted Ice-cream, so they did the Ice-cream on foot!! Thomas was driving!

While we there Vincent cooked most of the meals, he has a great skill at cooking, i just wish i could cook like him, to be fair i wish Gill could cook like him too!

Dan, Thomas (Dan’s son) and I spent 2 nights out on the lake, drinking beers and sleeping in hammocks and staring up at a stunning night sky!

Thomas went out on the kayak while Dan and I went out on my poorly little boat that is starting to split. However with a bit of Flexi tape she held up ok.

While out on the lake, one of my shoes broke, so this is me with a fish hook and fishing line sewing it back together, 1/2 an hour later the other one broke and i had to do the same with that one too! Resourceful or what?

We will miss these guys, and will look forward to seeing them in the future.

From Tennessee we headed across state to Kentucky Diamond Caverns where we stayed last year, it’s situated in the grounds of Mammoth Cave National Park.

This is the RV park that has a golf course attached to it.

As per last year, they still have their resident Turkeys strolling up and down the course.

Luckily for me, Troy whom I met and played golf with last year was here again so I managed to get in four rounds of golf with him.

Unluckily for me, my golf was awful and my rounds went something like 106-101-102-104, but I had not played since we were here last year, so it’s lack of practice! That is my excuse and I’m sticking to that.

We also had a pot luck dinner where everyone makes something and we all delve in, I made Deviled  eggs;

Don’t worry they did have the yolks in them by the time I had finished!

One thing that I need to dispel about living over here is a few of the myths about some of the cost of things.

Yes, fuel is cheap, we are paying on average 49p per litre, but bear in mind our rig only does 6 ½ mpg.

 

Now let’s move on to food, a lot of people think food is cheap here. Yes some of it is, if you want to buy coronary heart disease over the counter that is, an example, Rally’s/Checkers 2 burgers, fries and a drink, $3.50 (£2.86) but lets be honest, you can not live off of junk food day in and day out.

 

So below are some prices of fresh produce in a couple of the US stores;

A small jar of Marmite £5.72……Lemon juice £4.90……Cauliflower £2.00….crisps £3.21………..Peppers (red or yellow) £1.87 each……Cheese £6.54 per lb. and apples £5.72 for 3 lb.

Added to that, a half decent brown loaf of bread…£3.50, litre of milk £1.13.

Now I’m not saying every store is like this but you get the idea……….Now you know why I put weight on over here!!! LOL

 

Anyway that’s all for now, next is Alabama!

 

Talk to ya’ll soon

T&G

 

32nd State; Virginia

Here we are in Virginia, our 32^nd state, and we are camped on what is known as the “Eastern shore”

During our few first years I use to send a postcard to a lovely lady called Joan who lived a couple of houses down from us in the UK. Alas, Joan passed away a couple of years ago. (I’ve seen it Joan, been over it and through it, RIP Joan xx)

When I was home I used to pop down and have a chat about our travels. She had told us about the Chesapeake Bay bridge-tunnel.

Measuring 17.6 miles, it consists of 12 miles of trestle roadway, two 1 mile stretches of tunnel, 2 bridges, 4 man made islands and 2 miles of causeway.

It has been designated as one of the 7 structural engineering wonders of America.

I thought is would cost me $18 to cross, I was a little shocked when they asked for $34 EACH WAY!

It was that or a 600 mile plus trip around the bridge.

So what have we done with our time on the Eastern shore?

We stayed at a park called Virginia Landing, a quiet out of the way park.

Well it had some nice sunrises and sunsets,

as well as clear skies when I took this picture of the moon.

We visited some weird named places such as

Onancock, Chincoteague, Kiptopeke, Watchapreague & Nassawadox (unsurprisingly these all came up on the PC as needing spellchecking!)

Onanacock was a quaint little town by a creek, where Gill got her hair cut, and we had a wander around.

Some of the wildlife seen here, if you look closely at the bottom left picture; its full of crabs!

Chincoteague has a state park which is famous for its wild ponies which are rounded up every year (we missed it by one week) and Martin Clunes recently did a programme about them. It should have been $20 to enter and that would get you in for 7 days but ours was a day trip so we just cycled in from a nearby MacDonald’s and got to see the ponies and we climbed a lighthouse too.

 

While here we or should I say, I wanted to delve into the seafood, so we stopped at “Rays seafood Shanty” where I had Mako shark and bacon wrapped Scallops.

We also came across a NASA facility called “Wallops Island” where they launch small rockets into space. Just had to get a T-shirt here!

 

We also popped over the border and said hello to Maryland as well, but until we go there with the RV it does not count towards filling our map in.

 

Cape Charles had a nice beach which we visited twice while here and we stopped off at a micro brewery for more seafood and sampled 6 of their finest ales!

The normal picture of Gill asleep on the beach, as well as a water tower disguised as a lighthouse.

1950’s diner in Exmore.

 

Kiptopeke is another state park which we again cycled into just for a Geocache, here they had “sunk” or rather scuttled 9 concrete ships from the 1940’s to form a breakwater.

 

Finally we went to Watchapreague and the “Island restaurant” a cracking 9 ½ out of 10 seafood meal of scallops, flounder and a crab cake.

 

So we have now moved south back over the expensive bridge to Williamsburg.

Williamsburg has a great “Colonial Centre”, where the original buildings from the mid 1600 are still standing. They are run by people dressed in original costume.

If you wanted to go into some of the buildings you had to pay an entrance fee at the visitor centre, but we are too tight for that and I don’t think it diminished our visit in any way.

 

As we walked in we spotted this gentleman who turned out to be “George Washington”, I thanked “George” for the photo opportunity who promptly reprimanded me for being too informal on our first meeting! They certainly take it seriously.

On one of the days we drove across to “Jamestown” the first English settlement founded in 1607 in the USA which was very interesting as they are still doing archaeology and digs there. I can see why they chose this spot, it is really pretty.

A very fine Park Ranger did a fantastic portrayal of a “Free African American” of the time.

A short video of him is here; Jamestown

We did not go to the recreated Jamestown settlement which was a couple of miles away.

The original Jamestown is a national park but we bought a combined ticket with the Yorktown battlefield site for $40 and drove across the colonial parkway to the battlefield that spelt the end of the British Rule of the USA, so in one day we saw the start of our 174 year reign and also the end of it too! (Just for a friend of ours Gary Solieu, you wouldn’t have done it without the French!!!)

The park service gave a very informative tour of the battlefield of Yorktown which was the end of the war for independence that started in Williamsburg and kicked of over the tax on tea (Boston tea party) and lasted 1775-1781 and was officially signed off in Paris in 1783.

Richmond was not far from us and we went there for the day to see the city and do some geocaching. I have often said that we would not see some of the things we see without this hobby. Our visit here took us to a graveyard where 3 American presidents are buried. One was the first Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The other 2 were James Monroe and John Tyler.

 

18,000 confederate soldiers are buried here. 😦

From here we head back down to Greensboro for a week with our cousin and her family, and then onto Bristol Tennessee for a few days with a friend called Dan.  More on our visits will be in the next blog.

T and G x

 

 

 

Heading north to the Carolinas.

Well here we are again, a bit of a gap since our last one but hey, we’ve been busy !!

Our next stop for this trip was still in South Carolina at a place called Sesquicentennial State park (try saying that after a few pints in the pub) on the outskirts of Columbia. A nice state park with full hook up and a large lake you can stroll around and try to spot! Which we did, and we did manage to spot the lake in the 2.8 mile walk. (Twice).

 

The last time we came here I was on crutches after falling from a ladder at Hilton Head and fracturing my pelvis.

This is where we first spotted the fire flies; I’ve tried to capture a video of them here;

Fire Flies

Gill went to use the campground restrooms and for some reason she was a long time……..

This was the reason, this snake was right outside the restroom door and she was scared to go past it. It looks like it had just eaten something!

 

From here we visited our only planned National Park on this trip. This one was called Congaree Swamp NP; this park drains 8000 square miles of South Carolina and has a diverse range of huge trees such as “Loblolly pines” “Sweetgum” “bald Cypress trees” and “Water Tupelos”.

We did a 4.5 mile hike through the forest, partially on a boardwalk and the rest just on a worn trail. We were lucky enough to see a feral hog come through the shrub; it saw us and legged it! We also saw loads of spiders.

 

The only problem here at the moment is the heat, we are up in the high 90’s and even over the 100 degree mark, so it is making any activity outside, hard work!

The one we thing we don’t like about America is the cannibalism of your mosquitoes, my legs look like a dot to dot puzzle!

Mild be buggered!

 

After the state park it was north again and a return to Carolina Landing (Sciuris Carolinensis  

….. Sciuris Carolinensis…..Cont.) where we met a couple of nice guys 5 years ago; Dave who was kind enough to take Kat & me out in 2015 on a tube across the lake. Also here was Barry who has since passed away, but we wanted to come back and just pay our respects to him where we met.

Alas Dave has also moved away from the park so we did not catch up with him either.

We did however get out on our little boat out for the first time since 2017 and believe it or not, the engine started on the 4^th tug of the starter rope.

We took her out on a couple of occasions just for a few hours on the lake, sightseeing, video here;

out on the boat

Back in 2015 we were stuck in a traffic queue because of a fatal crash and we got talking to Judy and John who were alongside us, and were from a place called Dalton in Georgia.

We did see them briefly last year and we were invited up to their mountain house in North Carolina at a place called Bear Paw on the Hiawassee Lake near Murphy.

So we took a day trip up there and had a wonderful day with them and their friends and daughter Lisa. When my lottery winnings come in (You can win without entering right?) I would seriously consider a house up here, it was beautiful, and so peaceful.

 

After a brief stay at this campground we moved eastward to a place called Forrest Lakes RV campground in North Carolina where we had arranged to meet our friends Gary & Lola.

Before they arrived I took the Toyota Rav4 to a contact we had been given as the engine warning lights keep coming on, I usually disconnect the battery to reset them and after 150 miles or thereabouts it comes back on. The guy “Ronnie” tested it and said it looks like the “Evac” unit, which deals with the fuel system somehow. It makes no difference to the way the car runs if the lights come on!

Ronnie asked me to get hold of one from somewhere e.g. Toyota, so I popped in and enquired on the price.

Toyota Man…. “Yes we have them”…..

Gullible English geezer ”How much”?…

Toyota man…”Six fifty six”

Gullible Englishman“What $6-56?”

Toyota Man….”No sir $656.00”

 

Not that gullible Englishman “ Hahahahaha…..thanks, bye, have a good day”

I guess I’ll have to live with some fancy lights on my dashboard!

Gary and Lola were returning from the north east and heading home to Tennessee. We took them out to lunch at Lexington BBQ, which is very different to their Memphis BBQ. At their last RV stop Gary had lost his main set of RV keys (typical Gary) and the park lady contacted him when he was with us and told him she had found them, she didn’t want any payment for the postage but if he saw any law enforcement out eating he could pay for their meal. Well there were 3 of them dining at the BBQ, so Gary picked up the tabs, can you imagine that happening in the UK?

 

Lola & Gary wanted to go see a museum in a place called Mount Airy, a museum to celebrate the life of Andy Griffith. Right now all the Brits reading this are saying “Who”?….Just like I did.

It’s also the place where the first “Siamese twins” were actually classified as Siamese twins.

Apparently he was quite big over here, doing a show called the (believe it or not) “The Andy Griffith show” a show about two lawmen in a town called Mayberry.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I d never heard of him!

I did spot these clever carvings while in Mount Airy

Back at Forrest Lakes, Gary & Miss Lola did a barbecue for us, and the steaks were amazing.  Thanks y’all.  We miss you already.

Our next stop is a new state; we will be saying hello to Virginia.

But on the way we stopped at a place called Lake Gaston, a short 3 day stopover.

It was a beautiful Lake, but as it was only 3 days we just chilled out and relaxed.

On a real happy note these guys (Rob ad Tiina) have just made it as American Citizens after 15 years and lots and lots of money! These guys are good friends really and helped us out when we started this journey, Huge congratulations guys. We love you!  Looking forward to seeing you again in October.

Someone said to me the other day while in one of the parks and we were just chatting about life;…….Now what was it? …….Oh yeah;

Adventure before Dementia.

Get out there and live your lives people, Life is not a rehearsal…Work to live, don’t live to work!

 

Terry & Gill

 

 

 

Turtles and the coast

After the last blog I guess its back to the run of the mill normal blog stuff, rather than the marriage of your only daughter.

 

We moved across to the east coast of Florida just south of Melbourne at a little place called Orbit RV Park. It only had 38 spaces, but it is a Passport America park, and we got a good deal at 15 bucks a night, but there was no pool or other facilities.

However, I could walk across the road and throw my fishing line into the water which I have done quite a few times.

A few shots of the wildlife;

I’ve caught a few “catfish”, a “Ladyfish” and lost a few big fish too.

 

Gill and I have also seen Dolphins and a “Manatee” whilst we have been here too, but alas I have not managed to catch a picture of the Manatee.

The main reason for coming here was to try and see some Sea Turtle activity, as my cousin had mentioned Satellite beach as a good place to see them.

10 days before we came here there had been a heavy rocket launch from Cape Canaveral which we missed as we were too far away, however there was a launch due while we here.

I got up early one morning to catch the sunrise and a launch was due between 7am and 11am. I was checking Twitter “LIVE” and “All systems were go” the countdown was down to below 2 minutes I looked up and the rocket was already on its way!!!

Due to it being 36 miles away I had not heard a sound, which came later.

 

Nonetheless I managed to capture a couple of shots, it was strange with the time delay on the sound. I had seen the separation and started to walk away and after about 15 paces I heard it too.

We went to a beach north of where we were staying to see the turtles, and just walked away from the people and found a quiet spot.

Within no time at all we were rewarded, 10′ to the left of Gill I spotted a little movement and out popped 4 baby turtles to make their way to the sea, (and trust me these little fellas were going to make it one way or another), but we did not need to interfere, they made it all on their own.

Video here Baby sea turtles

We also got to see one female coming to nest at about 9pm.

When we left the beach, we were dumping our trash in one bin, heard something behind us and turned around to see this fella;

We also went to Coconut beach where it looked like there was a lot of Turtle activity,

and there was! I tried to keep my distance while taking photos, but if you got too close these ladies could move some.

A habit of Gills;

One of the houses for sale near the Turtle nesting sites.

It was time to start heading north, so we went through Georgia and into South Carolina.

Now the price of gas normally goes up for the holidays eg; July the 4^th and in Florida it was hitting $2.69 a gallon;  in both Georgia and SC the fuel is decidedly cheaper at below $2.30 in fact we got it for $2,24..Happy days.

The Thousand trails park we are staying in is called “The Oaks” and is at Yemassee, SC

Just up the road is a visitor center with a stunning tree covered in Spanish moss.

We went in and got talking to the lady and after a minute I said “hang on a minute where is that accent from”?)

“Devon in England” she replied.

“Where in Devon”? I asked.

Ide, near Exeter!!! She replied.

Small world or what? She has been here for 22 years and used to work for Littlewoods in Exeter.

Close by, we found a micro brewery doing Moonshine, so Gill succumbed to buying a bottle of Chocolate flavored Moonshine.

We came across these ruins of a church that were burnt down by the British, rebuilt and then burned down in the Civil War too. What a bummer!

Now when we first came to the states doing the RV thing, we stopped off at Hilton Head and Gill wanted to go to Charleston, however due to what happened here…

We never made it, however this time we did.

Apart from the puncture (fixed FOC by a very nice dealership called Grahams) on the way to the city and the fact that you have to pay for parking, Charleston grew on me.

We did a boat trip out to Fort Sumter (Famed for the first shots being fired in the US Civil war).

The brick picture shows some bricks with thumb prints from the slaves that made them.

We saw some fandabidosie houses, whose verandas are on the side of the houses so that they catch the sea breeze.

This is where we found one virtual cache at  a place called Angel oak, I bet this tree has some stories to tell;

 

We also went to Beaufort (Bew-ford) where again there were some nice houses and a park, where this is Gill saying whats that statue?

What this one?

Looks like a lighting generator to me Gill!

The final sea visit on this blog was to Hunting Island state park where there was a lighthouse and a few hours just chilling out.

A habit of Gills;

So that’s the sun going down on this blog;

And finally, we had been told about an eclectic place called “Harold’s country club” just a few miles up the road at Yemassee,where alledgedley they did a wicked steak night.

They got that right, the steak was stunning and the place was an old garage, note the price of gas in the top left picture and the beer list that Gill is holding in the bottom left.

Too many pictures? Not enough?

Let me know and I can always adjust the format to anything you would like to see/hear about.

 

G&T

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hitched up!

Hitched up!

Nope, its not the bikes hitched on, nope its not the car hitched on the back of the rig either.

This edition of the blog although short will be quite tough to write for me as a father.

Some of you may be aware that Kathryn our daughter came out to visit us last year while we were in Yellowstone. When she flew in she stayed with Tristin her boyfriend (who lives in Robinson, Texas), both before and after her stay with us while in Yellowstone.

Well, in January Kathryn took a career break from her Job at Exeter Airport.

She then went to stay with Tristin for 3 months, which turned into 6 months.

Kathryn and Tristin flew into Orlando on June 27^th and we met Tristin for the first time.

 

The following day, Tristin was our son-in-law!!

 

I don’t know about you guys, but when you have kids you kind of imagine the paths they will take and how their lives will unfold.

I have to say, I didn’t see this path anywhere in my vision.

My vision involved Kathryn bringing home boyfriends from college or work in England (me vetting them) getting to know them, and one day walking her down the aisle of a little English church with a few friends and family looking on at a proud mother and father with their daughter.

This was the closest I could get to an aisle;

Kathryn met Tristin online while playing a PC game, she moved to America at the age of 22, and got married to a Texan in a court house!

 

At the end of the day, it is their lives, we live in different times, different generations, and as long as they are both happy and love each other that’s all that matters. We both wish them all the happiness in the world, along wherever the road of their lives lead them.

 

When they flew in, we drove up to I-drive and did a “Escapology” room. It’s a murder mystery crime that you have to solve in 60 minutes. We were so, so, so close to………….. failing! We managed to escape the room with 1.1 seconds remaining.

 

We also had a go at crazy golf.

And clearly, those 4 days must have been too tiring trying to keep up with the old folk;

While we were in Orlando we also got to play Pickleball with Andy who we first met in Palm Springs in 2016 and then again in 2018, it was great to catch up with him again.

 

From Orlando we will be moving across to the Canaveral coast at a place called Orbit RV Park.

Hopefully it will be a little cooler!!

Currently it’s been reaching 39.9 degrees…..smokin!

 

Next time…The Canaveral Coast.

Love to you all

G&T

 

 

 

 

 

Welome to the 2019 blog

 

Welcome aboard the 2019 travel bus, take a seat, and enjoy the ride as we share our trip.

 

After 6 months of work Gill and I packed our jobs in again on Wednesday the 5^th of June, we had both been lucky enough to return to our previous employers.

This gave us 4 days before travelling up to London to catch our flights across to Orlando Florida to start our 5^th trip in the USA.

My bestie Jim was kind enough to take us up to London the night before where we stayed in the local Travel Lodge (Great service from Russell in the restaurant, Archie however on reception got told off by me, he could certainly do better!)

 

We were hoping to hitch a ride back on Air Force One, but Donald doesn’t respond to my tweets for some reason, I can’t think why? So it was good old British Airways instead. After leaving the hotel at 8am we eventually put our heads down on a pillow at 3am UK time, some 4353 miles and 19 hours later.

 

I always find it an anxious time of returning to and the unwrapping of the RV & car after 6 months away, how will the vehicles be, are the covers still on, how have they faired in the weather, what wildlife have made their home in or on the vehicles?

I need not have worried!!

Video link here; Our vehicles after 6 months

The car was already unwrapped as the cover had blown off anyway (Saved me a bit of time I suppose) and the RV although covered up with the cover most of the cover disintegrated in my hands as I took it off. (That has now promptly been rolled up and returned from whence it came with a full refund, (Camping World)).

As we were uncovering the RV it had nearly a dozen small “Tree frogs” in various places, I went to open one compartment, put my hand inside the handle only to find it occupied by…yes you guessed it another bloody frog! That certainly made me jump.

Getting in the RV and putting the key in, will it wont it start, YES it did on the first turn of the key.

The car was not so successful, despite the help of some other campers trying to jump start her she was having none of it so a new battery was required and a 2 mile drive in the hire car and $135 purchase later and she started straight away.

Now, 2 days later we are pretty much sorted and settled. The fridge and freezer are stocked and most of the RV is tidied cleaned and sorted ready for the next 6 months of travel, friends and relaxing.

Some visitors (Sandhill crane video

 

Someone relaxing…..Twice (everyday really , just after lunch!)

 

In the RV, our toilet is a two peddle flush system and before we left in 2018 one of the cables had snapped. I managed to obtain a repair kit for $30.

Camping world wanted $240 to install it!

 

I had also been given the number of a local guy in Orlando had been recommended as fair and did not charge a call out fee, so I gave him a call and explained the issue.

“Yeah I could do that next week, no problem”

“Any idea on a rough cost”

“Yeah $200”

Cough, it was a nearly choked on my coffee cough!!!

So I thought I’d give it a go myself……28 minutes later, the toilet is fixed. 200 bucks be buggered!!

Welcome to the sunshine state!

 

Our first catch-up in Orlando was with the nearly naturalised British to Americans Rob, Tiina Zach & Anya. The Chapman’s.

A brief synopsis of how we know these guys, approx 15 years ago→ Geocaching→travel bug→ holiday in Orlando→ return of travel bug→ Wekiva springs→ Great support in 2015 while starting this journey.

We went across Orlando and spent a lovely weekend with them, and managed to be introduced to “Luckys” Grocery store where you can buy a pint and put in special drink holders that clip on your shopping trolley.

The following day we went to a very nice family run business for breakfast “Chubbys”

We also went to “New Smyrna beach” for the day. $20 to park on the beach and it was well worth it, to take the stuff out your car and just set up right there on the waters edge.

New Smyrna beach is just North of Cape Canaveral and just south of Daytona beach.

It was lovely to catch up with them again and we will see them again in October for Halloween!

 

Tiina asked us what we missed while we were away on our journey away from England, my response was Metal detecting with Jim, family, friends and pasties. Gills were family and friends.

 

We also spotted someone in the park who we first met in California, Andy. Now each morning at 8am we are up and playing Pickleball with him.

Some more wildlife we have come across here so far;

This is just down the campground from us;

 

So try and stay in touch, comment on the blog, throw us a Facebook message or email or even Whatsapp us. It would be great to hear from any of you. xx

Come and take a seat, someone is waiting for you;

 

 

Hello UK’s 2019

Hello 2019.

I wonder what you hold for us this year?

We came back from the USA in December and landed on the 5^th, luckily or unluckily (depends which way you read it) for us we were both back to work the following Monday.

So after doing nothing for 6 months and to go back and do 39 hours a week and working 3 out of 4 Saturdays and rarely getting 2 days off together (for me anyway) I find it quite hard.

 

There is so little time for anything else in life.

What would I do…well there are things to do around the house, there’s my football team that I would like to go and watch on a Saturday and there are also friends and family that I don’t get a chance to see. There is also my metal detecting hobby, and beaches to go walk on, golf, cycling, photography ect ect, maybe, just maybe that will change the next time we return.

However all that aside, I am grateful to have the opportunity of a job, will I continue to come back from the USA and do 39 hours? No, at some time that will change.

Last years trip was truly fantastic in respects of catching up with friends and new family. However it was another 6500 miles in the RV and the previous year was 10500 going up to Alaska and back.

So 2019, is all about friends and family

(and less miles) we will be flying in on June the 11^th and will be spending a month in and around Orlando. Then we will head as far north as Virginia, from there heading West as far as Alabama and down to the Floridian panhandle and back down to the Orlando area. Once back down in the Orlando area we will spend another 2 months in and around there before flying home at the end of November.

It will be a short trip in mileage of around 2800 miles but still nearly 6 months.

 

Christmas was a rush, (thank goodness for online shopping)  and there is lots to do around the house, the main project being a totally refurbished bathroom project to do.,and some remedial work to do on the rental property.

Kathryn has done the reverse of us and flown out to Texas, America to spend some time with her boyfriend, so we are not going to see much of her in 2019.

 

As you know when we are in the US we get to play Pickleball, we did hear there were some people who played it near us in Exeter, but as yet we have had no joy getting a game together (Gill works, Monday to Friday) as they only play day times during the week. However I have managed to get down there a couple of times and played for a couple of hours.

 

So, what does our route look like for this next trip………………. It looks like this;

 

 

Our itinerary looks like this……..

 

So now you all know where we are and when we will be there, if you want to meet up feel free to “Bump into us” along our route.

All the best.

T&G

Our last blog from the USA of 2018

When we left our last Campground it was time to go and visit new family in Greensboro.

We had already spent a weekend with them in the mountains, and this time it was to spend a week with them at their house for Thanksgiving. We were not sure where we were going to put the rig, but as you can see we managed to park our rig on their drive, which was nice and convenient.

We also got to meet Bev and Kevin’s son Tristin, who is a soccer coach in Chicago, at least one American knows something about a proper sport!

This is Butler, who enjoyed the walks with us.

A very playful Mr Bingley, who also likes Sea glass;

A more reserved My Darcy.

 

It was a lovely week getting to know the family, and going for some great walks in some of their parks.

The Greenway, Hanging Rock State Park, Moore’s Knob and Lookout,  Haw River State Park, Country Park, Guildford Courthouse Military Park, Arboretum, Bicentennial Garden, and The Bog.

We learn’t to play a card game called Euchre, and we had such a laugh with me and Bev beating Kevin and Gill.

 

It’s funny how once thanksgiving is finished, the Christmas decorations start going up.

including the “Greensboro balls of Lights” (not my pictures)

 

 

Our last blog of 2018,

So we are coming to the end of our 4^th year doing these trips, and we thought we would update you on what we had learn’t and were still trying to learn.

So we have learn’t that;

1/ Every American has to carry a coffee cup while walking or driving.

2/ A cool box is just like a wallet or purse, everyone has at least one.

3/ Even though Americans speak English, they don’t understand a word we say, and I’m allegedly an Australian.

4/ On the TV adverts selling things for $19.99, “just wait” and you get another one absolutely free, just pay a separate fee. (No idea).

5/ Every charity needs exactly $19 a month to do what they need to do, however they will all give you a free blanket. (Expensive way of staying warm at winter if you are a cold sleeper).

6/ You have drive throughs for everything, from prescriptions, insurance, library books returns, banking, and even live fishing bait.

7/ Your beer is just tainted water.

8/ Pedestrians rule when coming out of stores!

9/ 90% of everyone we meet say they have relations in England, and want to go to England, and most of the ones that have been only know about London.

10/ The price you see is not what you pay. Every state is different on prices and taxes, especially when buying drinks in cans or bottles in Supermarkets.

 

What we are still trying to understand is;

1/ Why do Americans have indicators or turn signals on their cars if they are never going to use them? And if you see a flashing light on either side of the rear of my vehicle it means I want to turn or pull out, please be assured, if you DO let me out I am not going to kill you and you will not get there any faster by not letting me out!!!

2/ Why you use the term “sharp cheddar”? For your cheese. You call that sharp???? I have yet to find a decent cheese here.

3/ Why do you ask “How you doing” as a greeting when you have no interest in my answer?

4/ How you class taking your dog on a golf cart trip around the campground as “Walking the dog”

5/ We thought “homecoming” was about someone returning after a long absence?

6/ How can a 60 minute game of football last over 4 hours?

7/ How can the adverts last longer than the TV programme inbetween, so much so that we forget what we were watching!

8/ And on the subject of Adverts/weather/news they cut everything short and finish in mid sent…………..

9/ If you had 2 filling stations within 100 yards of each other and one was priced $2.70 and one at $2.35, why would there be cars filling at the $2.70 one??

We still love it here though…

.

After a 650 mile blast down to Orlando on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we had just a week left.

We did stop overnight at another campground in South Carolina before the final 350 miles down to Orlando. One good thing was that thanks to Mr Trump we managed to get fuel for $2.01 a gallon for the rig in Jacksonville, followed by a horrible drive down the 301 to our destination.

It was strange but nice to get back to the first campground we had parked in at the start of this adventure in 2015.

It was time to start getting ready and packed, however we had arranged to meet up with Miss Barbara whom we met at Diamond Caverns to visit a Theme park, Epcot.

Miss Barbara used to work for Disney and got us in for free for the day, a saving of over $250 for which we are very grateful.

For those of you that have followed the blog from the start, you will know that this trip was helped hugely to get started by the Chapman’s. Today the circle was completed and we met up with them again at their place and went out to lunch at a place called “Yellow dog eats”

I thought I was a gadget man but Rob just blows me away hands down and introduced me to the world or Virtual reality on Google earth…….unreal! It was a real pleasure to meet up with Rob, Tiina, Zach & Anya. We are already looking forward to seeing them again next year. Thanks again Chapman’s, we love you guys.

We also managed to meet some other Brits who have been doing what we do for the last 14 years, Izzy and Dave, who happened to be flying home the day after us. Becky and Tom introduced us and we managed to catch up with them 4 miles from the campground to say hello and goodbye.

So that is it, the vehicles are wrapped…

More states have been filled in;

Which just leaves us to say. Merry Xmas and we hoped you enjoyed the blog this year, until next year xx

T&G

Green Mountain NC, and new family.

This is our penultimate blog before we fly back to England.

We stayed at Green Mountain for 10 days, and compared to our stay in 2015 we felt the park had gone backwards. There are a lot more annuals in the park, (people who stay all year), and there are less spaces for the likes of us “Transients”

They do have a new lodge and swimming pool. However, the pool is no bigger than something some people have in their back gardens! For a park of over 350 plots it’s a real shame. They used to have a small golf course in the woods, but that too has gone, and no longer usable. The free wifi has also gone, and you now have to pay $8 a day.

But at the end of the day, it’s free camping for us.

Lenoir is only a short drive from the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway. We took a drive up there to try and capture the “fall” colours.

We came across this house, and there is a bonus point for anyone who can tell us which film it was used in?

Someone told us to go to a small community to visit a restaurant called the “Yellow Deli”

We sit down and the server, Jonathon, is from just outside of our hometown, a place called Honiton. They will be opening a Yellow Deli in Honiton in the first half of 2018. Small world!

Many of the RV’s in the park were decorated for Halloween.

On Saturday 27^th October, the park closed the road in for all cars between 1.45pm and 3.00pm, so everyone could ‘trick or treat’.  Families from outside the park joined in, and there were a lot of people going around.

This is how they do band nights in the parks, bring your own golf cart!

In the evening there was a band playing called “Deacon Black”, who were very good, and whilst we were listening to them, three police cars went by towards where our RV was in the park, so we walked back to see what was going on.  Whilst back in the RV two fire trucks also arrived.  It seemed that a child had gone missing.  The next day we asked a neighbour about it, and were told the child had been found in the woods, as they had thought there were more sites up there to get candy from.

The Park has trails to walk, and End West Overlook is a must as the view from the top is spectacular.  The other trails are also worth doing, as one takes you to a lake with a dam, and another to a waterfall.

We managed to play Pickleball in a sports centre in Lenoir for a couple of days, which was fun and free.

On Monday 29^th October we moved 80 miles to Forest Lakes RV Park near Advance, which is midway between Mocksville and Lexington, North Carolina.  The park has two large swimming pools (obviously not opened this time of year), a pickleball court, putt putt, a lake you can canoe on and trails, one of which took us to a graveyard with headstones dating back to the 1700’s.

This crowd also got into the Halloween spirit.

This Dragon, and an inflatable one was at the entrance to the new park.

Morrow mountain state park was a few miles south of us and was hyped as being a good place to find arrowheads, maybe so for not for me, I found none!

There were some flint knappers there, knapping lots of different things out of Obsidian and other materials.

But they did have a “old fashioned day” and a bluegrass band. We also had another go at gold panning and we found 3 tiny bits.

An interesting day.

We have said it many times that it is the people who make this trip what it is. I always knew I had relatives over here in the states, as my dad’s sister lived here.

I never got to meet her as she passed away a few years ago.

When we started this trip in 2015, we up came from Florida up through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina and then headed west. Just after we left the area I had a message on social media to say “Hi, my name is Bev and I think we are cousins, we live in North Carolina”

Well we have stayed in touch and spoke a few times, and it was planned that we would spend thanksgiving with them this year.

We were staying about 50 miles south from them for 3 weeks, and Bev text me to let me know she had the opportunity of staying at a lodge for a weekend back up in the mountains where we had just come from, in the Green Mountain area. Funnily enough we had been within a mile of the place at one stage.

Blowing Rock.

So we drove back to the lodge one Friday and met a cousin I had never met after more than 50 years.

It was a fantastic place high above the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachian Mountains to meet a wonderful family.

Nearby was a Ski slope and they had started to get ready for the opening in a weeks time, hence the “false” snow.

Beverly (cousin), Kevin (husband), Elizabeth (aka Biscuit) Grace (worried I could have been and axe murderer), Elizabeth’s friend Caromis, and Butler.

We saw a couple of fantastic sunrises over the mountains at the start of the day and at the start of our new friendship.

Bev and I.

Until next time.

T&G

Chattanooga….again.

We headed south from Kentucky down to Chattanooga, Tennessee, which took us down past Nashville and also past hundreds of people doing Yard sales; we had already witnessed a “Roller coaster yard sale” in Kentucky which basically covered 150 miles in south Kentucky and North Tennessee and we certainly got caught up in the traffic of some more.

Whole towns, outside of 90% of the houses, they were having a yard sale!!

But there is one area of the states that do it over a 600 mile route!!!

We eventually got to our destination, Harrison State Park is just north of Chattanooga, and for those that have followed our travels, a place we have been to before back in 2015. See here; 2015

Alas, this time they had got rid of the dustbins and we didn’t see any Racoons!

 

It is a big civil war area with Lookout Mountain in the area.

We again visited the huge national cemetery here, the reason for the revisit was that what I did not realise on our first visit here that there was a special hero buried here.

There are I am sure, many hero’s within this cemetery, but this one was made famous by the film “Hacksaw Ridge” in 2016.

A film about a conscientious objector who refused to bear arms in the war but saved 75+ people and was awarded the Medal of Honour”

I just wanted to pay my respects to this man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss

We would have liked to have caught up with Paul Hayes, a very pleasant young man whom we met in Green Mountain, NC with his family 4 years ago in 2015. Paul is now in the military and married, and based in Georgia, however it was over 200 miles each way, so we will save that catch up for another trip.

The Great Smokey Mountains were nearby, so we took a day trip towards them and also visited “The Fields of the Wood” a biblical park. The park has the largest 10 Commandments in the world on display. Well worth a visit.

Check out my car in the bottom of the picture above for size comparison!

The trees were changing colour but had not reached full “fall” colours yet;

We also paid a surprise visit to someone we met in a traffic jam on our first trip, Judy & John. It was only a short visit as they were getting ready to host a wedding party on the Saturday. Another couple we will meet up with again I am sure.

 

Our next stop was Bluff City, a place near Bristol TN, famous for its Nascar circuit, and where we were to meet up with Dan and his family that we met in 2015 at Cherokee Landing, TN.

Dan gave us an idea of some places to visit while we were in the area, as he was away when we got there. So we visited Bristol Tennessee and Bristol Virginia.

And also this place called Weir dam, created to oxygenate the river for the fish.

When you walk down the main street called State Street if you cross the road you are in Virginia. So of course I had to cross the road (to do a Geocache) and visit Virginia.

One person had to make a song and dance about that fact;

We caught up with Dan on the Monday and we went for a 6 mile hike to visit Laurel falls,

Part of the hike was along the Appalachian Trail. (Linky) Appalachian Trail , now there is a hike to do.

The following day Dan, I, and one of his sons, Thomas went out on the canoes and spent the night camping on an island on the South Holston Lake. Something I don’t do enough of any more!

Dan cooked Venison over the fire for an evening meal and in the morning we had Bear sausages made by a friend of his. (The best sausages I have ever had).

 

A very enjoyable adventure and one we may re-create or expand on next year.

If anyone wants to go on an adventure and needs a guide, Dan has a FB page here;

Outdoor Quest

The following day we met the family again and had an afternoon at Dans, we had a lovely BBQ and chilled out.

We have to say a big thanks for their generosity, friendship and for allowing us into their home and sharing a little of their life with us.

We have now moved onto Green Mountain, Lenoir, North Carolina. This is another campground which we visited on our inaugural trip in 2015.

We took the drive over the Appalachian Mountains hoping to see some more dramatic fall colours, but as yet, we have not seen the vibrant ones due to a lack of cold weather snaps.

Now we have been here for a few days, it may be worth a trip back into the mountains….We have had cold snaps, and frost advisories on the weather apps.

On the weather channel this morning it showed that North Carolina is colder than Alaska at the moment!!!!

We have had one piece of good news since we have been here; Gill has had her job position confirmed on our return to the UK. I’m still waiting to hear about mine.

One of the hikes we did at Green Mountain took us to this outlook;

 

Only six weeks to go, but some exciting meet ups are planned.

Until next time, our love to you all.

 

T&G xx

 

Kentucky 2018

Where next? It was time for another move, this time North to Kentucky and another new state for us, and our seventh new state this year.

This time we are staying at a place called Diamond Caverns on the edge of Mammoth Cave National Park.

It’s a nice campsite with a golf course attached. Golf for anyone staying at the park on a Monday is a mere $13 including a cart all day!!! If you play on any other day of the week it is $16 a round with a cart.

Amazing value and the course is quite nice. I had the pleasure of hooking up with a former Coroner, a guy called Troy and clearly a true Tennessean, I could have listened to him for hours.

I played 5 rounds in total; on the first Monday we had 2 rounds (we won’t go into scores) suffice to say, I could tell I had not played for 12 months.

We also played a round at a place called Shady Hollow, and the course annihilated us, one hole was 600 yards! Others were surrounded by water.

We had to go on this to get across a river in Mammoth Park to get there;

This is something we don’t get on the English courses…Turkeys!

There was an amazing sunset at the end of our second round.

 

Mammoth Cave is a mere 7 miles down the road, and on our first trip to the park we just went and did a few hikes there along the Green River and through the woods.

A visit to the cave itself was saved for a later visit.

We did the Historic tour in Mammoth Caves, which was interesting and a two mile walk underground in a massive cave at times. We felt this tour was more of a pack em in and get em through, as if your at the back of the group, by the time you get to the next stop the ranger has finished his spiel and is moving onto the next spot!!

Mammoth Cave has 400 miles of underground tunnels making it the largest in the world. I have lightened some of the photos so you could actually see the size within.

 

We did Diamond Caverns on the same day, and it was totally different from Mammoth.  There were only 4 of us in the group and there did not seem to be a rush, granted it’s a lot smaller than Mammoth Cave.

Diamond Caverns was an hours tour and was all about Stalactites and stalagmites, and is very impressive.

 

Bowling Green is the 3^rd largest city in Kentucky and we took a trip down there for a flea market and a couple of Geocaches. Here is Gill, cuddling a piglet, (No, it is not me, I am the one taking the photo THANK YOU!)

Just down the road from Bowling Green was a small place called Franklin which also had a couple of Geocaches and one of them was a staging post for 8,000 confederate soldiers. We got there just as they were shutting, but I got chatting to a lady who was telling us about the history of the place and when I said I should have bought my Metal Detector. “Oh, we allow detecting here” she said. If it hadn’t been so far from the campsite I might have returned with the detector!!!

** (To be continued)

Just outside Franklin was a drive in movie theater which we hoped to visit.

There used to be over 4,000 drive in theaters, but now there are less than 400. We had hoped to do one somewhere in the US and this is the first one we have found.

$15 for the entrance, and we got to watch 2 movies, “Alpha” followed by the “The Nun”. A new experience for us; an out door Cinema.

Louisville which is north of us is the largest city in Kentucky, and where we took a trip and spent the day.

Geocaching took us to this little Baseball marker, I did recognize one name on the walk of fame, one Babe Ruth. (Bottom left, picture above)

It is also the home of the Kentucky Derby course, Churchill Downs.

 

There was one of Thomas Edison’s homes that we came across.

Across the river is Indiana, but we did not make the trip there this time, (For another “TIME”…groan!) we will save that for another trip.

We came back one of the more minor roads and we visited Abraham Lincoln’s childhood home and also his birthplace.

This is his childhood home;

They have built this memorial over the top of his birth cabin.

However it turns out that it is not his “Actual” birth cabin, as they had it Dendro dated and it was later than his birth!! Oooops!

North of our campsite was Elizabethtown and a very nice cemetery, a very respectful veterans memorial park.

 

We learnt something on one of our trips, as we had spotted this;

And then this;

We never knew Kentucky grew Tobacco!

 

We met some nice people at this Thousand Trails park; Barbara, who full times on her own and who used to work for Disney. On one evening a lady called Ruth had a “Pot Luck” where everyone takes some food and you have a shared feast.

I made some Devilled eggs, a first for me, and they came out very nice!

On one evening we went across to Oaki and Sandy’s plot, where Oaki played a guitar and sang some songs, a real talent and makes this trip what it is.

It’s a good job that the friendly people far out way the ignorant ones that can camp right next to you and not even say hello as has happened twice in the last 5 minutes while typing this blog, politeness costs nothing people!

A couple of random pictures of wild life;

 

It is quite funny that so many of the people we are meeting now seem to be heading to Florida, so as sure as eggs are eggs (Not Devilled) ,we will end up bumping into them again.

Say hello to “Chaos” An Australian Shepard dog;

 

**I did return to the civil war site and spend a few hours detecting, alas I did not find much, but did find 3 civil war bullets.

We love their “Fall” displays;

For Gill’s SEN team;

What’s the ratio of a pumpkin’s circumference to its diameter?

“Pumpkin Pi”

So just for someone who we will meet soon….Grace, its bye bye from me

Until next time.

 

 

 

Tennessee 2018

We arrived at Cherokee Landing RV Park, which is about an hour East of Memphis, and within 6 miles of a place called Middleton, Tennessee.

It was going to be nice to spend 3 weeks in one place and not have to move.

But theses things, Cicadas are very noisy LOL

We had popped into the RV repair place just outside Memphis to line up some work for when our rear slide ram spare arrived.

This was a kind of completion of a circle, or a crossover of it anyway; it’s the first park we have visited twice since we started this journey back in 2015.

On the Tuesday, Gary and Lola brought their rig out from Memphis and joined us for the duration of our stay. We first met them at this park in 2015 and have met them every year since. We sure have made some good friends on this journey of ours and we class these among the best of them. Gill calls them our American Mom & Pops.

So for 3 weeks we did just about didily squat; I did do a 2 mile walk most mornings with either Gary or Gill, read 14 books and swam most days in the pool.

Come the 1^st of September I saw a post on Facebook for “Race at your pace” where you can run, walk or cycle 25, 50, 100, or 150 miles in the month so I signed myself and Gill up to 25 miles and 50 miles respectively. I did tell Gill (after I signed her up)!

I did feed the local Hummingbirds, and it was fun to watch as they are very territorial birds. I did manage to get a couple of snaps of them.

We spent one day of the three weeks in the RV repair centre and finally got our bedroom slide working again too. We have not had it working since the beginning of July!!

Wayne, Bobby, Patricia, Crystal and also Margie were some people we also met at Cherokee Landing. Wayne and Bobby are both younger than me, and have fully retired after serving long careers in the US Army. We may even meet up with them again in Orlando.

Here are some pictures of Wayne and Bobbys bikes, this one is Bobby’s

This is Waynes, one of the noisiest bikes in all of the USA, with a superb sound system to match!!

This is his other bike, covered in Diamontes too

I guess Walmart think customers are lazy! Random i know 🙂

Labor weekend bought in a few extra people into the park, and it has to be said the standard of the RV’s is certainly dropping. However when they tried to come in the following weekend they were not allowed to use them and ended up in tents instead!

After a relaxing 3 weeks it was time to say goodbye to our friends and move onto our next stop, a place called Natchez Trace, Tennessee, another park that we visited 3 years ago.

Driving down a 4 lane highway to the campground we came across a small dog strolling down the road, dodging traffic to her left and right.

I just had to stop and rescue the poor mite. Luckily she had a collar on and we managed to return her to her owner 5 miles down the road.

Natchez Trace is a park that has more annual campers than roaming ones, but where else could you get a lakeside plot for $2,500 per year!!

This is something we see very often on the parks too…..

With all the buildings they put up and led lighting it reminds us of Vegas at times.

Spotted this on one of our walks, but Gill would not let me poke it and run!

We also popped into David Crockett State Park

saw some Birds of prey,

I also stepped down to the river and this little water snake swam past!!!

Talking of snakes, the guys next to us managed to run over a Copperhead snake in the park, and had skinned it to use its skin as a hat band!

One of the most venomous snakes around.

We had a day out in Lawrenceburg, which is an Amish area,

and I remembered that this was the place that had a fantastic Texas BBQ place. After a little searching we managed to locate it again, the Brisket was so light and it just melts in your mouth!

Its called “Shaffers” and looks like this,

so if you head North from Lawrenceburg, through Ethridge and near Summertown it will be on your left.

That’s it for this edition.

Until next time👋

From Denver to Memphis

We left Custer State Park and headed south to Wind Cave NP, and whilst driving along the prairies we again saw Bison.

 

Wind Cave itself is reached by an elevator which takes you down to do a Tour that has to be paid for, $10 each. We did the “Garden of Eden” tour where you get to see “Boxwork” (No stalagmites or Stalactites) but there are over 100 miles on 3 different levels of tunnels!

However they think they have only found 5% of the tunnels so far!

 

From there it was down south to another new state for us, Nebraska where we visited a reminder from home. A place called “Carhenge”, it’s also a reminder for a farmer here who once visited “Stonehenge” in Wiltshire, England so he decided to build his equivalent.

Our RV decided she wanted some new brakes at this point, so we pulled into Scottsbluff and got those replaced (Bless her, I spend more on her than I do myself!) The guys there said it was the back breaks and the front ones still had at least 5000 miles in them.

However, we did spend some time on “Scotts Bluff” itself doing a lovely hike to the top.

 

We also had to get an Air bnb room for one night whilst waiting for parts and we met the hosts Colleen & Ross, who just happened to be going to the Estes park for a few days which is just outside the Rocky Mountain NP the same day as us. So we met up with them in Estes Park again for a glass of wine or two (And to get my I phone charger that I left in the room!) They were great hosts and very nice people.

They also told us about the The Stanley Hotel that had been used for the film “The Shining”

Funnily enough, only this morning on the news it was reported that a bear had entered the foyer of the hotel and had a stroll around inside the hotel!!

 

So the Rocky Mountain NP. We over-nighted in a Walmart in Lovedale (even though it said you couldn’t, the staff said we could so we did) left the RV in their car park and headed off to the Rockies.

 

The route up is through a canyon, which is awesome and makes you feel so insignificant. It is a canyon where a severe thunderstorm in the 70’s caused a huge flood and killed over 140 canyon inhabitants. However it is still very populated despite that disaster.

 

 

 

We entered the park through the Fall River visitor centre and went up a 9 mile gravel road to the main trail ridge road. From there we drove down through the Kawuneeche valley to Grand Lake and back. It is a fantastic place, and somewhere you could go to lose yourself.

 

 

And now, the point we have both been looking forward to, we are heading East back to where this trip all began, and no disrespect to any western Americans but where feel we have stronger ties to people.

On the way was the oldest Geocache in the world, so that just had to be done. Mingo

So here we were a few hundred miles further down the road approaching Dodge City…….and the front breaks on the RV start squealing like a stuck pig.

 

So off we went taking in a visit to Dodge City at the same time waiting for the front breaks to be fixed.

Dodge City was a huge disappointment and not worth any sort of detour, we expected it to be a real Western town. Alas it was not, it had one attraction to do with its past (which charged for everything and was milking its past) and a few replica buildings.

 

Another small detour was to the home of “Little House on the Prairie” writer and main character “Laura Ingalls Wilder” It was a replica reconstruction, but it was the actual location of their homestead.

One place we stopped for lunch was the birthplace of Mr Hubble,, he of the space telescope, here is a 1/4 size replica.

Next stop was onto St Louis, and its famous “Gateway Arch” I never knew you could go inside to the top!

We did and it was only $10 each (With our “America the beautiful” card) to take the ride inside to the top. You get to the top by the way of a small capsule that holds 5 people. The views from the top were awesome and I could see my favorite river to the Mississippi. This river is just amazing and awe inspiring to me.

 

The old capitol building is nest to it, and we took a tour around that too.

 

We then spent the rest of the day in Forest park, St Louis and their free Zoo.

They also had a great butterfly house, which I’m sure one of my friends will appreciate.

Now we are relaxing for three weeks in South West Tennessee, where we have again caught up with some old friends Gary and Lola who we have met each time we have come over.

That is the end of this blog, not sure what will be in the next one as we are not moving for a while now.

Happy reading and feel free to comment.

T&G

 

 

25th & 26th States

We had to leave Yellowstone campsite at 3am to get Kathryn to the airport for 5am, and after we dropped her off it was back to the campsite, pack up and move off.

We left Yellowstone via the eastern exit, and all I can say is, I’m glad we did not enter via that route as it was a steep downhill for a very very long way.

We eventually stopped for the night in Cody.

We had a little cycle around the town and looked at the shops, a quaint little town. It also houses Buffalo Bills Hotel called the Irma, (Named after his daughter) and this Hotel houses a very large bar donated to him from Queen Victoria. At 6pm, the hotel hosts a gunfight outside their premises. It was not good! Way too corny!

 

In the morning we headed off to our next stop, the site of the “Battle of the Little Bighorn”

Now this was good.

We took in the very informative talk by the park ranger and then bought a tour operated by the Crow Indians (They fought on Custers side). This was narrated from start to finish the length of the 5 mile drive. We then drove the whole route ourselves stopping at every information board.

A fantastic place to visit, it was very informative and very thought provoking, to be stood where a massive piece of history unfolded and was written.

Custer’s is the black gravestone.

It was then North east through Montana and into North Dakota (Our 25^th State) to Theodore Roosevelt NP (south) where we managed to nab the final campsite in the park for the night. We stopped and had lunch and then drove the park until sunset.

The park has a 36 mile loop to drive around with lots of viewpoints. It is a very pretty park and yet again we came across the Bison in the park. We did not venture the 75 miles north to the other area of the park.

We also nearly stumbled on this creature of the depths!!

Our first Rattler!

We hit the 85 south and were reminded of Chris Rea’s song “The road to hell” it was long and boring and rough with little to see but grassland and more grassland! In the 100 miles plus that we did, we probably only had 3 corners to take, as you went over one brow of a hill, there was another 10 miles of straight road in front of you and as you went over the next hill, guess what…another straight bit of road and this went on from about 10am until 14.30pm.

 

The following day it was time to head south to our next stop “Devils Tower” famed for its portrayal in “Close Encounters of the 3^rd kind” A nice little 1.3 mile walk around the base seeing it from all angles but not from above as these climbers will no doubt get to do.

We had an overnight in Deadwood, location of the assassination of “Wild Bill Hickok” and where he is buried with “Calamity Jane” next to him in the graveyard.

Deadwood was full of motorbikes due to the Sturgis rally.

From there we went to Rapid city, where we took a trip to the “Badlands”

Custer state park was our base for a couple more iconic sites. $12 each to enter and well worth the fee

First was Crazy Horse, first started in 1947, so 60 years so far, I guess most of us will never see it finished!

Check out some of the stats for it on the blue sign!

Then it was on to Mount Rushmore; free to enter, but $10 to park (Owch) considering you could see the monument from outside the park. We did do the Presidential trail which gets you up close to the carvings.

Custer state park is a really nice state park with some great drives, we did two of them, the first was called Iron Mountain road, and here is the sat nav’s interpretation of it.

 

The second drive we did was “The needles highway” before heading down into Custer itself for a well deserved Rhubarb & Strawberry Pie from the Purple Pie Shop.

Custer was again filled to the brim with motorcycles.

Alas 2 of the riders at the rally will not be going home on their motorcycles as they were killed after failing to stop at a stop sign and ended up under a truck. Such a shame. RIP and condolences to their families.

A few random pictures;

Too much American food leads to this;

Until the next time……

Its goodbye from me, and its goodbye from her!

Bye

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yellowstone Pictures

So you’ve come to see some photos? Well just scroll down then!

Some of the wildlife spotted. Elk, Bear, Osprey,

Various views and me fly fishing on Yellowstone river.

Prismatic Lake;

Prismatic lake

 

 

Some of the traffic jams caused by people not pulling off the road to take a Photo.

Springs and Thermals.

 

That will do, i don’t want to bore you with too many more pictures.

Hope you enjoy

Yellowstone

Unusually, this will be a blog of mainly words, I shall post another straight after this one with pictures of just Yellowstone.

 

We left Bend, Oregon and headed to Yellowstone,(YS) this page is just about YS itself, apart from a few sentences about our trip to get there.

We traveled the 20 east, across the high desert of Oregon where there was nothing to see, just stopping in pull outs/lay-byes overnight.

We stopped in Twin Falls, Idaho in a Walmart car park, and spotted this sign in Walmart, now there is a challenge for someone?

We also saw the Shohona falls, without doubt the most impressive falls we have seen in the USA thus far.

Along the way we also found a spot where the ruts of the Oregon Trail still remain.

The following day it was a 10 hour day to get to YS itself, we were meant to book in Friday, but could find nowhere to park overnight in Jackson unless we were willing to pay $106 for one night!!!! Yeah, you all know me too well…..Not a chance!

We did not like Jackson, too touristy and nowhere to park!

 

We phoned our YS campground and they managed to get us in a night early.

On the way into the park we saw a heard of Bison, large Elk and when we had travelled through the Tetons NP, and got to our campsite there was a Bison happily grazing among the tents!!

 

 

Our campsite is Bridge Bay campsite on the edge of Yellowstone Lake and in the southerly third of the park.

YS is basically laid out in a square figure of eight as per this map;

We will have driven all of it by the time this blog is published.

The first five days in the park, we had amazing weather, since then the storms have come in at 16.30, tents have been blown away, lightning all around us and severe hail and rain storms have hit us for about an hour, then the blue skies return and we sit outside drinking wine on wet seats, lol.

Our first couple of trips out were north to a place called Canyon Village, where there was a canyon,  a couple of amazing waterfalls and on the way there, Hydrothermal vents and springs as well as boiling mud holes and lots of Bison.

Including one who needed to cross the river so just used the bridge we were on at the time.

We also stopped off at a place called Hayden valley where a pack of 16 Wolves and their cubs frequent and were lucky enough to see a wolf in the distance. We went back to Hayden valley early one morning to try and spot the wolves again but on that occasion were unlucky on the wolf front, but did see a grizzly bear crossing paths with a bison.

The wolf in the distance.

 

Further North and a different day we ventured to Lamar Valley, a habitat, this time of two wolf packs, but again no joy on spotting them, but it is a wonderful valley and well worth the 120 miles plus trip there and back.

Herds of Bison, Pronghorn Antelope, Elk as well as a Grizzly and her cubs on the way back. A stunning valley and a place I would love to perch a log cabin and see out my days.

Norris geyser basin, is just what it says on the tin, a basin full of Geysers and vents, the trouble with these places is that by the time you get to them it gets to be the hottest part of the day, 16-00 to 19-00, now Gill has reached that age where her internal thermometer is already up the creak, add that to the weather here and you have no chance. She is hunting out the shade at every opportunity on every walk. Or putting on a jacket when everyone else is in shorts and T-shirt!

 

Our first trip south in the park was down to the world famous “Old Faithful” Geyser area. This was, as you would expect a VERY busy area. We took a hike up into the woods to an observation point to see our first eruption of her. We then headed back down and walked the boardwalk around the geysers, boiling mud pots, hot springs and fumaroles. Old faithful is a predictable geyser and goes off every 90 minutes so we got to see 2 more eruptions.

An iconic sight and picture of Yellowstone is Prismatic Lake, and rather than do the boardwalk we again took a hike up to an overlook.  The view was fantastic and the colours mesmerizing.

On the way back to the car we spotted this fella, (I know that is sexist, it could have been a female, me bad) and if you have seen those wildlife programmes where they jump up and then dive nose first to catch prey, this one did it right in front of us!

Mammoth is the northern end of the park and where you can see the Canary spring, stunning;

Just 5 miles north is the northern entrance and the little town of Gardiner, Montana where fuel is 30 cents cheaper than in the park. Back into the park we spent a bit of time in the “Boiling river”. Its where a hot spring enters a cold river and you can sit/swim in it. It’s a strange feeling to have cold water on your legs and very hot water on your back.

Kathryn flew into Jackson Hole airport and we picked her up for her 4 day stay with us. We took the opportunity to have an explore of the Tetons NP on the way down to see her, Mormon row is very photogenic;

We also took a drive along and spotted our first Moose in our stay here.

After picking Kathryn up we started the drive back towards our campsite and managed to get 86 miles of the 100 done before we popped into a garage to fill up with gas and lo and behold the starter motor on the car went! We were very concerned for Kathryn’s time with us in the park. However the guys in the garage were great, one gave us a lift to the RV and I hitched back down the following morning and she was all fixed after they got another starter motor that morning. So in total we probably only lost 4 hours. (And another $360) (I must have been a bad man in a previous life!)

It was then a revisit of all the sights for Kathryn, her reaction when she saw her first Bison was priceless. But seeing a bear eluded her “Sad Face”

The next blog coming will have loads of pictures of Yellowstones sights.

 

But before i leave you;

There is an urgent recall of all American cars in Yellowstone;

Reason; It has been determined that none of your signals work when maneuvering or pulling in left or right to see sights/animals!!!!

 

T&G

 

 

Around the Bend!

We left you with the news that we were parked up with a broken slide ram. We have moved on to a place called Sunriver, about 20 miles south of Bend, Oregon.

However the slide is still broke, no blame on the repair place we went to though, the manufacturer of the ram does not have it available and it has to be made.

So for the time being we continue our travels with a smaller bedroom than normal, and we will order a new one and get it fixed further down the line.

 

At Sunriver, we have spent our days playing Pickle ball most mornings, trying to keep a little bit active!

It’s the first time we have come across players who were too “Special” to allow just anyone to play them, and it wasn’t just us. I didn’t realise there was a “Class system” within Pickle Ball.

However it did give us great pleasure to refuse their offer for a game when they were short of players later in the week…..LOL

However they were far outweighed by some very nice people we met there, Phil & Cindy, Dennis, Jose, Ed & Sandra, Jan, Barbara & Al, John, Sandra, Terry to name just a few.

Some of the fauna we have seen on our trips this week.

We have had a couple of day trips out around the area, our first was out to a place called Lava Butte which is part of Newberry National Volcanic Monument, and is 9 square miles of an old lave flow.

We then tried to visit a mile long Lava tunnel, but it was after 11am and there was no where to park so we gave up that day but came back earlier in the day a couple on the 4^th July. (Which was a damp squid in the park where we were, nothing at all planed)

The tunnel itself is huge and a mile long, so a two mile walk underground and no need to bend or crawl or as in Thailand, swim in muddy water! (That was great news that they found those boys).

Benham falls was also nearby, so we had a small hike to those, but were disappointed with the description of “Falls” more of a “Rapids” section of the river, and due to current technical difficulties, i can not upload these pictures ….me bad!

 

Pullina falls were a lot more interesting and about 20 miles from the park, in an area where there was also an 8000’ peak to drive up with great views of the surrounding area.

Also nearby was an Obsidian flow, a fascinating place with some great black glass rocks.

Seeing this tree, makes you wonder just how it grows!

Now we have a 700 mile trip to Yellowstone national park, driving across the high desert of Oregon, into Idaho and then in Wyoming.

Yellowstone is where Kathryn will fly in and meet us for a few days.

 

So I leave you with a short blog this time as the next one will be just about Yellowstone.

Glad you are all having a hot summer over there; it’s about time that Britain got a summer rather than two weeks of warm rain.

 

I’ve managed to watch the England matches in the world cup and to this point am glad I put £10 on them to win the world cup (EW).

It’s coming home hopefully! (we though are not just yet)

Joke of the Blog;

Scottish-Americans tell you that if you want to identify tartans, it’s easy.

You look under the Kilt and if it’s a ¼ pounder it’s a McDonalds!

 

Enjoy your sun

 

T&G

 

 

 

Let the journey of 2018 begin….

Welcome aboard, fasten your seat-belts, we are on the move;

After 7 months back in the UK, it was time to return to the US. This time we flew from London City Airport, staying at the nearby Ibis budget the night before (and then just a short walk to the airport). We flew from there to Frankfurt, Germany, and then onto San Francisco.

Its funny, some of the patterns you see while looking out of a plane window, patterns you don’t see from ground level.

I got to thinking of games that they could represent;

Ice hop scotch;

Tetris;                                                                              Tiddlywinks;

                 

Cards/ spot the “scream” mask;                             Chess;

                 

We also got a great view of the Golden Gate bridge on the way into land, with Alcatraz in the picture too. The second picture shows Treasure Island.

          

A full 24 hours after getting out of bed, we got back into bed in the RV!

I don’t know how some of you do it, how do people sleep on the plane? I have never been able to (sad face).

When we got to the rv, she was still wrapped up in her cover, as was the car. The rv started first time, however the car did not, but it did with a set of jump leads.

We have taken both vehicles out of storage and onto site and both have had a good clean and check over, and we have been out and restocked the fridge, freezer and larders.

Now I guess its time to start to relax again. I did however manage to lose my driving license somewhere between San Fran and Lake Minden, where? We have no idea.

 

Spotted while having a jog around the lake, I believe they are young Swainsons Hawks.

Lake Minden, about 100 miles NE of San Fran, is where the Rv was stored and where we stayed for a week before heading north to Lassen Volcanic NP.

 

Lassen was 160 miles north and we decided to stay inside the NP for $26 dry camping, which our book said it would be $10! My book is clearly a little out of date. But $26 for dry camping is a bit rich!

No wonder people can not afford to feed their dogs in the park!!!

Lassen Peak

Plenty of snow still around

We did a couple of nice hikes in the park and got used to being bitten by the bugs again, we have not missed that!

Lassen Peak at Sunset

 

A little snapshot of Lassen can be seen here.

From Lassen we again headed north, this time into Oregon and stopped overnight in a casino car park, before heading into Crater Lake NP.

We came in the north Entrance as it would have meant taking the rig up an 8000ft climb, and left her in a parking area before taking the car around the 32 mile crater road.

While we were on the road trip north we realised that yet again the house batteries were not being charged as we drove, so when we got to Bend Oregon we popped into “Jerry’s” Rv who fixed the issue in less than an hour for less than $100.

That was good news….Now the bad news, while there we spotted that the slide was sticking out about 4 inches and after closer inspection we found out that the hydraulic pipe or ram had gone again, for the second time in 3 years.

So now we are parked up in Bend waiting for it to be fixed. But at least we are being watched….

 

Yes, some of you have said we are living the dream and I can not argue with that, but it is not all happy days or plain sailing.

It’s at times like this that we find it hard to go on, in a foreign country, strange town and another nail in the coffin of our trip. It’s frustrating, depressing and it’s when you realise how alone we are over here. Yes we have some people we call friends over here, but they are busy with their own lives and their own trips.

We have tried to talk to them all since we have been here and we always try and meet up with some of them each year, it’s one of the major positives and we are looking forward to seeing some of them this year too. I can’t tell you how much it means to us to see some that we only met since doing these trips and friends in Orlando that we have known over 10 years.  ♥♥

So with a few days to burn we popped into a few shops, and I thought B&Q were bad in getting their Xmas decs in early?

So to try and lighten the mood we leave you with a little ditty for the SEN team

When I was at school i had a nut allergy and the other children used to make me play Russian roulette by force feeding me a packet of revels!!

 

We will update you on the rig in the next installment.

 

T&G

It’s almost that time again..

Hello everyone, I have only just realised that I have not done a blog post in 2018. I do most sincerely apologise, I put it down to old age, as I thought I had done one.

 

Well if you are reading this, it’s either welcome back to the blog or welcome aboard and enjoy the trip.

Anyway, here we are with just over a month to go before we fly out to start our adventure again.

It’s been a long 7 months for us, but only today someone in work said “that can’t be 6 months already”

Well it has, and for me it feels like it too.

I have to say it has been a hard 7 months both with a very wet and windy winter and physically in my job with B&Q, which has been a real challenge but one that I have really enjoyed (most of the time) I am very lucky to be able to return to B&Q and I do appreciate that.

 

We begin our journey on the 11^th of June when we drive up to London city airport before flying to Frankfurt on the 12^th for a connecting flight to San Francisco where we should land about 4pm. It’s then at least an hours drive to go and find our Winnebago near Sacramento at Lake Minden RV park. That always seems to be quite nerve racking, having left the vehicles for 7 months, you just don’t know what your going to find?

Condition of the vehicles, are they still covered, more importantly, will they start? Well we shall soon find out soon enough!

 

Here is an itinerary of our trip with a little map of our route too.

 

As you can see we are heading west to east , starting In California and finishing up in Florida. Its about 5,500 miles and we will be taking in 8 or 9 National parks, Including Yellowstone, 20 odd states (7 new ones for us)

Lots of interesting places, among which will be Car henge, Mount Rushmore, The centre of the United States, and Devils tower to name but a few.

Hopefully we will be catching up with friends and new family on the way, as well as being joined by Kathryn our daughter in Yellowstone and for the final 2 weeks of this trip from North Carolina down to Florida.

My next blog will be when we get stateside, feel free to comment, feel free to give feedback and I hope you enjoy this years instalment…….

 

T&G

Winter Blues?

So, we are home, back home to reality, but which part is reality any more? I guess both sides of the Atlantic are reality for us now.

We are back to the wet, windy and cold old Britain. After our seven days of rain in our six months in the USA it will come as no surprise that we have had rain on probably 50% of the time we have been back, plenty of frosty mornings and several very windy days too.

 

When we were 2 days away from flying out I had a call to say that my promise of a job had been pulled, so a worrying development to come home to. I had no idea and no time to sort out a CV or to start applying for jobs.

Jim, my friend met us at the airport and Kathryn met us there too after spending the weekend in London. I then drove back to our home, and it seems to be no problem switching from left hand drive to right hand drive or one side of the road to the other!

We got home on the Sunday and Gill started work on the Wednesday, back with her previous employer.

I had to go down to my previous employer and chat with the manager to see what could be sorted out, if anything. Three weeks later I again started work with my previous employer……I did say I needed a holiday when I got back, I guess I got one.

Since we have been back, we have found it hard, it’s dark when we leave for work and its dark when we get home. We need sunshine again.

 

When we started our travels to America, Jim took Jester off us and gave him a wonderful new home.

Alas after 10 wonderful years with us and three more with Jim & Jill, we have had to contend with losing Jester again. Jester became ill and had to be put down to prevent him suffering. It was obviously a huge loss for us all.

R.I.P Jester and thank you for the wonderful memories.

And so to 2018?

Our plans are progressing and the flights are booked.

We fly into San Francisco on the 12^th of June to begin 176 days of adventure.

Plans are loose so far, but these are some of the places we hope to go to.

Lessen NP, Crater Lake NP, Yellowstone NP, Grand Tetons NP, Theodore Roosevelt NP, Badlands NP, Rocky Mountain NP,Devils tower, Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave NP, Geographical centre of the USA, Blue ridge mountains NP,

 

States we hope to visit this time, some we will have been to before;

California, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

This is an initial outline of our route and itinerary, but it is flexible.

Who will we catch up with this year?

Who knows, but retracing our steps back to the east sure gives us an opportunity to meet up again with some, Ron & family in Tennessee, Gary & Lola and possibly Davey in Tennessee, Thanksgiving with my cousin Bev and her family in North Carolina, The Chapman’s in Orlando, The Hayes in Florida, and hopefully others if we can coincide with each others routes.

If anyone wants anything brought over from the UK, or have any ideas on things to see on our route or wants to meet up, please let us know.

 

From all of us in the Waddup household, have a fantastic Christmas, New year and enjoy any time that you have with your family.

 

Until next year

T&G

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yosemite

Yosemite National Park.

 

After 35 years I have fallen in love again. She is everything I dream of, wonderful to look at, inspires me to be better, she challenges my body in ways it hasn’t been challenged for a long time.

I could stay with her for ever and I would never know her completely, she has a way of keeping secrets yet she reveals so much.

Her curves are sumptuous, her valley so moist…………….Will you lot get your mind out the gutter!!!

I’m talking about Yosemite National Park!!

We travelled from our last campsite San Benito and headed north east to the I5 then north to the 120.

If you come this way as stated in my last blog do not take the “Old Priest Road”

The cool boxes are getting ridiculous over here.

The 120 is steep and twisty, and goes on for a few miles, so to save the rig any undue stress we unhooked the car and Gill drove it up separate.

The Yosemite lakes campsite is very nice, with full hook up and next to a river and just 5 miles outside the park. (and for those of you that care it has satellite reception but no phone signal)

The campsite is just 5 miles outside the park, but its still another 20 miles to the valley floor and downhill most of the way.

The first real glimpse of the park is forest, then you go through a tunnel and voila, there are the uplifts of huge granite mountains.

El Capitan is the infamous climbers challenge and a killer within the last month of an English climber.

The first visit we paid to the park was a drive around the 20 mile valley floor where we did some of the hikes within; Mirror Lake, Swinging Bridge, Sentinel beach and the Mist Trail.

Mist trail is the one that takes you to the Vernal Falls, Gill made it to the bottom I continued up to the top, I counted to 600 steps then lost count with some way to go!!

 

We also looked at Lower Yosemite Falls, The Chapel, and The Ahwahnee Hotel, where you can get a room for a night from $495 to $995, there are loads of places to stay in the park, from camping to lodges and hotels and its own village.

El Capitan is enormous, and I have huge respect for those that climb it.  The first time we saw it, we saw the scar from the chunk that had fallen off and the rubble that came from it. It looked liked a volcano had left its ash there; it must have been ½ inch thick in dust. It was not until our second visit to the park and a look through the binoculars that you can see the human ants reaching for the top on their average FIVE day climb it takes to summit.

Talking of our second day, we did some more of the valley floor including Bridal Veil Falls and a drive to Glacier Point, through a forest fire! The park service try to let them burn naturally here to clear the floor of all the fuel that has built up in their previous style of management, which was to put the fires out as quickly as possible.

I stopped to take a picture of a small fire at the bottom of a tree and was astounded at the sight that occurred in front of us within seconds two trees were just engulfed in flames, a quick exit was had!

From Glacier Point you get to see a glorious view of Vernal and Nevada falls, the valley floor and Half Dome, another magnet for human ants to climb up.

We were going to stay here for sunset but decided to get back through the fire in case it worsened; we instead stopped at tunnel view and watched the sun go down over El Capitan, The Cathedral and Half Dome.

 

Our third day in the park was probably the most spectacular and if you come here it is well worth the drive.

Tioga pass is the road through the park which is a continuation of the 120 and is awesome.

We drove right through the park and back again doing a few hikes on the way.

One was to this dome..to the top!

Some random shots we took in the park;

 

Our fourth day out in the park and this time we went to a place called Hetch Hetchy, which is a 16 mile drive down into a side valley and a reservoir. This time we took Gary and Lola and when we finished we went out to lunch to celebrate Lola’s birthday.

So that was Yosemite pretty much done, Gary and Lola were leaving on the Wednesday, so we did too.

We headed north to our final stop, a place called Lake Minden, 20 miles north of Sacramento. It was back towards the Californian fires but luckily for us not directly in it’s line.

Sacramento is the state capital of California and a day’s visit was a must, looking at downtown which has been restored to 1800 authenticity.

We also visited the state capital building, and had a free and very informative tour.

The rest of our time has been getting the RV and car ready for storage. The RV has had a thorough clean top to bottom, inside and out. As we will be away from the RV for more than six months we’ve even invested in a full size cover for the Rv to protect her from the elements.

 

So what states have we done this year, California (again) Idaho, Montana, (up through Canada) British Columbia, Yukon, and Alberta. Then back to the lower 48 to Washington and Oregon and flying out of California again.

What about National parks?…WOW, loads of them again, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Glacier, Jasper & Banff (Canada) Denali, Kenai Fords, Wrangell-St Elias (Alaska) North Cascades, Olympic, Mount Rainer, Redwoods, I think that is all of them! 12.

 

Mileage?

Well the RV has done …just shy of 10,000 miles at 6.5miles per gallon, a lot of miles and expense on fuel this year that’s for sure.

We stopped off in San Francisco on the way to the airport and stopped at Treasure island half way along the Bay Bridge, its a great spot for the views.

 

That folks is it for 2017. We hope you enjoyed the blog and pictures, thanks for following

I leave you with some of the fall colours.

Best wishes Terry & Gill

Northern California

Russian River.

 

We got down to the campsite for a short stay of 5 days and found ourselves a nice spot in the shade, the temperature here as taken a massive leap up, apparently last week it was up over 100 degrees. It’s not quite that hot now but it is up in the high 80’s/90’s.

 

We met up again with Bill & Maree and their dog Leyla, They came over and spent an evening with us, which was really nice. They then left to head down to get some repairs done to their rig. Unfortunately Bill had an argument with a rock and a narrow piece of roadway.

 

The river here is not as smooth as the one in Oregon that we floated down but we thought we would give this one a go anyway, so we walked up the road a mile and put our floats in and made our way down the river. It was all going well till Gill decided to totally “Immerse” herself into the trip. Unfortunately in a set of rapids she got caught up under a tree got dragged under and got rather wet, despite the thought of life insurance I did save her. Luckily I managed to pull the half submerged float out from under but we did lose a paddle. That was the one and only trip on that river!!!

A car we saw near the river

Another couple we met at this park was Kirti and David, Kirti and I (Terry) are very alike, it turns out we both like photography, sea glass and making things (I have not started that yet but may do on our next trip) I may have a go at making seaglass jewellery.

We didn’t do much at this park, we did go down to Santa Rosa where the creator of snoopy lived,

 

We also found a street where there was a metal sculpture in every front garden.

and we also took a trip out to Korbel Champagne winery. There are hundreds of wineries here but this is the one we chose, a great free tour and 6 free tastings each too.

Some houses we saw..

 

That was pretty much it, from here we moved south to San Benito, 100 miles south of San Francisco. We decided to go over the Golden Gate Bridge at a cost of about $8 each for the Rv and the car, we had seen the bridge from Alcatraz on a previous trip when Kathryn was 13. But we wanted to see it up close and personal and to drive over it. Well we did drive over it, but m not sure you could say that this was seeing it up close and personal!!

 

If you do go over it in an RV heading south ignore your sat nav and take the 1^st right and follow the 19.

There are some great looking streets there too.

 

San Benito RV park is huge and it took us a while to find a sight for another short stay of 4 days, the reason for this park was a visit to Pinnacles NP.

We did the national park and the insignificant write up in the book I have tells you a lot!! It was nothing inspirational or spectacular; we did a couple of hikes which took us through a couple of nice caves.

We also took a trip to the coast from here to a place called Carmel, where we watched Dolphins for a while from the beach.

From there we went up the Monterey bay to Santa Cruz and a lovely little place called Capitola.

You can hire one of these “little” places, one that sleeps 10, had 3 bedrooms, and bathrooms and had 2 Jacuzzis..yours for anything from $495 to $1195 a NIGHT!!

 

This area is clearly the fruit/Vegetable basket of America, everywhere we went it was agriculture for as far as the eye could see.

I found a few motorbikes I liked..

 

A couple of shots taken near the park;

I guess this is one reason it’s called the golden state.

A few of the birds and animals seen on this section.

Check out this hand made bicycle..

Another couple that we met was Shannon and Bob, a lovely couple who I wished we had more time with.

Alas because of the senseless in Las Vegas they had friends and family that were affected so they had to leave the park.

So we didn’t get to spend anymore time with them which was a real shame as they were a lovely couple. Maybe in the future our paths will cross again, we hope so.

Another move, this time one that I was quite excited about, Yosemite NP.

If you come here in an RV take the 120 from the east “Do not take Old Priest road” stay on the 120.

 

Next time Yosemite National park.

 

South Jetty, Oregon

 

From Pacific City to South Jetty, again in Oregon, we came down the coast and cut across to Eugene to have some work done on both Vehicles. The car had a knocking in the front end and the rig had a charging issue, a slide out issue and a small hydraulic leak.

We stayed there overnight and got nowhere with the car repair apart from “It could be the steering rack, which was $2,400” Could be, yeah right, I’m going to spend $2,400 on a could be aren’t I?

The charging issue was solved on the RV and we have to go back on the 18^th of September to get the slide work done and that’s going to be nearly $3,000.

I think I’ll have to set up a “go fund me” page!

Anyway, we headed down to our next stop, a place called South Jetty RV park, near a town called Florence. Coming down the 101 Pacific highway is a great way to see the coast so that was the route we took. Some must find it a little stressful and they need coffee…

In Florence there was a nice car show…and afterwards we went to the film American Grafitti

When we came down the 101 we could not really stop in the RV, so after we had camped we drove back up 50 miles and did it in the car so that we could stop and check it out, I’m glad we did…..

 

We visited three lighthouses,

 

several beaches

and watched Grey Whales up close and personal and also got shouted at by a bunch of noisy seals.

 

Gill is not a “sea loving” person but she has fallen head over heals in love with the Oregon coast.

 

(Gill typing) When we got to South Jetty RV park we went around in the car as usual to choose our site then bring the RV to it. Terry decided to leave the tow dolly attached when he reversed into the site, and the man in the site next to us was sat outside watching. Once Terry had straightened up he got out to hook up and the man named Dean (Dean and Carol and their dog named Dakota) stated he had never seen anyone reverse into a site in one manoeuvre with a tow dolly attached before and was well impressed, he said he now had a story to tell about an Englishman!

 

On our last but one day at South Jetty we were sat outside reading and enjoying the sunshine when a fifth wheel went past our site to a site about 4 up from us. Well we watched to poor man struggling for about 20 minutes to reverse into a site with his wife shouting ‘stop’ every time, so he had to keep trying. I said to Terry “could you do it?” “Yes, easy” he replied “why don’t you go up and see if you can help him”, as we had been watching saying “left hand down, right hand down, straighten up” and getting more exasperated. Eventually Terry did go up and I heard him say “is there anything I can do to help?” Next minute I saw him get into the large GMC 3500 pick-up truck, move the 40’ fifth wheel up the road, then reversed it straight into the site within 2 minutes, first time!!!   I believe the man was very very grateful…….

 

(Back to Terry typing)

Another day another trip down the coast, this time we went to Coos Bay and North Bend, A few virtual Geocaches, a few Lighthouses, a nice bridge and another nice beach, which was a bit crowded…..

 

 

Talking of crowded, have a look at this view, a nice outlook, but when I zoom in once

 

Then again

This is what you see, hundreds of sea lions, seals and even an Elephant sea lion. This is Shell Island.

 

We met up with and spent some time with Bill and Maree, originally from Idaho they spend their time full timing over on the west coast. We shall be seeing them again at our next stop Russian River, California.

 

So we left South Jetty and headed to Junction City near Eureka to have the work done on the RV, we got there on the Sunday evening and parked up with complementary full hook up. They picked up the rig on the Monday so we headed north to have a look at a couple of Covered bridges……

 

While doing this I had a series of engine warning lights illuminate on the dash of the Rav4. Panic!!!!

However, searching the net gave us a few possibilities and it turned out a pipe had disconnected in the engine compartment, reattached and ½ an hour later they went out again….Google is my friend!

We came across a place called Brownsville, where it turns out they filmed “Stand by me” where they did a nice little self guided walking tour.

On the Tuesday, it was time for the Rav4 tyres to be rotated FOC at Discount tyres, we also got the stereo replaced (next door) in the Rav4 (the old one had died) and went back and waited for our finances to take a hit from the repairs.

Luckily it was not quite as bad as we feared but it still hurt.

Wednesday, we left to continue our Journey and because of the service we had at the Car stereo place we popped in and had the one in the RV replaced too. We also had the piece of carpet replaced which got a bleach stain on it up in Alaska. A very productive albeit expensive couple of days.

From Eugene we headed back to the coast and headed down the 101 (Ignore any warnings from your sat nav about heights. its fine) we stopped at any nice overlooks, beaches, and lighthouses on the way south.

This was a 2 minute exposure of the sea…

 

In Crescent City we stopped off and went for a cycle and visited the visitor centre, luckily the Redwoods NP visitor centre was across the road too.

More pictures from the coast including “face rock”….

 

And another whale??

We went through Redwoods NP later in the day and came off the 101 to do the Newton B Drury scenic byway (RV friendly).

 

This is where we found both the “corkscrew and Big trees”

 

 

Stopped here for a Geocache…

 

Where Gill and I had our picture taken….

 

And we spotted a “Banana Slug”

 

Further down the road was a place called the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, with another RV friendly drive off the 101 called the “Avenue of the Giants” which we both agreed was more impressive than the NP.

We stopped for the night in a town called “Eureka” where we overnighted in a “Target” store car park, where we spotted this building, a “Members only” club…..

 

And now we have landed back in California, at a place called Russian River RV Resort near Cloverdale.

Next time…I have no idea yet!

 

T&G

 

 

 

 

Eclipse in Oregon.

As mentioned in previous blog posts this year, one of our aims was to see the total eclipse of the sun on the 21^st of August.

So with the eclipse and being on the Oregon coast this is a very “Sunny” edition of the blog.

A while ago I had booked a campsite on the Oregon coast called Pacific City, just a mile from a town with the same name, that was in the line of totality.

A nice spot and a wonderful coastline.

I did put the bird feeders out, but a group of these Blue Jays emptied them in a day, so I gave up.

 

We got here a day early on the 19^th and on the 20^th I checked the place out and decided where we were going to watch and photograph it from.

So the day of the eclipse came and…..the whole site was covered in sea fog!!

PANIC!

After a while pacing up and down, deciding if it was going to burn off or not I made the decision to move, so we drove out of the campsite and within 3 miles I found a large gravel spot with clear blue skies above.

Within 15 minutes there were about 8 cars next to us.

 

One group of about 6 (Madeline, Donna Mae, Susan, Tanya or Trina, Jeremy and Josh) had driven up from LA for the event and another couple of Ladies (Holly & Elizabeth) had driven down the coast 20 miles.

The eclipse was very good, (better than Y2k in the UK) and afterwards we and the LA group were invited to go to Holly’s place up the coast.

WOW what a house, what views and most of all what an experience; from the gravel pull out to a promise that we will all meet up and do it again in 2024 in Austen, Texas. It’s the people that make this experience so memorable.

I’m glad I used 2 cameras to capture the event, as my expensive camera did not get good shots of the eclipse at all.

Still I am reasonably happy with the results.

 

This shot is from NASA, and if you look closely you can see 3 sunspots and the space station pass in front of the sun during the eclipse, (I missed that bit).

 

A few nights later I was photographing the sun going down, and I caught this series of shots. It shows what an optical phenomenon known as the green flash. I had been hoping to catch a glimpse but thought my chances of seeing it were slim to nil.

 

We had a drive over to Portland, mainly to do some Geocaches that I wanted to do, including where the first ever Geocache was placed.

 

But also to go and look at Portland city. The Geocaches themselves were trial enough and when we tried to go into Portland we eventually gave up due to the traffic congestion around the city! Good job we are not big city lovers! Exeter where we live does not seem so bad in comparison.

One of the hikes we managed to get done in our time at Pacific City was to a place called Cape Lookout, a 2 ½ mile spit of land that protrudes into the Ocean. It was a lovely walk and a misty view on the way. We were hoping to see whales in the area but alas, it was not to be this time.

On a recent cycle ride I had seen a man eating these berries (Salal) and later I picked a load of them and mixed them with Huckleberries, Blackberries and Strawberries to make some smoothies and I also made a fruit leather.

Pacific City is known for its flat bottomed Dory boats. They have no natural harbour here so the way that they launch and land their craft is straight from the beach.

As they near the beach, they blast their horns, pick up speed and just land on the sand.

Apparently last year a surfer got in the way and lost an arm to the boat! I’m not surprised when you see the speed they come in.

So we walked along the beach and up over a huge sand dune to Pacific’s beach to see them come in.

 

Want to see the video of dory a dory boat landing…watch Here

 

While down in Pacific we went in the local bar/mini brewery and they had a taster tray of beers and some good food too.

Lincoln City is 25 miles down the road, so we popped down there to have a look around, saw the smallest river in the USA (D River), walked the beach, collected sea glass, had a massive buffet at the casino for $11 bucks each. Then went and walked the beach again and spotted whales!

 

Another day out geocaching, and sight seeing took us to this spit of land, this snake and this lighthouse, hope you like it Michelle.

 

(and 1 or 2 Geocaches)

 

It’s been a wonderful place with some great sunsets.

 

A square sun.

And on the same evening I thought North Korea and launched another of its missiles.

 

We ended coming back to the area of Cape Mears and the lighthouse as we had been told about a little beach that not many people know about at a place called Oceanside.

Parking was a trial, but the beach was huge and you headed North and through a short tunnel to where it opens up to a smaller less crowded beach. It is also a good beach to find Agates on (makes a change from sea glass).

At the end of this beach if you climb a few rocks you end up with a view I shall end the blog on.

 

Until next time.

 

T&G xx

Seattle

Our move south from La Conner went smoothly down to Thunderbird RV park near a place called Monroe, Washington. Luckily it was only 60 miles. It’s nice at last not to be moving 300+ miles each time.

The park is nice, with a good pool and good wifi, and we have a site overlooking the river. Where most nights this one cruises past, then floats back down again. Notice the BBQ welded on the front of the raft?

Monroe is just a short 25 miles from Seattle; an ideal location for a visit, so on the Thursday we got up early and headed into the city.

Our first item on our agenda was the space needle for an early ride to the top.

275 miles north in British Columbia, Canada the fires are still burning, and that was clearly evident from our views at the top.

 

If you went up before 10am and after 9pm it was half price, so we booked for 9 to 9-30 and went up at 8-30. 41 seconds later we were at the top.

The views were pretty good and we did a live Facebook broadcast from there. See the size of the spiders on the roof?

 

After the space needle we walked down to Pikes Place market; without doubt one of the best markets we have visited.

These shots were taken on the way….

 

I’ll say nothing about old sows or brass pigs!!

As some of you know and I have mentioned before that one of my hobbies is Geocaching, a hobby that I have been doing for some 13 years. The headquarters of said hobby is in Freemont, Seattle.

We headed down and paid them a visit.  They were so friendly and welcoming to all geocachers, it was a really good experience, and we ended up doing the 9 Very good HQ caches nearby.

Under this bridge, was this fellow

 

 

Our next door neighbours were a couple that worked from their rig full time, Bill & Karen.

 

 

 

I went out with Bill on his Kayaks to do some crabbing.  If you remember in my last blog I mentioned Deception Pass, well that is where we went. So we would kayak out, drop 3 pots then leave them for 15 minutes, go back and collect the spoils.

 

Needless to say we had a crab banquet that night and for several days after.

The following week was a lazy week reading books, sitting by the pool and we even went blackberry picking.

I know life is hard!

I did go for a 3 mile cycle, it was meant to be more but it turned into a 3 mile cycle and a 3 mile walk back to the rig with a flat tyre, go on have a laugh, I know I’ll get no sympathy on here!

The river next to us is quite low at the moment because most of the snow melt has now gone. I guess it was a prime time to go for a float down the river. The weather was kind to us and stayed relatively sunny but cool. Joan and Rick another couple on the park were going down with their children and grandchildren, so we hooked up with them and floated down with them.

It was very relaxing, so much so that 3 days later we did it again, but this time in our little boat.

I drove 3 miles down the road, parked the car and cycled back to the RV park and launched the boat from there. Another great day.

It was time to go Geocaching after we had finished our stay at Thunderbird Rv park and we headed 50 miles down the road to a place called Snoqualmie casino where we stayed for 3 days free of charge. This was a close location to the Geocaching event and also allowed us to go for a drive and visit Mount Rainer NP. It was also very close to a place called North Bend, the location of the TV series Twin Peaks, we even sat in the restaurant and had a burger there.

We did go in the casino on the Thursday night for a look around.

 

We are not gamblers at all, and all the slot machines are far too confusing for me. However I did put in $1 and nearly doubled my money up to $1.98 before losing most of it. So I cashed out and gave Gill the ticket with 8 cents left on it.

I can’t believe she did what she did next…she only went and blew it, lost the lot all 8 cents.

Now you can see why I keep the money in my wallet!!!

The following day, we headed down to Mt Rainer and did a few hikes around the park. We were fortunate enough to get a really good view of the mountain before the cloud curtain came down and she was hidden for the rest of the day.

One walk we did had an old wooden pipe wrapped in wire, some feat of engineering.

Some of the flora and fauna here was fantastic.

 

 

Us being silly, me with Lichen on my head impersonating Boris Johnston, and Gill being a toad in the hole!

On the Saturday we headed to Iron Horse state park for a Geocaching mega event (an event with more than a thousand attendees) Which included a 4.6 mile walk through an old train tunnel to and fro from the cache.

In the tunnel it was like Dawn of the dead.

So what was so special about this event?

Back in 2001 there was a promotion for the newly released Planet of the Apes film and there were 9 caches placed around the world as part of the promotion. As of 2016 all except one (Brazil) had disappeared.

Now there was very little chance of me going to Brazil to do 1 Geocache, however in 2016 a group of cachers went out to find the one near Seattle that had gone missing and luckily enough they did find it 300 feet down in a ravine, still with some of its original contents. So Geocaching headquarters allowed the cache to be reinstated.

This means that I have now found 1 of the only 2 Ape caches in the world.

Boring for most of you and you think what a Geek, I agree, Yep. But you wouldn’t have me any other way would you?

Just to give you an insight to Geocaches, there are now over 3 million of them in the world and most of you will have one within a quarter of a mile from you!!

T&G

xx

 

Next time?

The Solar Eclipse in Oregon.

 

 

 

Back in the US of SA

Back in united states of sweet America…

We were now less than 35 miles away from the lower 48 states and we tootled down and joined the queue to cross back into the mainland of USA.

We had no problems going into Alaska or any other crossings of borders (save the firewood issue..and my Oranges) while up north, we had been in and out several times.

We got to the border guard, who for not better of a description “was as miserable as sin”, several questions were asked, where, how long, why etc. Then he handed us a piece of paper and said you need to go inside…..We did and we met his twin miserable as sin brother!

 

“You have no status here, why are you here?” Well, we have just come back from Alaska and are heading to the lower 48 to finish our holiday.

“Whose is the motor home” It’s ours we bought it through our LLC company.

“Why a LLC?”….Because we were told that we couldn’t own a vehicle in the US and then leave it here when we went back to the UK for 6 months unless it was done through a company

Who told you that?…..Our LLC Attorney

They are wrong, you should export it to your home country after the 6 months, you are not allowed to own a vehicle and then not export it, well, and it’s a grey area really.

Are you trying to live here, you spend 6 months here and 6 months back home, and what do you do for jobs?…..we explained.

Have you a return flight…we showed him we had,

Do you own a home in the UK?…..and so it went on….and on….and on!!

Gill got quite worried at one stage when he said he could refuse us entry; however he eventually did allow us on our way.

Was there any need for the interrogation, I don’t think so, we have a valid visa that allows us to stay for 6 months in any 12, which is what we do, I just wish they would be a bit friendlier in their manner. We are not Islamists, Mexicans or seeking to live here permanently.

Still, we may stay out for a bit longer next time just to satisfy any jobs worth who can’t be a little less miserable! A sour taste of a border crossing!

 

We decided to go to a place called Laconner, about 75 mile’ish from the border, the campground is right on the sea front, and we were lucky enough to spot a sight that was coming free in 3 days time, so we put our name down for it and had to go up each day to confirm you still wanted it. (Later finding out it was called the “Sewer social, as most of these sights had full hook up) On the day of us getting the sight confirmed I spotted someone trying to move their chairs in as soon as the other guy left. I spoke to them nicely and said they couldn’t do that and we would need to go up and sort it out. It was confirmed that we could have the sight. Boy, the look his wife gave me you would have thought the Americans had lost the Ryder cup again and it was my fault!

I did go across to their site later to tell them of how some sites work and another site that was coming free, but they were not there so I left a message. But we never saw them again. Sad, poor losers and another sour taste left in our mouths, but hey, life goes on.

We have this to look out to every morning;

 

They don’t

A little sea otter caught on camera close by;

 

The Toyota went into the garage for an oil leak to be fixed, but for some reason we still have a knocking low down in the driver side when we first use her each day, sounds like someone has hidden a spanner in the wing!!

We met Linda who we had met at Palm Springs last year while playing “Pickle ball” which we had started playing again each morning here.

We took a drive out to North Cascades NP for the day;

 

A hike down to one of the dams in the area was interesting, we came across a group of those dreaded border guards (20 miles from the Canadian border) luckily these guys were nice and friendly.

When we got to the dam, we came across a worker who took us inside the dam to look at the steps he had just climbed from the bottom of the dam.

Our little boat had not been used for nearly 12 months, so we got her set up, filled up with petrol and oil and she started on the second pull, result. We took a little poodle out around the bay for a coupe of hours, relaxing time. We went out again later in the week just doing a few caches on the islands.

One couple that we met playing pickleball, (Who also pulled in next to our site) was Will & Ella a lovely couple who we did a little Karaoke at there place,

Another place we went out to  called concrete they had a classic “Fly in” show. Where loads of people just fly in with their old classic light aeroplanes; At a place called

 

Or bring their old classic cars;

 

No health and safety here, just stroll around next to the runway (We saw one nearly tip over) and around all the planes. Mr Mirfin, you would have loved it!.

 

Will hooked up with a guy called Alan who stayed at the park most of the time and went out crabbing.

Lucky for me, I had given Will some salmon early on and on two occasions later in our stay we ended up with some Dungeness crab in return.

Dunkirk was on at the cinema so the four of us went to it, good movie but we all thought it lacked punch.

Another trip that we made was out to Olympic national park.

 

Port Townsend was where the ferry docked from Coupville after a little delay because of fog and at $17 each way for a ½ hour crossing, cheap too

A ferry trip and a 70 mile drive saw us do a nice hike up to Hurricane ridge, fantastic views.

If you want to see the hike up, here are 4 short videos,

One…………Two…………Three………..Four

 

Very “Alpine’ish with lots of flowers

 

Then back in time to explore Port Townsend, some nice houses, with wild dear strolling along the gardens;

 

Gill spotted an old Hotel dating from 1889 which you could just go in and wander around, it is one of the most original interiors in the town;

We move soon, down closer to Seattle. Nothing really planned, apart from a geocaching mega event, an ape cache and possibly the space needle in Seattle but the weeks seem to get filled up quick so I am sure that I will find something to type about.

August the 21^st is when this beauty,

Moves in front of this beauty;

To form a total eclipse and we will be in Oregon for it. I have made a solar filter so that I can photograph the event; this was my first attempt at photographing the sun.

 

Until next time.

 

 

 

 

 

T&G

 

 

 

Last few days of Canada.

 

When we got to Whitehorse we were going to stay in Walmart car park, free and convenient. I have never seen so many RV’s in one carpark, perhaps it was because when I went and asked if we could stay and for how long, they said “stay all summer if you want”

No wonder it was packed.

 

It was Canada day the following day, complete with a parade, music and food festival too.

 

There were also some Maori people there and for the ladies that follow the blog you may want to watch this video. Video

 

Another nation that are very proud of what they are and are not afraid to show it, it puts us to shame, I mean, we are not even allowed to put an English flag outside our property in case we offend someone!!!!

 

We hung around for 4 days doing some Geocaches and exploring the area.

One of them was here;

 

Miles Canyon, isn’t the colour just wonderful

 

In a previous blog I mentioned that we met some new Zealanders on our trip, well one night someone pulled alongside us and blew their horn and it was Mike & Wendy.

They came over and bought some baby back ribs with them. So we chatted, drank a few too many drinks and they went away with some of the salmon I had caught.

A lovely couple, who were racing down to Oregon to do a deal on another RV. Who knows, maybe one day we will see them again.

 

Becky and Tom arrived and were staying nearby so we went and met them again, it was so nice to see them again, and they are such a lovely couple. We so hope they enjoy their trip us to Alaska. Tom had just cleaned their truck and fifth wheel, and I did say that he would be fighting a losing battle trying to keep that clean. The time we had with them was way too short, but it was worth waiting to see them.

 

 

We pulled off the Casier to have a look at Hyder (back in Alaska again) which is famous for Bears feeding in a creek with a boardwalk next to it. As usual we were too early as the fish were not running yet.

On from the creek, we had been told about another glacier, this one is called Salmon glacier. It is probably the best one we have seen so far.

 

Back into Canada and continuing our journey stopping of Kitwanga to go for a stroll and do a couple of Geocaches.

 

On again down the road towards prince George and we had a problem with the rig, this time the house batteries were not being charged by the rig, only by the generator. Because we didn’t use the generator much, everything shut down, including the freezer. Luckily in a place called Smithers we were only 500 yards from a “Canadian Tire” place that allowed us to hook-up in their car park and stay overnight and they fixed us the next morning and we moved on to Prince George northern British Columbia.

As I type this there 218 wildfires in BC, most of them between us and our next destination Vancouver, on the way down we had already sighted one wildfire;

Prince George is being used as an evacuation centre for all the places within 600 miles of us.

It looks like we may have to make a rather large detour to get where we want to get.

We headed down the diversion to a place called Kamloops and parked up at Walmart, we had just got out of the rig when a Canadian pulled in alongside us as we shut the door……when we realised we had just locked the keys inside!!!!

Ken and his wife the Canadians had just been evacuated from a forest fire area helped us out by phoning his AAA coverage and within 45 minutes we were back in the rig. A few beers later with Ken and his wife sitting outside a lady pulled up asked us if we needed anything food, clothes etc. But we were all fine, and felt guilty getting in the way of those that really needed help.

 

Vancouver was next on the list, we stopped off for a couple of days and did a bit of North and West Vancouver which was nice. Then it was off to Gastown and Chinatown. Vancouver is your typical bug city with big city parking prices too $23 for 8 hours; we found a small side street with a meter and parked for a couple of hours in Gas town.

Have you ever seen a steam clock, no we hadn’t either until today.

Have a look at this Video.

Chinatown was next on the list with free parking! We had a stroll up and down and we have to say we were very disappointed. There were too many homeless in one spot all high on something and a lot of the area smelt of urine. There were some Chinese gardens that were nice that we found.

 

All in all Vancouver was a place that we probably wouldn’t bother visiting again if we were passing.

Someone had told us that Vancouver Island was worth a visit, but alas it was too expensive to go there by ferry and if we tried to do everything that we came across or was recommended we would be skint by now.

Next time; the border guard from hell and Washington

 

Only 3 months to go, see you all soon.

 

T & G

 

 

 

 

Alaska Revisited..

Greetings everyone, how are you all?

Here is the latest on our travels.  So, we left Tok and headed for the border back into Canada. We stopped for one night before we got there at a nice lake overlook where there were loads of swans nesting too.

We hit the border and back into Canada the following day and were headed towards Haines Junction. We were trying to coordinate meeting up with Tom and Becky whom we met last year in Arizona.

They were starting a trip up to Alaska on the 29^th of June and were headed towards us and Whitehorse in an RV caravan, but we had a few days to burn before they got to Whitehorse.

Another of our stop offs was this lake,

such a great outlook, and the clarity of the water was amazing. Just before we got to this overlook we were treated to seeing these two.

If you are all “Awww, and Ahhh”, here are a couple of Videos below for you!

One and Two

When we left the day after I wanted to do a Geocache in an old abandoned town called Silver City, an old town from the 1890’s, alas the Geocache was not found, but it was fun exploring the place.

 

Because of the time we had time to burn, we decided to head back into Alaska and a town called Haines. Apparently it was meant to be one of the nicest drives in the area. It was, as usual stunning.

You can take a ferry and not return the same way, but because of cost we were going to return via the same route in a few days.

We stopped off and did a walk to a rock glacier; no I had not heard of a rock glacier either! What is it? Well it looks like this;

 

and Google says this; Rock Glacier

 

When we stop overnight as a boondock, we try and find a secluded spot away from the road a bit, this is one that we stopped at a pull off that went down to the Takhanee river. A nice place for a fire, and we were to stop here on the way back from Haines too for another fire and a BBQ.

Through the border back into America and Alaska we spotted this little fella;

 

I was doing a few Geocaches as we travelled and this one was really quirky just outside of Haines;

 

Once in Haines

 

we had a look around Fort Seward, an old army camp that was set up to control the Klondike goldrush, some smart houses still stand and are still in full use.

We stopped for a couple of nights in these spots

Crusie ships leaving from Skagway

Terry Fishing

There is also a hammer museum (we kid you not) if you are into hammers some 1500 of them but for $5 each I didn’t think they had nailed the correct entrance charge!

Somewhere along the way, Gill managed to get herself caught up on the toilet door, all I can say it’s a good job I had not gone off Geocaching or fishing for the day, because she could just not get out of this predicament alone!

 

 

Skagway is a town further along the coast and one that we were possibly going to take a train down to at a cost of nearly $300. We changed our minds and caught a 45 minute ferry for $140 and spent the day there. It wasn’t a peaceful day as such as the port was full with 4 cruise ships in dock.

Skagway was a really nice town with lots of shops that was clearly set up for tourists, however when you can get a T-shirt for $6-99 I’m not going to complain.

 

 

Now however it is time for a rant!! Why not? I haven’t had one in a while so here goes;

Gill decided she would like a pair of Alaskan gold nugget earrings, and here in Skagway there were an abundance of Jewellers (coincidentally all run by the same ethnic people that we have in the UK) that is not the foundation for the rant however. She saw some she liked and asked the price which he gave us, then gave us some money off, as you do you don’t just take the first price, so then he gives us a cost price. “No its ok thank you, we will go and have a look around”, “Ok, how much do you want to pay” he says!!

Now, I know we are British but for crying out load (don’t want to offend anyone with a more colourful language)

Just give us the bloody price, the bottom price, full stop!!

After going in 5 or 6 shops and every one of them going through the same old routine it gets very wearing! She did however get a pair with about ½ an hour before the ferry left!

On the way back to Haines via the ferry we were rewarded with another quick sighting of a Humpbacked whale, slightly too quick for my camera though this time!

Back in the town we came across people in their traditional dress and then we headed off to another nice spot to stay overnight.

As we left Haines Gill had read about a film set in Haines called “Dalton” which was used for the Disney film “White fang”, I don’t recall seeing it, but she did.

That morning our time in Alaska was coming to an end, we headed up to the border spotting another black bear on the way and went through the American border, however we got turned back from the Canadian one as we had firewood on board!

So we turned around went the ¼ mile back to the American border (who let us in, otherwise we would have been in no mans land!) dumped our firewood and returned to the Canadian border who let us through this time. They also allowed us to pick up a load of firewood that someone going into Alaska had been turned around and had to dump for the same reason.

Our firewood!!!!

 

On the way back I also had to play chicken with this fella..

 

We stopped off at our lovely river spot for another night and then headed down to Whitehorse where we would stay and wait for Tom & Becky.

And we will leave you with….where is Wadders?

That’s it for this edition… Next time…breakdowns and forest fires.

Take care everyone xx

Alaska, outward bound?

 

 

On the old Glen Highway just north of Anchorage we found the cheapest fuel in Alaska at the time thanks to “Gas Buddy” a place called “Alice Mae’s” and at $2.54 I think we were both well happy as the average up here seems to be around the $2.95.

They even let us stop there overnight with the RV too.

We managed to get to Palmer on the Saturday and Fred Myers had opened a new store so we were able to use their old store car park across the road as another free overnighter for a couple of nights.

We did a few yard sales during the day, and I managed to pick up a pair of fishing waders for $5.

In the evening we went to a bar called Moose hall and listened to some live music and even played some darts our first time in nearly 20 years we have thrown some arrows!

The idea of coming to Palmer on a weekend was that just 8 miles outside at a place called Butte they had Drag racing on a Sunday for $15 each, we got there at 10am and stayed till 6pm. A great day and some brilliant cars with very loud engines!

It got so warm, I even caught Gill taking off her coat…

 

I did post a face book live broadcast but I guess most of you were in bed at 10.30pm, but a few of you got to see it live.

A short video is here…. DRAG RACING

What does amaze me and also fill me with envy, is the passion that the Americans feel when their anthem is sung, perhaps ours should be about the country and not an individual?

Have a watch here and see what I mean.

From Palmer we headed east along the Glen Highway to Glenallen and headed south to Valdez a very scenic drive and some breath-taking waterfalls.

Click on this for a short very badly narrated video of the falls

Valdez itself is quaint and we had a wander around did a few Geocaches and then spent a couple of hours sea fishing. We also met a couple from Leeds and two couples from New Zealand.

Valdez also had some interesting wildlife..

 

And a very nice harbour area..

 

Worthington Glacier is on the road from Valdez, and it is a glacier that you can hike right up to, so we did.

 

We did pop into Wrangell & St Elias NP, but a 60 mile gravel road prevented us from going all the way, so we went in at the top of the park too, just to see the difference in the two landscapes.

 

 

Just outside a place called Copper Center we came across a river called “Klutina River”

We were in no rush to get anywhere, so we stopped off here for a couple of hours and did a spot of fishing, a couple of hours though turned into a couple of days. Remember my purchase of the waders, well they came in use here and at that bargain of $5 they helped me catch 4 sockeye salmon over those couple of days.

On the Tok Cut off road at mile marker one, we stopped at a “turnout” (Lay-by) for the night and we were very lucky to experience such a view.

Once into Tok, it was into “Fast Eddies” for lunch, Gill got her hair cut nearby, we filled up the rig with water and fuel and emptied the waste tanks.

That my friends was Alaska temporarily finished, but I am sure it wont be the end of the “Alton tower” rides that they call “Frost Heaves” or natures speed bumps!!!

Search youtube and you find some videos like this or here for some better images

 

Until next time, love Terry and Gill xx

The Kenai Peninsula, Alaska.

Anchorage. 

After we said a sad farewell to Denali we headed down to Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska.

We managed to find somewhere to park the RV, Centennial Park at the junction of 9^th and P streets.

In fact it was so nice there we stayed 2 nights and had free entertainment both nights too.

The first night, we watched a 6k and 12k run and the finish line was about 50 yards from the rig, and the second night there was a Philipine night, with their traditional music and food.  Terry gave a man a set of golf clubs as he had managed t buy a new bag with a set of clubs included for $10 from a Thrift Store earlier in the day, and the man returned later with a selection of food from a food store, so another free meal was had.

Anchorage was a nice city, we both liked it, and the people were friendly and sociable.

We took a nice walk around the city and came across the local air-lake, so we stood and watched a few sea planes come and go.

We visited Cabellas, one of my favourite stores over here, where they were doing food tasters as you entered, including ice-cream. Another free lunch really.

 

It was also time to enquire about a fishing licence up here, so we went into a store and the guy was English so we had a long chat. I didn’t get a license but he did tell us to go to Ship Creek and watch the King Salmon run, which we did.

We couldn’t see the Salmon but there were plenty of people after them.

 Gill and I, as you can see I’m putting a few pounds on…..

From Anchorage we headed down towards Homer stopping off on the way at Alyeska Resort for a free Blue-Grass Festival. And not far away a nice river, with some wildlife.

In a place called Ninilchek we managed to get a campsite using our Passport America membership giving us 50% off. We came here as we wanted to meet up with Chris and Charles. Chris is the lady that does our insurance on the RV & car. Chris got here on the Thursday and came over for a drink and a natter.

The following night, we had Chris, Charles, Albert (Chris’s brother) and 2 of Chris’s friends over Lynn and Mickey. Chris made us a Chilli and we spent a very nice evening together. It was fantastic to meet them and good to be able to say we have more friends here. We also went for breakfast with them down in Homer.

I also started chatting to a bloke called Mike, Mike used to live in the outback of Alaska, trapping and living off the land, a real nice interesting bloke. These two strolled through the RV park one evening too.

Homer was our destination and we made the small drive there to check out the area before moving the rig down there for a couple of days. It was very busy! On the way down to Homer we saw a few sights that were interesting….

This guy makes me smile everytime I look at this picture.

The Rv is on that spit of land down there!!

Across from us was this, the Harding Icefield, with Glaciers coming down.

We stayed on Homers spit for 3 nights while I got some serious fishing in, when I say serious I mean…the first day I fished from 1pm to 01.30, the second from about 11am until about 4.30am and the third day from 6am until 1pm. Gill? She just sat in the rig reading and occasionally (twice) bought me a coffee and doughnut and bacon roll down. I came away from there very tired but pleased to say I caught my first ever King Salmon.

We also met this Bald eagle fella….

 

Donna and Rich, who we met last year, recommended we stop off at Coopers Landing on the way out of Homer to eat. We did stop there after I had been “combat fishing” on the Russian river for Salmon. Alas, despite paying $11 for a 3 minute ferry trip, I came away empty handed in fish, but chuffed for the experience.

Seward was next on the list and we stopped off at Tern Lake for an overnight, stunning scenery.

Seward was a wonderful drive and stunning scenery. We stopped off and did a hike to “Exit Glacier”

Then had a drive around Seward and Gill spotted a whale out in the sea, so we stopped and tried to capture them on camera, not brilliant shots, but you can see there were two of them. Another one ticked off the list.

From there it was north and out of the “Kenai Peninsula” the end to a wonderful vacation period on this part of Alaska.

I didn’t think Cougars were a native of Alaska, no disrespect intended but there comes a time when you dress your age!!!

Until next time, love to you all

T&G

 

Fairbanks & Denali, Alaska.

Alaska lured us into a false sense of security from the moment we passed the border crossing. The road was amazing, the best we had driven on for weeks, smooth, free from pot holes and frost heaves and no gravel, at least for a few miles then it was even worse than the 66 miles before the crossing.

Seriously, you would not want to drive a tractor down some of it yet alone a 34’ RV towing a car.

It was like that right down to a place called “Chicken” and for a few miles after too.

Chicken, is a very small place with fewer than a dozen stores and even less things for entertainment. A Dredge, a few chickens and a couple of RV parks.

 

We did stop and had another go at Gold panning a little further, but it was the same old story….Nothing!

 

I wish!

Tok, was the first “major” town we got to and I use that term loosely, but it did give us chance to fill up the rig with water, dump the tanks and give her and the car a wash to see what colour she really is under all that dirt.

I managed to do a bit of whittling as we were camped along the way..

Delta Junction was the end of the Alaskan highway which we also came across

 

From there it was on to Fairbanks

which was as far north as we were going, we stayed at “Pioneer Park” for 12 bucks a nights.

Car of the blog?

Kathryn….you lost?

 

 

A couple of things had been recommended to us:-

Fairbanks University have a very good museum which we visited, but I got the feeling I was being watched?

 

 

We visited the park and had an “All you can eat Salmon bake” well I say we, at $34 it was just me. The Salmon was fantastic (both servings) as was the prime rib, and beer battered cod.

So that is what a cache is!

One of our dolly tyres had a slow puncture so we got that fixed, and as we were driving around town, we came across a busy section in an industrial area loads of people and trucks parked by the side of the road, so we pulled in and asked what was going on.

We were told that every month, one of the businesses in the area would put on a free lunch for anyone who popped in. So….We popped in, burgers, hot dogs, salad, pasta, coleslaw, desserts, drinks and even Magnum ice creams….just help yourselves!

Nothing like a free lunch is there?

Can you imagine that happening down on Marsh Barton or Sowton Industrial Estates?

As you can well imagine, my diet could be going a lot better than it is. Me bad!

 

Denali NP was a big reason for coming this far north in Alaska.  Whilst in Fairbanks we managed to book an RV site on one of the Denali NP campsites. You can only drive your car 15 miles into the park then you have to buy a shuttle bus ticket. But by staying on their campsite we were allowed to drive 29 miles into the park and by paying $5 on top of the shuttle ticket price we could use the bus every day, and we sure did that.

 

We went into the park the day before with the car and did the 15 miles; we saw a few Caribou and Moose and other wildlife.

 

Then we stopped off at the dog sled kennels and saw a free demonstration and got to pet the dogs.

Paul Mirfin….The cars are getting bigger:

 

We then left the car and dolly in the park and took the RV down to Nenana Canyon just outside the park and stayed the night. It is a very “Touristy” town and if you desperate you can buy a loaf of bread for £6 a loaf or $7.49.

The following day we drove the 29 miles to the Teklanika campsite, set up then promptly caught our reserved shuttle and took a trip 53 miles into the park to Toklat.

 

The second day we had a shock to the system at 07.30, very heavy snow was falling and continued to fall until 2pm. We managed to get on a shuttle bus again but it stopped after a mile because an earlier bus had come off the road.

 

 

 

All buses had been stopped. However after less than 2 minutes on that bus we did spot a lone wolf walking the river bed.

So we walked back to the rig until the snow cleared.

 

 

We walked up the river bed and joined the road in the afternoon and we were lucky enough to get onto the first bus that would start the runs again. Lucky break for us!

Less than 5 minutes into the ride, the driver stopped and we were greeted by the sight of our first Grizzly bear with her 2 cubs. A fantastic bonus.

 

We stayed on the bus again to Toklat and decided to hike 4 ½ miles back before getting back on one of the busses and then returned the same route and were lucky enough to see the bears near the same place again.

 

We were also lucky enough to see Mt Denali (Formerly known as Mt McKinley)

 

Apparently of the 600,000 visitors to Denali only 1 in 3 gets to see the mountain.

When we got back to the rig a Park Ranger was giving a talk about 4 inspirational climbers who had climbed the mountain. The one that stuck in my mind was one that had done the highest peak in every continent at the first attempt including Everest, until it came to do Denali, which took her 4 attempts! A Geocacher friend of mine Jen, knew someone who was on the mountain when we were there and had been stuck on the mountain for 6 days because of the weather! She is clearly a formidable mountain.

Our penultimate day, we chose to get on the bus to a near halfway point called “Polychrome point” and hike back some of the way, well we ended up hiking 13 miles, spotted another grizzly, (luckily some distance away)

 

before getting back on the shuttle for the final few miles only to encounter another Grizzly walking down the road towards the bus. Glad we took that bus rather than walking into the bear!

That folks was Denali.

 

Fantastic place, awesome sights and one of the best parks so far.

 

Some pictures of Mt Denali in all its glory…

 

And finaly……..spot the moose?

 

T&G

Hope you enjoy the reading xx

 

 

The Alaskan Highway

Hello every one;

So we had made it to Dawson Creek (and out of Alberta) and mile 0 of the Alaskan highway (From hereon known as AH) this I guess made our journey to Alaska feel real. I mean we have all seen the “Ice road truckers” programs right?

Dawson Creek did not have a lot going for it, but it did have the mile marker and a few shops and a very informative visitor centre with free wi-fi.

While in the visitor centre the lady told us about a small detour onto the old AH to drive over the only remaining wooden bridge.

We also came across a professional driver who couldn’t keep his vehicle on the road!!

Our first target on the AH was Fort Nelson, where they had a free dump station and an excellent visitor centre with free coffee and PC’s with free wifi for ½ an hour.

Liard hot Springs was recommended to us by a few people so that was our next target. On the way we managed to see 3 Moose all of which avoided the camera!

But we did get one…

One Porcupine,

We also saw several Buffalo just grazing alongside the road.

A few more bear pictures..

Laird springs was a nice break and for $5 each we spent a relaxing break in some nice 40 degree hot water, while snow looked down on us from the nearby mountains.

Watson Lake was the next town and into a new province of Canada to aim for. We had read and seen that you could put a sign up with your name on it. It was all started many years ago by a homesick GI. Now there are over 80,000 signs from every corner of the globe….Including Exeter.

One of our friends is about two weeks ahead of us and we found her sign and put ours above theirs.

We continued along the AH up to a place called Whitehorse. There was not a lot in Whitehorse other than a good visitor center with good WI-FI and the Klondike ship.

We then headed off the AH (we shall return to the AH, soon) and onto the Klondike Highway to Dawson city.

Came across a deserted garage on the route..

Dawson city was where the Klondike gold rush all started, and to look at it you would think it was still in the 1800’s. We loved it here; it just all seemed so authentic.

The streets were muddy and un-tarmaced with wooden sidewalks. Luckily for us to add to the authenticity it rained most of the time we were there.

We went up to the Dome to get a view overlooking the city.

We also went up to Bonanza creek where the first gold was discovered and you were allowed to pan for gold here….we did…and found nothing. We have yet to find any gold in the wild.

In the evening we went to “Diamond tooth Gerties” which was a casino come show theatre where you had to join for $24 (Canadian) and you got to see three shows. 8pm, 10pm, and midnight. The shows were quite good and entertaining and when we came out at 12.30 it was still light. When we get to Fairbanks we may even get to see the midnight sun.

During the break between the 8 and 10pm show, we sauntered off down to the “Downtown hotel” where they do the “Sourtoe” Challenge. (Recently done by Michael Portillo on his train journey programme)….and now by me J

Basically you buy a drink, pay $5 and they put someone’s pickled toe into your drink and you have to drink it and let the toe touch your lips. Yep I did do it, why not?

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sourtoe-cocktail

We camped across the Yukon in a government campground for $12 for the night.

We left Dawson City on Monday morning for the short 69 miles to the Alaskan border. However it was over the road called the “Top of the world highway”

Some of the roads…

And some of the bridges…..

69 miles of some of the roughest roads we have driven on with an average speed of 30mph.

We got to the border and were inspected by the border guard, any fire arms, have you got over $10,000? He then boarded the RV and promptly confiscated my 3 oranges. You Americans need to feed your border guards…they keep stealing my food!

Perhaps it was a good sign, he let us in…we had made it to ALASKA!!!

 

Car of the blog????

Terry checking out Kathryns 21st birthday present?

 

Until next time…..Denali & Fairbanks

 

T&G

The “Bear” Necessities of Canada

We left Columbia Falls and headed the 66 miles up the 93 past Eureka!

And to the border of USA/Canada at “Port Roosville”.

 

Arriving at the border we were asked a few questions, “How long will you be in Canada?” “Do you have you any firearms or weapons?” “Have you got more than 10,000 Canadian Dollars?” “Do you have any alcohol?”

We responded…..2 weeks to get up to Alaska, No firearms, just a hunting knife, a catapult and some sparklers (yeah I know, sparklers, we bought them for Kathryn for the 4^th of July 2015 and we still have some left) No to the 10,000 Dollars and a bottle and a half of wine…… ”Enjoy your trip” We were on our way, Canada let us in!!

 

But they did not let our phone signal in, as for some reason my carrier here in the US doesn’t cover Canada…Grrrrr, so its wifi when we stop if we can to stay in touch.

This one is staying in touch too, angry little thing.

We continued up the 93/95 and managed to miss our turning at Radium so carried onto Golden and headed across to Lake Louise which is in Banff National Park, where we were hoping to spend the night. We came across a place where trains go through tunnels at the same time as they go over themselves, this picture shows a train entering one tunnel and coming out another and going over it’s tail still entering the lower tunnel if that makes sense!

 

We were ready to stop at Lake Louise but because we were in the NP we were told you could not just stop and camp. So we continued to head north to a possible site where we could park.

For some reason our sat nav seemed to disagree with the way we wanted to go, so we took a punt and continued up the 93/95.

 

We pushed on up through the park to a place called “The Crossing” (just north of the Saskatchewan river crossing)

Fuel here was $1.49L (Canadian $ now remember, but still expensive) but we were not going to risk running out anywhere on this trip. They also allowed us to park up for free for the night.

 

The following morning we pushed on north again through Banff & Jasper national parks.

We cannot describe the beauty here and my pictures in no way can portray the awesome spectacle of this place, but you get the idea.

As we were driving towards Jasper, I saw a coach and 2 cars parked on the side of the road with 4 ways going, I though they had had a bump, but as I passed I saw what they were looking at, luckily for us, 50 yards down the road was a large lay-by or Turnout as they call them over here and I swung the RV and car around and pulled up behind the cars and coach and both Gill and I relished at the sight before us , our first sighting of a Black Bear.

It was fantastic to watch it for a few minutes and a sight neither of us will ever forget.

We got to Jasper around lunchtime and had a look around, did a couple of Geocaches (That’s Alberta ticked) and contacted Kathryn while sat outside KFC via Whatsapp.

 

We stopped for lunch alongside one of the many rivers and we could smell bleach somewhere in the rig, but could find no reason for it.

I did take a shot of one of the rivers through the RV window just to show how green the water is;

 

From Jasper, it was up to Hinton where the sat nav again disagreed with our choice so we ignored her (I always call it HER, as SHE has no sense of direction) LOL and headed up the 40 to a place called Grande Prairie. It would make it another long day but somewhere to head for. The 40 was a 2 lane industrial road, loads of trucks up the north end but no reason for the sat nav to ignore this route.

As we were going along, low and behold another one of those buses came along, you wait for ages and there was our second black bear sighting of the day, just nosing alongside the road. Not as clear this time but here are the shots.

Once we got to Grand Prairie, we found a Wal-Mart and Gill popped into get permission to stay there overnight while I parked the rig. Again I could smell bleach and looking at the carpet I could see a bleached patch next to one of the cupboards, quickly stripping out the storage I found our bleach bottle had got a hole in the bottom and had seeped out through the bottom of the cupboard and into the carpet, as well as splashing on my trousers and shirt. It’s just another problem to overcome I guess…sad face!

The following day, guess what? Yep it was north again this time to Dawson Creek and the start of the Alaskan highway.

Until next time…… The Alaskan highway.

PS, thanks for the comments, keep them coming.

Nevada to Glacier NP, Montana.

Reno Nevada to Glacier NP Montana

We left the Sun & Fun Rv park in Tulare (4/5 points, internet poor)) and headed for Glacier NP some 1300 miles north, we decided to pick off this NP to void going this far north next year and also to give us a different route into British Columbia, Canada opposed to the one we come out of Canada near Vancouver.

We headed north in California and then east to Nevada, boondocking in Reno, east along the I80 before heading north on the I-95 into Oregon where we boondocked again.

Some of the views above are what we came across, including a plane flying at us down the road!

We just loved this fence….

I went metal detecting for an hour on some public land adjacent to the road. Trust me….little was found.

I did have a tumbleweed moment though…

The following day, another push north out of Oregon and into Idaho and stopped the night in a Walmart car park in Clarkston, Washington just over the river from Idaho where I managed to do a couple of Geocaches alongside snake river, my first in Washington.

We then had 2 small legs of the journey left; luckily we came across a free RV site. Yeah I know free? Right, it was, and it was called the 50,000 silver dollar bar and gift shop on the I-90 at Haugan, Montana. Click Here to see more about the place. Worth a free stop if you are passing.

It was a rustic stop, but the bar is amazing with every wall and bar covered with over 50,000 silver dollars. It’s worth stopping just to see them. We had tea in the restaurant there, before getting a good nights kip.

 

We made it the next day, after a very scenic 140 mile drive to Columbia falls RV park, one of the tidiest and cleanest parks we have ever stayed at. And for some daft reason I didn’t take any pictures of it!

We headed into Glacier NP from the west as we were only 15 miles from the entrance it is a truly wonderful landscape and we did a couple of hikes along the river and up to Avalanche lake , which was a 5 mile round hike.

It snowed on the way but it had a couple of great sites along the way 

Spot the chipmunk!

Mr or Mrs mountain goat, resting several thousand feet high up a cliff!

This one is for you Kathryn, we drove across to the East side and saw these wild horses;

Gill wants to know if this one will fit on our drive?

And the car of this weeks blog…..this one?

or this one?

Until next time…..

T&G

Sequoia & Kings Canyon

 

After dropping Kathryn off at the airport, the following morning Wednesday it was time to start heading north.

It was good to get out of LA and away from the urban sprawl and the traffic.

Gill does like her architecture and old buildings, but neither of us like the urban areas much.

We travelled 170 miles north to a place called Tulare, just a short drive to start with and a convenient stop off point where we set up in “Sun n Fun” RV Park which is a Passport America so cost $25.00 per night for 4 nights. We are using this site to hit two National parks, Kings Canyon and Sequoia.

Now if you remember last year we raved about our “America the Beautiful” card that saved us loads of money, and it still had two months left to run on it………But do you think we could find it, Nope, we looked everywhere but still have not come across it, so we had to buy another for $80. Thursday’s entrance would have been $30, so we will see how much we can save again. Me bad for losing the other one though.

Our first visit in the park was the visitor centre, followed by the “General Grant tree” some 1800 to 2000 years old!!! This is not it, because you can’t get this close but it shows the size.

Short Video can be found

 

Kings Canyon is overlooked by the snow capped Sierra Nevada Mountains;

 

and has the King river running in full torrent through the bottom of it. White water rafting would be interesting here, although I am not sure if they do it here.

Video HERE

There are also a couple of nice waterfalls this one is Grizzly falls;

A short video of the falls can be found  HERE

sorry for flipping the camera around…me bad!

We then backtracked the scenic byway to Sequoia

to the “General Sherman tree” the largest by volume in the world and some 2200 years old and some 11 metres wide. I bet there are some stories to be told if only the tree could talk.We then went and hiked the “big trees trail” which were surrounding a wet meadow and there were over a dozen giant sequoias to see. We were also driving above the snowline now.

Followed by Moro rock, a quarter of a mile hike up some 350 steps, but the views were outstanding.

Moro Rock

Tunnel log was fun and we just had to drive through it (3 times, I know I’m just a big kid)

Video HERE

 

Then it was Crescent meadow, where bears were meant to frequent, but as normal….we saw none.

 

We then drove back completing our route out of the park which included 130 curves and 16 switchbacks.

 

We then drove past Lake Kaweah.

 

and onwards back towards the RV park. On the way we thought we had arrived home at Exeter, but fortunately for us it’s was not to be yet.

Guess what? While looking for something else we also found our America the beautiful card, typical.

After we searched for it Gill said” well at least if we do come across it, we have both looked for it and neither of us can say anything”

Really?

so what did I get from her ” Oh that was your box, I Didn’t look in there”

We left the Sun & Fun Rv park and headed north, our destination was some 1300 miles away in Montana, Glacier national park. As you can imagine our RV is a thirsty girl at 6.5 mpg. Fuel over here has risen in price and where we were getting it for around the low $2 rate last year it is now closer to $3, we managed to find some for $2.45 at Sam’s club, (an offshoot of Walmart I think)

We had a nice phone call from Rob and Tiina, our friends in Orlando Florida and Rob told us about a sign in Reno Nevada where we were going to stay that night, Once we had parked up so this one is for you Rob and thanks for telling us about it.

 

We were “Boondocking” that night (Boondocking, is camping off grid, no Electric hook-up, running water, or sewage dump) but it’s usually free. When we had parked up, I shot off the 3 ½ miles on the bicycle to get the picture, nice to see, Thanks Rob.

We also took the opportunity of making a few phone calls and catching up with some of our American associates to see where they were and weather we would be crossing paths at all.

Only another 800+ miles to go to get to Glacier, so a few photos of our trip north next time……Along with Glacier NP and hopefully a crossing into Canada.

 

Enjoy

T&G

 

 

 

 

Hello again from the USA, welcome aboard.

Before I start about us, I want to dedicate this edition to a friend we lost in April.

Back in June 2015 in South Carolina we had the pleasure of meeting Barry, who was the gent who took Terry out on his boat fishing for the day. See here; https://twaddup.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/sciuris-carolinensis-cont/

 

It’s the day I caught my biggest ever fish, and I still have the hook that caught that fish. Barry stayed at Carolina Landing and had gone there to see out his days. Barry had cancer and I think he chose a wonderful place to spend his remaining time on this earth. Thank you for sharing a day of your life with me; it’s a day that I shall treasure for the rest of my days. RIP Barry.

After working for 6 months, both Gill and I have packed our jobs in again and travelled back across the water to continue our travels. This time Kathryn came with us to spend a week exploring LA before flying back to the UK.

We eventually made it onto US soil at 15.30 and managed to get away from the airport 3 hours later!

We were herded up and down the immigration booths in long lines behind barriers. The booths themselves were numbered to the high 40’s, where the 1 to 20’s were I have no idea, I didn’t see them, and why half of them have to be empty with no one manning them, frustrating? Irritating? A couple of words that could be used but not descriptive enough for me!

Up and down sideways and back and still we were no closer to the booths. We eventually got close and watched several of the attendants chat away amongst themselves while we just waited, with another 1000 odd people corralled up like animals.

Some of the ones that were manned took 10 to 15 minutes on some of us “aliens” to get through.

I get trying to protect the borders but 3 hours to get through, Donald Trump….I want my 3 hours back!!

 

We got the hire car and headed 90 miles for the RV storage site at Wilderness lakes getting there just after dark and now some 23 hours travelling with no sleep. On getting to the site we were greeted with “Sorry you can’t get your RV until tomorrow, we don’t let anyone pick up after dark”.

Now believe it or not, I did stay calm…..and we did get into the storage and get to the vehicles. The Rav 4 had lost it cover and was filthy, but she started J

The RV however would not start, we managed to get her jumped stated and pulled out onto a site, but she would immediately die on us if we tried to switch anything on. The following day it was a new battery and we were away to LA. Dockweiler RV Park next to the beach and right next to the airport.

 

Giving the car a quick clean out and we came across a big black spider, when we looked it up in our book it turns out it was a Black Widow spider…gulp!

After a quick trip to get provisions and a visit to “Olive Garden” so that Kathryn and Gill could have their obligatory soups it was back to the rig. Being camped next to the airport is it noisy? Yes but we were that tired we slept through.

Plane flying over, as they did every minute!

Our first full day in LA and we managed to hit Venice Beach, Santa Monica Pier, the Hollywood sign, Beverly hills and Sunset Boulevard.

 

When we went out Thursday and returned to the park it had filled up with a huge bunch of Californians, we did try to say hello but they did not seem to want to converse and no disrespect to my American friends but these people did nothing for your reputation! I mean, why have an RV with toilets etc and then urinate behind your RV? Clearly they drank too much beer. Thankfully for us they packed up and left on Sunday. It’s always a shame when the few spoil it for the many.

 

Kathryn, as I am sure most teenagers do, surfs the net, and she follows a bunch of You tubers, she had heard them recommend a restaurant called “Fogo De Chao” which she wanted to try. So after a day visiting the sites we went to this restaurant in Beverly Hills. It has a different concept in that there are no menus you just select your salad/condiments side dishes from a central island, and when you are ready for your meat you turn over a coaster from red to green. Then the chefs come around with 16 different large meat laden skewers and carve off as much from as many as you want.

Different, and the meats were fantastic. One thing we had not seen was a menu, therefore also no prices. “How much is this place Kathryn?” “I don’t know” she replied.

“Well if it’s over a hundred bucks you’re paying”! The bill came and Kathryn’s jaw hit the floor, it was over $200, and that was with no drinks, no starters and no desserts , also making it more expensive than the meal we had at the Savoy in London for Gills 50^th (as it was our first visit they gave us a complimentary dessert) I tipped more for this meal than I usually pay for a meal for two of us. Needless to say, it was our first visit and it will be our last.

Saturday we visited Hollywood Boulevard where the Chinese Theatre and all the stars are on the pavement. There were lots of people dressed as superheroes, Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissor hands etc, and we found a few stars we wanted to find, such as Ryan Reynolds and Celine Dion for a friend.

Sunday night was an interesting night to say the least, we had been out bowling and went to the cinema (Kat saw Logan, and Gill & I watched The Circle), when we came home at 22.30 there was a bit of a party going on opposite our RV with 5 African Americans. At 02.30 it was still going on, Music blaring from the car and lots of profanity and laughing. Unable to find a security telephone number I go marching across to their site and say to the female of the group “Excuse me, it’s 2.30 in the morning and were trying to sleep, would you mind turning the music down please” I got the reply, “You want da music down you go ask him” (This has started well I thought) So in for a penny in for a pound I go over to the car driver and ask him to turn the music down, he does and apologises. I thank them and walk back to the RV and sit there waiting for any comeback.

The car driver goes home the woman goes to bed and 2 remain outside, one of which gesticulates towards our RV saying “white trash” “who does baldy F****ing think he is telling us what to do?” “Who does he think he is John F****ing Wayne”? this went on for a couple of hours before someone else complained to security twice and they finally went to bed…as did I at this point. A lesson learnt, I shall always get a security number in future!

Tuesday came and it was time to say goodbye to Kathryn our daughter, it was really nice to have her for a week with us and the RV feels a little emptier (and tidier) without her. I know we both miss her already.

 

Next time; Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

Nearly forgot….Car of the blog 🙂

Welcome to the 2017 blog.

So firstly welcome to 2017 and my first blog of the year. We hope you had a great Christmas and New Year and that 2017 brings you everything you hope for.

What does 2017 hold for us?

Well it certainly holds another trip to the USA, and that will start on April the 24^th when we fly out of Heathrow and head towards “Trumpland”.

 

A mere 91 days 21 hours 29 minutes and 1 second away.

Hopefully, although we are foreigners, Mr Trump will let us in to spend some more of our hard earned money in your Country.

We will fly into Los Angeles and will then head for Wilderness Lakes about 90 miles away to where the RV is stored to pick her up again.

We will be joined on our trip by Kathryn our daughter for the first week as she wanted to visit Los Angeles.

The plan is very loose at the moment and it will probably stay that way but we plan to stay at Wilderness overnight before heading down to LA to stay at a RV park there on the beach for a week, before Kathryn heads home again.

We then plan to head north, but how far north you ask?

Well, it seems that a few of the people we have met over our last 2 trips are heading north too, north to Alaska to be precise. We had planned to go to Alaska in 2018, but we would like to meet up with them again, so we thought why not Alaska, so 2017 it is then, although at the time of going to press, one couple have dropped out; Donna and Rich, and we are gutted. We were so looking forward to seeing and spending some time with them.

We are going to drop Kathryn off at the airport and then head firstly to Sequioa National Park and Kings Canyon National Park staying there for a couple of days then on the road again.

We hope to enter British Colombia, Canada on or about the 15^th of May, and then Alaska 2500 miles further up again another 2 weeks later.

A route that looks something like this;

Have we booked any campsites in BC or Alaska, nope, we are just going to take it on the fly and see what happens.

As I said these are very loose plans, we are hoping to stay up that end of the Country until coming back into the Washington area in August, then Oregon later in August for the total eclipse of the sun…..

and finishing up at Yosemite National park in October before flying home from San Francisco at the end of October.

So, are you ready?

Will you join us and follow the blog again……get ready!

 

T&G

 

 

 

 

 

See ya!

Well, that is it. End of part deux. Time to say Goodbye until we return in 2017.

I thought I would do a quick summary of the year.

This was our intended route;

Which did alter in a couple of places, in that we visited San Antonio and the Alamo, we went to Vegas and also down to San Diego.

So a brief summary;

It started back in May when we flew into Florida and had a warm welcome by the Chapman’s in Orlando.

An awesome family who helped us no end at the start of part one. We love catching up with these guys and will forever be grateful for their support then and ongoing, and if they will have us again, we will be sure to spend a little more social time with them.

We met some friends from our last trip in Florida, the Hayes family for lunch, and Lee and Larry for Pickleball.

We then flew onto Houston to pick the vehicles up and were met by Gary and Lola at the airport (Thankyou guys) and had lunch with them and Bill and Judy at Lake Conroe. Later in the trip (Lake Texhoma) we met up again with Pam and Jim, who we met in North Carolina.

Then in Verde Valley quite by chance we bumped into Lee and Larry again and Tom and Paula who we met playing pickleball in Lake Conroe. We also made new friends this trip, Donna and Rich who we went fishing and played cards with, Becky and Tom at Verde valley, playing pickleball again.

We have hit some more states, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California, so the map is filling up nicely.

As is my sand collection;

Then it was the National Parks, Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of Gunnison, Mesa Verde, Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Capital Reef, Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Joshua tree.

Now it wouldn’t be a Waddups’ trip without some mishaps, so lets go through them, This is like a confession as I haven’t really mentioned some of them; A cracked rib at Houston (me)(playing pickleball) a cracked windscreen on the car (not my fault) a cracked phone screen (don’t know how that happened) a cracked rear screen on my compact camera (That was me as well, dropsy!) A leak on the rear slides hydraulic pipes, a generator outage, an alternator for the Rav4 as well as 2 tyre pressure sensors on the Rav4,  2 car tyre punctures, as well as those there have been lots of little jobs to get done all the time, that would happen to you as well if you moved you house 200 miles every other week!

We have seen fuel range from $1.89 to $4.00 a gallon and we have traveled 121,800 miles in the car that’s 8000 this trip, and the RV has done 38220 miles, approx 3500 miles this year. Thr RV has averaged 6.5 miles per gallon and the car 30 miles per gallon.

We’ve been up the mountains to 12,000 feet at Monarch ridge Colorado, and down as low -282 feet in Death Valley, California.

We’ve had a flash flood complete with a snake on our RV step at San Antonio, Tornado warnings at Paulo Duro Canyon, Forest fire evacuation warnings at Santa Fe, then at Palm Desert California a sandstorm and a 3.4 earthquake and lots of tremors, I guess you could say it has been eventful.

The bad part was the expense of the RV and getting ripped off in Cedar City, the high point was meeting friends again.

 

Next year has yet to be planned, but perhaps it will be the great Alaska;

Both Gill and I are both back to full time work, and saving hard for the next trip.

While we were away, Kathryn was kind enough to print off the blogs and take them to a lady I tried to visit as often as possible. She was 91 and at times very lonely, suffered with chest infections and fell last year and broke her hip. She enjoyed the blog so that she could follow our travels. We arrived home Saturday and I went to visit her on Tuesday, she looked very well and we had a lovely chat over a “Lovage and Rum”.

Thursday while I was out I had a call from Kathryn to say that Joan had past away overnight. I am so sad that it happened so sudden, but glad that I saw her again so recently.

It just goes to show how this moment is always here, but tomorrow may never come.

This blog is in memoriam to Joan, RIP my love. When we get to Virginia, we shall drink to you xx

 

That’s it for 2016….see ya’ll next year.

 

 

 

Pio Pico & Wilderness lakes, San Diego

We arrived just 6 miles from the Mexican border at Pio Pico, our penultimate stop and a Thousand Trails campsite, near San Diego at a place called Jamul, very close to the Mexican border with planes, helicopters and border patrol trucks all around us most nights.

The sites are nice and roomy with Olive trees for shade. With little critters sticking their heads out occasionally.

The site has 2 pools; one for adults only and it is heated as the air temperature is generally around 80 degrees now as Fall has arrived in the USA.

We went into San Diego to check out the beaches and went over to Coronado which is a beautiful island with million dollar homes on it.

Whilst on Coronado we visited Centre beach, which is a great beach to spend a day on.

We also watched as an aircraft carrier returned to port.

 

After leaving Coronado via the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge we went to the far end of San Diego to Cabrillo, which is a national monument named after Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo who was the first European to set foot on the west coast of what is now the United States in 1542. (and the location of my first Facebook live broadcast) It is a very pretty place to visit and you can visit a lighthouse, see a statue of Cabrillo, and if you are lucky enough may see whales if you go the Whale overlook.  It costs $10.00 to enter the park, but our America the Beautiful came into play again.

 

Down below, on a place called Harbor Island (sorry for the American spelling) there is a roundabout with a statue and large bell bequeathed from Japan as San Diego is twinned with Yokohama. A great place to sit and watch the world go by.

Our next place to visit was “The Garden”, which is free to visit, and was built due to the long drought that has been affecting California for about 8 years and it gives ideas on water conservation and is a lovely place to visit. (There may have been a virtual Geocache there too)

 

A trip to the USS Midway was recommended & very impressive, but we did not go on it, but instead went to the park beside it and saw the statue of the Navy Officer and his gal, and the troops listening to Bob Hope which was really good.  Next door there is a Fish Market and Restaurant, so we decided to indulge ourselves and had lunch out on their veranda looking across at 3 aircraft carriers and the USS Midway looking down on us. The food was excellent, especially Terry’s seafood medley and oysters with clams as a starter.

To end our day in San Diego we went to Imperial Beach to watch the sun go down.

 

Back on the campsite we had 2 games of Crazy Golf and Gill actually won a round, which is the first time ever, so well done Gill. (You can tell I didn’t type this bit) We also went to the adult pool which has a volleyball pool, and a main pool which is heated and it was at the right temperature.  There is also a hot tub which we enjoyed.

Our second day in San Diego started in the Old Town State Park, which has original buildings from when first Spanish settlers arrived in 1769 and it has an Hotel, Hacienda, various museums, shops and restaurants and it is free and well worth a visit.

 

From Old Town we ventured Downtown to the Gas Lamp quarter which is between 4^th and 6^th Avenues, where we had lunch in Henry’s Pub and visited various shops in the area.  We went into Girendella’s which was an ice-cream shop inside an old cinema, which we liked to see.

 

 

From Downtown we went to Balboa Park which everyone has told us to visit, and again most of this is free.  The San Diego Zoo is inside this park, but we did not visit ($110 for the two of us) but were told it is the best Zoo in America, so if you like Zoos put this on you visit list.  We walked to the Botanical Garden, Spanish Village Art Centre, which is a pretty place, Old Globe Theatre, and Spreckles Organ Pavilion, but this was shut so did not see the organ.  Then it was back to the beach for an hours metal detecting…..41 cents richer, it was time to watch the sunset again.

One thing that has surprised us and that is how many Asians there are here and how many photos they have to take.

This one was waiting for her phone to recharge!!!!!

Orchids at the park….

We have both decided we like San Diego a lot, Nashville was my favourite city, but not anymore, we are certainly glad we got this far south in California to visit it.

The 3 witches of Pio Pico

On our last day in Pio Pico we did a 6 mile hike up the hills into the border patrol area around the campsite and the photos below show the sites we saw from up on the top.

 

Our next and last stop was Menefee about 70 miles north of Pio Pico at another Thousand Trails site called Wilderness Lakes, which has a canal running through it so Terry managed to do some fishing during our last days in America this year.

 

Wilderness lakes has been about relaxing and getting everything finalised before we fly home on the 21^st October.

A round of golf, fishing, Pickle ball and trying to finish up the food we have left before flying home.

The weather did cool down a bit, but is now climbing back up to the 100° again, we’ve even had fog!

So that is it from this side of the Atlantic, I have one blog left to do which I shall do when I get home, just a summary of our travels.

Typing this while having lunch in Olive Garden before our flight (which is already delayed)

So until next year, its good bye from us both, we loved meeting old friends and new ones too.

We hope you enjoyed following us around via the blo and that you found it interesting and fun.

T&G

Palm Desert

We left cottonwood a day early as we had a 370 mile drive and were going to stop somewhere on the way for a boondock.

We headed off down the interstate and hit the 303 (felt like we were home lol)

Then west on the I10 as far as a place called Quartzsite. I don’t think we have ever seen so many RV parks in one place that were so empty. We pulled into one just to dry camp (Same as boondocking, not hooking up to any facilities) overnight. While there we headed north in the car to something Gill had spotted on the map….”London Bridge” which was at a place called “Lake Havasu” AZ. Originally built in  1830 it was then dismantled in 1967 shipped across to Lake Havasu and reconstruction was complete in 1971.

We sat below the bridge and had our tea, before heading back to the RV, and onto Palm Desert RV resort the following day. As soon as we had set up we were hit by a sandstorm, our first experience of one and the sand gets everywhere.

 

On opening up the rear compartment of the RV, we were devastated to find the compartment awash with hydraulic fluid….again. We were gutted and booked it in yet again to be repaired this time with a national company

We have started to wind down now with less than 4 weeks to go, so spending time at the campsite, emptying the freezer, tidying and cleaning as well as going swimming most days.

We popped out into the desert to have a look at an Oasis which is caused by leakage up through the San Andreas Fault which we walked along for a mile or so.

You can see the fault running through the middle of this shot.

We have also experienced several tremors caused by small earthquakes nearby. I downloaded an app and checked the timings and…..yep…Earthquakes. The experts seem to think that the swarm of nearby quakes are a signal of a big one coming!

On the way back from Joshua tree we went down to “Salton sea”  (the source of the tremors)just to have a look around, a very lush area of vines, dates and grapefruit orchards.

The sea itself was strange, walking on what looked like guava. There was also thousands of dead fish, possibly from the quakes.

Some of us just relaxed…..

Back in July 2007 myself and 2 friends from the UK came to Palm Springs as part of a boy’s geocaching holiday where we did over 440 caches in a week, it was nice to see some of those sights again, including the wind turbines and some famous houses including Elvis Presley and Liberace houses.

Some of us just relaxed…..

Joshua tree National park sits in the next valley over from where we are so we took a drive over to and through the park.

Compared with previous parks it was less visually spectacular and basically just a desert environment. We did see some different rock formations, plenty of Joshua trees and a Cholla cactus garden.

We did a couple of hikes in the desert which was nice and cool as it is higher up and fall is here so the temperatures have dropped off a lot.

We saw a couple of old cars left in the desert, leftovers from a couple of mines that used to operate here.

We again met some nice people at the RV park, some we played pickleball with others in the pool.

Andy,Twig,Roy and Linda playing pickleball. And then it was Phil and Irene (previously from London) Kenny from Vegas and Frank and Candy, New York Italians.

And that is it folks two weeks left and we will be home. time for one or two more blogs, we will see.

Take care

T&G

 

 

 

 

Cottonwood, Arizona….and relax ?

We made the trip down to Cottonwood, Arizona which is about an hour north of Phoenix and an hour south of Flagstaff (The place of the meteor crater).

The campsite is nestled in a valley about four miles outside of Cottonwood. A very nice place, and one we would revisit.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Once we had set up we had a drive around the campsite looking at the pool and the lodges.

Life is full of surprises some times……

Well while looking at the facilities Terry spotted someone go past on a motorcycle that he recognized.

It was Lee and Larry who we met at the start of the year in Florida and played Pickle ball with. We stopped and yapped as you do, and then they told us that Tom,Paula and their dog Logan were also here whom we had met last year at Houston, Texas.

Paula & Logan, as you can see Logan has a green mustache!!!

So much for relaxing then, as we were up at 07:30 playing pickle ball each morning, but it was a nice surprise to bump into them again.

While we played, we also met up with another lovely couple, Thomas and Rebecca who full time in their 5^th wheel.

They are off to Alaska next year, (That’s 2 couples that we know doing it next year, we plan to do it the year after 2018, such a shame we couldn’t do it together)so it will be interesting to see how they get on. The one thing about doing what we are doing is that we have met some wonderful people and Tom and Becky certainly add to that list.

 

While here we wanted to go and see a game of American Football. Terry had been told that college football was meant to be really good, and he managed to book tickets to go and see a game in Phoenix between the “Arizona Sun Devils” & “The Texan Techs”.  Phoenix is another massive city of over 1.5 million people, and 4.5million in the metropolitan area. Some 40 miles from the stadium we saw a sign for the city limits! It covers some 516 sq miles.

The stadium is huge and they certainly know how to put on a show, but for the life of me I do not get how a 60 minute game lasted 4 hours, YEP 4 long hours. We told you before, these Americans are somewhat laid back!!

On the way back, we got to within 1 junction of our campsite on the interstate and there had been a large multi vehicle pile up including a tanker. We could sit and wait or take a 40 mile diversion. We took the diversion on scenic byway 89A which took us over mountains, through switchbacks galore and eventually we got back to the RV at 03:30am.

Gill wished her sister a happy birthday at about 1am whilst we were having an early breakfast at Denny’s at about 12.30am.

 

On the way to Jerome one day we stopped off at a place called Tuzigoot, another national monument and ruins of the Pueblo people. Another $20 saved.

Jerome was on the 89A, and is a little town perched on a hill side that was classed as a ghost town.  It was another “arty” town, but with a couple of interesting highlights.

 

A kaleidoscope store that is a must visit if you go there, with some wonderful examples and some very expensive ones too. We also popped into one of the museums that had some sculptures for sale, and we loved one that they had of a Bison but on closer inspection it was clear a label had been removed from underneath, and when queried the woman “didn’t know” but when pushed a little harder she did eventually tell us it was made in China! Needless to say it’s still on the shelf, unpurchased.

On a Wednesday the Haunted Hamburger,

a restaurant have half priced burgers and Larry and Lee had said to try the place for that and a “bloody Mary” the burger was nice, the desserts were huge, but good value at $7.50

and the bloody Mary…..My, that was strong and way short of a pleasant experience, but it looked different, with a stick of celery, piece of bacon, a boiled egg and an Olive all dressing the drink….Don’t ask em why it had all of that, i have no idea.

There was a hotel atop the hill that used to be an asylum, and it still has an old elevator with the iron gate, an old boiler and the old type switchboard (Which can be seen in the collage above). In the garage sat an old 1928 Rolls Royce Phantom.

 

On Friday and Saturday there was a Thunder Rally in old town Cottonwood, where approx. 3,500 bikers turn up and some camped at our site.  The bikes are mostly Harley’s but wow some were amazing.

We didn’t do a lot while at Cottonwood but one of the trips we did do was to go to Sedona. Sedona is a very “arty” town with some great hikes and lots of galleries and some nice houses too.

We hiked up to the base of these,

And the view was pretty good.

 

We also went to a chapel built between and on a rock escarpment,

below was a house that was stunning. It’s for sale at a cool $2.9 million.

 

About 140 miles away was another National park, “The Petrified Forrest” which also incorporates the “painted desert” area. We took a leisurely drive across to it and took the 26 mile drive through the park, stopping off at the overlooks and doing a few of the trails too. I loved this place, and some of the trees looked so much like they had been cut down and logged. In some of the stores where they sell polished petrified wood the colours are amazing.

Petrified Forrest

Painted Desert.

Talking of colours the “Painted Desert” was also colourful. The old mother road route 66 used to run through the park and there was an old 1932 Studebaker sitting where it went through to this day. By this car was also the place where Terry met a gent from England doing route 66 wearing a Leicester rugby shirt.  It was nice to talk about Exeter Chiefs to someone that understands a proper game, not one of these convoluted 60 minute games that are 4 hour advertisements and timeouts!

We also hit as much of Route 66 as we could on the way back to the RV via Flagstaff, where we saw this quirky motel.

You stay in the Teepees and each one has a classic car outside.

Name the band?

“I’m standing on the corner of Winslow Arizona…..”

 

Montezumas Castle and Montezumas Well, are near to the campsite, so we visited both. The Castle is more Pueblo cliff ruins and the Well is a sinkhole continually fed by springs to the tune of 1.5 million gallons a day and this was far and more interesting than the castle.

 

Montes castle

 

 

Montezumas Well…..complete with soundtrack……click HERE

 

And finally (As Trevor MacDonald used to say on news at 10) 7 years ago we stayed in the worst Motel we had ever stayed in, it was called the “Red Rose Inn” in Flagstaff, on doing a google search it came up as “permanently closed” (thank goodness) clearly owned by someone else now, but thought we would go there and take a picture for Kathryn. Just in case you wanted reminding of that horror night Kat….lol.

That’s the Penultimate penultimate blog for this trip, just 4 weeks left to go, now we just need to find jobs to fund the next one!!

T&G

Death valley & Vegas

Yay……We made it to Vegas.

We are not sure exactly why we decided to go there really, probably because a couple of Gills old work colleagues from County Hall were going there during September, but as it turned out…not the week we went.

Vegas is not somewhere either of us liked when we went in 2009. We thought it was tacky with porn cards being handed out at every street corner even to Kathryn who was 13 at the time. Had it changed in those 7 years?

We arrived and set up at  Thousand trails campsite a short drive from both the strip and downtown. A nice campsite and ideally situated for our Vegas visit.

We have been hitting the National parks for a while, and we decided to go for a long drive to Death Valley for a revisit. The last time we were there it hit 127 degrees, this time it was a cool 114 degrees (the record is 134 degrees).

 

Gill found some sights in Death Valley that she really liked.

We visited a few different areas than we did last time, and on the way back to Vegas we did the “Red Rock Canyon” a 13 mile scenic drive. We have to say it was nothing special, and wouldn’t recommend it. We also saw fuel for $4 a gallon….robbing %$*^^%^&.

Red Rock Canyon, Not worth the trip.

 

The next day we drove to Henderson, a suburb of Vegas to have a look around and suddenly the car started to make a wining sound, so we took it to Big O tires where they diagnosed a faulty alternator.  Two hours later it was fixed, price $528, and Terry and I just laughed at each other as the cost of parts in the USA are ridiculously high compared to UK. Another raid on our wallet.

 

The last time we came here “Freemont Street Experience” was reasonably quiet and interesting, so we revisited…..how it has changed! Noisier, livelier and lots going on. Up above you nowadays are brave souls doing the Slotzilla zipline and upper Zoomline…….Terry was tempted…..TBC

 

Some of the “acts” in the area were somewhat tacky and you kind of think…why????

Sorry for the foul language on the first one.

 

Click HERE for another terrible act.

and the bad dancing on the 3rd one.

The following day we decided to hit the strip and visit a lot of the Hotels. Now on this trip we have done quite a few hikes, but we ended up walking over 17 miles in and out of the Hotels. It was quite easy to lose sense of direction once you are in the Hotels, in fact we thought we were heading one way down the strip, through a Hotel and ended ¼ mile back up the strip from where we had come.17 miles later and at 3 am we dragged ourselves back into the RV with blistered feet and tired limbs.

Some of the spots along the strip and near where we were

The following night it was back to Freemont Street to challenge Terry’s fear of heights again and to participate in the 12 storey high “Zoomline” and pay $45 for the pleasure. Unlike the lower zipline, you are lain down superman style, and do the full length of Freemont street with everyone down below you. Gill was given the task of filming me fly past her, she filmed about six other lots pass her, and the memory was full, so only got half of my flypast!!!

 

It certainly was an experience and for the price I think it’s worth it.

For my fly past click HERE….I’m 2nd from the right.

Vegas has changed; Freemont is busier and the strip is less tacky, as we only came across 2 people handing out girlie cards, last time it was 6 to 8 on every street crossing.

Click HERE for pretty water

Our favourite hotels: Caesars, and New York, New York, but they are all nice in their own way.

   

So that was Vegas, and we doubt we will ever go back, but who knows, they are still building new Hotels so there will always be something new to visit.

 

We found a Casino off the Strip near to the RV park we were staying at where you could eat for $4.99 – $6.99.  We had lobster and steak one night and giant ham, eggs and hash browns another, so for cheap food find a Casino away from the Strip and Freemont.  Look for their advertising boards along the roadside. There are some good ones on Boulder Highway.

New York, New York

 

We left Vegas a day early as we had a long drive to our next stop and we wanted to stop off at an old mining “ghost town” called Oatman. We overnighted in a truck stop, which is something we won’t do again because of the noise. But is was a super sunset.

From there we drove some more of Route 66 to the town. Now we wouldn’t call it a ghost town, but yes it is old, but it has been turned into a tourist magnet. Lots of souvenir shops and the main street is visited daily by some wild burros apparently. We did not see them in the town, but we did on the way back to the RV.

 

And i’ll leave you with a few random shots of Vegas;

 

Nearly forgot….car of the blog

Check out the number plate LOL.

Next issue Verde Valley, Cottonwood Arizona.

 

G&T

Cowboys, ripped off & Grand Canyon

So, on the last blog I left you with the “unfixed RV”………….and so it remained with those “Cowboys” and yes I do mean COWBOYS. Not the western, Stetson wearing gun slinging type of cowboy, I mean the rip you off, shoddy workmanship, bad taste in your mouth type of Cowboy.

They had the generator for a week and the RV for 3 days, and we left there on the Friday with nothing fixed and $900 worse off.

We headed off down to the North rim of the Grand Canyon, disheartened, stressed and decidedly down in the dumps, with no working generator and heading to a campsite with no electric…..(and Gill craving a cigarette).

Anyway enough of the dark side, we were going to the Grand Canyon, (shortened to GC for the rest of the blog) what was there to be miserable about. On the way to the GC we stopped off at a place called Fredonia, parked the RV, unhitched the car and headed back up north to view the “Pink Sand Dunes State Park”.

 

On the way there we passed through Kanab, where they were having a proper “Western, Stetson wearing gun slinging type of cowboy” day, where we saw a cattle drive and a parade.

It wasn’t a nice day weather wise (rain and cold) and when we got to the Pink sand dunes, they looked more orange than pink,

but it was good to see. I was also very envious of their sand collection.

It was then back to Fredonia, hitch up the RV and continue our journey to the GC.

It’s a long but pretty drive to the north rim, with conifer and Aspen forests and large green meadows leading up to the park. The campsite is quiet, very close to the canyon and well worth a visit. We have now been to both rims and the North is by far the nicest.

While there we did a couple of scenic drives to Point Imperial and to Cape Royal looking at all the overlooks on the way, Walhalla overlook, Angels Window, Roosevelt Point and Vista Encantada.

We did several hikes too, the Transept trail that led from the campground to the Lodge and Visitor Centre, Cape final, which was about 4 miles with a stunning overlook, and finally, we started a walk at 06.30 down the North Kaibab trail into the canyon itself, 2 hours and 2.6 miles downhill and 3 hours and 2.6 miles back up, some 2200ft down into the canyon, not even half way, but what an experience it was. Gill fell (Not far enough) and bruised her arm and while walking down we had a fall of rocks literally 5 feet in front of us!! Scary.

A tunnel on the way

As far as we went

The canyon is 10 miles across but to walk the trail it is 24 miles. We did just the 5.2 miles, but it felt a lot more, trust me J, perhaps one day I will get to walk it rim to rim, who knows? Is any one up for the challenge with me?

 

A long way down and two boats doing the river

Because of the issues we have with the RV we had booked it into another place on the way to Las Vegas for the jobs to be actually done this time. We said goodbye to the GC at 6 am and drove past the glades and mixed forests, still with no visual on the Bison that live here. But bearing in mind it was still August we were surprised to see frost on the grass in the glades. So I make no excuse for the long sleeves in some of the photos, it could be cold up here and hot in the canyon. Strange isn’t it that 2 weeks ago we were basking (read, sweating the cobblers off) in heats of over 100º now we were down in the 50 ºs and freezing ones too.

 

And now as I type this blog, we are parked outside the workshop, plugged into their electric and water while the repairs go on. Hopefully we will make Vegas at some point.

One day later and we are away, on our way to Vegas…..but not without incident!!

We went out on the Thursday morning doing some caches, and I had been trying to get hold of the cowboys from Cedar City.  The reason for contacting them was that I wanted my old parts back. I had phoned them the previous evening and spoke to cowboy “Matt” who said he would phone me back…..LOL! So in the morning after a dozen or so unanswered calls, he did phone me back and said he couldn’t find them, they must have been thrown.

Oh well.

Oh well, be buggered, when we got back to the rig, we were told by the RV ZZ guy “you know your carburetor isn’t new don’t you”?….$350 and it’s not new, on checking it myself I realized it was my old one polished up. “Oh and your tailpipe is missing from the generator”.

Now those that know me, know that I have chilled the last few years, but for some reason unbeknown to me, steam started to hiss from my ears with ever increasing pressure.

Treat me fair and I’ll see you right, I’ll pay my way and help anyone out if I can….

Rip me off, lie to me and try steal from me, then look out. I can and will be like a dog with a bone and will not rest till I have justice!!

Cedar City was some 60 miles north, and after leaving “Cowboys united” a very unmistakable “Rip me off, refund me, my attorney will be in touch, see you in court and you have one hour phone call” I lost patience and went for a 60 mile drive to you know where.

One hour later I had my tailpipe in hand and $350 refunded back onto my card.

But I haven’t let go of that bone yet……there is more vengeance to be had!! But that’s more longer term.

These people are nothing more than thieving, lying incompetent scumbags who should not even be in business. If you’re ever in Cedar city, do NOT use “Cedar city tire automotive & RV” aka “A Kicking Truck tire & Automotive RV & Semi repair” (I think they use the term “repair” quite lightly)

We met a guy called David and his dog Bodie while in St George, a real nice guy who we said we would meat in California next year for a drink and a meal. It will be real nice if that happens.

So getting back to the rig, it was fixed and paid for, we drove off happier and with a substantial lighter wallet…we moved off towards Vegas.  We had hoped to stop at Mesquite to visit Bo and Jan who we had met at Panguitch earlier on our travels, but unfortunately time had caught up with us and we tried and failed to get hold of them so we had to just drive on past Mesquite.

 

Now if you are ever in the area of St George, Utah…in an RV and need some help, I can not speak more highly of RV ZZ and Malin, the guy we dealt with there.

Honest, open and competent and couldn’t do enough for us. I would certainly use them again. We even bought them doughnuts.

So that’s it from the Grand Canyon, until we meet again;

 

See ya’ll G&T

Zion NP, Kanarraville Falls & Kolob Canyon.

Welcome to Cedar City in SW Utah, and also to Red Ledge RV park at Kanarraville. 6 Miles from Kolob Canyon which is part of the North Zion NP.

As we came through Cedar City, we decided to pop into an RV repair place as we had a hydraulic leak from our rear bedroom slide out pipes. It’s been leaking for a while and it was time to get it sorted. They viewed it, and ordered the pipes ready for it to be done on the following Wednesday.

When we got to the RV park we had a couple of spare parts that we had ordered waiting for us, and one we hoped would sort out the issue we had with the generator, but alas it didn’t  , so Friday we took the RV back to the garage, and they took the generator out of the RV to repair it, which is more expense, then they refitted it when they had the rig on Wednesday. It gets very frustrating for me when things go wrong that I can’t fix. I was so hopeful that the part I ordered would sort it and it didn’t!

The following day, we went for a 6½ mile hike up a slot canyon called Kanarraville falls, wading through the river, doesn’t make any sense does it? They tell you to stay out of slot canyons when there is water about. It was a great hike and interesting climbs over waterfalls, boulders and weird ladders. It was $10 to park, but luckily for us it was ¼ mile from the RV park, so we walked it.

  

Gill and I got excited about Sunday as I had been trying to get out Metal detecting and I had posted on a few sites to see if anyone would take us out. Someone had said he would take us to a ghost town and an old mine on the Sunday but alas Saturday evening came and I  got the Dear John…he couldn’t make it after all, these things happen I guess. Gutted.

So instead we went to the northern entrance of Zion NP and a place called Kolob Canyon.  Unlike the southern entrance of the park you can self drive here, down south you have to use the shuttle bus to get around the park.

 

We hiked the Taylor Creek Trail which takes you deep into a narrow box canyon, then along a creek where erosion has carved out natural openings in the Navajo sandstone. As the trail reaches the mouth of the canyon it enters the Zion Wilderness and begins to crisscross Taylor Creek. The trail passes the geologic formation of the Kanarraville Fold and two historic homestead cabins built in the early 1930’s.

The vertical walls of Tucupit and Paria tower 1700 feet above as you walk along until you arrive at the Double Arch Alcove which was stunning.

Stunning water seepage.

 

We then drove the 6 miles to the end of the canyon and finished up with a 1 mile hike to get to the Timber Creek Overlook. The Timber Creek Overlook Trail follows along a small ridge with spectacular views of the Kolob Canyons, the Kolob Terrace, and the Pine Valley Mountains. Looking south on the far horizon you may see Mt. Trumbull 100 miles away at the north rim of the Grand Canyon, but alas it was a bit hazy when we got there and we didn’t.

Kolob Fingers.

 

Looking towards Grand Canyon

The following day it was to Zion NP and the main part of the park.

We drove the 40 something miles down and managed to park in the park itself by the visitors center. You then have to use one of the frequent shuttle to commute through the park.

 

We stopped off at most of the overlooks and did a couple of the hikes too, Emerald pool, top middle and bottom. Also did the river walk, a 2 miler up and back along a paved trail, trying to dodge the fat ground squirrels that hope for food from the ever present tourists. When we got to the end of the hike, there were loads of people there and all of a sudden you realized how busy Zion was.

Various views within Zion Canyon

We also drove the Hwy 9 from I-15 to Mt. Carmel Junction, well most of it anyway and did a nice hike up to one of the canyons overlook which was quite high and gave us a view of the road we had travelled up.

The road below……

The sat navs view

Further along the road we came across the “checkerboard mesa” an interesting geological phenomenon.

Virtual geocache too….that was lucky.

A few of the wildlife from this week…..

Stellar Jay, Big horn sheep, A fat ground squirrel, a shy Lizard and a couple of mule deer.

A new type of RV…..

And me hard at work…..

I guess that is it for this week, North Rim of the grand canyon next week…

By the way you could rent one of these for around $6000+ per month

Or you could come stay with us …….T&G

xx

Update;

We are now sat in a La Quinta hotel in Cedar City, courtesy of the garage that we took our RV to, they were meant to fix the generator today and the slide out. After 12 hours, neither have been done! The wrong size pipes came and they have failed to find the fault with the generator. I’ll update you in the next blog.

Bryce Canyon & so much more.

It was time to say goodbye to Sleepy Hollow and on Forrest (the owner) recommendation we headed down scenic byway 12. We knew it was going to be hilly and it was. It was also very scenic, and one place you need to concentrate was coming over the “Hogsback”, which had at least a 1000 foot drop either side.

Not my picture, but this is the “Hogsback”

This gave an inkling of what was to come; this country seems to keep giving more and more stunning vistas.

Then further down the valley we came to this; a couple of arches across the road in Red Canyon. I managed to grab the phone and capture a quick video. Click on the Blue “Here” at the bottom of the picture.

Click HERE for the video.

 

We got to our campsite Paradise rv park at Panguitch where we have full hookup for only $14.95 a night, unbelievably cheap, but within striking distance of Red Canyon and Bryce Canyon.

Looking out from the entrance of the campsite.

On the Saturday we took a drive to a place called “Cedar Breaks” a National Monument, again with some great views and some nice hikes.

Cedar Breaks a place recommended by Jan & Bo

 

One of those hikes was down to “Spectra Point”, and I decided to do a little video for you guys, which has a little surprise in it, enjoy;

Click HERE for the video…(6 minutes long)

 

We later discovered that that little animal was a “Yellow-Bellied Marmot”

 

Bryce Canyon is obviously one of the big national parks of the USA, and when we visited on the Monday there were lots of people there. Some children had finished their summer holidays and gone back to school, but to be fair most of the visitors seemed to be European or Asian (lots of Asians ! ) Again we got to one of the main overlooks and we both just went “WOW”.

WOW!

We did a couple of the hikes, Navajo, Sunset Point and Queens’ Head. We also drove to the end of the park and back looking at the overlooks, and that’s when it became “yep, same as the last one” I guess we are getting a little “Parked” out. Only 2 more planned this trip which are Zion and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon!!

And WOW again.

                                                                              

 

They almost look like iced cakes or iridescent rocks.

Gill in awe of the views, she looks a right hiker!!

The arches that we drove through were in Red Canyon, which looked worthy of a visit, so we went there and spent half a day hiking on several of the trails there. We certainly got up close and personal to the “Hoodoos”

We learned that the Ponderosa pine smells of Vanilla or Butterscotch and we can confirm that it does.

While we look at some twisted person sniffing trees, some of the trees themselves are twisted too;

A view of the scenic byway 12 arches that we drove through from up high.

We spent a few of the evenings across with our neighbors Jan & Bo and Jan’s brother and wife Sandy & Marvin who all come from Mesquite, Utah some 156 miles away and 20 degrees hotter, so they come here to cooler climes. Bo was kind enough to cook steaks one night and another night we had root beer floats while we were sat around the fire. A lot of interests seemed to be shared between us all such as metal detecting, rocks and gold panning. Not sure how I’m going to get all my samples home with me.

So it’s Zion National park next and about 9 weeks to go before it’s home time.

So how is the blog? Too short, too long, too many pictures or not enough?

That’s it for this week.

Take care, miss you all

A big shout out for our daughter who’s birthday it is on the 18th of August, Happy Birthday sweetheart. Love you and miss you. Have a great day xxxx

T&G

 

Capital Reef from Sleepy Hollow.

Sometimes, things happen for a reason I guess.

In our last couple of days in Moab, I was outside grilling on an electric grill, aircon going on the inside and Gill decided to put on the kettle as well. This blew the electric and try as I might after resetting the trip, I could not get the sockets to work again. With the food going cold on the grill and me searching and searching for the issue and pulling out one of the panels a wire trip switch broke (nothing to do with the sockets) that turned out to be a burnt out trip elsewhere.

However the broken trip switch also covered our generator which we needed at our next stop, Goblin Valley state park.

So after a lot of chasing around we managed to locate a new switch in Phoenix Arizona, and for nearly $60 overnight fee they could possibly get it to us before we left!!

Then I had the thought…lets try and change the RV park to one with electric. After a short search we found one called “Sleepy Hollow” RV park at Cainville UT.

As it turned out, it was about 40 miles closer to Capital Reef NP. Now on first impressions it wasn’t the best, but the owner is a real gent. There was only one other “RV” on the site an old converted bus with bits and pieces every where, it turns out it was a chap called Brian who was a miner.

The owner is a guy called “Forrest” who didn’t offer any discounts but it was only $25 a night with electric and free hot showers.  F0rrest was really helpful and a pleasure to meet. He has an old shop that isn’t much used anymore, but he had a few bits and pieces in there and I asked him how much his T-shirts were “Just pick one, help yourself” well there wasn’t one in my size (fit and athletic) so Gill had one instead, and then he gave me a baseball cap. Over the week Forrest would stop buy ask us how we were, drop off free peaches, courgettes and peppers. On one of our conversations I mentioned I had run out of Whisky, the next day…..he drops off 1/4  bottle of whisky for me, and later in the week he comes across and asks if I need anymore from the liquor store as he was heading for town. He and his wife Mona also offered us another nights stay for free, so we cordially accepted as we really like the solitude of this place, and the Perseid’s meteor shower will be taking place and we have total darkness in which to watch it.  What a guy and thank you Forrest!

I am so glad our generator broke down, as it’s meeting people like Forrest and Brian that really make this holiday. Remember Sleepy Hollow, it’s ideal for Capital Reef, no cell phone coverage but great Wi-Fi.

There was a Geocache that I wanted to do in the area (I use that term very loosely) it was 80 miles on the GPS, but when you take away the straight line and drive the roads it turned into 140 miles there and 155 miles back, but it wasn’t just about the Geocache, it was a very picturesque drive and Potters pond and Joe’s reservoir were both stunning. After travelling 144 miles about 10 of them along rough gravel roads a short hike of less than 1/2 a mile and with 312 yards left Gill says “were not going to get it, can we just go back” like that was going to happen at that point!!

We even saw Buffalo.

The landscape here is very Martian, and to prove that point, a drive out into the desert took us to the MDRS and a quarry where they dig out Dinosaur bones. We had a look around the quarry but spotted nothing. On the return journey we stopped off at the Mars development research site, for a look around. We can see why it is out here!

The main reason for coming down here was to see capital reef NP,

another national park full of deep canyons and impressive geological formations. Although it has to be said not as impressive as some of the other parks we have done so far. There wasn’t the wow factor. However the surrounding area is impressive.

Hinkman bridge is an arch and a 2 mile round trip hike gets you to this.

I was nominated on Facebook to do 22 press ups for 22 days in aid of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) a lot of military veterans suffer (as do non military people) from this and 22 people a day commit suicide because of it in the USA alone!!

I have tried to do them outside in interesting places as we go around; Hickman bridge was one of those places. If you want to take part, let me know and I will nominate you.  If you would like to donate then see the link below, or just text PTSD22 to 70004 and that donates £5 to this worthy cause.

Have a read here PTSD push up challenge.

Click here  for the video.

Brian our other resident here as I said is a miner, and he mines “Gypsum” small scale and sells them at rock shows.  Raw state gypsum is so different from what we have in our homes, yes we all have it at home, it’s used to make plaster and plasterboard. But you have to say, this looks a lot nicer!

His mine is a 20 mile drive across the desert and I went with him to his mine and boy what a commute to work that is, and it looks like this;

It’s an open mine/hole in the ground.

He also showed me a Gypsum deposit in the NP and that looked like this;

It is called Glass Mountain.

Glass Mountain sits in the shadow of the Temple of the sun, and the temple of the moon.

So that is another week over, here are a few random pictures.

Near Sleepy Hollow

I thought this was the hole in the wall, but i found no bar!

Just love these colours.

And I leave you with our first picture of a Coyote, which we saw when we went for a hike to look for petrified wood in the desert just beside our campsite.

From sleepy hollow, it’s goodnight from me

Wadders out geocaching with an Alien or visa versa?

and it’s goodnight from her

That’s it for this edition, if you enjoyed it press the like at the bottom of the blog on the WordPress site. If you want to share the link for the blog, feel free……The more the merrier……

 

T&G

Canyonlands & Underneath the Arches, Moab. Utah

I have to say it was nice to have a short change of location, a mere 113 miles and an easy road. Fuel in Cortez was down to the $2.10 mark, which was nice.

Our new base is in Moab, Utah at a place called “Ok RV Park”, and the fuel has gone up to $2.36.

The park itself is nice and right below the “Moab Fault”.  Arches National Park is 10 miles North of Moab and Canyonlands National Park is 75 miles South to visit the Needles and 32 miles North to visit Island in the Sky, which are both parts of Canyonlands. I said we were hitting the parks and they are coming thick and fast this trip.

When we got to the RV park, which had been booked whilst we were back in England, the lady here wanted to charge us $24.95 per night including our “Passport America” discount.  Now don’t get me wrong that’s not a bad price, however, I had printed off the confirmation email from when I booked it which said $30 a night, less our “Passport America” discount (50% off) which made it $15 per night, which is why we booked this one.  Gill was having the conversation with the lady behind the desk “Can I speak to the manager then please” and she got the reply “Well I’m the owner” I think Gill wanted the ground to open up!

But fair play to the owner when we showed her the email she said she wanted happy customers so she let us have it for $15 per night,.  Good job too, we’re here for 2 weeks!

Our first trip out was to Arches NP, 10 miles North of Moab. Now Moab is a big boys adventure playground with 4×4 ATV tours, Hummer x-country tours, White water rafting, mountain biking, zip lining etc etc, however it all costs $100 +, so we wont rush into any of that.

Arches NP had the first major queue into a national park we have come across.

The parks are getting a lot of promotion this year due to it being the centenary of the National parks service.

Another $25 entrance fee….that we didn’t have to pay because of our “America the beautiful card”. As soon as you enter it’s an uphill drive up the side of the Moab fault and into the park. We started with a 2 mile walk down and back the “Park Avenue” followed by several viewpoints along the parks 17 mile road.

While we were doing one of the hikes, I looked across the trail and spotted something 10 yards off the path, it was a discarded wallet, still with ID in.  It was a guy from Wisconsin so we handed it in to the rangers, I bet that spoilt his day !

Park Avenue, Arches

                   

B&W taken in Park Avenue, Arches Np

So many colours of rock!

We only managed to stay in the park until 3pm, after that the heat went over 107 degrees and it became too much, but we did go back!.

Our second trip to Arches Np was to do a couple of hikes that we missed the first trip and to do the delicate arch walk, a one and a half miles into no mans land, it was worth the hike.

Canyonlands has 3 distinct areas, The Maze, The Needles and the Island in the Sky, The Maze is an area where you need a 4×4 so was inaccessible to us. (May have to look at a 4×4 🙂 But don’t tell Gill)

So on one of the days out we went South to the Needles area. There we did several hikes and dirt road drives to admire the scenery. Again, because of the heat, we limited ourselves to the short hikes of less than 3 miles.

We said it was hot!

 

The Needles, with mushroom rocks in the foreground.

 

Hiking out here can be hazardous in the heat, so how do you know where the trail is? You follow the cairns…..the little piles of rocks, but you need to concentrate or you soon lose the trail, there are 6 in this picture!

 

So many rock formations.

The arid regions seem to be covered in Sage bushes.

 

 

On the way back we visited “The Hole in the rock” a 5000 sq foot home carved into, you guessed it, the rock. We took a tour of (I nearly said the building then) the home, quite quirky but good to see. Can you spot the jeep on top of the rock?

The whole place is for sale if any of my rich friends are interested $2,190,000. I’m open to a 10% commission fee though. 🙂

On another day we went north and did the “Islands in the sky” region.  The areas are all so different but to look down 2000’ from this region into the valleys and the canyons carved into them was really special.

Green river.

Mesa Arch.

Island in the sky had posh cairns

My photographs will never do the views justice.

Talking of all the hiking we are doing, I used to own a pair of Berghaus walking shoes, but alas they died, so with the amount or walking that we are doing over here we purchased some $20 walking shoes from Walmart for each of us. I have to say they are very, very good.

There is a circular route from Moab that takes you north along the Colorado River then cuts back along Castle Creek and the back through the La Sal Mountains to Moab.

We took a morning drive, did a few Geocaches and came across one where there were dinosaur footprints. 

It is hard to imagine that this area was once a sea and they and they left their mark in the sand here. However, a couple of days later we spotted those dinosaur rampaging through a park !! J

 

Coming back from the circular drive we came across a dry river bed, a waterfall and Ken’s lake, so we hit all 3 on another day with an early morning metal detecting walk up the dry river bed (No gold nuggets found ), a walk up to the waterfall,                   

and the rest of the day lazing and swimming at the lake.

Relaxing.  Whilst we were at Ken’s Lake a local man was chatting to us and mentioned Mill Creek Trail which started near the Bowling Alley in Moab, so on another day we set off to find this hiking trail, and had a good morning heading to a waterfall and having to follow the trail through the creek which was very refreshing for our feet if your ever in Moab this hike is worth it. There is clearly Beavers here too, looking at all the trees that have been gnawed.

There is a Golf course in Moab, so Terry played 18 holes starting at 7.30am because of the heat and we went mad and hired a golf cart as well, he also went mad on a couple of holes, but not having played for so many years there had to be a couple of bad holes! We spotted the green keepers lawnmower too.

While driving around Moab, we came across a VW graveyard, I used to have one years ago, i could get these shipped back to the UK and make one good one 🙂

 

And finally….car of the blog, spotted at the Hole in the rock

That’s it for this edition, we will be off radar for a week from Thursday as we will be in the middle of nowhere, so you all have fun. If you know someone who may enjoy the blog, feel free to share it.

I’ll leave you with this.

It’s old, haggard, and on its way out, the other is a Juniper tree.

And here is our colour by numbers map

T&G

PS If there is anything you would like to see in the blog, let us know.

 

Mesa Verde & Monument Valley

Time to go..

A short and sweet stay at the Blue Mesa and it was just 173 miles to the next stop; Cortez, Colorado. (For more info or links to a video, click on the blue words.)

Those 173 miles were through some very stunning countryside,

almost Swiss Alps like, and another very steep hill where we had to unhitch the car again and let Gill drive, but we got there in the end.

A link here will take you to a you tube video of our trip over the mountains from Gunnison to Cortez. 178 miles in 6 minutes;

We passed lots of farm ranches on our travels, but 2 particular ones in recent times have tickled me.  The first ranch was named “Slippery rock, fall in river ranch” and the other was “No hope, goat ranch”. I know, I know, I’m just saying it as I find it, I have no idea either.

We are staying on the  very edge of Cortez town itself, not far from all the amenities.

Cortez is some 40 miles from a unique place in the USA. A place where in some films (Vacation (not my video)) people lie down and do things. A place where 4 states meet.  Itt is called “Four Corners” and in the USA its unique, as you can put your foot in four states at once…so we just had to go there. It is on land owned by the Navajo Indian nation, and they have the four corners surrounded by their jewellery and trinket stalls.

 

From there, we decided to try and find “Monument Valley”, but before we got there we drove a 16 mile loop through “The valley of the gods” a dirt road in amongst some wonderful geology.

Valley of the Gods, and what does this look like to you, answers on a postcard, or leave a comment.

At the end of that loop, we found an interesting bit of road that looked like this on the GPS;

So we decided to go off route and try it. I then decided to do it again to shoot you all a video so you could share our fears and the views;       Click here for the intro……

Then here for the ride itself with stunning views.

Monument Valley was some 120 miles away from Cortez, one way, but as we had used the picture on our “Business card” (In inverted comas)

it was somewhere that we thought we should go and see it, I think we got pretty close to the right spot don’t you?

The above pics are of Monument Valley and includes John Wayne’s cabin that can be seen at Goulding’s Lodge, which is a restaurant, gift shop, museum and campground and is known as a western fort or town setting of many John Wayne movies.   The food was good also.  It is one mile from the rim of Monument Valley. We also passed a rock called “Mexican hat” why it is called that, I have no idea why its called that 🙂

Also some wonderful layered sandstone rocks;

After so many miles the previous day, Saturday was meant to be a shorter day at a local town called Durango. One reason we wanted to go there was to go gold panning at a place called “Bakers Bridge”on the Animas river, alledgedley a good place to find gold. Well we tried it, and found nothing. But I have to say it is a beautiful place.

Gill wanted a ride on this one too from Durango to Silverton, a full day, but at over $100 each, we thought Nah!

Near Bakers bridge we came across this natural spring

They also had a party in the park in Durango ( which you could see and hear from the sidewalk), and in fact you could be about 30ft from the stage).  Why they decided to charge $30 to go in beats me. There were not many in the park, so we thought it would have been better to have 150 people go in at $10 rather than 40 @ $30. We ended up having a meal and then went onto a micro brewery for a nice cool beer.

From Durango we headed back to Cortez for a free show that they do most nights of the week at the Cultural Center. Some genuine native Americans come along and perform song and dance and explain a bit about their people. A very interesting and enjoyable performance.

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It turned into another long day.

The main reason for our stay at Cortez, was “Mesa Verde National park” a mere 9 miles down the road. However, to get to the Cliff dwellings it’s a further 27 mile drive into the park.

We got into the park for free because it’s a national park.  However, to visit the main cliff dwellings you need to buy tour tickets from one of the visitor centers, which cost $4 each for each dwelling you wanted to visit.

We only did 2 of them, and it is possible to see them all without paying for the tour, however, the park rangers are very informative and give a great history of the place.

Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms and 23 kivas and had a population of approximately 100 people. Out of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings concentrated within the boundaries of the park, 75% contain only 1-5 rooms each, and many are single room storage units.

Sometime during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa top for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began living in pueblos they built beneath the overhanging cliffs. The structures ranged in size from one-room storage units to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they continued to reside in the alcoves, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century. By the late 1270s, the population began migrating south into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By 1300, the Ancestral Puebloan occupation of Mesa Verde ended.

Cliff Palace.

The above pictures show “Spruce Tree House” “Balcony House”and “Cliff Palace”

Below is Cliff Palace.

The park has had a few fires over the last 2 decades and we were surprised to learn that because of the lack of rainfall it will take 400 years for the forest to recover.

This little fella, we think is called a Yellow-bellied Marmot

Our car of the blog, which we came across on our trip back from Monument Valley.

And that folks brings the sun down on another blog episode.

Hope you enjoy the write up and the pictures, let us know by commenting on the WordPress page.

Take care

T&G

Black Canyon, Colorado

Hey, it’s Thursday and you know what happens on a Thursday……it was move day again, so we left behind the wonderful view of the sand dunes and headed North up the 17 and west along the 50 and over Monarch pass, but not before heading to a place called “Hooper” for lunch with the locals and some weird drinking vessels. A Jam jar as we call them. 

Monarch pass is a mountain pass and is 11,312’ high at the Southern end of the Rocky Mountains.

We haven’t got the most powerful RV and we haven’t got the smallest car that is towed either, (and all of Gills junk in the car. Not mine says Gill) and bless the RV she struggled to get to the top of the mountain, so at about two 3rds of the way up, we unhitched the car and Gill had to drive the car to the top. Wendy (the Winnebago) breathed a sigh of relief and flew up the remainder of the wee slope.

We also saw someone else moving their rv;

I think our RV looks a bit more modern but not as long as his!

At the top of the pass was a great visitor lodge with lots of American style gifts (all made in China) so we didn’t buy anything. We did however; (on my suggestion) take a ride up the remainder of the mountain on the cable car to just over 12,000’.

 

Those who know me know I don’t like heights and I do confess at not enjoying the ride up. They were only 4 seater cars and the wind was blowing at 48 mph, when we got to the top I asked the assistant if it was safe “yeah, we shut it down if it hits 50mph though” no wonder I felt bad.

The views at the top were amazing although very windy and we were now higher than some of the snow.

 

We eventually got to our campsite which had changed hands and names since I booked it, it was now called Blue Mesa RV park as it is on the edge of the Reservoir named as such, “Blue mesa”

The view is excellent, the park itself is a little rustic although we have full hook-up apart from 4g and Wi-Fi! (It’s passport America too; ½ price)  It is the middle of two towns, Gunnison 25 miles east and Montrose 35 miles west. So if you haven’t heard from us or we have not responded to something on FB, tough, I couldn’t do anything about it, LOL.

With such a big lake and opportunities to go fishing and boating, I thought we might get a fishing license and go out on the lake. Each state in the US is different, you need a license for each state, and In Colorado they don’t do a 2 week license, so its 5 days for $21 for an outsider like me. When we went to get one we were told that you also need a permit and inspection to launch your boat because of some alien crustacean that may be on your boat/engine (I’m surprised you don’t need a permit to drink bottled water here as well) another 10 bucks, purchased from Elk Creek! We did manage a full day on the lake fishing and managed to catch 2 trout, which were both returned alive to the lake.

 

While we were there we got a couple of tickets to do a 42’ pontoon boat trip into Black Canyon from Pine creek which we did on the Saturday. A hike down 232 steps followed by a level ¾ mile hike (old narrow gauge train track originally built 1848) to the boat then an hour and a half on a slow boat into the canyon and back run by the National Parks service at 10 am and 12.30.

Some stunning views from the floor of the canyon.

We took the 10 am boat trip, then in the afternoon we went to the canyon south rim.

The south rim is 7 miles of road interlaced with 12 overlooks of the canyon; we did most of the overlooks, all of which were stunning. Our favorite though was the painted wall overlook.

As mentioned before and earlier in this blog, I don’t like heights; going up a step ladder makes me nervous, so for me it was emotionally quite hard, especially when I tried to push Gill off the rim 4 times and each time she held on …. Emotional!

Yep, that is a long way down and Wadders is using a selfie stick 🙂 and Gill held on.

 

After we had done all the overlooks we headed down the East Portal road, a 16% descent to the bottom of the canyon to Gunnison river. The water was cold so we did not go swimming, but to top the day off we spotted a family of 5 river otters fishing and eating their catch, alas the pictures are not great (I need more zoom) but to watch them through the binoculars was a long lasting memorable experience.

A great place to visit and we could have stayed there even longer than we did.

A couple of other animals that we saw;

I know some of you may have missed our vehicle of the week, so this one is our choice for this blog, seen at the top of Monarch pass.

While at the Blue Mesa camp site, we got talking to some guys that were working on the roads nearby, they were also into gold prospecting. I spent a few hours with them over a couple of nights and they have given me some tips and some sites to try, and we may catch up next year in California for a couple of days prospecting. so watch this space as we are approaching some of those sites next week!!

We have just caught up with all the latest news of the political changes in the UK government, welcome to the top job Theresa May.

Rest in Peace too, to all those in Nice, France who were celebrating Bastille day. Another pointless waste of life, by some cowardly nobody!!

Next issue; Mesa Verde National park, and monument valley.

 

 

 

San Luis SP and the Sand Dunes NP

 

The time had come to leave Santa Fe, another Thursday another move and this time out of New Mexico, but I have a feeling we will be seeing a part of her again soon.

We headed directly north from Santa Fe to our new destination “San Luis state park” which is in south east Colorado a nice little 150 mile drive.

The reason we, or should I say I chose this state park is staring at us through the window of the RV, it is the magnificent sight of one of USA’s national parks, “The Great Sand Dunes”

The state park is in the largest valley in Colorado with snow capped mountains either side of us and an arid desert in the middle with funnels of dust devils dancing all around us.

On the Friday it was overcast and we decided to go visit the dunes, because of our “America the Beautiful” card purchase we avoided the $15 entrance fee (somewhat higher than our 6^th edition (2009) “National Geographic National parks said it would be) I guess I’ve been planning longer than I thought)

We went into the visitor centre, watched the video and set off for the dunes, particularly “High Dune” at 770 feet and a two mile round trip in the sand.

No picture or anything I type can portray these immense moving features.

After an hours walking in clearing skies we made it to the top and wondered at the sight below, other dunes with what looked liked ants (people) climbing, surfing and body boarding down the dunes. We left the park at lunch time for lunch about a mile outside and on looking back; this is what we saw;

A storm and enveloped the dunes and after a while people were entering where we were having lunch drenched through returning their hired boards, their day at the dunes over.

We however fancied another hike this time to a place called “Zapata falls” a rough 3 ½ drive up an un-tarmaced road followed by a short hike up a hill and in/through a river, a very cold river

to get to this:

 

The following day took us into the nearest town for a browse, “Alamosa” some 16 miles away where the price of fuel is clearly price fixed as every garage in town had the fuel priced the same and at the highest price we have had to pay so far, $2.36. How d they get away with it when it is so blatant?

I did however manage to get 2 hardly used Specialized cycle helmets at a thrift store for $3 each which was better than the cheap brand at Walmart for $25 or the 30% reduced ones at the soon to be closed store of “Sports Authority” for $69. Bargain me thinks.

Sunday was another hike up the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the park (another $15 saved J), this time the Mosca pass trail a round trip of 7 miles with an elevation gain of 1500’ 3 ½ hours and many great views, a Geocache at the top and several ambushes by the dreaded mosquito and we were back at the car, totally elated very pleased with the walk.

With plenty of fauna and flora;

I know a friend (Jen) from the UK who would love it here;

After lunch we were going to do another hike this time up the wide sandy creek that runs alongside the dunes, but on getting to the parking spot, we decided to wait a few minutes as we could see a weather system coming at us, within minutes, it hit us, hail and rain. We spotted a young couple come of the dunes and were getting battered and clearly needed some British help, we picked them up and drove them back to their car about a mile away, it took moments and the ground was white with large hailstones, I think Tom and Amy from Philadelphia were grateful we came along when we did.

 

So here we are in the USA for our second July 4^th celebration, last year we were in a campsite and just watched the fireworks, this time we decided to go and see a parade in Alamosa. July 4^th a celebration of Independence Day right? Well that’s what we thought too, you know historic pageants, military events and fireworks.

There were half a dozen ex military people carrying flags, nothing historic nothing that signified “Independence” it was more about who to vote for district governor, recruitment for health clubs and boy scouts and how many sweets the children could grab that were being throw from the variety of different vehicles being driven down the road! It’s our first one, I am sure there are better more meaningful 4^th July parades out there somewhere.

In the evening we sat outside and had a BBQ, during our meal we kept hearing strange noises and we later saw a bird swoop low and then go high and as it turned we heard the noise. It turns out it was a “Common Nighthawk” if you want to hear what we heard, watch this video Common nighthawk

 

The following day it was back to the dunes…..for some fun!https://wordpress.com/post/twaddup.wordpress.com/1144

We hired a board from the lodge / come gift shop just before the park entrance for $20 and went surfing on the dunes, a great laugh but very tiring. Some of those dunes are steep and not being 20 years old anymore makes it harder too.

This could be my first video upload if it works;

Click here……Terry sand boarding

 

After the sledging we took a hike up the Medeno creek for a couple of miles, it was so refreshing walking barefoot through the sandy water.

 

Some of the creatures we have come across this week, the small ones,

include ye oldie “ Black tailed Prairie dog”

 

The “Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel”

 

We did spot one of the “Ord’s Kangaroo rat” which I haven’t managed to capture a picture of yet.

Also a couple of female “Elk” (I stand corrected as of 11th August while at Sleepy hollow, Forrest the owner tells me this is a “Pronghorn”)

 

 

This little guy is an “Eastern short-horned lizard”

One thing that i have been itching to do for a while now, is to have a game of golf and today i managed 9 holes at a golf course in Alamosa. I was quite surprised at how well i hit the ball, clearly there were some rusty shots but we both enjoyed the walk around the course seeing plenty of wildlife while playing golf. Until the next time…

Love you all 🙂

Santa Fe New Mexico…..and a FIRE!!

We left Palo Canyon Texas for Santa Fe, New Mexico heading west on the I40 for roughly a 6 hour, 320 mile drive.

WHAT a boring drive, over one crest only to see miles of nothing apart from another 10 miles of road and more nothingness, and trains as far as the eye could see;

and cactus plants…

On arriving at Santa Fe, our next camping spot was called “Hyde Memorial State Park” 7 miles north and 8500 feet in altitude. Can you see the snow on them there hills?

7 miles; each and every one of them up hill, and the first real hard work that the RV has had to do in our hands.  We eventually made it to our site and set up camp. It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting but it was nice apart from the flies. It’s just a shame the visitor center was never open.

We visited the city of Santa Fe several times and it is a very “Arty” place with lots of galleries, and people selling Indian jewellery. We did spot a blanket we liked at a market which had an Indian design and was so soft; looking at the label we decided not to buy the “Made in China” product though!

We visited St Francis Cathedral and the Governors Palace in the town then had lunch at Tune Up Café which had been featured in Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. I,Terry had the same meal as shown on the program and thoroughly enjoyed it.

There was a nice couple called David and Terri who invited us for a drink of wine at the camp ground who were on a two week vacation and David had to drive down to the town to get internet every day to run his business, glad we don’t have to do that anymore J They also introduced us to “Frank”. Frank Ernest Thompson the 1st to be precise is a 76 year old gent originally from Dallas who since 14 years ago full times in his van going from campground to campground. He is one of those very interesting people who can tell you so much about so much. Each year Frank buys the latest Almanac and reads it from cover to cover.

Albuquerque is some 60 miles south and we wanted to visit Camping World (there may have been the oldest Geocache in New Mexico on the way, as an added incentive). A hot walk in the desert, which we revisited when I forgot there were a couple of virtuals there as well.

As we drove there we came across signage for the “Petroglyph National monument” which took us to the Boca Negre Canyon. It was interesting to see the inscriptions that date from 400 to 700 years ago and as far back as 2000 to 3000 years ago. While we were at the visitors centre we also joined “America the beautiful” for $80. It was something I had looked into while in England and is basically an entrance pass into the National Parks of the USA. Considering it would have cost us $30 to enter each of the following; Brice Canyon, Zion NP and Arches alone, plus we are doing another 5 national parks on top, it was a no brainer.

 

We didn’t actually go into the town of Albuquerque but after going to Camping World we headed back East along the I40 to junction 170 where we were headed for the “Turquoise trail” and believe it or not just off the interstate is a section of road that sings to you, yep, really! I kid you not. As you drive along, there are rumble strips and if you are doing the correct speed you get “America the Beautiful” rumbling through your car, very clever creation, but I just get to ask, how would you create that? Apparently there is one in Arizona (according to Frank Ernest Thompson the 1st ) that plays the “William Tell Overture”….that deserves a visit for sure.

The turquoise trail is a scenic road that took us back up to Santa Fe, again we did some Geocaches, but for both of us the most interesting thing was a place called “Tinker Town” a quite unique museum of sorts and well worth the $3.50 each to visit.

It truly was an eclectic assembly of all things weird and wonderful.

There was even a sailing boat there from the UK sat in the middle of NM, with a great story line of its voyage and experiences.

 

We’ve had a couple of good hikes in the forest here, all the time being wary of what animals may be lingering nearby, luckily nothing so far.

Being camped at 8500 feet, it is hard work going for long walks or any form of hard exercise, especially with the heat as well, but we have done a couple of hikes one at 5 and ½ miles another of 2 and a couple of strolls in the desert caching. I also decided one morning to cycle to the top of the mountain a further 6 miles and 2000 feet up, it took me a couple of hours to get up there and about 10 minutes to comeback down, but I did feel a sense of achievement having done it.

 

And now, the reason for the Fire, Fire, Fire title.

We had gone into Santa Fe one morning doing a hike in the mountains on the way there followed by a of day browsing, shopping, sightseeing as you do. Within minutes of getting back to the RV there was a “Knock Knock” at the door, “Hi” said the Park Ranger, “Because of the forest fire, we are advising everyone to leave the park, or to be ready to leave the park as soon as possible when we come around sounding sirens”

Fire? Where?

“It’s in the next valley about 1 ½ – 2 miles away sir.

 

So we have had the floods (complete with snakes), Tornadoes (too close for comfort), and now a forest fire…I think we are just missing the sandstorm now and we will have the full house!

Some campers packed and left straight away, now smelling the smoke, I could understand why.

But we had another week booked here yet, and it would be 9 miles downhill, then another long haul up if we got the all clear. However we did pack up rather smartish and got everything packed away and we were ready to go if those sirens sounded.

It was surreal, to watch the planes overhead, the smoke drifting through the trees, the TV vans driving around and us just sat there chatting to Frank, and watching…. and waiting…..

This went on for a couple of hours and meanwhile, luckily I think, a heavy thunderstorm came overhead and lasted for several hours. As I type we still haven’t had the all clear, but I guess no news is good news.

 

We have no internet up here or phone signal, so it is a case of going down into town or heading to the top if we want to connect with the rest of the world. We have heard about the UK voting to leave the European Union, and yes we did vote by proxy, so in October I guess we will come back to a different Country with a new Prime Minister!!

 

There was another Geocache that I wanted to get which was about 40 miles west of us and also some cliff dwellings which we thought might be interesting to see at Bandelier. We drove to white rock and parked up at the visitor centre which has a free shuttle to the Bandelier Nation Monument and runs every 20 minutes. On arriving at the Monument we discovered it was $20 each to enter, remember that America the Beautiful membership we bought earlier in this blog for $80, well it got us in for free.

It was a really interesting place to visit, well laid out paths and plenty of ladders to climb to view some of the dwellings of the Pueblo people.

On the way to the cache afterwards we came across this place “Grande Valle” on Hwy 4, there were Elk down there and you can just imagine Bison there too in days gone by.

A couple of shots of the hummingbirds we fed;

So that’s it for another edition, so who’s going to be the first to come and stay with us then?

Open invite……….

If you want to add us to Whats app, the number is 1-407-458-3679

Have a good time until the next edition.

Terry & Gill

Palo Duro & Amarillo TX

Greetings friends, How are ya’ll?

So from Oklahoma City we needed to head West and back into the “Panhandle” of Texas. So why are we back in Texas? Well we had to come back through the panhandle to get to our next park. Texas is kinda big, but how big…..it’s this big;

 

An early start put us on the road at 08:00 for a very flat 280 mile’ish drive to somewhere near Amarillo. (try not to sing the song, This is the way to Amarillo)

Sha la la la la la
Sha la la la la la
Sha la la la la la

When the day is dawning
On a Texas Sunday morning
How I long to be there
With Marie who’s waiting for me there……..

We had booked into a Texan state park called Palo Duro Canyon, 120 miles long and 800’ deep, making it the second largest canyon in the USA. On arriving at the state park the lady got our booking wrong and sent us to a different area, but hey we were ok with that. It was our first experience of driving the rig down a road with switchbacks, but it all went ok and we got to the bottom safely.

Our first impressions were “OH WOW” because of the views

However the “OH WOW” was soon changed later in the evening to “OH HECK” because of the weather, we had a Tornado warning and the awning was bought in very rapidly.

When we booked in their were three young ladies booking in behind us, they were so excited about their camping trip, but now a storm was brewing very rapidly and one of their tents was already wrecked by the wind. I went across and helped them pack up and put all their gear in the car where they went to take cover. I went back to the rig and checked on the weather for them, hail and heavy rain were heading our way and the risk of a tornado.

What could an English gentleman do? Easy, they were duly invited into our RV for safety and to use our other bed for the night. They bought their gear across and then went across to use the showers, and then the poor things got absolutely pounded running back to the RV by a downpour of English penny sized hail. Owch.

I’m just glad they were safe and hope that if my daughter was in the same situation then someone would do the same for her.

The following evening i tried to take some night shots, there was too much moon really bit they come out ok.

The following day, all the walks in the park were still closed due to flooding, so we headed up to Amarillo for a few hours, visiting a few Geocaches including one at Cadillac Ranch.

We also did another stretch of Route 66 which went through the centre of the city where we stopped and had lunch in “Smokie Joes” We do a lot of our shopping at Walmart and Gill needed bread, but to be honest we decided it could wait. While having lunch we found out that someone had been taken hostage and the hostage taker had been shot in the walmart. I can wait for bread!!

We got back to the park and did one hike of 2 ½ miles, it was way too hot and a lesson learnt, the following day we would start early for our hike.

When we got back to the park, the ladies we helped the night before invited us to dinner that they cooked.  Their names were Grace, Morgan and Anna Kay. It was a nice gesture and appreciated. Thank you ladies.

On our final day in the park we headed out at 7.45am fully loaded with 2 hydration units of water at 2 litres each and about another 4 or 5 ½ litre bottles as well to do a 5 mile hike to the “Lighthouse” and back, it was a great walk and managed to do some geocaching on the way back too, an added bonus. We got back about 4 hours later and it was getting very hot and most our water was used up, it was worrying to see people going past to do the walk at that time of day, in that heat with no water at all.

 

There was plenty of flora and fauna and also a few unexpected creatures, our first view of wild hogs.

 

Hey you remember this guy, Beep Beep? It’s Roadrunner, alas we have yet to find the Wiley Coyote.

Beep beep!

 

 

In the afternoon we went up to the visitor centre to learn a little about the history of the canyon where we saw an ambulance pull into the park and learnt that someone had been taken seriously ill with heat exhaustion while doing the lighthouse walk!!!

The rest of the day we had a restful afternoon getting ready for our move the following day to New Mexico.

Some odd snaps of the canyon;

Later in the afternoon we had a visit from Morgan and Anna Kay, they had bought us some Amarillo ruffle cakes and had written us some thank you notes that bought tears to our eyes; one of them is clearly a very talented artist!!  Grace had gone home early due to being unwell, so get well soon Grace.  It was a pleasure to meet such nice young ladies, and wish them all well during the rest of their School vacation.

 

That’s it for this edition take care, love you all.

Oklahoma, Tulsa via Route 66

We left Lake Texoma, Texas on June 9^th 2016 and headed North across the Red River into Oklahoma.  The trip was not a long one this time, as it was only about 140 miles, and we arrived at Roadrunner RV Park in Oklahoma City in good time, so had the afternoon to familiarize ourselves with the area and find our favorite shop (not) Walmart (Wally world to some Wall Fart to us) to stock up on provisions.

The RV Park is very sparse with a laundry and bathrooms, but nothing else.  We do have full hook-up and concrete pad for the RV, but as we are only here for 3 nights and it is only $36 a night, it is fine, plus it was just rebuilt after a tornado ripped through the site last year.

Gill asked a guy to show us the new storm shelters that have been built, just in case!

Friday we went into Oklahoma City to watch a Red Earth parade, where native Americans ride in cars, wagons or on horseback around the Myriad Botanical Gardens to celebrate their heritage and it is the start of a 3 day celebration of native American cultural events.  There were also some classic cars on show and we found our favorite. (Car of the blog)

After the parade we went to The National Memorial site where in April 1995 a bomb ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and killed 168 people.

For each person who died on that terrible day there is a chair cast in bronze with their name and each chair is placed in the memorial garden in such a way to replicate the floor of the building where that person had worked.

On that day nineteen children also died and their chairs can be seen as they are smaller than the rest.  At night the chairs light up, so we went back after the sun went down as well.  There are 2 walls at each end of an infinity pool; one has 9.01 on it and one has 9.03.  The bomb went off at 9.02am, so they signify the before and after times on that day.

We then walked through to Bricktown which is very similar to San Antonio’s Riverwalk with shops, restaurants and bars and also riverboat rides.  We saw the Headquarters of Sonic the fast food outlet (Gill likes their vanilla cup ice-cream for $1.19). But now we have found a bigger portion at QT garages for 79c

Saturday was a road trip day to Tulsa via Route 66.  We started out about 8am and stopped off along the way caching and at sites marked along the route.

We came upon Kellyville where they had a classic car show where more photos were taken of cars and we also had lunch of pulled pork, potato salad, beans and tea for $5, so a cheap lunch was had.

It was a lovely trip, but not much to see in Tulsa (there was a cycle race happening when we arrived).  We came back along I55 where we went through Stillwater.  At each end of this town there is a business called G & M, and in each of their car parking areas there was a Transformer which were built in Thailand and shipped over.  They were cool!!

We got back to Oklahoma City about 9pm, so headed to Momma Lou’s which we found and it is family owned.  The people were very nice and Terry had liver and onions which he thoroughly enjoyed, so if you are ever in Oklahoma City please do visit.  We find wherever we go everyone loves our accent!!

Sunday we went to 2 flea markets in the area.  The first one was huge and mainly the stalls were run by Mexicans.  There were rabbits and puppies for sale and Gill had to be led away from both kicking and screaming.  We shared a turkey leg for lunch ($8), which we last did 12 years ago in Disneyland, Florida.  The second market was more arts and crafts, and Terry bought the obligatory T-shirt with Oklahoma on it there.  The rest of the day has been spent getting ready to move out tomorrow to Palo Duro Canyon, Texas not far from Amarillo (I feel a song in there somewhere??).

Little did we know, that when we took the photo above, we were literally……only 24 hours from Tulsa!

And you know whats coming next…………This is the way to Amarillo ….groan!

Our car of the blog;

A 1960 Chevrolet Impala, yours for $50,000

Please feel free to whatsapp 4074583679 if you would like to chat with us, but remember the time difference is 6 hours behind you lot in the UK.

We hope all our American friends are well (Rob, hope the foot gets better soon), and likewise all our UK friends and family we wish you all the best and miss you all.

Until next time

Love Gill & Terry

Dallas & Fort Worth, Texas.

We had stayed at Lake Medina for a week, and on the Thursday it was time to move off, we were headed to a place called Lake Texoma which is nearly 100 miles north of Dallas, and has a surface area of some 89.000 acres.

Lake Texoma is filled by the “Red River”, I wonder why its called that?

At 6am, we were off, having rigged up the car and put everything away the previous night. Gary and Lola were headed that way too but they had not decided on where yet.

On the route north was the city of Austin.

Now I know some of you may have seen the film “American sniper” a film based on the exploits of one Chris Kyle, a US navy seal sniper in Iraq. Chris and a friend were killed by an army veteran with mental health issues and PTSD who he was teaching at a gun range.

Now having watched the film and read the book and realising that he was buried in the state cemetery there, it was a place I wanted to stop off at and pay my respects;

 

 

The trip from Medina was non stop thunderstorms and a huge traffic delay, and the rain didn’t stop at the cemetery either and we both got well and truly soaked.

We stopped briefly at a rest stop north of Austin for a bite to eat, and Gary and Lola had caught us up, stopped there and told us they had managed to book the same site as us for a couple of days. After a full 10 hours (9 of which were rainy) we made it to the site.

Last year at Green Mountain in North Carolina we met up with Pam, Jim & Gypse the dog, they too were at the campsite and we met up with them on the Friday and all had a lovely meal of smoked brisket, which Jim had cooked in his smoker.

Gary and Lola spent a few days at the campsite then they left to go north eastwards. We will miss them but do keep in touch by email, text and phone call, and hopefully our paths will cross again.  Take care guys ….

We decided to go to Dallas on the Sunday for 2 reasons, one was to avoid works traffic the other to avoid school traffic.

Now some of you may remember JR, Sue Ellen, Bobby& Pam (being reincarnated in the shower), and of course Cliff and a poison dwarf named Charlene, yes its Dallas.

Well there is a real place called South fork, so we swung across to have a look, we didn’t do the tour, but you could if you wanted.

Once in Dallas, the main place we wanted to visit was the place where John F Kennedy was assassinated. Deeley plaza.

Some of us were too young to remember that day, for some it changed their lives and for others they will remember where they were and what they were doing on that day in history, as we do with 9/11.

He was allegedly shot from the sixth floor of the “book depositary” (Behind Gill) where they have a very informative museum, taking you through that visit to Dallas by JFK. $16 each including a very good audio tour and worth every cent, you could easily spend half a day in there with all the information available. No photography allowed!!!

Oops, me bad;

 

They have marked a large “x” on the main road where the fateful shot got JFK and it was quite surreal to see people dodge the traffic to get their picture on the exact spot.

For us, to sit there on the grassy Knoll and imagine……it was informative and made things easier to understand and picture, as there have been so many TV programmes and films, but to actually go there puts it all into perspective.

 

 

While in Dallas we did a few Geocaches, one of which brought us to this spot;

 

We also drove west as far as Fort Worth and saw the Dallas Cowboys stadium, again you could do a tour for $17.50, but I would rather pay and see a game at some stage of our tour, however we did book some rodeo tickets, we had said it would be nice to see a rodeo in Texas, so we did.

The rodeo was an experience in Fort Worth’s “Stockyards” where we went for the day on Friday 27^th May.

Guess we are in Texas!

 

Hey, I forgot to mention, I have “invented” a new game to play as well, i did this last year but its fun, so we decided to play it again.

What you do is, when you are in a crowd waiting for something to start or just pass the time, you take out your camera, get your partner to look away and then zoom in on someone in the crowd and take a picture. You then replay the picture to your partner and they have to find that person in the crowd……..I’ve called it “Where’s Wally” I think it’s a great invention and i could make some money out of this!

Wheres Wally?

 

As well as the rodeo we went to the cowboy museum, which was more about Rodeo riders than anything else, but interesting nonetheless.

We also visited Billy Bobs, a huge country music club, at 100.000 square feet and include several bars and restaurant areas and also a bull riding arena! (Alledgedly the worlds largest “Honky Tonk venue) We had lunch at Billy Bobs, which we were hoping would be a light lunch………I’m not sure they do a light lunch in this country.

They also had a cattle drive in the afternoon of Texan Longhorn cattle through the streets, and we also visited a couple of drinking establishments.

 

Not far from where we are camped is a place called “Hagerman” a National wildlife refuge, 11,320 acres of wetlands and uplands alongside Lake Texoma, we spent a morning driving around part of it, we saw plenty of nodding donkeys, but very little wildlife.

At the campsite we met a couple we had seen at Lake Conroe, and I had briefly spoken to them about their Porta Bote that they had. They were called Rich and Donna, a really lovely couple that full time in their RV, Rich loves his fishing and we both went out in his boat (bigger than mine) a few times on the lake while Gill relaxed with Donna playing cards and chatting. I hope our paths cross again at some stage on our travels.

We managed to visit a few of the local towns, including Dennison, which , you could tell was an old western town, we listened to some music while there on main street, someone called “Big Joe Walker”

It was also the birthplace of “Dwight D Eisenhower” (Ike) the 34th President of the USA.

Remember Trevor MacDonald on ITV news…………………..and finally; Vehicle of the week?

Next time……

Oklahoma city.

 

The Alamo

Hello Ya’ll

Now when we left Lake Conroe we were meant to be heading to the Dallas area, however Gary and Lola persuaded us to head west and visit the Alamo with them which is in San Antonio, a little off route (By about 250 miles) but, hey we have no ties so why not. So we left Conroe 4 days early and stayed at the new location for a week.

The campsite was about 40 miles North West of San Antonio at a place called “Lake Medina”

 

This was a large site next to the lake with plenty of cover under the trees.

There was also plenty of wildlife, well plenty of well fed Deer anyway;

Eating MY bird food!! and quite a selection of birds and two reptiles that I saw, but we will come back to that later.

The visit to the Alamo was free to visit and we also did a small part of the river walk in the centre of the city of San Antonio. It is really a lovely walk that meanders in, under and through the city where you can also take boat rides for $10 and soak in the whole thing. We walked some of it and it is something that really adds to the city if you are ever in the area it is worth the visit.

Eating and drinking establishments are there in plenty, if you don’t mind flashing the cash. A sandwich in a bar that we stopped in for drinks was $15/£10

The Alamo is quite strange in that it is in the city centre, at the time of the battle it was just part of the village but San Antonio has grown up all around it. It was the place where Lt Colonel Travis, David Crockett and James Bowie (he of the “Bowie” knife) fought the Mexicans for the freedom of Texas, all of whom lost their lives, more can be found here; The Alamo History

Next to the Alamo is a shopping Mall with an IMAX theater, where they present a 45 minute film about the 13 day siege of the Alamo, which we found interesting.  Be aware though there were 2 theaters in the Shopping Mall, and we struggled to find  the right one, the people who worked in the mall even gave us the wrong directions…It’s on the second floor!

Other places to visit were Hondo, where there was an Art deco’ish cinema and a neat welcome sign;

 

Bandera, a place where gunslingers still prowl the streets, often having a shoot out at a local bar or reconstructed western street;

 

Down where we were in Texas, we knew we were libel to have a bit of rain, and one evening we started to have a bit of an electrical storm so I went down to the lake to try and take some pictures of the lightning;

The storm got closer and the rain started so I made my way back to the RV, it wasn’t long before it really started to rip it up and the rain came down in torrents.

I’d had a couple of warnings on the phone that flash floods were “An imminent danger”.

I happened to look out the window at about 10pm and we were in imminent danger, we were literally surrounded by water 8-10” deep and it was still raining, I went to the RV door and opened it with half the intention of trying to move the car from danger, but on opening the door I was put off that idea by a Diamondback rattle snake slithering across the top step of our doorway!

It was even too wet for the little frog that can be seen on the top of one of the chairs in this picture;

 

A very sleepless night was had, watching the water levels and thinking of a contingency plan should it get any worse. Luckily for us, it didn’t get any worse and by morning the water had receded, but we moved to another site away from the area liable to flooding!

We were told that lake Medina had all but dried up, but when we got there it was full and it gave us an opportunity to get the boat out for the first time. As with both vehicles, the little motor on the boat started after a couple of pulls. I even managed to catch a couple of small, large mouth bass;

 

On the Thursday we had been told of a picturesque place called “Red Bluff creek” where we again did a spot of fishing, however it was frustrating watching the 3’ Gar fish totally ignore your lures as they went pass. But it was very pretty.

On the way back to the campground we stopped off at a grotty Taco place, we had seen on the way to the creek and I tried a large beef taco for $4, wow and it was very nice too.

A few cactus flowers for you;

Drum roll please…….the vehicle of this episode is;

Until next time, enjoy the blog  missing ya’ll.

Next episode…Dallas/Fort Worth

More Friends…

This was the first internal US flight I think we have done, and it was a disaster, nothing less than a disaster.  We got rid of the luggage and continued with our hand luggage and that was it, we got stopped, there was something in our bag they were not happy with.

After a quick search they found what they were looking for……My Marmite, did they love it or hate it? I don’t know, I don’t care, but they stole My Marmite.

You can get it over here, but boy its expensive, £4 for a very small jar, and I know that some of you uneducated and those with no taste will be saying “so what”! “That stuff shouldn’t even exist”

Well I love it, end of story. I have now spent a huge chunk of our nest egg and bought a small jar of Marmite, luckily I also found Branston pickle right next to it on the shelf, happy days.

After a bumpy turbulent flight into Houston, we were met by our friends Gary and Miss Lola who we met at Cherokee landing in Tennessee. They were kind enough to pick us up from the airport and take us to pick up our RV and car, which if you recall we left at Lake Conroe just north of Houston, Texas, some 7 months ago.

It was good to see “Wendy” the Winnebago (as Kathryn called her) and the car. The bicycles had been left on the rear of the car and covered in a Tarpaulin, alas the tarp was in shreds but the bikes were fine.

All was well with both vehicles, but the moment of truth came in the turn of a key, after 7 months in hibernation, the key was inserted and the key was turned and “Wendys” engine awoke and spoke and sang a sweet serenade to us.

We were thrilled the same happened with the car too, first turn of the key and both vehicles had started.

We hitched up, and drove the short distance back to Lake Conroe to start our camping adventure again.

After pitching up at the campsite, it was straight into the old routine, setting up and getting all the supplies that we needed.

Last year we also met Bill & Judy Kaufman at Natchez Trace, and as luck would have it were traveling from Florida to California, so they pulled into the campsite to catch up with us.

Gary and Lola hosted an evening meal with Gary cooking a Louisianan Gumbo, for Bill, Judy, Gill and I, and very nice it was too.

Bill and Judy did not stay long as they had a date in California to meet, but it was lovely to see them again.

To reciprocate Gary’s cooking, Gill decided to cook a Shepherd’s pie, but trying to track down lamb in Texas is like trying to find a piece of land in Exeter that’s not being built on, (but that’s another rant)

We found some in the end, and they enjoyed it!

Gary also cooked a small steak for us….

 

Pickle ball has also been back on the agenda, where again we caught up with some old friends, Ray, Morgan, and also Tom and Paula. We played most days, sometimes twice a day. Morgan was also kind enough to give Gill her own Pickle ball bat. I am still trying to track one down but at $80-90, I think I need to keep on looking.

The heat at times may be getting to some…….

We spent a day at Gary’s daughter’s house and some of the family went to the cinema to watch “Captain America” , and the rest of us enjoyed a quiet afternoon.  We enjoyed our visit and were thankful for their hospitality and loved the green bean casserole (thanks Mike).

Galveston was a day trip which we took, which is to the south of Houston and we went for a $10 boat ride in the bay to see Dolphins and a concrete ship called the Selma.

Also watching the shrimp boat and Dolphin watching.

 

On the Wednesday we went to Johnston space centre again to see the space shuttle, which was just being installed when we went last year, but not complete.

Alas we were a little disappointed with the shuttle as it was only a mock up, one that had been used for training by the astronauts, and not one of the actual space shuttles. Luckily our visit had been free this time as we upgraded our tickets on our last visit so they lasted a year.

Before we headed to the space centre we had been shopping around for some tyres (Tires, as the Americans call them) for the Toyota, boy are tyres expensive over here.

$525 for 4, approx £100 each. Back in the UK, I would pay half of that!

So we got them done, which should last approx 70.000 miles….should be ok for this year 🙂

This one is for you Kathryn;

Sonic Ice cream

As for wildlife, a few birds;

 

My choice for vehicle of the blog goes to…..(drum roll);

We have caught up with Kathryn several times via WhatsApp, it is nice to speak to family back home, and know all is well and anyone else who wants to chat, please feel free to contact us on Skype, Whatsapp, Facebook etc.

 

Next Installment; Unexpected move, floods and the Alamo.

USA 2016….Friends reunited?

Well we made it to the USA at last after 7 months back in the UK.
We were kindly driven to Gatwick by Jim on the Saturday 22nd of April. Jim couldn’t take us on the Sunday as he had organised a charity cycle ride for his Rotary club. We got to the hotel and vegged out for a day and a half.
Unfortunately on the day of the flight for some stupid #bodymustbeexcited reason we woke up at 2am, so with a slightly delayed BA flight and the time difference we wouldn’t get to bed or sleep for 24 hours. We landed in Orlando, picked up the hire car, set the sat nav and were off to see our friends who live there Rob, Tiina and family.
We had a nice welcome from Zach and Anya;

We got there walked in the door said our hellos and it was “Right we are taking you to Cheddars tonight, the kids are hungry” Which was followed on Tuesday evening by “we are taking you to Gators Dockside for a meal and a birthday party” followed Wednesday night by “We are taking you to 4-Rivers where they do great smoked food”
For some stupid reason I, Terry, didn’t plan our visit very well in that we arrived on the Monday and left at 4am on the Saturday, so we only got to spend early mornings and evenings with Rob, Tiina, Zak and Anya.
Rob has recently changed employers (and wouldn’t throw a sickie) so couldn’t take time off.
For some reason, the Americans don’t take time off and are reluctant to take their holiday entitlement as it’s frowned upon by their employers!!!
But we did get up at 6am each morning and go for an early morning walk around a lake near their house, and spent some great times in the evenings drinking beer, playing video games and as Rob put it “the morally inappropriate, Cards against Humanity” and just being “friends” again.

In amongst this time while the guys were at work, we still had stuff to get done, so set about ticking those of the list.
Before I left the UK, I had gone on a bit of an adventure and traveled from Exeter to Seaham (Oop North somewhere), the reason?
I have a cousin I have not yet met who lives in North Carolina who contacted me via Facebook last year and we have been chatting and getting to know each other and one thing she has mentioned a couple of times is “Sea Glass” so that’s why I went to Seaham, to pick glass off the beach!! Apparently it is world renowned for its glass….see here; Seaham glass.

So Monday I posted a parcel to her with some chocolate that she also likes and a few bags of sea glass.
This is her response on getting the parcel;

“It is rare that I am ever at a loss of words to convey my feelings. Today I was shocked speechless and left quite tearful when I received a box of goodies I wasn’t expecting. In the box was a letter that started with these words “I hope this finds you well and puts a smile on your face.”

My cousin, whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting in person, lives in Exeter, England and he drove all the way across his country to hunt sea glass at a very popular beach called Seaham just so he could send it to me. He also shared beautiful bottle tops he has collected from his time spent metal detecting thru the years. And Butler’s chocolate bars are my favorite candy ever and can only be found in Europe.

Terry Waddup, from the bottom of my heart I will be forever grateful for these meaningful gifts. I will smile every time I look at my glass and reread my letter! ❤️❤️

So nice to put a smile on someones face 🙂

 

We also have integrated ourselves into the USA a little deeper by opening up a US bank account which should make things a little easier over here as our other card kept getting blocked by Lloyds bank, even though it is a US dollar account and we told them our travel plans (Numpties), they obviously did not listen as when we tried to transfer some money across to open the account……yep, they blocked the transaction, so we had to phone them again. (Numpties again).
Talking of phones that got sorted too, if anyone wants the number email me and I will send it to you.

On the Tuesday we had arranged too meet the “Hayes family” at a nearby “Cracker Barrel”. These were the guys that were so kind and helpful when I was walking around on crutches last year due to a little accident .

Deborah, Paul Snr, Paul Jnr, Quentin (Thanks for the gift Quentin) and bless him their very own question master, young Owen. Such a great family. We have invited them over to the UK if one of them can overcome his fear of flying.( I won’t name Paul Snr, that would be unfair).
It was so nice to catch up and see them again; something tells me it won’t be the last time either.

Wednesday was also another day of catching up, this time it was with Lee and Larry who taught us to play “Pickle ball” last year. They happened to be down in Orlando, so we headed across to a local park and joined in again with them and some locals having a round robin of pickle ball matches, followed by a meal at a local Golden Corral, another nice couple and another nice day.

We spoke to Kathryn and mum via Skype, and found out that Kath had an exam which she needed 70% to pass. Next day she let us know she had passed with 97%. Well done!!. Kath also visited Peter, Debs, Teah and Zach as Peter is back from working abroad for only a month, and we were sorry not to see him before we left.

All too soon, our time with the Chapman’s was coming to a close, but it had been a busy “Week” (Rob will criticise me for calling it a week) (we are already labelled as “Gits” for spending such a short time with them) But we got lots done, had an awesome time and then at 4am on the Saturday it was time to go to the airport for the next stage, bless them, they even got up on their day off to say goodbye…….damn fools!!! The time will go quickly and we are already planning the date to return to Orlando and the Chapman’s as someone has a special birthday in May 2017 !!!

 

Next time….Picking up the RV & Lake Conroe and meeting more friends made from the first trip.

Part Deux…..

Well that is it, “Finito”, “its over”, “Terminado” the end has come to my 28 year B&Q career!
I was going to hand in my notice with them and walk away with nothing, but they decided to change our contracts and if I did not sign that contract my employment would be terminated for “some other significant reason” with B&Q paying my notice period.
So, I would like to thank B&Q for paying me up to the point that we get to the Great Sand Dunes National park at the end of June! Due to the fact that I have 28 years service, my notice period is 3 months, thank you very much, I’ll have a bit of that 

Thanks Will, your cigar has been used, even though i dont smoke!
I have just had my leaving do in Exeter at “Starz bar” and would like to say thankyou very much for all those that turned up, I have made some good friends over the years and will miss the people more than anything else!
Even those that didn’t come 😉

When I was going to hand in my notice, I was going to do it in a slightly different way, in the form of a poem, but I never got the chance because of the contract change so I will share it on here, seems a change to waste it totally;

It is with regret and some sadness
but also joy and lots of gladness;
That after 28 years of DIY,
the time has come to say goodbye,
In 87 I joined this firm, never
thinking it would be long term.
I’ve seen many staff come and go
how many for sure, I’ll never know,
Area managers, managers too
I have to say, I’ve seen a few.
I thank the company for my way of life
It’s not been easy, with plenty of strife,
over the years it’s had lots of trends
but through it all I’ve made some friends.
But now it is my turn to walk away
to have some time to relax and play,
across the water on a holiday theme
to go and experience the American dream.
As I leave, I hope very much
that those friends I’ve made, we keep in touch,
so this is it, my final week
the end is nigh for my DIY streak.
It has been a ball, It has been a blast,
The end has come, oh so fast.
My best wishes to one and all.
One thing I’ll not miss is that bloody timber saw!

Terry Waddup
28th November1987 – 31st March 2016
Since leaving work I have been very busy in the garden, redoing the path and painting fences as well as making some new raised vegetable beds.

Quite a bit of cycling and running and a trip that remains secret at the moment.

In a few days time our journey starts again, we (Gill and I) (no Kathryn this time**) fly into Orlando to stay with our good ex patriot friends Rob and Tiina, who we owe so much to for the start of our journey last year, alas it is just a 5 day stop off, but we felt we owe it to them and want to catch up with them anyway. We are going to try and meet up with some others that we met on our last trip, Lee & Larry, Paul and Deborah Hayes and anyone else that we have time to meet.
Then we fly onto Houston where we will meet up with Gary and Miss Lola (as Gill calls her) and there it all starts again.(Providing the RV is still there after all the rain of 20″ in the last few days)
So until we get to the states, that is it!
Feel free to follow the blog, comment on the blog, (so we know someone reads it and it’s worth doing)
** Kathryn won’t be coming with us this time, as a typical teenager there were some tough times on our journey last time, 6 months in an Rv looking at the scenery and doing very little, probably isn’t a teenagers “thing”. However Kathryn is starting her new job at Exeter airport in her chosen career, and I am sure she will enjoy the experience. 6 months without her, but I will miss her.
But I wish her all the best in what she does, we are both very proud of her xx

So it’s all aboard for the next trip, hope you are all on board, On Saturday Jim will take us up the airport ready for our flight on Monday.
Until the next blog, take care, stay safe…stay in touch.

Tick Tock….Not long to go.

Hello again everyone. So it’s been a while since the blog was updated and as time has moved on I thought it was time to do another post.
So, Christmas has come and gone, and working in retail as I do Christmas kinda came in October when all the trees and decorations had to be merchandised. I have to say it puts a dampener on the real thing. In my opinion they shouldn’t hit the shelves until at least the end of November.
However, Christmas was good, even though I only had my birthday (Christmas eve) and Christmas day off, then it was back to work until the New Year when I managed to get 4 days off in a row off. But New Year has never been one that we really celebrated, and this year I even managed to sleep through the fireworks!
Christmas day was a bit different this year though, because of all the problems that I had had with the car I decided to put it up for sale on advice from the garage. Christmas day I had a text from a Polish person asking if it was still for sale and could they come and see it, I replied, yes, just let me know when as I was working over the Christmas period, 20 minutes later they were at the house and having a test drive, the following day they came up, paid and drove it away….Merry Christmas! Did this leave me carless? No, Pete my brother had found a cheap run-around that should last me until we leave for the states again, which he got me for a present. Thanks Pete.
So how long has the car got to last?
Not long, the flights are booked for our return trip and so are 80% of the camp sites.
The plans are as follows, we fly into Orlando from London to stay with Rob and Tiina for a few days, when hopefully we shall try and catch up with a few of our friends who we met on our previous trip who may be in the Floridian area, dependent on time and distance, but it would be fantastic to catch up with as many as we can in the time we have.
We then fly from Orlando to Houston, where Gary & Lola have promised to pick us up and take us to pick up the RV and car. They are also staying at Lake Conroe for a couple of weeks, so that will be brilliant to catch up with them again.

We then head north to Dallas, Lake Texhoma. Where we will stay for a couple of weeks….where was JR’s Southfork? North again to Oklahoma City, this appeals to us as one of those old original “western” towns, then it is west to Pole Duro canyon State park for a stopover. From there it is North West to just north of Albuquerque and Hyde Memorial State park, close to Santé Fe in New Mexico.
North again to Colorado staying near and visiting the Great sand dunes National park, followed by Black Canyon then Mesa Verde NP, where I’m hoping to visit the four corners monument, where 4 states all meet, remember the scene in the “RV” film with Robin Williams?…..we wont try that!
Utah is next and two more national parks, Canyon lands NP and Arches NP, followed by Capitol reef NP, Bryce Canyon NP and Zion NP. After that it will be a week at the North rim of the grand Canyon in Arizona, we have done the flyover and boat down the Grand Canyon so are looking forward to seeing and exploring the north rim.
Verde Valley, near Cottonwood Arizona is next on the list, staying there for 3 weeks, then 9 days in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Our final stop will be down near San Diego, California before flying home again. We are really looking forward to this trip and all the national parks, I am sure we will see some wonderful landscapes, meet awesome people and have a great time.

So, the end of my time with B&Q is near, this time I leave for good, I am sure I shall be sad, after all, I have spent more than half my life working for them. I shall miss a lot of the people there, but hopefully we will stay in touch.

Home Sweet Home?

After parking the RV and the car up, getting in the hire car and getting to the airport, it was home time.
The flight was at 20.30 and went smooth with British Airways, although an overnight one, I did not sleep. Jim met us at the airport and I drove the car back to sunny Devon, it was good to jump straight into a right hand drive car and get used to it again (the weather has been really nice since we have been back) it must be breaking us in slowly!
On walking into the house after 6 months it was quite strange, Kinda, “this is posh”, and clean (after the Rv) but also spacious. As with the RV there is always something that needs doing and there was a little list of jobs waiting for me, but all are done now.

Our house, with the views over the part of the city we can see.

 

And the view of the rear of the house, a bit different from your American houses!
Sleep is taking it’s time to get back to normal but it’s getting there. Can’t sleep, wake up at 02.30, or sleep till 09.30….it’s a pattern of sorts, one that should I need to, will be attacked by “Nitol”
Kathryn has returned to her work place, Gill has started to do some temporary work and I started back on Monday 5th October.
Unfortunately, I always knew that I was not guaranteed to return to my original store (5 minutes from home) but I did not expect to be put in a store 48 miles away and an hour’s drive each way.
As with all companies the one I work for has changed in the years since I joined it, (and it needed to in some ways,) but an hour away with no explanation or thoughts for personal circumstances, just doesn’t float my boat so I have decided to make some changes to my working status.
As of the 21st November I am taking a step down from management and going back to being a general assistant on the shop floor for the rime I have left with them. It’s not something I wanted to do; I wanted to finish my career in management and in the same store as my colleagues and not have to travel for 2 hours a day. However, as Meat Loaf once said “2 out of 3 aint bad!!
Since being down in Plymouth the car has given me a lot of problems, firstly the annual roadworthy test (MOT) cost me over £500 then the turbo blew up on a return trip, followed by a blown radiator and it still is not back on the road yet after spending a further £1700 on the turbo etc, however it is one of those thing where you are past the point of no return with it and once it is back on the road, I need to just run it into the ground!!! (Bloody French rubbish)
What else has happened? I sent a few postcards out to “friends” in the USA, Skyped a couple of them and tried to stay in touch via social media. But back here, not much, catching up with friends when time allows. Done a few cycle rides, a little bit of running and generally work, work work!
So this is my first blog since being back in the UK and I’m not sure if I will do any more while here, certainly not while I’m down in Plymouth as time is a hard thing to spare at the moment. Until we have more to report, be safe and keep on touch.

Our own trail of tears……..

Our final week has come and gone.
It was Labor day on Monday so it was a holiday weekend, labour day is always on the first Monday in September and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers and has been going for over 100 years.
The public are allowed in the park on Labor weekend as well as the members, it gets really busy, they wreck the place and I HATE it!
On the Tuesday we met up with Gary & Lola (from our Memphis blog) as they were down at Garys Mum’s, so we met halfway at Beaumont for a swamp tour, lunch and a visit to Gator Country.
It was a very enjoyable day, looking at snakes, gators and the swamplands.
I mentioned “pickle ball” in my last episode of the blog, and we have been mentored and taught the game by Larry and Lee, as well as Ray (in his 80’s) Morgan, Jud and we’ve just been joined by Paula and Tom. and we have been playing most mornings at 8am (8:30 for Gill, she’s not a morning person) It is something we have enjoyed and look forward to playing it again sometime.
The only other activity we have done is a bit of fishing from the boat out on the lake, but now that is packed away too.

So that’s it, it’s over, finito, se acabo, est ist vorbei, Det et over. We are out of here, after 6 amazing months we have to go home, back to England.
This is our last blog from the US of A for a while.
Back to our jobs, old and new and back to our family, who we have tried to stay in touch with via postcards, Skype, face book and the like.
But we have “family” here now too, friends who have made our stay so enjoyable it is the stand out factor of our adventure. You have all been amazingly kind, generous and friendly, Y’all know who you are!
We truly are hoping to stay in touch with as many of you as we can and on our next circuit of the country we hope to see you all again.
Special thanks have to go to Rob and Tiina in Orlando, who without them, we would have really struggled to get anywhere, or maybe even get going at all, and we know we will always have a home in Orlando should we need one. They have allowed us to use their home, their phones, and their address, Thank you so much guys.
So the fridge has been emptied, the freezer defrosted and the RV “winterised” the RV and car are now stored, and we have packed and are now heading for home, until next time, take care everyone. Thanks for following the blog, I hope you have found it interesting and feel free at anytime to comment or ask questions. I shall be doing the occasional blog from home for our American family,
God bless you all xx

Alas the end is Nigh!!

Well this is our penultimate blog from the USA. We are now in Texas at a place called Lake Conroe, 50 miles north of Houston and 200 miles south of Dallas.
It was a 370 mile trip from New Orleans along a very rough I10 interstate, so rough that it nearly shook the boat off the top of the car, we had to stop and re-secure it. However we did spot the cheapest fuel we have seen so far $1.99 per gallon.
Talking of New Orleans, Kathryn had the bargain of a lifetime while shopping at one of the Malls there, she managed to bag two leather jackets at $250 each for the grand sum of $40,wow! Takes after her mother for a bargain.
This is by far the nicest Thousand Trails park we have stopped at, the pool is amazing, with loads of covered seating and gazebos. The gazebos have their own TV’s and each one has its own fridge and ceiling fan too. It has to be said we have had many holidays in the Mediterranean and this out ranks those!
So we have come to the last 2 weeks of our adventure, so the time has come to think about packing up, but before we do that we still have a few things planned for September.
We have an appointment on the 1st to look at the place where the RV and the car will be stored for the next however long! Done and secured, covered storage for the car and Rv for $90 per month.
On the 2nd we are looking at the Saint Francis wolf sanctuary near Montgomery, a charity establishment where you have to make an appointment to visit.

Then on the 8th we are planning to meet up with Gary and Lola from Memphis at a place called Beaumont, Texas for an airboat swamp ride and lunch.
The following week will all be about cleaning the RV, doing a few jobs to winterize the rig for protection over the winter, packing up and getting ready to fly home.
We have been to the Movie Theaters in Conroe to watch Vacation, Mission Impossible, Agent 47 and No Escape. At the Star Theatre and Grill they have tables between each row of seats and staff serve you a meal and drinks during the film, which was strange to start with, but once we got use to it we found it a nice way to enjoy the movie. After one of the films we then went to a Indoor Bowling Alley and had 2 games. The drinks they refill for you, and when Kathryn was asked if she wished to pay for the drinks and she jokingly said no, the bartender said fine, so she did not pay for them!!!!
We have ventured into Woodlands Shopping Mall, and bought more than we thought we would, as we are not shoppers, but it was a nice Mall.
We visited a place called “Huntsville” which is 20 miles north of us and came across this little fellow!

His name is Sam Houston, guess which city they named after him?

For one reason or another I ended up behind bars this week, but I was released without charge. (Geocache)

We also took a trip down to Johnson space centre at Houston. On the way down I realised Gill had forgotten ( 🙂 ) my camera sd card so we had to pull in and buy one at “Best Buy” (similar to Comet from the UK) 16g for $8.99, I remember when they were over £30!
Parking was $6 and luckily we had a voucher which saved us $5 each on the entrance fee of $23. While there we went into several film showings and they said you could turn your day ticket into and annual membership, so at the end of the day we did for an extra $8 each, which gives us free parking and as many visits as we want in the next 12 months.

We had planned to go on down to Galveston and make it a full day, but to be honest the space centre was a full day in itself, so we ventured no further south, Only back north through Houston’s horrendous traffic, stopping off at the Water Wall where one of my old work colleagues stopped a few days before, Molly, who is having a whale of a time wandering around some of the big US cities.

Also prior to this weekend, I went out and did an 11 mile cycle and picked off a few Geocaches while out and came across a Disc Golf course in a local park where Frisbees are used instead of clubs and ball, so as the first day of the Labor Day weekend came across us we took our 97c pet Frisbees and went and had a throw, it was a good laugh but how your meant to get a Frisbee to its target of 350’ in 3 throws beats me!!
And to finish off;
Remember these for the sacrifice they gave, where were you when these happened?

The Big Easy.

Our last week In New Orleans has been one of exploring and seeing more of what it has to offer, and trying out the southern Cajun food. As well as doing some upgrades to the RV TV system.
We had an old style 300lb (well it felt that heavy) TV in the bedroom and decided to start upgrading the system starting in the bedroom.
This is the TV that whilst traveling north from Miami and we were passed by a large 18 wheeler which gave us a bit of a wobble decided to fall out the cupboard, bounce of the bed and land on the floor.
So after doing a bit of research and planning, I took a cabinet door off and took it to a man named Randy, who has a company called 30 x 90 custom wood works in New Orleans here. He knocked us up a new door to my dimensions. A couple of days later the door was ready, we then went out and bought a new TV, marked out where and how I wanted to hang it and where the wires needed to go, I then took the door back to Randy who cut out the hole I needed (Free of charge, thanks Randy) I then spent a few hours fitting it. I am really pleased with the result, what do you think?

On Monday 16th August we took a trip down to Grand isle, a 100 mile plus trip down south.
The trip down was similar to our trip down to Venice (see last blog), this trip had more water, longer bridges and more houses on stilts.

We stopped at the side of a road to do a Geocache and it was quite disconcerting to see the water was higher than the road we were on…thank heavens for the wall between us.
Grand Isle had a nice little state park down the end, funnily enough with an RV park there ($35 for the first night $28 per night after that) not that we will be going there.
The state park had a nice beach where we had a stroll, spotted all the oil rigs off shore and the remains of the oil spill from BP. A long drive but, we think it was worth it. It had a nice pier;

A couple of people have recommended restaurants down here, one was by Judy Cosby ( the lady we met on the road in a traffic accident queue) she mentioned a place called “Mandinas” It was a very popular place and the food was nice. I tried crab sticks followed by Turtle soup, and a full un-shelled crab. Gill had her normal chicken and chips!! Me…I’ll try anything, Gill, not a chance! So yes a nice eatery 8/10.

On Wednesday 19th we picked Will and Kathryn up from the airport and headed for a late birthday meal at another recommended place “Katies” …..Lovely ribs.J Will and Kat had a nice Po-Boy (French bread with a filling) Gill had grilled Rosemary chicken. (Daring!)

Thursday saw us complete the food tour and we went to “Mothers” recommended by one of Wills contacts, where I enjoyed a Po-boy with red beans and rice. Gill also had a Po-boy of beef, and as normal Kathryn had eyes bigger than her belly so it went home in a box as usual!
We also finished off the “Garden District” tour looking at the lovely houses,

and visited “Lafayette cemetery” and “Cemetery number 3”

Friday, we dropped Kat and Will in the French Quarter and Gill an I headed across the lake and into Mississippi to a place called Waveland at St Louis Bay. Lunch was had at a place called Tony’s, again really nice seafood. Seafood Augratin over a baked potato, awesome.
The beaches were stunning and empty, and the water was so warm it deserved a swim, so a swim was had. A lovely place to relax and walk your dog.
Talking of dogs, I like dogs, I used to have a dog, there was a couple walking their dog past us on a lead and I stopped to say hello, the dog said hello by sinking his teeth into my hand drawing blood, not sure I did the right thing, swimming in the gulf with blood coming out my hand, luckily we saw no sharks!

Now Bourbon Street is meant to have a good nightlife, so we decided to go in and sample it and listen to some music. The music was good in several bars that we went to and the street itself was very lively, very lively, totally different from a daytime visit. If you don’t like it loud and brash…don’t visit it of an evening.

Frenchman street is quieter and the market is nice too.

Saturday, we said goodbye to Will who flew back to Miami, hopefully he enjoyed the small amount of time that he got to spend in the Big Easy, and his time with us.

So that brings us almost to the end of our stay here, and to sum it up, today struck it home to me how poles apart some lives are. On arriving back to the RV park we had a Newell motor home parked opposite us.

Value? We are guessing if it is a 2009 to 2014 model about $800.000 to $1,400,000, just look at the interior of this one. Compare that with some of the poverty that we have seen all over New Orleans of run down houses, districts, and people on EVERY corner of every road, cardboard in hand begging for whatever you can spare…….Some of it is still down to Katrina 10 years on(29/08/2005), talking of which, here are a couple of memorials we searched out.

So there is always someone worse off than yourselves, and looking at that RV, there’s always someone better off too.

On that note, and until next time, take care.

The Deep South

Another move, another state…well, two states really. We left Tennessee, we left Gary and Lola and we left Cherokee Landing. A nice quiet park but like a lot of the Thousand Trail parks, it needs some TLC (Tender loving care) or to put it another way, spend some money on it!
The trip was too long just to head straight for New Orleans, some 4oo plus miles, possible, but I wanted to tick off Arkansas on the way so we stopped off at a place called “Lake Village” in the South East corner of the state. It was nothing more than a two night stopover, just to break the journey. We did have a drive around doing some Geocaches and exploring some antique shops. I also got to dip my hands in the Mississippi river. This river mesmerizes me every time I see it, it is so immense, powerful and fast flowing that I could sit and watch it all day.
We still had about 340 miles left to go to get the camp site in New Orleans so it was an early start and after a uneventful trip viewing the marvel of bridge engineering, where most of the interstate is on stilts above water it was down into the mayhem of the worst drivers we have encountered so far!!! They are nutters in this city, and their driving is awful!! Talk about lane hopping so many times someone would overtake you at the same time as someone would undertake you and they would both try and pull in front of you at the same time from different directions……Thank the lord we are safe!!!!
We also saw a motorcyclist laying flat horizontally across his bike with one hand on his handlebars doing well over 100 miles an hour, just imagine….
After getting to the “Judes“ RV site, the following day we dropped Kathryn off at the airport to fly down to Miami to see Will again.
We went off to explore the area north of the city. We drove over “Lake Pontchartrain” via the causeway, the longest bridge over water in the world.

Stopping at a place called “The Chimes”of Covington, where the food was just awesome, up there with the best we have had in the US. We also had a drink called a “swamp bucket” a very nice 4 type rum punch in a normal glass not an actual bucket for $9.50. If your in the area its worth a visit. We then headed east and back over the lake via Maestri Bridge.

On Friday the 8th August we went off with an aim to head as far south as we could us down highway 23 past a place called Venice to the Mississippi delta area, a 70 mile trip.
I decided to stop off to do a couple of Geocaches, and as sometimes happens with Geocaching it takes you to places that are unexpected. Today was no exception, when we stumbled upon Nasa’s , Michoud Assembly Facility, a place that does not have a visitor centre. We also came across The New Orleans battle site of Independence, Challmette. January 8th 1815…another defeat for the British!! A battle that need not have taken place as the treaty to end the was signed in late 1814.

Apart from that the road south had with very little to see apart from many parking areas for the oil rig workers, houses on stilts and a very large continuous levy. It did however include a crossing of the Mississippi on a small car ferry, (which very surprisingly was free) For those of you that are in England, it was similar to the ones that cross the Dart river.

The return trip took us to the south side of the city where we came across this; “Terrytown”. …..I’m infamous 🙂

We have done the touristy bit of New Orleans including Bourbon St, Royal St, Frenchman St (told by someone this is a good area for bars and restaurants in the evening). We found free parking for the day at N Peters St, but do not leave anything of value in your car as some areas of NO are dubious. ;

And the “Garden District” with some beautiful homes,

We took a trip out to the garden center via one of these street cars for $3 each and it’s a jump off jump on day pass;

As were some of the old plantation houses;Don,t you just love the driveway!!
NO….you are not going in that Gill!

This city is the one with the most ups and downs and underpasses and overpasses we have come across and some fantastically structured bridges;

I suppose the reason for the bridges ect is the amount of water and the fact that the water table is only 2 foot below the ground, which is also the reason people are buried above ground like this;

Baton Rouge (red stick) named after a tree, was visited by myself and Gill, we saw the old capital building and the new one, which included a great view from the 27th floor looking over the city (free) and that lovely river again.

In Baton Rouge we also visited the National Cemetery, a small one in comparison to the ones we have seen so far, but none the less, worth a visit.

And today we will finish up with, while we were walking along the French quarter we found this

And for this week…………….That’s all I gotta say about that!!

Cherokee landing part deux..

My last instalment of the blog was typed after a week at Cherokee Landing, Saulsbury TN, so here is the second part..
We are now in the last few days of this campsite and it is still as deserted as the day we came, with a few coming and goings of people.
Gill and I went up to Jackson TN in the week to have a look around, but mainly for Gill to go and see some sights related to “Casey Jones”…(don’t ask me, its before my time ;-). We visited the museum, his grave and his house (which had been moved). Gill even got to ring the bell on his famous train the 382, also known as the Cannonball.

Last Saturday, the 25th , we went back to Shiloh battlefield site with Gary and Lola and their friend Connie. The reason we went back was that they were doing a live firing of a cannon as a demonstration but also to remember and in respect of one of the people killed at Chattanooga recently, the guy was also a volunteer for the National park service.
The cannon fire was very well presented and demonstrated by some volunteers and gave a good insight to what the battlefield would have been like with several battery’s of these cannons firing every 60 seconds.

The last time we came to Shiloh we had a lovely meal at Hagy,s which is just down the road and right on the banks of the Tennessee river, where Gill ate the best meal she has had since being in the US, a pot roast. So we went back there again on this Saturday. Its strange how two meals can vary so much, Gill did not enjoy her pot roast, and I had a sea food platter that I would only give 3/10 for, everything was battered, which was a shame. Had I asked for it just to be grilled I’m sure they would have accommodated that, but I forgot to.
It was then onto Corinth and the Civil war interpretation centre, which was also good. Basically, after the confederates lost the battle at Shiloh, they retreated to Corinth to protect the railway which was literally a crossroads and an important supply route for their supplies.

We returned to Corinth a few days later on our own to have a look around and do some shopping. We came across a really old chemist that has been in the same family since 1865 and it’s called “Borroums drug store” and is in the hands of the 7th generation of the family. The Pharmacist is Camille Borroum who is 89!! It is not just a pharmacy but is also a diner and has an old soda fountain and some original features, including a wonderful collection of old Indian arrowheads, knives, and spears. The cherry soda that I had there was fantastic. If you go there, it’s worth a visit.
Memphis also was graced with our presence again as we still had a couple of things to do and see, We went to Wolfchase Galleria mall for some retail therapy, and for the fact that is was air conditioned and it was one of the hottest days we have encountered for a while!

I do not know how these places survive, they are massive in size, but empty of customers, and its been the same in all the malls we have been in. This one had a little train for people to use to get around the Mall for $4.00 per person.
After that it was then off down to “Beale Street” to have a browse around and grab some lunch, which we did at the “Tin Roof”. Now Beale street was nice, but not as vibrant as downtown Nashville. It was a small street with some interesting outlets but was all checked out within a couple of hours, including a visit to A Schwab‘s, which is a Memphis landmark.

We popped down to Camping World in Mississippi and met up with Gary and Lola again before going back into Memphis central to Charlie Vergos Rendezvous restaurant which is right opposite the “Peabody Hotel” that I mentioned in the last episode of the blog. Apparently it is famous for it’s charcoal broiled pork ribs. The ribs were nice, and it’s the first time I have had ribs with a dry mix on them, different. However, If you ever do go here, sides are limited to “beans and slaw” there is no butter for your rolls and “sorry we don’t do desserts”. But the ribs are worth a try.
Kathryn has decided to fly down to Miami to see Will again next week when we get to New Orleans (our penultimate stop), so we shall have 2 weeks to ourselves. There will only be 2 or 3 more installments of the blog while we are in the USA, and perhaps for our new American friends I may do a few in the UK when we are back.
I’ll leave you with a picture of a horrible little monster that visited us while we were with the neighbours, Gary and Lola.

Oh no…thats Gary….here is the monster;

The king and I…..

Before departing Natchez Trace, we had to go and pick Kathryn up from the airport at Nashville.
However prior to that we were told about a nice winery that was nearby’ish, Amber Falls, with free wine tasting and music thrown in too, so off we went and had a good session tasting 10 or so wines, then chilling outside with another bottle of wine listening to a good local country band. I say chilling, if you can call sitting in 95 degrees of heat “Chilling” but you get where I’m coming from. We went from there to a local ¼ mile oval banked dirt track and watched some good motor racing. I love the fact that before the racing, everyone in the stadium, stood up and said a prayer and sang the national anthem, such a proud nation. We wouldn’t be allowed to do that in the UK, in case we offended someone!!!

On the way up to Nashville, we visited Bellemeade house,

which was started in 1807 had 136 slaves and then grew into the largest equestrian stud farm in the south of the USA. The house at one stage had 5400 acres, but now is down to 30! The most recent triple crown winner “American Pharoe” can also trace its roots back to Bellemeade.
Whilst in Nashville for the second time we managed to come across the Parthenon, the only full size replica of the Greek original.
Mum always used to talk about the “Grand ole Oprey house” so we searched that one out too, and it was not what we expected, right at the edge of a large mall. But we saw it nonetheless…

and that they as they say was it….that was Nashville, Oh and we did pick Kathryn up too J (That was the best part of Nashville 🙂 )
On the way to Memphis we had to go and get the new awning fitted. We managed to find Jerrys mobile rv, and I have to say they did a good job, nice new awning and we have taken some precautions now to prevent a repetition, we have strapped it down and bought a weather radio that comes on and warns us of any storms in our area. The insurance we got had a $1000 access on it, so it was not worth claiming on it, a lesson learnt for any future trips we do!!!
At the time of this edition of the blog we have chilled a lot and made one visit to Memphis. Memphis is about an hour and a half away and we set of early to visit “Gracelands” home of Elvis Presley at 9am and another place Mum would have loved to come to. We purchased the tickets and were on the 10am tour, but if you just head for the shuttle (that takes you across the road,) they just get you through as you come, you don’t have to wait for your tour time. The tour was not rushed, it was self guided and a great commentary via an I-pad. We only did the house and grounds, we didn’t do the cars or aeroplanes, as that did not interest us.

After Elvis we went into town just in time for the duck parade! Many years ago on our first visit to Orlando Florida, we went to the “Peabody Hotel” Every morning at 11am a bunch of ducks are escorted down from the roof via the elevator along a red carpet and into the fountain in the foyer, where they stay until 5pm when the parade is reversed and they go back to the roof. Well the Peabody Hotel in Orlando has gone, so we went to the one in Memphis instead. We saw them come down at 11am and got back in time to see them go back up…..quirky, but fun to witness.
In-between the coming and goings of the ducks we went for a paddle steamer ride on the grand old Mississippi on the “Island queen” $20 each and it lasted an hour and a half. It was well narrated by a gentleman on the boat telling stories and the history of the river.
Did you know for example, that the biggest maritime loss of the USA happened on the river, just look at the “Sultana”

Now if you recall we went to a great outdoor sport shop called “Cabellas”, Memphis has the one of the largest, if not the largest “Bass pro” shops in the country. If you want anything for an outdoor sport, it’s here….boats, guns, archery, fishing, clothes, camping etc etc.
It also consists of a hotel and two diners, one at base level and one at the top. We wanted lunch, so went to the basement one but there was a 45minute wait, so we went to use the lift to get lunch upstairs……That’s $30 please! What? To get lunch upstairs….I guess we will wait till later then and get lunch elsewhere. Great building, some nice toys, but we were not paying 30 bucks just to get to an eatery!!

Gill and I managed to visit the Shiloh civil war site in Tennessee. It started with a very informative 45 minute video, we then visited the cemetery which only had union soldiers, as the confederate dead were not deemed part of the country. The Tour is a 13 mile drive around the battlefield, visiting all the positions of both sides over the two days of the battle. It was free to enter and we spent all day there, you could easily spend more than that if you visited every sign and monument.
Over 84000 men clashed on this battlefield and there were 23746 casualties, the confederate dead were buried in mass graves on the battlefield. A very interesting day and worth the visit, just set aside at least a full day.

We have had some great neighbours during our visits to these campsites and this one has been no different, We met Bill and Donna from California who has now left to continue their travels, Dan from North east Tennessee who I would love to catch up with sometime and go wild camping in the wilds of the Smokies, and we have Gary and Lola, who are here until October when they will start their travels again now that they are fully retired, we had lunch with them last weekend and they are truly nice people, we are planning to meet up with them in Memphis (where they live ) for lunch somewhere.

The last 4 months have been an incredible journey, but we are well aware that that journey is nearing its end, only two more camp sites and 8 weeks left. Thoughts about what we need to pack, where will we store the RV etc etc are already starting to cross our minds, and what then…….who knows?

These things happen when you get “Independence”

So, here we are in Natchez Trace wildlife preserve (still) and in my last blog , the 4th of July was upon us.
This was the first time we had been in the states for their celebrations and we were looking forward to it. However, there has been a lot of noise about flags here recently since the sad shooting at the Charleston church, and I fully sympathise with those who want to keep the confederate flag flying, it’s part of your history….As is the Union Jack, so I left that one and the George cross both flying in the front of our RV, hope you didn’t mind on Independence day, 🙂
Now as we go around the states we like to delve into the history and the past of this country so we have a better understanding of what its all about. So why the 4th of July?
On the 2nd of July 1776 the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of congress and John Adams (2nd US President) wrote to his wife and said ;

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”

Not that I’m splitting hairs or anything, a party is a party…we just had to wait an extra 2 days to get it.

Happy 4th of July
The camp site hosts a large firework display, food vendors and…..and…..and, well that was it really apart from the 3000+ Southern people descending on a very wet campground. We managed to get there early and park under some trees away from the hoi pol-loi and the massive grass area. As we were sat there, all the local pick-up trucks arrived and started churning up the grass, getting stuck and being pulled out by the golf carts! When is a golf cart

not a golf cart? Allegedly, this is a golf cart!!!

Later in the evening, and being a true British family who had not spoken to the family of Rednecks (their words not ours) next to us they came over and invited us to their Barbeque, so we joined them, ate their food, drank their beer and generally had a good time with them.
I enclose a couple of photos of them having fun and playing,

I guess it’s just a “Redneck” thing.
The fireworks went off just after dark, and my first attempt at photographing them went ok.

Its been a quiet week since the 4th, and we haven’t done an awful lot. We did go for a drive down the Natchez Trace, and stopped off at every point of interest, did the walks looked at the sites all the way down to Tupelo.
But we will come to Tupelo later in this blog.
We also said goodbye to Bill, Judy and Maggie, a lovely couple from California, but who’s home is now in Florida, safe travels guys.:-)

One of the things we did come across and that is not marked or signposted from the trace was a guy called Tom Hendrix.
He is also known as The stone talker
Tom is a mere 87 years old and a gent who has built an amazing memorial to his great -great grandmother Te-lah-ney (Woman with the dancing eyes). She was an Alabama-Coushatta Indian, a Yuchi tribe member, who was removed from her home in Alabama as part of the native removal to Oklahoma in the 1800’s.
Now many years ago Tom decided to build a stone memorial to Te-lah-nay, and he points out to us that he has moved eight and a half million pounds of rocks, 3 times (25 ½ million pounds) (load them on the vehicle, take them off the vehicle, place them on the memorial). We spent a while with Tom, who was kind enough to give me 3 flint tools, an arrowhead, a spear head and a flint knife, and a book about the Indians. If you are passing this way, it’s a must visit stop, just East of mile marker 338. When I was talking to some locals they didn’t even know about it. Tom is a fascinating man whom I could talk to for hours, please if you get a chance, go there!

After visiting Tom we decided to carry on to Tupelo, so we went from Tennessee – Alabama – Mississippi – Alabama – Tennessee in a day. Tupelo…..famous for “Elvis Presley’s birthplace”

Now none of us are huge Elvis fans, but I do like his music as I know my mum did, so it was nice to go somewhere where I know Mum would have liked to have gone. We saw his tiny house and his church.
Maybe when we go to Memphis we will visit Graceland too. The spooky thing about coming here was that after we visited his home, we went for lunch at the nearby Red Lobster to be served by none other than “Janice” my mums name!! Fate I guess.
No animals to talk of this edition so I thought I would update you on our mileage.

When we bought the vehicles the Toyota had done 102,719, it has now done 109,217 total mileage = 6498
The RV had done 31,219 and is now up to 33158 total mileage = 1939, so overall mileage travelled = 8437

Next time…Memphis (wish us luck and safe travels)

Hello Ya’all….Ya’all come back and see us now.

From Harrison state park in Tennessee we moved along the border to a place near “Hohenwald”. For those of you with a map, it’s about 84 miles south west of Nashville. We are also about ½ a mile from the Old Natchez Trace parkway which runs from Nashville TN to Natchez Mississippi or visa verse!

The first week at Natchez Trace was a lazy one, just relaxing and reading books, doing a bit of fishing,

that was until the storm came!
The storms here are pretty predictable, starts getting cloudy, it then gets very close, then the wind picks up and then the awning gets blown off your RV! Then the rain comes…..Yep another disaster to overcome and more expense, but to be fair it was a job I wanted to get done at some stage anyway, as the old awning fabric had bubbled and had a couple of small tears appearing, so it is booked in to be done on our next move date, the 13th July. That’s when we move from the Nashville area ( I say “area” in the loosest form of the word) to the Memphis area. (where we have been warned it’s not a nice city)

In the first week we managed to visit “Hohenwald” and “Lawrenceburg” and touring around an Amish community near Ethridge. Just north of Ethridge we found a smokehouse called Shaffers, talk about the best piece of Brisket I have ever eaten, it was outstanding.
The Amish were an interesting experience, the ones here are of the “old order” no electricity, running water, and they wont even use Velcro or bicycles! Their carriages don’t have rubber on their wheels as that is forbidden too. All the houses are very similar and most of them have signs at the end of the drive of what they sell at their property, now I don’t know if they have just never heard and English accent before or if they are like it to everyone, but you kinda get the feeling you’re an alien when you talk to them.

Above are pictures of their houses, and below is a typical Amish traffic jam!!

Talking of accents, I asked a young woman at a garage for directions to a particular store and her response was “Oooh you just keep on talking honey, I love your accent”…..That did make me feel good J

Sunday Kathryn had to fly back down to Miami to spend another two weeks with Will. So it was an early start to get her to Nashville airport for her flight. Myself and Gill then had a nice day doing some Geocaches, and lunching in and around Nashville while also sampling the sights and sounds of the country music capital of the world. We started at Capitol Hill and as it was Sunday we parked near there for free J Then we walked around the city until we came to downtown. Every bar, restaurant and café had someone in there singing live, and those that didn’t , had them on the pavement outside singing instead. Nashville has a very intimate feel about it and is not one of those HUGE cities that has lost its pleasant feel to it.
Capital Hill, Nashville

Down town Nashville.
We pick Kathryn back up on the 12th of July, so we will spend another day up there sampling its character, which hopefully will include a visit to The Ole Oprey House and Bellemede Plantation.

On our return journey to the RV we came back down the Natchez Trace Parkway which, like the Blue Ridge Parkway has mile markers showing points of interest along its 444 miles. Obviously, we only did about 92 miles, but it would be a good road to do on a Harley!!

We did see deer and a skunk (Terry got out of the car to take a picture but luckily the skunk had disappeared)!!
We have taken the boat out on Chief Creek Lake and Gill caught her first fish which was put back, and we are going to go around the lake further from the RV site to see how far we can go in the next few days. and do some more strenuous fishing.
Our friend Rob has gone to England with 2 of his children for 2 weeks and his wife Tiina has had to stay at home as she is unable to get the holiday time off, but we have spoke to Tiina and hopefully the time is flying and the family will be back together this Monday.
One of the biggest celebrations in the USA calendar will be on us this Saturday with it being the 4th July and this will be our first taste of this national holiday, so there seems to be a lot of activity around the campsite with decorations and more and more people turning up and the site is to be opened to the public with about 3,000 people expected with the day culminating with fireworks and no doubt beer and joviality, we will let you know all the details on our next blog or later in this one!
Talking of the campsite, it is approx 1.6 miles from our site to the entrance. I have done a few cycle rides of 10 miles plus and the worst bit is the campsite…you get to the entrance and you still have another 1.6 miles of very hilly terrain to get to our site!!!!

Some more of our visitors and sightings since the last blog, awesome butterflies, cheeky chipmonks, Armadillo humming bird, and a skunk!

That’s it for this edition Ya’all come back now ya hear 🙂