The Shunpikers

Reflections

2009-12-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

So that was it. In 12 weeks,we travelled 12000 miles by car, 500 miles by train and 400 miles by plane in North America. We walked at elevations ranging from below sea level to 10000 feet above it and, within a single season, we experienced temperatures ranging from –13 to +25 deg.C.. We crossed 4 Canadian provinces, 25 US states and Washington DC, yet saw only a tiny fraction of the continent. Although we experienced a wide range of landscapes, urban and rural habitats, and wildnernesses, we only scratched the surface and caught a fleeting sense of most of the areas we covered.

So what are our main impressions and abiding memories? First is the astonishing variety of natural environments on the continent. The fall colours in eastern Canada and north-east US were stunning. Yosemite and Zion valleys were grand and beautiful, and the deserts of the southwest had a stark and alien attraction of their own. The great canyons of the Colorado Plateau were staggering in their size and awesome in the sense of isolation and solitude they engendered. The huge, open skies over the seemingly endless plains of the midwest produced magnificent sunsets, while the enclosed, secretive Louisiana bayous were hauntingly beautiful, but eerie. Overwhelmingly, there was a wonderful silence in most of the non-urban areas, which we rarely experience in Britain.

The built environment of North America is another matter. The few large cities we visited, particularly on the east and west coasts, are interesting and stimulating in their various ways, but there is a uniformity imposed upon them by modern commercial development and the ubiquitous appearance of national or even global brands. Of course, much the same could be said about most major cities, across the western world at least, where distinctiveness arises largely from the physical geography of cities and their environs. The medium–sized cities we saw were highly variable in their appeal, probably largely reflecting differences in municipal and average individual wealth (and the means by which it is created) but also depending on the extent of cultural diversity of the residents. The numerous small towns and rural communities of the US are almost all ghastly. The universality and uniformity of their open shopping plazas, surrounded by car parks, renders them boring, at best, and often downright ugly. Some of that might be attributed to the relativeness newness of many towns, but an evident lack of tight planning controls and the abundance of cheap land leads to spreadeagled or strip development of the worst type. It is both a result and an encouragement of a mindset which puts individual car use at the heart of much of American life. We wonder how long that can continue.

As we, ourselves, spent so much time in a car during our trip, many of the things we liked and disliked relate to driving on the roads. We liked:

(a) The rule allowing a right turn on a red signal, when the road is clear.
This keeps the traffic moving and removes some of the frustration of motorists who are sitting at traffic lights with no other cars in sight. There seems to be no obvious impediment to implementing the equivalent rule in the UK (i.e. left turn at a red signal), except that our streets mostly carry a higher density of traffic than in the US, so the rule may turn out to be of little benefit, at least in the daylight hours.

(b) Pedestrian crossing countdowns

We have seen these previously, elsewhere, and we wonder why they haven’t appeared in the UK (though it seems they may soon do so). They are an excellent way of assuring pedestrians that they haven’t been "forgotten", and they help to discourage jaywalking. In Istanbul, we also encountered countdowns for motorists at traffic lights and we understand that these excellent developments may soon be introduced in both the US and the UK.

We disliked:

(a) Stop signs (and stop lines) set back too far from intersections

So far back that it was often impossible to get a clear view of traffic coming, particularly from the left.

(b) Inconsistent and inappropriate positioning of direction signs
We frequently missed turnings because the only signs were at the intersections themselves (i.e. there was no forewarning). On other occasions there were direction signs placed well before the relevant intersections, sometimes before other intersections, causing us to turn too soon. These sorts of inconsistent and inappropriate placements were particularly problematical on freeways. Excessively early route indication frequently caused us to exit too early and find ourselves in a part of a city for which we were not prepared, while late signage often led to our missing our desired exit, sometimes having to travel up to 20 miles or more to get back to our intended route!

(c) Aggressive and inconsiderate driving

As we noted, the standard of driving deteriorated markedly as we moved west and south. Excessive speeding was not much of a problem, though as in the UK, some drivers often did not adjust their speeds to the prevailing conditions. Tail-gating was a serious and frequent concern, as were the appalling lane discipline and the lack of the use of indicators. We frequently saw cars suddenly veer across three or more lanes of traffic, without signalling, to exit from freeways. People we spoke to about the poor driving standards generally agreed and gave various explanations, though one which recurred was the American view that the car is an extension of their very existence and, as their private property, can be used in whatever manner they choose, without regard to others (rather similar to the attitude of many Americans towards handguns). In our view, the authorities don’t help matters much. Although, universally, there are frequent signs warning of fines for excessive speeds (especially in road works and near schools) and for littering of the highway, there seems to be scant concern about the finer elements of driver behaviour. Bad examples are set, both in poor road design and in the behaviour of traffic police. Not infrequently, we saw a police car stopped adjacent to the centre strip or fence of a freeway, having pulled over a car driver in the outside lane. On a couple of occasions the police cars didn’t even have their emergency flashing lights on!

(d) Freeway entrance ramps too short

Frequently when entering a freeway, there is insufficient distance to check what traffic is coming fast from behind and to pick up speed before joining the traffic flow. Adrenaline rush (aka terror) was a frequent experience upon joining freeways.

Probably the American practice that we most dislike is the universal expectation of tipping for all services and for many provisions of goods. It is not seen as an optional additional payment for exceptional service, but rather as an additional cost to be included, compulsorily, in the overall charge made, along with taxes (which are also never included in the basic costs quoted for goods and services). Quite frequently, a tip was simply added to the bill and we were, in principle, challenged to remove it. This situation is sanctioned by the US government by not including waiting staff and other service personnel in minimum wage provisions (which are extraordinarily low by UK standards, anyway). Tipping is an iniquitous practice, which invokes feudal comparisons. Having grown up in New Zealand, where (at least at that time) tipping was non-existent, we have a very clear view: tipping should be done away with entirely, in the US and elsewhere, and all workers should be paid reasonable wages.

One of the aspects we liked most about the “American way” is the expectation of individual responsibility for one’s own behaviour and the care of children. Oddly, given the litigious culture in the US, government and local authorities appear to be much less concerned than those in the UK about providing advice and safety measures at places of danger. Much more than in Britain, it is left up to individuals to determine and regulate their own behaviour and to supervise the activities of their children. In Britain, it is not so much that we have a “nanny state”, but rather an irresponsible population that leaves too many decisions and responsibilities to government and local authorities.

A final observation is that Americans like predictability or certainty in their lives. They are, of course, quite certain that the USA is the greatest country on earth, the only one in which the citizens are truly free and the only one with complete moral integrity. They are certain that it is (or should be) invincible and they are bewildered to discover that other countries don’t necessarily share or welcome all American values. Their certainty, as that of most imperial powers, is underpinned by their faith that God is “on their side”. That is apparent in the huge number of churches across the country and in the extraordinarily conservative fundamentalist Christian radio stations which fill the airwaves.

The uniformity in the development of towns is just one aspect of the predictability which pervades US culture (at least that of the dominant white community) and which is expected or, at least, welcomed by individual Americans. It is evident also in the ubiquitous fast-food clones and the extraordinarily and depressingly similar budget motel chains. This standardisation and predictability makes a lie of “freedom of choice” and individualism, which Americans proclaim as basic to the “American way”. We’re not the first people to point out that freedom to choose between options which are broadly the same (whether in fast food or in political parties) is really no freedom at all.

At another level, the desire for certainty affects the way Americans talk and act, for example in the standardised vacuous greetings and predictable behaviour of most of those who serve in shops, cafes and hotels. We suspect that it may also be one of the reasons why most Americans don’t appreciate irony. On several occasions when one or other of us spontaneously made what we thought were mildly amusing or slightly clever comments or repartee, the response was almost always incomprehension or suspicion, as in the following actual telephone conversation:

[Them: Thank you for your credit card details. For security purposes can I just have your zip code please?

Us: Sorry, I live in England, so I don’t have a zip code.

Them: That’s not a problem.

Us: Well, it certainly isn’t a problem for me, anyway!]

Through the silence which followed, we could almost hear: “smart-ass limey bastard!” . On the other hand, Americans are too polite to be directly rude to others, except possibly to the girl in the cafe who inadvertently puts blue-cheese dressing on the salad when “ranch” was specified. Their politeness, general lack of boorishness in public, and individual keenness to be helpful are pleasing qualities that we could do with a lot more in Britain. Unfortunately, this pleasantness is not applied to their compatriots who are physically more remote (e.g. other car drivers), nor to “foreigners” who do not share “American values”. While some European nations are at least occasionally included in the latter group, the British are generally exempted and we quietly cringed when told by a taxi driver that “I’m really grateful to the British for supporting our boys in I-rak. They really understand what we’re trying to do there”. However, we appreciated the genuine interest and welcome often accorded to us by individuals in shops, cafes and hotels, particularly in small towns and rural areas. Many people spontaneously shared with us the details of their family’s British origins or their recent travels in the UK and some gave us their contact details, with invitations to stay with them if we visited again.

It is a beautiful and amazing country, with people who are individually very pleasant and welcoming. However, the American nation seems to be busy playing an internet strategy game with the rest of the world, while maxing out on junk food and watching a nostalgic patriotic old movie. It hasn’t noticed that the electricity supply is starting to fail, the creditors are knocking on the door and its opponents in the game are losing interest and starting to play among themselves. The next couple of decades will be interesting and we may make another visit in the next few years to check on progress!

Our last US blog 'post'!

San Francisco

2009-12-21T04:41:00.000-08:00

Friday 11th December

Daytime temperatures had risen steadily since we arrived in Yosemite and the snow had started to clear from the roads. On the morning we were due to leave, we woke to find light rain falling, and the tops of the mountains shrouded in low cloud. Road signs indicated that chains were still required. Initially, thick snow still lay at the roadside in some sheltered places, but the road became clear quite quickly and we were pleased to be able to take the chains off after a few more miles. After a long, steep descent, we emerged from the forested mountains into grassy foothills. Large orchards and vineyards appeared as descended further. The rain increased as we made our way towards San Francisco and intensified as we ran into heavy traffic in the commuter area. Crossing the Oakland Bay Bridge, we couldn't see anything of the Bay. Negotiating the steep, one way streets of San Francisco at peak time was somewhat challenging, but we managed fairly well, only having to go round the block a couple of times before stopping outside our hotel. In an extraordinary piece of good luck, we saw that the rental car depot was directly across the road from the hotel. With a couple of trips, we offloaded everything from the car into our room in the hotel, which was a small, European-style bed and breakfast place, run by an American, his German wife, their golden retriever who knew all there was to know about begging and their Manx cat, who had the most amazing repertoire of cat-talk.
As we walked over Nob Hill to a very pleasant restaurant for an excellent meal to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we noticed a loud humming sound at some of the street intersections. It took us a little while to realise that it came from the moving cables which pull the cable cars up the hills and which are located underneath the roads.

Saturday 12th December

The San Francisco authorities appear to have an ambivalent attitude towards tourists. There are the obvious tourist attractions such as the cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge and the island of Alcatraz, which are promoted, but it seems to us as though tourism is something that the city puts up with rather than sets out to encourage more generally. The Visitors’ Centre is located underground near several transport hubs but it was not signposted and it was staffed by people who seemed wholly uninterested in providing information and useful brochures. Unlike most other visitors’ centres we have been in, it was virtually empty on the occasions we went in, even though the city centre was full of tourists. We never found an overall map showing the routes, stops and schedules for the city’s public transport system (the MUNI), which includes buses, trams, cable cars and a clever light rail network in which the trains are underground in the city centre, but become trams in the outlying streets. (Our benchmark for city transport maps is the remarkably comprehensive and clear bus services map in Barcelona - San Francisco doesn’t even come close). We gained the impression that the San Francisco public transport system is comprehensive, efficient and reasonably pleasant to use, but information about it is sadly lacking. We had to discover by trial and error what our 3-day “passport” did and didn’t cover and where the various routes went.

Before leaving the hotel in the morning, we spent time on the phone, unsuccessfully trying to get through to the concert hall box office for tickets for a concert by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. In the end we decided to go directly to the venue. It was intermittently raining very heavily, with a strong wind making umbrellas difficult to handle and of limited use. (Memories of Auckland weather sprang to mind). We took the cable car downtown and then watched as the driver and brakesman put their backs into turning the car around on its turntable.

By the time we had wandered around for an hour deciphering the transport systems before finding an appropriate bus, then walked half a mile to the concert hall in Van Ness Avenue, our shoes and trouser legs were soaked. Having found that there were no tickets available, we ran into the nearest and, indeed, the only visible eatery to dry out a bit and warm up with some soup. Because it was so wet, we didn’t really appreciate the grand buildings around the area (the Concert Hall, the Opera House, the City Hall and the California State building), but instead headed back to hotel in mid-afternoon to change our clothes.

The rain and wind revealed the value of a San Francisco peculiarity. The names of streets are imprinted in the concrete at the curbside at intersections, as well as being displayed on signs on posts, in the universal way. When pedestrians are struggling against the wind and rain, with their bent heads covered by hoods or hats, behind umbrellas held at 45 degrees, it is much easier to see the street names at their feet than to search for a sign 15 feet above the roadway, somewhere around the intersection.

Later, through cancellations, we managed to get a couple of seats for the evening concert so we retraced our steps, had a quick meal, then walked briskly to the concert hall. Fortunately the rain had eased off. The Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall is very modern and has a grand and distinctive interior design, mostly in white plaster and light-coloured wood, with idiosyncratic touches such as the several small ruched drapes, rather like roman blinds, fitted along the tops of the walls on both sides. The imposing organ has silver-coloured pipes. The concert was an excellent combination of romantic classicism and modern atonality, with well-known works by Beethoven set alongside two unfamiliar pieces by Webern, one a surprisingly accessible and delightful arrangement of Schubert dances. The orchestra and the celebrated piano soloist, Emanuel Ax, were highly impressive and the music was thoroughly enjoyable. The audience seemed to be comprised of a range of people with varying knowledge and sophistication, similar to those at most concerts we have attended in the UK. However, as in most aspects of US life, the two ends of the range were more exuberant and objectionable than in Britain. Some of the audience managed not only to applaud between movements, but actually within a movement. At the other extreme, there were many who expressed their sophisticated appreciation of the performances with prolonged applause, punching of the air with their fists,shouts and whoops, and one announced to his companion, in a voice audible to everyone within thirty feet, that “you’ll never hear another performance as good as that, ever”. We wondered how he knew.

Sunday 13 th December

Carolyn realised that she had left her reading glasses in the rental car but the rental company, who traced the car to Monterey, could not find them. We suspect that the spectacles are still lying in the natty and useful lidded compartment at the top of the dashboard. We were also not very surprised to hear that the car, which we had driven for 9000 miles, without an accident, along busy freeways, through city streets, across deserts, and in snow, ice and rain, had been crashed by the next hirer.

It was overcast with traces of rain as we walked through the financial district, whose buildings, though not the height of those in New York, still created a canyon-like effect. All the buildings here, like most buildings in San Francisco, were put up after the 1906 earthquake and the even more disastrous fire which followed it a few days later. As in all of the US cities we have visited, most of the commercial buildings are very recent.

We walked to the stylish Ferry Building, which has recently been restored and turned into a gentrified market area, while continuing as a terminus for some ferry routes across San Francisco Bay. We took the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) rail service, which we found is not covered by our 3-day transport pass, contrary to the information in our guide book. The automatic ticket machines employ an extraordinarily complicated, slow and frankly barmy procedure which defaults to a mid-price fare, then requires the user to add or subtract amounts in one dollar or five cent steps to reach the desired fare! Fortunately, while the lack of public information and official assistance for tourists has dismayed us, we have been impressed by the helpfulness and friendliness of the locals who have often come up to us as we puzzled over a map (or, in this case, struggled with a ticket machine) and offered to help.

We made our way to the Mission area of the city for a free City Guide walk on 'Murals and the multi-ethnic community'. As is often the case with these volunteer-staffed walks, it was interesting and informative, giving a better picture about the lives of ordinary people than commercial or municipally-run tours do. There are numerous murals in this area of San Francisco, some very large, with a few covering whole ends or sides of buildings.
As in most parts of the world, the murals either create narratives for largely illiterate local populations, or make political statements.

Most of them in the Mission area were created in the latter part of the 20th century, initally linked to protests about Central American issues and the involvement of the US in the region. A few of those have been targets for defacement and a couple have had to obliterated by the authorities to stop repeated vandalism. More recent murals, often created with regeneration funds, tell stories about people who lived and worked in the area, often for the benefit of the local community.

The tour also covered the architecture of houses in an area which was on the edge of the three-day fire in 1906. Hence, most of the buildings are Edwardian, but there are Victorian houses remaining where fire breaks were established. The descriptions of the architectural features and the changes in use of some of the buildings were quite interesting, but inevitably for those of us from a much older built environment, it’s difficult to get excited about a building only just over 100 years old.

Before returning to the hotel, we had a quick bite in a simple Peruvian cafe in a rather tatty small arcade in a low- income area. The concentration of the hispanic population was brought home to us by the difficulty we had in communicating with the young server, whose English was little better than our Spanish. With a couple of the household staff at the hotel also speaking Spanish and very little English, the changing demographic of the US is very apparent.

Monday 14th December

We woke to an overcast day, but it was not raining. After taking the cable car to Market St, we caught the so-called “Historic Tram” along the waterfront to famous Fisherman's Wharf, a large area of redeveloped docks which is now home to pointless shops, tacky tourist attractions and mostly low-end eateries. It is also the departure point for many of the boat tours in San Francisco Bay, which are heavily promoted by hustlers on the pavements. Most of the boat tours do not run at this time of the year, but we were able to take a tour out to the Golden Gate Bridge and back, with a quick circumnavigation of Alcatraz Island. With only a small number of people on the boat, there was no difficulty in getting to the side rail for unimpeded views.

The Bridge was every bit as impressive as various familiar photographs of it had led us to expect.

Alcatraz (or, at least, the famous maximum security prison built on it) appeared to be as grim as suggested in the several Hollywood movies in which it has featured.

We learned three surprising bits of information about Alcatraz, which is only about 1½ miles from the city. The first was that most of the prison staff lived on the Island with their families, and their children went to school on the mainland by launches, which were also used to convey prisoners to and from the Island. Secondly, there is no water source on the Island, so all of the water required for the prison and the families of the prison staff had to be transported there from the mainland. (This was one of the factors contributing to the closure of the prison in 1963, on grounds of the expense of maintaining and supplying it). Thirdly, some years after the closure of the prison, the Island was occupied for 19 months, by a group of American Indians who claimed it as tribal land, until they were evicted and the Island was designated as a National Park. While we were out on the water it was a real thrill to see a pelican skimming the tops of the waves. Though these are now returning to the area, with breeding pairs on Alcatraz and other sites around the Bay, the appearance of one during our boat trip was so unexpected that we didn’t manage to photograph it as it passed by.

On our return to land, we walked up Telegraph Hill, to Coit Tower, named after the benefactor whose bequest enabled its construction.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit was a feisty young woman who ran away to marry a man disapproved of by her family. She later returned to the city, displaying some eccentric characteristics, in wearing men’s clothes on occasions and becoming the mascot (and later the only female full member) of the Knickerbocker Engine Co. No.5 Fire Brigade. The tower is thought by some to resemble the nozzle of a fire hose. Its interior is decorated with murals, painted by several Diego Rivera-inspired artists, depicting the life and times of the city and the US in the 1930s. There is an elevator to take paying visitors to the top, but there were few takers for it, as the overview of the city from the carpark at the base of tower was panoramic and unimpeded. The streets in the area are among the steepest in the city, at about 30 degrees, with stepped pavements for pedestrians.

We took a circuitous route down through an old warehousing area of the city, much of which has been redeveloped into offices. Unfortunately, there was no historical information on the buildings in the area (or elsewhere in the city) for visitors. We made our way through the famous Chinatown area – the large Chinese population is very evident across the city, but nowhere more so than in Chinatown, where (at least at this time of the year) there was little English being spoken on the streets, even among young people. Later in the evening, we returned to Chinatown for a decent meal in a large, nearly full restaurant, in which half the customers were Chinese.

Wednesday 15th December

We made our way by underground rail/streetcar out to the Golden Gate Park, in the west of the city, passing through the Haight-Ashbury district, made famous by the beat generation of the 1960s (“tune in, turn on, drop out”), to an area that appeared to be predominantly populated by Chinese. Again, there were very few signs for pedestrians around the perimeter of the park but passers-by spontaneously assisted us with directions. It is a large park, with some semi-wild spaces, a lot of mature trees and a lake with an astonishing range of birds. Several men and women, largely Chinese, exercised by walking vigorously (or, in a few cases, ambling) around the perimeter of the lake. With limited time, we saw only a small part of the Park. We walked quickly through the Botanical Gardens, with areas dedicated to plants from different countries and zones around world, mostly within the Pacific Rim, including an area with familiar New Zealand trees and shrubs.

Philip under a very large Pohutukawa!

Making our way back to the hotel, we congratulated ourselves for having become moderately proficient in finding our way around and using the different parts of the city’s transport system, after four days, just in time for our departure.

Although the BART system includes a service to San Francisco International Airport, in view of the size and weight of our luggage we took a taxi. As standby passengers, we had to wait until embarkation was well under way before we were allocated seats for the flight to London. It was an uncomfortable and gruelling flight, but we finally made it back to cold Blighty.

Yosemite

2009-12-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 8th December

It dawned fine but cold. We managed to do a laundry wash and dry in the time between getting up and leaving the motel in mid-morning. Highway 41 is the southern route into the Yosemite National Park and is generally recommended as giving the most spectacular entry to Yosemite Valley. The countryside was unlike anything we had seen for about six weeks - flat but productive, with large orchards and grapevines, or cattle on green grass. As we ascended into hills, mixed farming predominated. and snow lay on the ground. In the foothills of the High Sierras, snow accumulations increased on the fields and verges, but the road mostly remained clear. Quite suddenly, we reached a road block south of Fish Camp and had to fit chains. There were several enterprises ready to sell and fit them but we, of course, had our Walmart chains (as did most of the other motorists). Having never fitted chains before, we took a little longer than some others, but eventually we were on our way at the maximum 25mph allowed, hoping that we had done everything properly and anxious about the noise caused by the chains. Immediately upon rounding the next bend, we were on several inches of snow and ice. The sudden change was startling. Shortly afterwards we entered the Yosemite National Park. For the next 45 miles, we drove cautiously through a mountainous, forested area, mostly alone. As the altitude increased, the tall ponderosa pines became heavily cloaked with snow, which occasionally showered down in front of us. It was a very pretty scene. Eventually, we passed through a long tunnel and emerged to a spectacular view of the Yosemite Valley, blanketed in snow.

As the road descended into the valley, a stag walked across the road ahead of us. A minute later a pair of coyotes appeared on the road, hesitated to look at the car, then trotted off in the same direction as the stag. This was more wildlife than we had seen for several weeks! Finally we reached the valley floor and made way to the Lodge. The whole journey from Fresno had taken nearly five hours, so we were glad we had not continued on the previous night.

After checking in and putting our gear in our room, we walked to the Visitor's Centre, then to Sentinel Bridge in time to see the sunset turn the top of Half Dome a lovely pink.

The thick snow everywhere made the valley very quiet and beautiful. While on the free shuttle bus back to Lodge, we saw another coyote trotting through the woods. In the evening, we went to a rather sentimental and melodramatic National Park Service film presentation on a couple of features of the Yosemite National Park. We thought that visitors to the Park should be able to experience its beauty without the unnecessary over-dramatisation.

Wednesday 9th December

In the morning, as we were about to leave our room, a beautiful stellar jay alighted on our balcony. Though the bird is not uncommon in Yosemite, we were privileged to see one so close. We walked to the base of the Yosemite Falls which, at a total height of 2425 ft, over three drops, are the highest Falls in North America.

Our New Zealand relatives and friends will no doubt want us to point out that the Sutherland Falls have a far longer single drop than the Yosemite Falls (as, indeed, have other falls in North America and elsewhere). Still, the Yosemite Falls are quite spectacular, or rather they would be in the spring, with the snowmelt. At this time of the year, they have a relatively small waterflow. However they were attractive due, first, to the ice-mountain at the base of the lower falls and, secondly, to the regular thunderous crashing of ice in the falls, as the sun warmed the rock face. The noise could be heard all over the Yosemite Valley.

We walked along the valley for a couple of miles, through snow up to a foot deep in places, to Mirror Lake. Along the way, we passed close by several mule deer in various combinations of stags, does and fawns, which all largely ignored us, as well as a ground squirrel which abandoned sunning itself on a rock as we approached. Mirror Lake was peaceful and beautiful, though the ice allowed only a partial mirror effect.

As we walked through the forest, small amounts of snow intermittently fell from the trees, creating a beautiful sparkling veil when backlit by the sunlight.

We made our way back to the Yosemite village and visited the Museum, where there was an interesting display of Indian baskets. The Miwok/Ahwahneechee Indians in the Yosemite area were (and are still) renowned for their intricate basketry. An elderly Indian woman, sitting quietly and almost unnoticed in the museum, sorting reeds in preparation for fashioning them into baskets, was very happy to talk about her work. She also spoke, surprisingly without any hint of rancour, about her childhood in the Yosemite Valley after the white settlers and the army drove her forebears from their homes, murdered many of them and subsequently employed some of the survivors in menial work.

In the afternoon, we joined an excellent walk, led by a park ranger, with a focus on wildlife and habitats in the Park. He covered the three main types of tree, and fauna from acorn woodpeckers (which store acorns in holes they create in trees)...

...to salamanders (which opted to escape either to higher ground as the glaciers progressed in the last ice age, or to points far down the valleys, beyond the moraines left as the glaciers retreated, changing their colour to suit their new, permanent habitats). The delicate ecological balance in the National Park clearly remains precarious and it is interesting to see how, over time, the views of “experts” have changed about how best to preserve the Park in the face of human onslaught. Of course, it is interesting also to consider that humans are part of the natural world, and that our impact on the environment may be just a part of a natural evolutionary process. The ranger became quite emotional as he spoke of wanting to ensure that the Park remains available for his young child’s grandchildren in the future. In the evening, we went to “Yosemite by Ear”, a presentation by another park ranger, rendering his impressions and imitations of sounds in the Park in an interesting and entertaining narrative style. His only use of recorded sound was of a birdcall, downloaded from the web to his mobile phone!

The NPS rangers really are enthusiastic about their work!

Thursday 10th December

We had an early start this morning, taking the shuttle bus to the Happy Isles. After ascending the trail to the base of the Vernal Falls, we were surprised to find that the Mist Trail to the top of the Falls, which is usually closed in winter, was open.

The 1000ft rise was steep and somewhat icy, and potentially hazardous in places, but not too difficult. Despite the rather low flow, the Falls were quite dramatic, with large stalactites and curtains of ice surrounding the water. We continued to the base of the Nevada Falls, with some difficulty in following the trail in places, because of the deep snow and minimal trail-marking. There were no other hikers over nearly the whole length of the trail, so we were conscious of the need not to get lost or to risk injury. We made our way part-way up the side of the Nevada Falls, before deciding to retrace our steps, as we anticipated that we would need an hour more to reach the top of the Falls and return to where we were, and time was getting on.

While eating our lunch in splendid isolation by the river, a short way from the base of the Falls, we kept a watchful eye for bears, which have been known to try to share people's food. Unusually, the black bears in Yosemite apparently do not all hibernate in winter, specifically because the presence of people means that they can usually find some food. However, we did not see any bears, nor any other wildlife in the snow-blanketed conditions. As we approached the Falls we had heard ice falling from the rock face, but we did not see any falling when we were there. Frustratingly, as soon as we started back, the sound of ice crashing down the Falls echoed around the valley. As we did not want to risk a hazardous descent down the Mist Trail, we took the John Muir Trail back to the Yosemite Valley. Unfortunately, this involved a further 1000ft climb, in quite deep snow, before a long and quite steep descent to the Happy Isles trailhead. The trail was completely deserted and there were no animals to be seen, but Carolyn became very excited by the numerous animal tracks in the snow. As the afternoon went on, the snow and ice was starting to melt, but the steep trail was very slippery in places. Fortunately, we arrived at the trailhead just as a shuttle bus was about to leave. The bus driver got the passengers (all 5 of us) excited by saying that she had just seen a bobcat on the road. Bobcats do live in the Park, but are rarely seen in the Valley. None of us could see what she was pointing to, until a small Bobcat snow-clearing machine trundled by!

We got back to the Lodge shortly before dusk, giving us time to relax and update our log (the basis of this blog) before going to eat.

Across to California

2009-12-14T23:21:00.000-08:00

Sunday 6th December

We left Zion National Park on a gloriously sunny but cold morning (23degF). through the Mt Carmel tunnel, built in 1930. It has several 'windows' to let in light and air. Once we left the canyons of the Park, the land opened out , with ranches and occasional small towns.

We took Highway 14 which is a high mountain road through the Dixie National Forest. The temperature dropped to about –12 deg C. as we crossed the pass at 9900 ft. It is a cross-country skiing area.and there was already some snow on the ground, making it quite pretty.

The road was passable with care, without chains, as it had mostly been cleared and salted, though there were icy patches. We descended steeply and crossed into Nevada on completely empty roads, initially through flat, scrubby land with some farms. As the road crossed more hill country, all signs of human habitation disappeared and some tree cacti appeared among the juniper and sagebrush.

At a crossroads, there was a sign warning that there was no “gas” for 150 miles, but no indication what to do about it if our fuel level was low. We had already travelled at least 100 miles without seeing a fuel station. We probably had just enough fuel to get through but as it was already late afternoon we decided to divert from our route by about 10 miles to a place marked with a tiny dot on the map and were relieved to find a petrol station in the middle of the desert, with many motorists refuelling their vehicles.

Returning to our route, we travelled through mile upon mile of sagebrush desert with tree cacti, and occasional large salt pans, stretching between intermittent brown rocky mountain ranges, with the road running dead-straight for 15-30 miles at a time. The occasional other vehicle which appeared on the horizon took 15 minutes or more to pass us. It was getting dark as we turned onto Highway 375, with a sign noting that it is the 'Extraterrestial Highway', where there have been more reported observations of UFOs than anywhere else on earth. The fact that it is close to large areas used by the military for training and testing purposes may be relevant, as Gary McKinnon might have been trying to investigate. Nearby is the site of the US underground atomic bomb testing programme in the 1950s.

We saw nothing untoward for miles, but then Philip noticed 3 strange lights in a vertical line, following us. Occasionally they disappeared for a short while, but reappeared later in the same position and formation, never getting nearer to us. It didn’t take long to realise that the lights were from three cars probably 10-20 miles behind us. We had to keep our eyes peeled for more earthly encounters, as it was an open range road and one or two steers very occasionally loomed out of the darkness, next to road.

We reached Tonopah in the dark and decided to stop for the night, in a privately owned motel which claimed to be as 'cosy as Grandma's'. It turned out be a bit flouncy, but otherwise nothing special and a bit overpriced. However, a nearby Mexican restaurant produced a tasty meal at a reasonable price.

Monday 7th December

Tonopah was a silver mining town in the first half of the twentieth century and not much has happened there since 1950. In the motel guidebook (the motel owner's pride and joy) there was an amusing story about one of the silver prospectors leaving the town after the boom but returning regularly to check on his property. On his last visit he was furious to find that a large mound of broken rock at the edge of his property had slipped down the hill and, assumed by the local authority to be mine waste, had been used in the construction of a road. Apparently the “waste” was, in fact, high-grade silver ore which he had been keeping until it would be more financially profitable to have it processed. Instead, it seems, the streets of Tonopah were literally paved with siver!

We woke to a cloudy and very cold morning, with a storm forecasted to be coming in from the west, with heavy snowfall over the Sierras. We realised that we had made the biggest blunder on our journey as our map indicated (in miniscule print) that all minor east-west routes over the High Sierras are closed in the winter. It was clear that they certainly would be closed by the forecast snow, so we would have to much further south or north than we had planned, to get on to passable routes across the Sierra Nevada range. We chose to go south, for a better chance of catching rain rather than snow. As we drove through a desolate landscape we asked ourselves why people in their right minds would want to live in Nevada. The answer is not ‘minds’ but ‘mines’. We passed through some deserted settlements, while Goldfield was all but a ghost town. There were one or two signs of extraction of some mineral or other in the barren grey-brown mountains and foothills. The only other feature in the environment was the occasional huge salt pan, one of which we could see was covered in ice. The temperature dropped to -7 deg C as we went over a pass at 4300ft, above Death Valley, marking the border with California, then rose to 15 deg C as we descended on to the Valley floor.

It is a vast area of sand and rock, with tussock grass, mostly flat, but with large sand dunes in places. Maximum temperatures here are close to the highest recorded on Earth. At Stovepipe Wells, on the main road through the valley, the elevation is at sea level, but the lowest point in the valley is nearly 300ft lower.

It turned cloudy as we ascended out of Death Valley at its western edge, then began to rain as we crossed a pass and descended to Trona. It was a depressing town beside a large dry lake, set against grey-brown hills,with a mineral processing plant blowing out clouds of smoke into a grey sky. (trona = trisodium hydrogendicarbonate dihydrate, a source of soda ash from natural evaporation as an alternative to conversion from salt and limestone). The town revealed high levels of dereliction, with vandalised houses and cars, closed-down shops and petrol stations. We moved on swiftly to the much more prosperous town of Ridgecrest, 20 miles away, where we stopped for lunch. The difference between the two towns can probably be summed up by “the Forces”, as Ridgetown is surrounded by large military bases, including the Edwards Air Force Base.

As we turned on to Highway 58 at Mojave, the rain turned to snow and we were very soon into a snowstorm. About 3 inches of snow accumulated in 30 minutes and the road became very slippery, with poor visibility.

The traffic mostly slowed to10-15mph but some cars and lorries continued much too fast for the conditions. Over about an hour, we passed three crashes + saw two near-misses as cars spun on the snow. After about 90minutes, the snow turned to very heavy rain and there were further minor accidents and incidents. At one point, Philip noticed a police car, about 400 yards behind us, slowing the traffic by swerving across all three lanes. As he thought that there might be an accident ahead, he also slowed. This was just as well, as a car suddenly appeared in the outer lane, travelling in the wrong direction towards us and did a rapid u-turn into the inner lane about 200yds ahead of us! Despite this mayhem, the traffic continued to travel much too fast and too close behind other cars. By far the worst and most aggressive were drivers of the numerous pick-up trucks, the equivalent of the UK “white-van man”.

Note that the UK concept of an outer fast lane and an inner slow lane has no meaning here. Despite signs exhorting driving in the inner lane except when overtaking, vehicles travel at speeds well above and below the speed limits in all lanes, overtake on either side, make rapid lane changes without signalling and frequently cross all lanes abruptly to exit from the freeway. All that, together with their drivers’ penchant for following so closely that they wouldn’t have a cat-in-hell’s chance of stopping in the event of an accident, despite their (doubtless) certainty of their supreme driving ability, explains why the US has had (and probably still has) such a poor record for motor vehicle accidents, injuries and deaths. We’re not clear why the driving standard deteriorated so much, from about West Virginia westwards we think, from the good driving we observed on the east coast – we can only assume that the most unreconstructed macho idiots took their genes west, leaving the effete, cautious types behind.

Although the rain stopped, it was obvious that we would be very late getting into Yosemite National Park, especially as it was reported that 5 inches of snow had fallen on the road into the Park in the afternoon and more was forecast. As we were somewhat exhausted by the difficult driving conditions, and it was already dark, we cancelled the first night's room booking in Yosemite Lodge and stopped at a motel in Fresno. This proved to be a good move.

Southern Utah

2009-12-10T00:45:00.000-08:00

Wednesday 2nd December

Leaving Page on Highway 98 heading east, we passed a large Navajo-owned coal fired power station, and a coal mine further along the road. After that it was miles of undulating desert with scrubby sagebrush and, from time to time, some cattle, sheep, and horses. In most rural areas in the States, land beside highways has well-maintained wire fences running parallel with the road but there are some places, as on parts of the Navajo reservation, where cattle are free to roam on the road. Over much of the reservation, even where there is roadside fencing there are no other internal fences. Occasional cattle-grids or gates mark the entrances to dirt roads which usually lead to scattered homes, all bungalows and mostly mobile homes or of similar basic construction. As in Navajo towns, the rural homes are usually surrounded by a collection of vehicles (mostly pick-up trucks), often in various stages of disrepair or dismantling. The dusty yards often have various outbuildings, but virtually never gardens or any sign of cultivation. Many small roadside stalls, most with flags saying “open”, advertise Navajo jewellery and pottery, though only a few were open as we passed. After turning onto route 160 then onto 163, heading north-east into Utah, we were not far from the point where the state-lines of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico intersect, hence the term 'the Four Corner States’. Our journey from the canyons in New Mexico through the Painted Desert to the Grand Canyon and now into Utah, has been on the Colorado Plateau, a vast area which was pushed up by geological forces millions of years ago, then eroded by rivers and glaciers, causing the large number of fantastical geological features which characterise the area. Now along this road, suddenly the soil became bright orange, and we saw weirdly-shaped tall chimneys and huge blocks (buttes) of red rock dotted across the plain.

Then it all changed again as we went over a ridge and the soil became paler and the cliffs buff-coloured. Just when we had given hope of finding civilisation and somewhere to eat we came into Bluff, a relatively attractive small, old trading and mining town, which has largely avoided the garish tourist development which mars so many rural townships. It included a pleasant coffeehouse/library/ gallery, run by a 30-something electrical engineer (who also happens to be the town’s mayor) and his wife, who is an archeologist. While we were eating excellent avocado and nut sandwiches, accompanied by mandarin oranges, various obviously well-educated locals dropped in for a chat and a coffee.

After passing through an area with more agriculture and cattle grazing, we reached Moab, a town which, like so many others, is comprised of shops, motels and small eateries strung along a single main road for many miles. In Moab, though, many of the shops are outdoor adventure equipment suppliers and outfitters, there are hostels and small motels in addition to the usual chains, and there are several individual small cafes and coffee shops. It also has its own microbrewery in a State which, until recently, was largely dry and which still closely controls the sale of alcohol. It is a town which caters for (and appears to be largely populated by) well-educated, sporty young people, retired arty folk and aging hippies. We booked into an unusual, cheap private motel, which was obviously geared towards people interested in outdoor sports, then went off for a meal in an indifferent local family-run grill.

Thursday 3rd December

A short distance north of Moab is the Arches National Park, famous for its weird spires, pinnacles, fins and, yes, arches. The fins are tall, thin, perpendicular slices of rock, formed by fissures being opened up by water and repeated freezing. The arches are thought to have been formed by the centres of some fins being eroded away, due to weaknesses in the rock.

Fins and pinnacles

After stopping briefly in the Visitors Centre for a map, we first drove to Wolfe Ranch, noting The Three Gossips on the way.

At Wolfe Ranch we looked at some excellent petroglyphs, before taking the short path (3 miles round trip) to Delicate Arch, which is the unofficial iconic symbol of Utah. The walk is moderately strenuous, rising steeply over exposed rock faces, between towering pinnacles. The temperature was about -6 deg C. and the wind was blowing at about 40-50 knots, so it was bitterly cold despite the sunny day. We were glad of our thermal underwear!

The arch sits in a sloping smooth rock bowl and, at about 90 feet high, it is much bigger than it looks from the initial vantage point on the trail, approximately 200 feet away. However, as we were already having some difficulty staying upright in the wind gusts, we decided not go out along the curved rim of the bowl for the traditional photos of each of us standing underneath the arch. Nevertheless, it was a stunning sight.

Driving further into park, we set off for the equally famous Landscape Arch, which has a span of 300 feet, but a minimum thickness of only 6 feet since a large slab, estimated to weigh about 300 tons, fell off the underside of the arch ten years ago. It is awe-inspiring, but also a bit scary, as there are cracks visible along the curve of the arch.

The area underneath and close to the arch is now fenced off as it obviously is not going to remain an arch for long. We also passed the area where the so-called Wall Arch collapsed last year and where large chunks of rock continue to fall. Clearly, this is a park in progress.

We then set off on a 'primitive' trail, i.e. one marked only by stone cairns, to the Double-O arch. This involved walking in narrow canyons between tall fins and teetering along the top ridges of fins (sometimes only 3-4 feet wide with 50-80 feet drops on both sides).

Double-O was a large oval window above a smaller window.

We had a quick look at a couple of other, smaller arches before heading back to the car.

As we walked back in the late afternoon, Carolyn saw a desert big-horned sheep, for which this park is also known, though it didn't have any horns! As we drove out in the dusk we caught sight of Queen Nefertiti addressing one of her eunuchs, on the skyline.

For dinner, we went to the Moab Microbrewery restaurant, where Philip dutifully sampled a couple of the six beers brewed there. There was a good light ale and a porter which was well-flavoured - definitely a big improvement on the awful standard beers in the US, most of which are much the same as the ubiquitous cheaper “lagers” in the UK. Fortunately, the restaurant (which is in the same building as the brewery), was only about 200 yards from our motel, so after briefly listening to an indifferent and rather boring singer in the bar, we were able to walk back to bed.

Friday 4th December

On to Zion National Park, which required a 325 mile trip by freeway to the southwestern corner of Utah, then a 28 mile drive into the Park. The freeway was about as boring as it could be, initially cutting across completely desolate, scrubby, flat plains. Later we passed by large farms or ranches (many with their own exits from the freeway), with large herds of cattle, a few flocks of sheep, huge pastures with long mobile watering systems, and high piles of haybales. Some of the hay was green, presumably possible because of the aridness and low humidity of the area. (We had previously seen green Utah hay being transported to the Navajo lands in Arizona).

We arrived into Zion National Park in the late afternoon, as the setting sun was setting the peaks around Zion Canyon ablaze.

Most of the first white settlers in the Canyon were Mormons, who named many of the peaks and geological formations with religious descriptions or allusions, which are still used. As we made our way to the lodge, it was extremely beautiful, with the cottonwood trees and lush vegetation on the canyon floor softening the bare rocky walls of The Altar of Sacrifice, The West Temple, The Court of the Patriarchs, The Great White Throne, Temple of Sinawava and Weeping Rock.

Saturday 5th December

Today, we did one of the most frightening things we have ever done. It started off quite tamely, with a walk to the Emerald Pools. The pools are not much coloured at this time of year, presumably because of the lack of the algae which give the pools their blue-green colouring. Although the water flow over the falls was minimal, it was very pretty because of long icicles hanging down over cliff edges.

The path behind the waterfall was also covered in ice, making walking quite hazardous. The route up to the middle and upper falls was fine, as the path was bone dry. The upper pool, though small, was beautiful due to its setting at the base of a high cliff, from which ice repeatedly broke off with a crash as the sun warmed the rock.

On the pleasant walk back to our cabin, alongside the Virgin River, we passed several mule deer grazing in the valley, not much bothered by our presence. There were also large flocks of wild turkeys and numerous flying birds, large and small.

Later we drove to the trailhead for a walk to Angel's Landing which is a high pinnacle directly across the valley from the Great White Throne, a huge square-topped whitish mesa near the head of the Zion valley. There were quite a lot of people walking this paved trail, which involved a strenuous climb winding up a very steep 800 foot rock face to a col, then along a narrow echoey canyon to the base of a 400 foot vertical cliff which was ascended via 21 switchbacks (named Walter's Wiggles after the park superintendent who oversaw the building of them in 1930s).

Look for the people zigzagging up to the col

This effort brought us to Scout's Lookout, with spectacular views of the main valley and side canyons. However, this was only the start.

Looking ahead, we saw a very narrow ridge leading across and then steeply up to to the pinnacle about 300 feet further above us. A few people were slowly making their way up the virtually invisible trail, hanging on to chains which had been installed to reduce the number of accidents. Despite signs warning of the difficult, strenuous and dangerous climb, and stating baldly that people had fallen to their deaths from the rock, we decided to give it a go. This decision was not helped by a young woman, who sat with her mother on the last point before the chain climb (which she referred to as "Assessment Point"!), telling us that she had been informed by a Park employee that there had been four deaths from falling from the trail this year. Having assessed their options, she and her mother quite sensibly decided not to attempt the climb. Whether the information she was given was strictly correct is unclear, but it is documented that the last death occurred about a week before we were there, when a middle-aged woman fell 1000ft.

It was exceptionally demanding and very frightening, with at times no more than a toehold in the rock and a chain handhold to stop us plummeting to the valley below. We were by far the oldest people on this section of the trail and amongst the most timid, never having understood the thrill of rock-climbing or scaling mountains, supported only by ropes. Our short legs did not help when we were trying to negotiate some of the bigger rocks. We felt all the more inadequate watching a few young foolhardys, who were dressed in shorts despite the cold, and were nearly running up to the top. However, although most of the others climbing with us were 30-40 years younger than us, nearly all of them were very pleasant, polite young people from the US and elsewhere (including the UK). They treated us as they did each other and were very willing to give us advice and encouragement, without any hint of condescension! It was also a delight not to hear "you're welcome" and "have a nice day" in every conversation! One of the real pleasures of this sort of activity is that people put aside the veneers and platitudes of everyday encounters and treat everyone else as equals.

Coming down from the pinnacle was just as frightening and difficult as going up and the descent down Walter's Wiggles was hard on the knees. To calm down and to return to behaviour more befitting our ages, we drove to the top of the valley for photos of the sunset, then back to our cabin for a soak in the bath before dinner.

Unfortunately, we don't have a good photo of the last part of the climb, from Scout's Lookout to Angel's Landing, but the following two photos show the main pinnacle itself, with the full-sized trees on the top of Angel's Landing just visible, and a side view of the route from Scout's Lookout (right) to Angel's Landing (left). We did buy a poster to bring home, so you might see it if you visit us. You can also see information about it at www.zionnational-park.com/zion-angels-landing-trail.html

Why did we do the last part of the climb, against all of our instincts for survival? Partly "because it was there", perhaps, but more because, having put all the effort into getting up to Scout's Lookout, it seemed a shame to miss the opportunity of making it to the top. Neither of us would wish to do it again, but we would recommend it to anyone who wants a thrill and can overcome their very natural fear of heights.

Grand Canyon

2009-12-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

Saturday, 28th November

As there was no point in our staying in the area, we decided to move on immediately to the Grand Canyon, a day earlier than planned. Before leaving, we tried, unsuccessfully, to contact the nearest office of the National car rental company, in Flagstaff, to arrange for snow chains for the car, as we had been advised to do by their office in Lubbock. The National group customer services department was also unhelpful and couldn’t contact the Flagstaff office either. Snow was forecast for the mountains and there was a news report that police in California had turned back motorists on a mountain road there, if they did not have snow chains fitted to their cars. We decided, therefore, to take a large detour via Flagstaff

After descending from the Hopi Second Mesa and passing the Third Mesa, we travelled back into the Navajo reservation, along miles of straight and flat road through land that seemed completely barren. There were indications of an underground oil pipeline beside the road, and of extraction of natural gas. Otherwise there were no signs of livelihood. The Black Mountains (which did look black and showed probable signs of opencast coal mining) marked the edge of the Navajo reservation and the landscape became more undulating with increasing amounts of vegetation. As we drove on to Flagstaff, clouds began to build.

As we suspected that it might be, our detour was a waste of time. The car rental office at Flagstaff Airport informed us that they never supply chains, nor did they recommend using them. Nevertheless, we went to the local Walmart store and, along with many other people, bought chains. In a timely manner, as we set off north to the Grand Canyon, snow started to fall and the temperature rapidly dropped below freezing. It was an attractive drive initially, through wooded countryside. After about an hour, the sky cleared and the landscape changed to a dreary flat plateau. Late in the afternoon, the flat land suddenly split open to reveal the vast Grand Canyon. Despite all of the pictures we have seen of it, nothing prepared us for the awe-inspiring sight and the huge size of the canyon (actually many intersecting canyons), over 250 miles long (river course), up to 18 miles across and about a mile deep. We drove straight to the rim to watch and take photos of the sunset, before checking in to the motel.

We walked through trees in a cold (about –5 deg C.), dark, but beautifully clear and starry night to the cafe for dinner.

Sunday, 29th November

It snowed overnight – about 2 inches outside our motel room. It was quite wet snow, but the temperature had then dropped significantly and the snow froze hard on the cars and the road. After arranging our own breakfast in our room, we drove to the Park HQ for a rendezvous for a guided walk, then drove slowly in convoy for about 5 miles, behind a Park Ranger’s vehicle, to the starting point for the walk. Driving conditions were somewhat difficult but not too much of a problem. We passed immediately beside a large buck elk on the roadside, close by the Park HQ, but couldn’t stop as we were in the convoy. It was still snowing lightly and became increasingly foggy as we walked, in snow about 4 inches deep, between Ponderosa pines, pinon and juniper, to the edge of the canyon. At the canyon rim, the fog precluded any view. However, the Ranger gave an interesting talk (as the snow continued to fall!) about Indian people who had lived in the canyon area in the hundreds of years before settlement by Americans of European extraction. In the oral history of the various Pueblo Indian groups today, their ancestors emerged from a world below ours, through a particular point in the Grand Canyon.

After the guided walk, we drove about 30 miles in difficult conditions of an icy road, light snow and thick fog, for a light lunch, then (after some difficulty in finding our car again!) to a small museum for a further talk and a brief guided walk around some Pueblo ruins. As we reached the museum, the snow and fog started to clear. On the return drive, it was apparent that the sun had been out for some time closer to Grand Canyon Village and the ice had already started to melt, so driving conditions were much improved.

The same point (Shoshone) in the snow and fog and 3 hours later

We returned to the trail we had walked earlier in the day. Some of the lying snow had already cleared and we had a lovely walk through the woods, in beautifully clear weather, with no-one else around. This time, we were able to get a good view into the canyon, with the tops of the massive rock formations still dusted with snow. The ranger had earlier explained that, although it was snowing on the rim, there probably wasn't any precipitation reaching the canyon floor, as it would evaporate
on its way down into the lower valleys.

After checking into a new lodge, and a drink in the bar, we went to a moderately interesting evening talk by a Park Ranger on water management in the Park. (This was one of a series of nightly talks, on various topics). With enthusiasm and dramatic emphasis, she explained the extraordinary work needed to get water up to the rim, with minimum damage to the environment, from a spring which gushes out about halfway down the opposite side of the canyon.

Monday 30th November

We feel quite proud of ourselves tonight, having managed a 14 mile walk into and out of the canyon today, over 3000ft elevation change each way. We got up at 6.00am and went for a rather dismal breakfast in another lodge where we could also buy filled rolls for lunch. Along with about 30 others, we boarded a shuttle bus at 8.00am to go to the Kaibab trailhead. After walking down the fairly steep trail to the planned stopping point (3 miles trail length and 2000ft drop) in much shorter time than expected, we carried on for another 1.5 miles (1000ft further down into the canyon) to another plateau, still 1500ft short of canyon floor. On the way, we were stopped by Park Rangers for about 30 minutes while a helicopter lifted in materials for repairs to the trail. We also met some pleasant hikers from various countries and saw what we and others concluded was a condor, (though of a variety which is significantly smaller than its South American cousin).

There were many signs warning against trying to go to the canyon floor and back in one day, especially in summer. Though today’s cool weather would have been more suitable for such a hike, the shortness of the day and our limited capabilities precluded our going down any further. Some of our walking companions proceeded to the canyon floor to stay overnight in the Phantom Ranch Lodge by the Colorado River, while a couple returned directly to the rim.

Phantom Ranch, at the bottom of the canyon

We decided to take the Tonto Trail, an unmaintained trail which winds in and out of valleys around the heads of the side canyons with little elevation change, to join the Bright Angel Trail about 4.5 miles away. It was a pleasant, easy walk, mostly through dry desert conditions overlooked by magnificant 2000-3000ft cliffs in a multitude of colours, with a few wooded and reedy oases, where the trail crossed small streams at the heads of the side canyons.

Apart from many different birds, wildlife was not much in evidence, though we did pass close by a buck elk.

At Indian Garden, a lovely oasis with bright yellow cottonwood trees and green aspens is maintained by the spring which was referred to in last night’s Park Ranger presentation. We saw a canyon squirrel, which had a different movement from UK squirrels - more winding and slithering walking, less jumping and running. Bright Angel Trail, rising 3000ft in about 5 miles, was not as steep as Kaibab, but it was tiring, and we managed about 1.5mph, arriving at the top of the rim, adjacent to our motel, shortly before sunset. As the Park Service pointed out, hiking normally involves climbing first, then descending later, whereas in the canyon, the climbing comes after several hours of walking, when energy levels are somewhat depleted.

It was an excellent walk and we were reminded of old western movies which so well evoked the atmosphere of canyons – the steep, dry, rocky walls, the quiet, and the slight sense of unpredictability, and even menace.

After a drink in the bar and a shower, we attended another Park Ranger presentation, this time a good talk on rock art. The Park Rangers are all so enthusiastic and are obviously encouraged to cultivate their own special interests. We have been impressed generally by the National Parks Service and its work to maintain and protect the various National Parks, Forests and Monuments. The Service tries to strike a fine balance between making the parks' facilities, the land and the wildlife accessible to people while at the same time minimising the visual impact of the necessary infrastructure and not overprotecting people. We noted that apart from at a few key lookout points, there are no railings by most of the rim. The occasional fatality (there was one the evening we arrived) is put in perspective against the millions of visitors who enjoy the Grand Canyon safely each year. Our only criticism of the National Park service is that some park fees are quite high,(possibly to ensure the quality of the Service) making visits to these parks beyond the budget of many relatively poor families.

Tuesday 1st December

It was another early morning start to drive to Yavapai Point for a Grand Canyon 'must'- watching the sunrise. The sky began to lighten then the first patch of colour appeared on the highest cliffs on the north rim. Gradually rays of sun lit up individual peaks in the canyon, casting huge shadows onto the more western slopes. It was like watching a yellow highlighter as the sun's rays moved down the slopes of the prominent peaks, bringing the contours of the lower slopes out of the dark shadows.

The sunrise at Grand Canyon was much more impressive than the sunsets we saw and it was certainly worth braving the freezing cold to watch.

It was time to move on, so after breakfast, we packed up and checked out of the lodge, then went to the laundry to do huge load of washing. On the way out of the Park, we stopped at Desert View, where Carolyn went up a 1940s sensitively-designed stone tower, giving 360 degree views over the Colorado River, the desert to east and the Canyon to the west.

On route 64, we stopped to look at the Little Colorado River gorge. Once we had made our way past the mostly empty stalls for Indian craftsellers, there were impressive views of the deep narrow canyon, but a seemingly dry river bed at the bottom. Crossing route 89 across desert fringed by rocky cliffs, we took a detour along Highway 89A to the bridge over the Colorado River. It was green & moderately swift flowing, but really quite placid. By all accounts, the river lost has most of its former character and majesty with the installation of the dams, power plants etc, along much of its course. We continued past the Vermillion Cliffs, which flank the road in incredible shades of reds. After crossing over a high pass, we entered Page, a town that started life as a construction town for the highly controversial Glen Canyon Dam and then became a resort for the recreational facilies offered by the huge lake which formed over about 20 years, flooding hundreds of miles of canyons and historical and archeological sites. Here we stayed for the night.

Canyon de Chelly and the Hopi Mesas

2009-12-03T21:02:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 25th November

After spending an inordinate amount of time in the Holbrook Post Office getting packaging for various purchases & posting a parcel of pamphlets to ourselves, we drove across a large tract of dry tussocky land on the Navajo reservation. The Navajo refer to the area and define themselves as the Navajo Nation, but they use the word Diné (the People) to refer to themselves collectively. They are said to be the largest (ca 250000), wealthiest and strongest group of Indian people in the US, having won many legal claims against the American government for compensation for land taken from what they claim to be their ancestral home. This seems to be something of a contentious point, as there is hard evidence of their presence in the area for only about 250 years (though they claim longer than that in their oral history). They apparently entered the borderland of Utah and Arizona, as semi-nomadic plains Indians from the north and drove out the puebloan people, whose ancestry can clearly be traced back at least 1000 years. The puebloan Indian word for the Navajo apparently means “the Enemy”, but that name has been abandoned for reasons of political correctness. The Navajo and the puebloan Indians now live on adjacent lands, evidently reasonably peaceably. It is hard to see how the Navajo make a livelihood from the land, but apparently in spring & summer the grass usually grows sufficiently to graze animals (sheep mainly). This may not have been the case in the last few years, as there has been a prolonged drought in the area. Their houses all looked quite basic. Near many of the houses, and in towns, there were small octagonal buildings (hogans) - sacred places where families come together for ceremonies or discussions.

Our destination was Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Canyon de Shay), just past Chinle, which is a dusty, sprawling, scruffy Navajo town. The Navajo Nation has established many commercial enterprises which are evident in the town, including involvement in an oil extraction and fuel distribution company. There are also signs of the high level of self-government enjoyed by the Navajo, in their schools, their own police force and the “Navajo Youth Correction Facility”, which is the smartest building in the town!

We're staying in the Thunderbird Lodge, which has a stone and adobe main unit, extending and matching an original 1896 trading post building, and several separate motel-like units. It is operated (at least jointly) by Navajo people. It is basic but not good value as it didn't include some facilities, or breakfast, unlike most basic motels we have stayed in, at a much lower price. The food was poor- lunch bland, dinner cold.

After settling into our unit around the middle of the day, we drove along the South Rim of the canyon on a very chilly afternoon.

Look for the ruins on the lower left-hand ledge and the car on the floor of the canyon.

There were breathtaking views across and down into the canyon, with virtually vertical walls, and an access road, a small stream and Navajo farms on the canyon floor, up to 1000ft below. Apparently, farmers tend to live in the canyon in warmer months, and move uo to the rim in winter. At various outlook points, we could see ruins of adobe dwellings, perched on what seem to be inaccessible ledges, belonging to the Ancestral Pueblo people who lived in the area about 800AD to 1300AD. Spider Rock, a rock column about 800ft high, is believed to be the home of Spider Woman, who taught the puebloan women how to weave. She is also the “bogeywoman” with whom children are threatened if they are naughty.

Spider Rock

Thursday, 26th November

On yet another lovely clear, and slightly warmer, morning we drove along the North Rim of the canyon, with fewer vantage points but similarly stunning views. After lunch, we walked down into the canyon on White House Trail, the only route into the canyon which is open to visitors without a Navajo guide. It led across the canyon floor to puebloan ruins which were huddled at the base of a huge vertical cliff. The canyon was eerily quiet, but peaceful and relatively warm in the afternoon sunshine. The 800ft climb back up to the rim was surprisingly easy.

Today was Thanksgiving and the cafeteria in the Lodge included the option of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of roast turkey. It was quite stodgy but at least it was hot. Most adult Navajo people have tended to be rather unresponsive, unsmiling and reticent, appearing quite unwelcoming. According to what we read in a “meet the people” booklet produced by the Navajo Nation, this demeanour and reticence is regarded as dignified and is expected in children from an early age. However, some of the younger Navajos we met have been more animated and an older man in the Lodge cafeteria was the first Navajo person to strike up a conversation with us spontaneously. He was out with some of the of his children and 17 grandchildren for a family meal. Despite his limited topics of conversation (where we were from, his family, and the price of “gas”) he was pleasant, though still fairly reserved. He was shocked to realise that the "high" petrol prices in the US are actually still among the lowest in the world.

Earlier in the day, we had seen rough signs indicating a Fire Dance a few miles from Chinle. The Navajo woman in the Visitor Information Centre didn’t know about this particular Fire Dance, but said that they occurred frequently and that non-Navajo visitors were welcome to attend and observe most of the ceremony. Following her advice, we drove up the very dark and isolated road in the night and followed the signs to what was clearly a private house, with no sign of anyone else, nor any evidence of a ceremony. This was the second occasion, within a couple of days, on which we had found signs indicating that something was happening, or open, when it was not. Clearly, local information by word of mouth is an important element in the community.

Friday, 27th November

We left Canyon de Chelly for the Hopi Mesa villages, a couple of hours’ drive away.
The Hopi Indians are thought to be decended from the Ancestral Puebloans, but unlike the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, who practise a mixture of Catholicism and traditional religious ceremonies, the Hopi have never converted to Christianity. When the Indian reservations were created, much of the earlier puebloan land was set aside for the Navajo and the Hopi were restricted to a small area, surrounded by the Navajo.

Initially the route crossed the flat, featureless scrubby land of the Navajo reservation, with scattered houses, some with hogans. There was no sign of cultivation or industry. Later, some small bumps appeared in the landscape as we entered the Hopi reservation. Quite suddenly, we came across Keam's Canyon, a gash in the land. We followed it down as it opened out on to flat land, with the First Mesa (a long, flat-topped excrescence) visible in the distance. The Hopi live on three roughly parallel mesas, about 10-15 miles apart. The clan on each mesa (which has 3-5 villages) has its own separately identifiable culture and dialect. Visitors are only allowed beyond the entrance to each of the villages with a guide. Signs on the roads up to the mesa forbid photography of the people, the villages and, most contentiously, “the landscape”. After some difficulty, we found the Visitors' Centre in a small, dusty quiet village on top of the First Mesa. It was not open, though a notice on the door indicated it should be. An elderly woman, one of a handful of craft sellers in the small square, came across to tell us that the woman running the Visitors’ Centre should be there, though it was not clear why she wasn’t. Although the other craft sellers were keen to attract our attention and to tell us about their hand-made goods, their interest immediately faded when they realised we were not going to buy from them. The atmosphere was not one of genuine welcome, despite the fact that we were the only visitors to the village. Before we left, we bought a kachina (spirit) doll from the elderly woman, who had initially attempted to help us.

Hopi First Mesa

Villages on the Hopi First Mesa. This is only a very small part of the First Mesa.

We drove on (and up) to a museum and the only motel in the Hopi reservation, on the Second Mesa, only to find that the museum was closed and wouldn't be open on the following day either. However, the motel and restaurant were more pleasant than the Thunderbird Lodge at the Canyon de Chelly, and the Hopi staff were quite friendly and much more outgoing than the Navajo. A fellow visitor at the motel, who had spent some time in the area on a previous occasion, said that the closed museum was not unusual, i.e. things don't necessarily happen when they are supposed to. The food in the restaurant, especially the bread made with Hopi blue corn, was quite tasty and reasonably hot!

Across all of the Indian reservations, large numbers of dogs walk or lie around, close to the villages, or in this case, in the grounds of the motel. They look healthy and are generally quite aimiable. They are described as pets, yet the Indians seem generally to ignore them. They must be fed, though we have never seen that happen. We have seen similar relationships between people and dogs in other diverse communities around the world, for example on Maori maraes in New Zealand and in villages in India and Egypt.

Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest

2009-12-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 24th November

We crossed into Arizona through dry desert then entered the Petrified Forest National Park at its northern end. The Park is a narrow strip of land along a 28 mile stretch of road. The flat desert suddenly opened to reveal canyons with an amazing, coloured, pimpled landscape.

Along the edge were huge cliffs of vivid reds and pinks, while from the floor of the canyon there arose huge mounds with striking bands of blue mauve, pink grey and white - this area is just a small part of the Painted Desert which stretches across several southwestern states. It would seem to be a geologist’s heaven as erosion reveals the different layers laid down over millions of years, with the mounds comprised of harder rocks which have been slower to erode.

Further down the road we encountered the petrified logs after which this park is named. Although it is a desert now, the area was a floodplain several million years ago and millions of trees were washed down into a huge swamp where they became stuck in silt and mud and were then covered in ash from volcanic eruptions, thus preserving them. Over time, the organic material in the logs was replaced by minerals, creating brightly coloured agates and silica structures which preserved the shapes of the logs.

As erosion of the top layers occurs, the petrified logs are exposed, perched on the tops of the huge mounds or encased in the bluffs. The whole of this part of the park is littered with segments of logs which have fragmented as they were washed down the slopes.The outer layers look every bit like the bark of living trees, knotholes and all, whereas the interiors preserve the cellular structure of the wood in are all shades of red, blue/purple and yellow. Apparently the petrified logs once contained many gemstones and quartz pieces, which were plundered by tourists over the last hundred years, along with many small pieces of the petrified wood. The other star feature of this park are the large number of petroglyphs scratched onto huge boulders near Ancestral Pueblo ruins.

Having spent much more time than planned in the park we stopped for the night in nearby Holbrook where we ate in a no-frills local Mexican family cafe, just acoss the road. Though it was a tiny, plain place, where everyone else was speaking Spanish, the food was excellent.

Albuquerque, Santa Fe and the pueblos

2009-11-27T21:26:00.000-08:00

Thursday 19th November

We drove into Albuquerque (5300ft, population 500,000) on the Interstate 40 through rugged hills sprinkled with snow. The hills around here average about 9000ft and the Sandia Mountains, at the northern edge of the city, reach over 10300ft. The mountains were, in fact, familiar to us from a previous flying visit in 1975, when we stopped at Albuquerque airport en route to Kansas. (That flight will forever remain in our memories, as a passenger’s pet lion cub was shown around the cabin - only in America!)

We arrived in Albuquerque in the late morning. After getting our bearings, we drove to the Pueblo Indian Cultural Centre, which was reasonably interesting, but a bit limited in its scope. However, the Cultural Centre restaurant was pleasant and produced some good lunchtime food. In the afternoon, we walked around the quite pleasing old town, based around the early 18th century Plaza, with its combination of Spanish and adobe architecture. There were not many tourists around and the area was very quiet and sleepy. Although the air was very cool, the sun was still quite warm. There were many references to the Spanish colonial history, including a dramatic group statue, commemorating the initial Spanish expedition to settle in the area.

In the late afternoon, we went up the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway (cable car or téléphérique to Europeans), which was touted as the "longest aerial tramway in the world", at about 2.7 miles in length. We thought that the Chamonix Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi would have been longer but we weren’t about to argue.

The sunset was beautiful and Albuquerque lit up prettily below. As the temperature dropped (only to -4 deg C, though it felt much colder), we retreated into the mountaintop bar for a drink, then took the gondola down in the dark. After checking into a cheap chain hotel just south of the old town, we rushed out to the Georgia O'Keefe gallery, which was open late that evening and free. O’Keefe was known mostly for her oversized flower paintings, in which some observers see erotic elements (apparently much to her dismay), but her own preference was to paint abstracts based on New Mexico landscapes, reflecting the changing light and extraordinary shapes of the land. It was an excellent and informative exhibition.

As we have often found elsewhere, nearby restaurants were closed by 8.00pm (what do Americans do after eating?), so we returned to the old town plaza to a New Mexican restaurant. Being aimed predominantly at tourists, the food was rather bland.

Friday 20th November

What is it about us and local maps? Poor maps & signs caused us a frustrating time trying to find the start of a walking and biking path adjacent to Rio Grande river. We then realised that the path doesn’t run alongside the river anyway. Instead, we dropped into a riverside nature reserve, established to preserve the 'bosque' (wetland) area which is disappearing because of water management elsewhere. In fact, the river was fairly nondescript and unimpressive when we finally got to the bank to see it - moderately wide but quite shallow, with sandbanks.

We were expecting the nature reserve to be at least partly green,but there was a completely different palette of colours - light brown dry leaves of cottonwood trees, soft orangey through to cream tones in the dry plumes of the tamarisk, the soft greys of the dry branches and the pinkish cream of the sandy New Mexican soil.

There was little in the way of fauna immediately evident, apart from some American robins, which are unlike their British counterparts in nearly all respects, apart from their reddish breasts and their fearless attitude towards humans. However, at the excellent visitors’ centre at the entrance to the reserve, there was an imaginatively designed and camouflaged hide¸ looking out onto a small lake on which various waterbirds and a couple of turtles sunned themselves. There were also numerous small birds gathered around a feeder. As on most days recently, we also saw (and heard) large flocks of geese migrating south.

We returned to the Pueblo Indian Cultural Centre to buy a few gifts, then made our way to the Hispanic Cultural Centre. This is a showcase for the Hispanic population and is a large complex comprising an elegant school from the 1940s (now housing a restaurant), together with galleries, theatres and conference facilities in striking modern buildings.

Apart from the lack of an obvious central visitors’ reception and poor signposting, to indicate which building is where, the Centre is an impressive place. After a reasonably priced and very tasty buffet lunch in the restaurant, we visited the art gallery which had an excellent permanent exhibition of Hispanic modern art and a temporary exhibition of Cuban art.

It was then time to leave Albuquerque for Santa Fe, about 60 miles north. On the way, we stopped in at the Santa Domingo Pueblo which was advertised on the main road and mentioned in our guide book, with hours which suggested that it would be open. As we entered the Pueblo and began driving along a dusty street we were waved down by a man who brusquely told us the village was closed to visitors and to put away the camera Philip was cradling in his lap. We beat a hasty retreat, somewhat miffed as there was no sign indicating that the Pueblo was closed to tourists. We had read that native American establishments sometimes close arbitrarily and without notice – this seemed to be such a case.
From the highways it is, sadly, all to easy to spot where the pueblos are, as the exits are heralded by enormous flashy neon signs advertising the casinos that are located close by.

Saturday 21st February

After many nights in anonymous chain motels with monotonous breakfasts, it was a real pleasure to stay in a motel with rooms with character, a freshly-cooked breakfast and a newspaper to read (though international news occupied only about half a page).

Wandering into the Old Town to the plaza where the old Santa Fe trail from Missouri ended, we encountered an all too familiar problem, of not being able to find the town’s Visitor's Centre, even by asking locals. When we did find the Centre, it was closed. Maybe this is the downside of visiting out of season.

Santa Fe seemed totally geared to wealthy tourists, with a plethora of shops selling antiques, fine art, American Indian craft and luxury goods from all over the world.

Much of the Old Town has been modified over the years to a standard 'adobe' style and most new buildings have the thick rounded walls with brown roughcast plaster finish. At a distance, it is difficult to distinguish real old from new “old”, but it is usually obvious on close examination. The whole of the north side of the plaza is occupied by the Palace of the Governors. Built early in the 17th century, it is reputed to be the oldest public building in the US.

Along the entire length of the wide verandah of the Palace was a line of Pueblo Indians wrapped in blankets against the chilly breeze and seated on camp stools with their wares laid out on rugs- silver and turquoise jewellery, pottery, stoneware, sand pictures. It was a pleasant change not to have gaudy advertising or hard sales talk but to be able to chat to individual craftsmen or women about their products. We spent quite a long time browsing up and down the line of sellers before making some purchases.

Nearby Canyon Road, one of the earliest roads in Santa Fe, is lined with old adobe-style houses which are now small art galleries selling a wide range of high-quality pictures and sculpture, both old and contemporary. Clearly, it hardly ever rains in Santa Fe as a lot of the art was on display outside.

We wandered in and out of some of the dozens of galleries, marvelling at the extraordinarily high price tags, particularly for works by European painters. Here was the end of the process, which we have previously read about in the UK, in which American art dealers buy up large quantities of high-quality works in Europe, at prices which are slightly above those which local buyers are prepared to pay, then sell them in the States at hugely inflated prices. Even out of season, there was no shortage of buyers in Canyon Road.

In the evening we went to a nearby small Spanish/New Mexican restaurant, which clearly catered largely for locals. Both the food and the ambience were excellent.

Sunday 22nd November

It was an early start for Taos, 90 miles north of Santa Fe. Taos is a pleasant little town with a reasonably attractive plaza, surrounded by a few art shops, fashion boutiques, a hotel and a couple of cafes. It was quiet today but probably teems with tourists in season. We carried on out to Taos Pueblo, which is a UN World Heritage Site. This is the home of Tiwa-speaking pueblo Indians. The old centre of the Pueblo, dating back at least 550-1000 years, is open to visitors, but the rest of the 150 square miles of the Pueblo is not.

The central compound consists of an open area, used for ceremonial purposes and surrounded by adobe buildings of one to three storeys. In the middle of the open area is a tall pole with four pointers, said to represent four directions, four seasons and four elements.

New Mexico's State flag incorporates a symbol which is based on the puebloan Indians' view of the world. Some of the interpretation was slightly different, but the broad ideas are similar.

A small stream, at present edged with ice, runs through the middle of the compound. Access to the upper floors of the adobe buildings is by external ladders as there are no internal stairs. Nor are there interconnecting doorways between adjacent dwellings in a single building. There are said to be about 100 permanent residents in buildings in the Pueblo centre, which has no electricity or running water. Other Pueblo residents live outside the central compound in modern houses with modern amenities, mostly in adobe style, or at least adobe colours.

There are one or more large clay ovens outside each dwelling, both inside and outside the central compound. We saw them being used in the central compound and as we drove past houses outside. Many of the buildings in the central compound were occupied by working artists with their art and craft on sale, or by residents selling flat and fried bread,. Most of the residents were very friendly and we had long and interesting talks with three artisans about their work and families. It was a good time of the year to visit as there were few visitors and the artists did not have to switch their attention to other potential purchasers. Other residents of the Pueblo, including elderly people and some children, carried on their lives with little attention to the few tourists.

After buying a few items at the Pueblo, we returned to Santa Fe.

Monday 23 November

On another gloriously fine morning, we set out north and west from Santa Fe towards Los Alamos, the site of the National Laboratory. The atomic bomb was developed at this huge facility during the second world war and weapons research continues there now, along with lot of other more constructive scientific research. It has been said that the average education level of residents of the area around Los Alamos is higher than in any other area in the US. We continued through increasingly dramatic rock formations over several miles, passing numerous high-security entrances to the National Laboratory along the way to the Bandelier National Monument. This narrow wooded canyon contains the remnants of old pueblos on the valley floor and in enlarged recesses in the canyon walls, thought to have been abandoned about 500 years ago.

Some of the cave dwellings show evidence of up to 4 levels of living, accessible only by wooden ladders at heights up to 150ft above the canyon floor. Petroglyphs were clearly visible on the canyon walls, some in seemingly inaccessible places. At the largest of the dwelling sites, a kiva (a circular underground room, thought to have been used for ceremonial purposes) had been reconstructed in the floor of the deep ledge, protected by a large overhang.

Though the mountain air was cool, the sun was warm and bright. On the valley floor, the tall, straight ponderosa pines provided welcome shade. We drove out from the Monument through forested north-facing hills and deep valleys, some with lying snow, then suddenly emerged onto a wide flat valley at least 5 miles across. This was the Valle Caldera, the centre of a collapsed volcano, which had subsequently filled up with silt and dust. We continued down a winding road through dramatic coloured cliffs to join the main route south. After negotiating the outskirts of Albuquerque in very heavy rush-hour traffic, we drove west across New Mexico in the dark, crossing the Continental Divide at 7125 feet to reach Gallup, near the State border with Arizona

Across Texas into New Mexico

2009-11-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

Monday 16th November

The rain had mostly stopped by morning, though the sky was overcast. After further considerable time on the internet, we concluded that a motorhome rental would not be the best option from Dallas, as we haven’t been able to find the size of motorcaravan we want, the fuel consumption will be very high and, most importantly, it isn’t possible to use the have any running water in the van, because of the risk of freezing. With the added risk of driving a large vehicle up into the mountains at this time of the year, it just doesn’t seem worth it. So, we will need to extend or renew the car rental in Dallas tomorrow.

With a long drive ahead of us to Denton, to meet up with our friend and Philip’s ex-colleague, Mariano, we had to use the interstate highways 49 and 20 today, in order to cover the distance. Texas is quite big, really. Actually, it’s about three times the area of the UK, with just over a third of the population, most of it urbanised. There’s not a lot of interest in rural Texas, so we didn’t miss much with the fast travel through. It was a pleasant enough drive initially - many trees, mostly green as the deciduous trees are now bare. Later, it became more bare and featureless. With maps & information from the very good Visitors' Centre as we entered the State, we were able to find our way round Dallas and north to Denton to a motel with relative ease. We never watched enough TV to find out who shot JR, but it seems that his successors are alive and well in Dallas and just as determined to kick ass. It’s a big brash city that clearly wants to make a statement. Passing under and through its amazing series of intertwined elevated roads and motorways was like driving through a concrete forest though at least the Texans have made an attempt to soften the concrete look by painting all their motorway structures in patterns of soft cream, red and green. The driving, however, is about as aggressive as it gets. If you hesitate, you’re likely to be run off the road, from either side. There’s also a problem with some of the road design, especially freeway on-ramps, which are very short and often not signed until the very last minute – OK for locals perhaps, but not for visitors.

Having made phone contact with Mariano and arranged a time to meet at our motel, we went to post a parcel. We were congratulating ourselves on finding our way to the post office without difficulty, when we received a call from our friend, 20 minutes before the appointed time, wondering if we had got lost. These Texans are pushy! It was good to see Mariano and his two oldest children, Kanika and Micah, who are at university in Denton but who just remembered visiting us in the UK and playing with Cecilia and Kirsten many years ago. We followed them in a long, hairy drive (in the middle of the rush hour) to an excellent TexMex restaurant, then back most of the way to a nice quiet place for coffee and cakes, with a lot of catching up and reminiscing. Thanks to Kanika and Micah for recommending the venues. As we made our way back to the motel, the temperature had dropped to 4 deg C.

Tuesday 17th November

Drove to Dallas Fort Worth International airport, on a fine, cold morning, to sort out the car rental. The traffic was positively civilised, as it was after the rush hour. The airport covers about three times the area of Heathrow, but is mostly open grassland. Unable to understand the English used in the signs, we went right round the airport twice before finding the rental car centre. As we could not extend the existing rental car agreement except at exorbitant cost, we settled on a very expensive 1-day hire to allow us to arrange a further long-term hire through an agency, from Lubbock. Along Interstate 20, the landscape became increasingly scrubby, with more stunted trees and small cacti, in red earth. The terrain was mostly flat, but with occasional escarpments, some with covered with huge wind turbine “farms”. Lubbock promotes itself as the wind turbine capital of the USA and there are estimated to be over 5000 wind turbines in the area. These massive new energy machines contrasted with the large number of small nodding donkeys, which they are destined to replace.

As we approached Lubbock, cotton fields reappeared. Apparently, Lubbock was built on the cotton trade.

Supersized cotton bales - everything in Texas just has to be the biggest

However, its main claim to fame is likely to be as the birthplace of Buddy Holly. At a small cafe, well off the beaten track south of Lubbock, the walls were covered with photographs, dating back 25-30 years, of young members of many branches of the Holly family, praised for their sporting prowess. There was no mention of Buddy, though, so perhaps they weren’t directly related.

In Lubbock, we found a small, basic, independent motel, a rarity up to now. Like the motel in Memphis, it was owned by a family from the Indian subcontinent, who had moved to the States via the UK. Memphis and Lubbock did not seem to be the most likely places for people to pitch up as immigrants and start running motels. Our nosiness was rewarded with rather vague answers and it seemed politic not to pursue the point.

Wednesday 18th November

Lubbock initially appeared to be a typical small town (the term “city” is used here for everything from New York to a small rural village with a population well under 1000). However, its extensive motorway network, ring road and numerous vast shopping plazas suggested something different. Like us, you may never have heard of it, but this is a city of 200,000. We drove to Lubbock airport to take out a new rental agreement on our existing car. While having it serviced, we did a little shopping and Philip had the best chocolate milkshake since his childhood in New Zealand. After lunch we set off through more cotton fields on flat plains. Further west, we saw several very large herds of cows (each 500-1000 head) penned up, presumably waiting to be shipped by road or rail. The terrain here was not completely flat - some dips, some escarpments. It became progressively dryer, with more tussock and some yuccas.We also encountered occasional tumbleweed, being blown across the road on the stiff, cool breeze.

After crossing into New Mexico, we stopped to look at the grave of Billy the Kid, who was shot by Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, while on the run, in 1881.

Nearby, there was also an impressive national monument to the Navajo and Mercelato Apache Indians, who were 'coralled' at Bosque Redondo by American forces, led by Kit Carson, in the mid 1800s. Many of the men were hunted and killed, while large numbers of men, women and children died in captivity, leading to huge loss of life.

As darkness fell, there was another dramatic sunset, then we drove in dark on the busy but freeflowing route 40 into Moriarty. It seemed that we were climbing fairly significantly along the route. When we stopped for the night in a very basic chain motel, at a busy and noisy truck stop, the temperature was well below zero.

For some time we have been seeing signs identifying sections of the roads we have been travelling on as the "Historic Route 66". As most will know from the song, this was the first unified interstate route from Chicago to Los Angeles, completed in the 1940s. It became redundant when the new major interstate freeways were opened. We have certainly been getting our kicks on Route 66.

New Orleans ("Noo Awlins") and the Atchafalaya swamp

2009-11-22T06:59:00.000-08:00

Thursday 12th November

Leaving Memphis, we had a pleasant morning drive on route 55, through a lightly wooded area (mixed broadleaf in fall colours and conifers) and occasional lakes, interspersed with crop farming (cotton/hay). The excellent Visitors Information Centre at the Mississippi border provided all the maps we needed. Seeing a sign to the Mississippi State Fish Hatcheries at Lake Enid, we stopped for what turned out to be a fascinating brief introduction to the work of the facility to keep rivers and lakes stocked, largely for recreational fishermen, but also to ensure that the waterways remained healthy. We were able to see, at close hand, the breeding of catfish, koi carp, crappies and alligator gars. According to information at the facility, the last of these commonly reach 40kg in weight. It was particularly fascinating to see a presentation on the breeding of sterile fish, to avoid the dominance of one species over others.

Wanting to get off the main highway, we crossed 30 miles to the Nachez Trace Parkway, which foolows the route of an old Choctaw Indian Trail opened up by the US Government in the 19th century to provide a faster communication route to the southwest through land "ceded" by the Indians, who later "moved to" Oklahoma. The Parkway is an attractive wooded drive, similar to the Ornamental Drive in the New Forest, but over 500 miles in length! We covered only about 100 miles and, unfortunately, couldn't see anything of the countryside because of trees lining the road for 400-800 metres on both sides along the whole route. In retrospect, we would probably have done much better to take the route along the Mississippi valley via Greenville and Vicksburg.

As the afternoon was drawing to a close, we sped down Highway 55 to join the massive Interstate 10. The last 80 miles into New Orleans were in darkness on a concrete sectioned highway – very noisy ‘kerchunk kerchunk’ for 75 minutes was quite tiring. The heavy traffic density and the assertive, if not aggressive, driving did not help. The standard of driving has deteriorated since we have travelled south and west. We had been warned of the tail-gating habit of drivers in the US. Although we did encounter it earlier occasionally, it has only been a serious problem in the southern states. It is quite common to see cars travelling at 65 mph, only 5-6 metres apart.

We found our way to the hotel with moderate difficulty, due partly to the usual profusion of one-way streets, but also to some confusion over the name of the hotel. It was by far the most expensive hotel we have stayed in on this trip, partly because of advice by our primary guide book that we should stay in the French Quarter for reasons of personal safety and partly because many cheaper hotels were fully booked. It confirmed our dislike of luxurious hotels, not because of the high cost per se, but because it gave poor value for money unless one wanted to be pampered by obsequious staff, which we did not. The basic facilities were no better than those we have encountered at many much cheaper hotels, and exorbitant additional charges were made for facilities, such as internet access and car parking, which we have had free everywhere else we have stayed in the 2 months we have been travelling in the US. Moreover, we never felt unsafe in the areas we walked, outside the French Quarter, so it became apparent that it would have been much more sensible to stay in a cheaper hotel to the west of the French Quarter and to use the convenient and pleasant trolley (tram) or cabs for going places.

Having established ourselves in a manner to which we are wholly unaccustomed, we wandered into the nearby streets of the French Quarter. The famed Bourbon Street turned out to be a chaotic, raucous and tawdry area full of people in party spirit overflowing from bars, cheap restaurants and strip joints. We found an oasis in a somewhat quieter courtyard bar, where we sat with a civilised and appreciative audience, listening to the excellent Steamboat Willy, singing an eclectic range of jazz and blues, backed only by a banjo and bass, while some couples (and a few rather crazy women) danced. He had to pause for 10 minutes while a brass wedding parade passed by, protected by police cars with full flashing regalia.

Friday 13th November

Ignoring the ridiculously expensive breakfast in the hotel, we bought excellent, huge muffulettas, of which we could eat only half while we queued for tickets for a guided tour with the National Park Service. Though linguistically rather pedantic, the young Ranger was informative, and cleverly likened the cultural mix over time in New Orleans to a gumbo, with each ethnic group adding to the flavour but retaining some of its own identity. The waterfront area of the city was busy and pleasant, resembling many Mediterranean ports we have visited.

The remainder of the muffulettas did very well for lunch, so representing extraordinarily good value. Deciding that he was getting rather too shaggy after two months of travel, Philip had a haircut and beard trim by a local barber, who did an excellent job at a very reasonable price.

A 30 minute steam calliope recital, played by a woman on the top deck of SS 'Natchez', and audible over the whole of the French Quarter, announced the imminent start of a steamboat tour.

The 7-mile trip up the river in the stern paddlewheeler, accompanied by a very good commentary, was a pleasant way to spend the sunny afternoon. With the roofs of the houses and other buildings only just visible above the levees, their vulnerability to flooding was immediately obvious (though the immense damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 resulted from the breaching of the levees around the shores of Lake Pochartrain, rather than those along the river, which actually trapped the 20 feet of water covering the city). It was interesting also to see several barge tugs pushing up to 15 barges (3 abreast, 5 end to end) up the river and the considerable skill of the tug captains in manoeuvering the barges around the tight bend against the very strong current.

A shorter calliope recital ended the cruise as dusk fell over the city. In the evening we had the best meal of our holiday so far in The Court of Two Sisters restaurant, in a quieter street in the French Quarter - excellent food at reasonable prices in a magical setting, served by highly professional but relaxed, friendly staff.

Saturday 14th November

As we drove 120 miles to the northwest of New Orleans for a swamp tour in the Atchafalaya Basin, we saw what we hadn’t been able to on our night drive into New Orleans. The vast areas of marshy land in that corner of Louisiana are crossed by motorways on pillars. The I 10 alone was elevated for at least 60 miles, with the joins between the concrete slabs accounting for the monotonous ‘kerchunk kerchunk’.

We met the operator of the swamp tour underneath the motorway on an island in the swamp and were pleasantly surprised to discover that we were to be the only customers. The business is run by a father and son team, who have lived locally all their lives. Atchafalaya is apparently an American Indian word, meaning long river. The Atchafalaya River distributes some of the water from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico but the Atchafalaya Basin (i.e. the surrounding flood plain) is an area of slow moving bayous (small streams)or still water restrained by levees, some of which are natural. Others were created by oil companies to facilitate oil extraction. Most of the oil rigs have been removed or abandoned, though the pipelines still go through the swamp, underwater.

The water level was about 8 feet above normal, due to recent heavy rainfall in the catchment areas feeding into the Mississppi river. For nearly 4 hours. we cruised slowly between trees and stumps, and through vast mats of water plants, which are gradually choking the waterways through the swamp.

The water-bound cypress trees were draped in long shrouds of grey Spanish moss, evoking eerie images of Miss Haversham’s gloomy and cobweb-infested room. In places the water plant mats were so extensive that the impression was of clumps of tall cypresses in park-like lawns.

We saw numerous species of birds (including anhingas, cormorants, herons, egrets, ibises, raptors, huge pileated woodpeckers,kingfishers, ducks and owls ), as well as monarch butterflies, very large dragonflies and small turtles.

We encountered four alligators, three of which departed so suddenly that we only saw the large splashes, while one small one ignored us while lying on a log in the sunshine to gather warmth.

When our guide wasn’t pointing out wildlife he was picking up rubbish washed in from the Mississippi, while bemoaning the irresponsibility of those who polluted his beloved swamp. Litter wasn’t actually very prevalent or noticeable, but over the course of the morning a sizeable haul of rubbish accumulated in the boat. It was a fascinating and, by turns, relaxing and exciting tour.

At a nearby fish restaurant in a quiet corner of the swamp, where we dropped in for a late lunch, the local cats looked to be as well fed as the customers. Philip was bemused to be addressed as 'my little Englishman' by the ancient Cajun wife of the owner of the restaurant, but he couldn’t fault the accuracy of her observation, though he had some reservations about her use of the possessive pronoun!

Taking a local road back to New Orleans, we passed sugar cane plantations, a sugar production factory, and several massive oil and chemical plants. Though they were impressive and even quite pretty when lit up, like futuristic cities in the sky, they were brutal reminders of the economic exploitation of the delta.

Sunday 15 November

After a frustrating time unsuccessfully trying to sort out the rental of a small motorhome from Dallas, we checked out of the hotel and took the delightful St Charles Avenue streetcar uptown. The area is full of large 19th century mansions, most of which were built by ex-plantation owners. They were in various states of repair and many of them appeared to have been subdivided into apartments. With many large old trees lining the road, a few attractive parks and people out jogging or walking, it was a pleasant upmarket suburban environment not unlike those found in most UK cities. One noticeable difference was that many of the trees were draped with numerous shiny bead necklaces. Their significance was unclear to us.

After a short time sunning ourselves in the rather ordinary park at the streetcar’s northern terminus, we returned downtown and left New Orleans on the I10, for a fast trip into Texas. On this sort of long boring drive, we try to find something on the radio to ease the tedium. Apart from the isolated Public Radio stations, which are largely funded by subscriptions and donations, and provide high-quality music, speech and news programmes, it is mostly a matter of frequency-hopping to find decent music and avoid advertisements. As we have journeyed south, religious radio stations have proliferated, many expounding extraordinarily conservative and, in some cases, extreme right-wing views. While trying to grasp the casual linkage of a loving God with fierce condemnation of due legal process for an accused terrorist (“why waste all that time and money when we could solve the problem with a 50-cent bullet?”), we were astonished to hear a promo "Sharing God's love with Qtips". Having, on a daily basis in my latter professional years, had to discourage parents from sticking Qtips in children’s ears, I marvelled that God’s work could be advanced by their use.

Overnight in Natchitoches, there was very heavy rainfall. We wondered if it might last for forty days and nights.

Down the Mississippi to Memphis

2009-11-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

Monday 9th November

In the morning, we dropped into Nauvoo, to see the site of the large midwest Mormon community which was established in the mid-19th cenury.. At its height there were about 15000 people in the settlement and a large temple was built. However, the community were persecuted by other local settlers and, when Joseph Smith was murdered in 1844, the Mormons abandoned the temple and moved west to establish a new community in Utah. Recently, the Mormon church has rebuilt the temple at Nauvoo and recreated elements of a 19th century village close by Unfortunately, the temple (which was not open to visitors) overwhelms the modern small town and the provision of factual information was accompanied by heavy-handed religious propaganda and a concerted effort to convert us. We left as quickly as possible.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

Then to Hannibal, where Mark Twain spent most of his boyhood, in a family whose financial fortunes declined over time and who suffered a few tragedies along the way. Hannibal is pretty much a Mark Twain theme park, but outside the tourist season, it was very quiet. In addition to the home where Samuel Clemens grew up, there are a couple of other reconstructed buildings which are purportedly the homes of the children who were the models for Huckleberry Finn and Becky Thatcher. Samuel Clemens repeatedly noted that he wrote only from his personal experience and two musuems in the town illustrate that by juxtaposing extracts from his fictional and non-fictional writings. The whole experience is fascinating for Mark Twain buffs, but probably doesn’t hold much interest otherwise.

Tom's fence??

As it was getting late, we pushed on along route 61 and stopped at a Super 8, one of the cheapest of the budget hotel chains, though still with reasonable facilities and comfort. We ate in a nearby "family restaurant" – these are independent eating places found in many small communities in rural areas. They are typically in rather gloomy and old-fashioned premises, reminiscent of New Zealand country cafes in the 1950s, and serve reasonably-priced standard fare of moderate quality, but with a wider range than the big chain “restaurants”.

Tuesday 10th November

Getting to route 79, in order to follow the Mississippi, was barely worth the effort. We were immediately confronted by two large ugly industrial plants. The road then ran alongside the river and railway, through scrub and poor farmland punctuated by more chemical/cement works and small communities, some with a few facilities and shops for tourists. More prosperous farms appeared later, as the road veered west away from the river. Dodging St Louis by freeway, we took Highway 67 through the pleasant Mark Twain National Forest and intersected our route of a couple of weeks earlier, at Poplar Bluff. Shortly before crossing into Arkansas, we started to see pretty fields of speckled white and verges strewn with cotton fibre, presumably blown off the bushes or off trucks. We had not realised that cotton bushes are so small and low-growing.

We reached Memphis after dark and had more than a little trouble finding our way to the motel due to the many one-way roads and the fractured and incomprehensible road layout. The situation was compounded by the scrappy and inaccurate Memphis town map provided by the Tourist Information Office at our entry into Tennessee. We narrowly avoided getting stuck in temporary parking for a major music event. After composing ourselves in the modest and curiously named Vista Motel, which was central, but had no view beyond the backs of other premises, we ventured into Beale Street for a meal and excellent live old and new rock and blues in the famed Blues City Cafe, opposite B.B. King’s Blues Club. Beale Street was much smaller than we expected it to be, but it was full of life and excitement, with a musical cacophony which was somewhat overwhelming for OAPs like us.

Wednesday 11th November

Over the last two days, it has turned cloudy and a bit humid, associated with tropical storm Ida, which has been hitting Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia in the last 48 hours. Today, however, has dawned beautifully clear and sunny. As Ida now seems to be moving northeast quite quickly, we’re hopeful that the weather will remain fine when we move on to New Orleans, a couple of days from now.

On our way to the riverfront in the morning, we encountered a noisy and very long parade of school cadets (both boys and girls with rifles), being kept in marching order by remarkably competent school bands and accompanied, oddly, by groups of scantily-clad, inanely-grinning, dancing girls. They were watched and applauded by a large number of onlookers, many of whom seemed to be parents of the marchers. On enquiring, we learned what we should already have known – this was a Veterans’ Day parade. The militaristic and patriotic fervour of many of the young people caused us a moment’s sober consideration.

The riverfront was not very attractive or interesting, though pleasant enough. It would probably be more lively in the summer and on any day other than Veterans’ Day. The whole town was quiet, away from the parade.

We made our way to the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was murdered in 1968. The motel has been frozen in time and a wreath marks the familiar balcony where Dr King was standing when he was shot.

A building adjacent to the motel houses the National Civil Rights Museum which gives a well-presented and interesting history of the roots, development and disintegration of the Civil Rights Movement. The only criticism of it might be that it is overly detailed, using a lot of text, but it brought back many vivid and shocking memories to we who read, heard and saw news reports of the events and the main players in the southern states at the time. The museum continues across the road in the previous apartment block from where it was thought the single fatal shot was fired by James Earl Ray, from a distance of only about 40 metres.

Having spent much longer in the museum than we anticipated, we had a late, but very good lunch (the shrimp po'boy was truly exceptional), then visited the interesting Cotton Exchange Museum. Unusually, the museum presentation includes a walk, guided by a personal audio commentary, around the surrounding streets. The majority of cotton businesses were based there until the 1960s, when improved electronic communication allowed deals to be made remotely, rather than in person. The rest of the museum exhibits are on the old exchange floor, which was used until the 1980s, when the internet replaced the telegraph and the telephone as the main source of information relevant to the cotton market. Nevertheless, the Memphis cotton market is reputedly still the biggest cotton spot market in the world. The museum did not shy away from noting the part slavery played in the cotton business, though it didn’t discuss it in detail. Interestingly, it did describe the link with the development of blues music.

After a brief visit to the plush Peabody Hotel to see the daily presentation of The Marching Ducks, which spend their days in a fountain in the museum’s foyer and return to their penthouse pen each evening by waddling into the elevator, we made a late visit to the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum. We thoroughly enjoyed the exhibits of memorabilia and the presentations about the evolution of rock ‘n’ roll, blues and soul music, but the museum is a Mecca for true connisseurs. The history of the Stax record company and the part it played in the promotion of black performers and the integration of blacks and whites in all facets of the popular music industry was particularly interesting.

More great live music accompanied dinner.

We felt that our choices of Things To Do in Memphis complemented each other well and gave a rounded (if brief) picture of the history of Memphis and the trials, tribulations and contributions of African Americans in the old and new economies of the city. Gracelands was about ninth in our list and we only got to number six. Neither did we see Elvis’ ghost during our stay. The city’s most famous son is put in his place following in the footsteps of the giants of rock and blues.

Two Memphis Icons

Iowa

2009-11-16T08:05:00.001-08:00

Thursday 5th November

A long drive to Iowa to meet up with Rich Tyler, a friend and ex-colleague of Philip’s. This involved a 500-mile journey across the plains, through true prairie initially, then farms with increasingly large fields of corn and soya, as well as cattle. When Philip visited Iowa about 25 years ago, it was famed for its hog (pig) farming. There were no pigs to be seen this time, but towards the end of the day, we noticed some large sheds that looked (and smelled) as though they may house pigs. It later transpired later that pigs are kept inside for their entire lives – it seems that animal rights issues don’t count for much here!

We visited an excellent tourist information site just inside Iowa, which not only provided a range of facilities which other states would do well to emulate, but was also imaginatively designed with attractively decorated buildings in a beautiful setting. From there, we learned of the persecution of members of the early Mormon Church in Illinois and their trek acroiss Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming, into what is now Utah, where they founded Salt Lake City.

After a little problem of following minor local roads in the dark, in the rural area southeast of Iowa City, we arrived at Rich’s smallholding.

Friday 6th November

The morning revealed the focus of Rich’s energy (other than his academic post). The Secrest 1883 Octagonal Barn, which sits on his property, is a magnificent, huge structure of three floors (www.barnalliance.org/IowaRoundBarns.pdf). Rich has been stabilising and conserving it for about the last decade, with the help of State funds and a large body of volunteers. It is a great testament to his dedication, energy and organisational ability.

In the area around nearby Kalouna, Amish and Mennonite communities live alongside other so-called “English” locals. Both communities are descended from protestant groups from Germany and Switzerland who disagreed with some Lutheran principles and followed a strict interpretation of the Bible. They emigrated to the US to lead a simple communal rural life without most modern facilities, appliances and farming equipment, particularly anything operated by electricity or petrol. Along with a policy of communal inter-dependence, their highly-ordered lives are governed by pacifist principles and a rejection of anything hinting at militarism. It is claimed that their numbers are increasing and that there are now about 200,000 adherents living in numerous areas across the States. However there are different “orders” or subgroups in each group and individuals sometimes move between the subgroups and even between the main Amish and Mennonite groups, depending on their personal beliefs. Some of the farms appeared to be mechanised to a greater or lesser extent, but others clearly operated on horse power. Several people were travelling around the roads in distinctive covered horse-drawn buggies.

Parking at the Amish store

We visited two stores which reminded us of general country stores in New Zealand in our childhoods and were staffed by women in long dresses (fastened by hooks and eyes, rather than buttons, which are thought to be too militaristic) and bonnets. They stocked a wide but quaint selection of general goods and food which was aimed mostly at the Amish and Mennonite communities, but they were also patronised by other local people of neither group. Both stores had refrigerators which were run on gas, but there were electric lights in at least one of them. Items produced by Amish women, particularly quilts, jams and baked goods, were also available in other local, non-Amish stores.

Driving round the dusty roads in the area, we had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it seemed rather like driving in a safari park to see exotic animals, or visiting a freak show. On the other, we wondered whether the Amish and Mennonite communities maintained their quaint customs and appearances partly to attract tourists (and, hence, to sell their products) and, therefore, whether we were the ones being exploited.

We drove north to Cedar Rapids to look at houses damaged by the severe floods in 2008. The damage was extraordinarily widespread. Hundreds of homes remain abandoned, creating ghost towns, after the Iowa River overflowed the levees and water flooded the low-lying areas in the town to upper-floor level. The locals are resentful that their plight received less publicity than New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but it was good to see that some element of humour remained.

The pavements of the business area of Cedar Rapids were also eerily empty, largely because most people go from building to building using elevated 'skywalks', built largely to facilitate movement in times of heavy snowfall. In a curiously old-fashioned way (which we have seen in several US towns), railway tracks still intersect or run along city streets. We saw the extraordinary sight of cars gridlocked for 30 minutes at peak traffic time when a long freight train went through the city centre, stopped, then reversed!

In the evening, we met Rich and his daughter at the opening of an art gallery belonging to Michael Harker, a renowned photographer friend of Rich's. Subsequently we ate in a restaurant outside the city, where the excellent food (in the usual huge portions) was followed by an hour of good live jazz in the bar.

Saturday 7th November

The nearby village of West Branch is the birthplace of Herbert Hoover. His childhood home and several other buildings from the time are set in a very extensive and attractive park, together with his Presidential Library and an excellent museum. He came from a Quaker family and trained as a geologist. He had a very successful early career with mining companies in Australia and China, and established his own engineering consultancy firm in London, shortly before the first world war.

At the American Government’s request, he helped American citizens return to the US from Europe at the outbreak of hostilities and stayed on to run a relief commission to assist displaced, destitute and starving refugees in Europe and elsewhere. After the war, he worked for the US administration at home, then rose quickly to political prominence and became US President in 1929. He had mixed political fortunes, introducing reforms in many areas, but he was portrayed by some as the architect of the depression in the 1930s.

After a visit to the attractive Old Capitol building in Iowa City and a pleasant cycle ride along a disused railway line through farmland near West Branch, we rounded off the day with a soak in Rich’s hot tub. An evening at a lively (and loud) steak & beer house with live C&W music, with Rich’s friends, was followed by a further late night soak in the hot tub. We could easily get used to this!

Sunday 8th November

The Secrest 1883 octagonal barn is big and beautiful: 25 metres high, with 3 floors and a cupola, a diameter of about 24 metres and an attached rectangular side barn about 20 metres long. It could hold about 300 tons of hay in the loft, for horses and cattle on the ground floor and it has several ingenious mechanical systems for handling the process of storing and distributing the hay, and other farm procedures. Rich has put a huge amount of work into the stabilisation and restoration of the barn, and a collection of related artefacts and farm equipment, but a lot more needs to be done. After climbing to the cupola via a suspended ladder, for a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside, and helping with a couple of minor jobs on the farm, we departed for the start of drive south in the early afternoon.

A snail's-eye view up to the cupola of the barn

After crossing into Illinois at Burlington, we came across an imposing mansion with large pillars and a sweeping drive, in the manner of a European grand country house, advertising B&B. It turned out to be something of a folly built by a previous owner, who added the facade to an otherwise ordinary house, just to make an impression. B&B establishments are exceptionally rare in the areas of the US we have been travelling through.. Even the stereotypical US motel with 5-10 units has largely disappeared, remaining only occasionally in very small rural towns. Bed and breakfast accommodation is now provided almost entirely by chains of cheap hotels, all virtually identical apart from different colour schemes, but all providing good basic accommodation and a basic but adequate buffet breakfast with polystyrene plates and bowls and plastic cutlery, creating a staggering amount of waste.

Crossing the Mississippi River to find a restaurant in the evening, we had to wait for about 30 minutes on a swing-span bridge at Fort Madison, to allow a barge “train”, about 300 metres long, to pass upriver. It is reputed to be the largest swing-span bridge in the USA, though we have encountered so many superlatives through the US that they must all be accepted with caution. With many barges passing along the river, the bridge creates a significant bottleneck not only to road traffic, but also to the 70+ trains passing through Fort Madison each day.

Kansas

2009-11-08T17:44:00.001-08:00

Monday 2nd November

So into Kansas, Carolyn’s home State, and to Wichita, the place of her birth.

We set off from the Lake of the Ozarks in sunny, mild weather, driving along minor roads by the Harry S. Truman Reservoir, created by the damming of the Grand and Osage Rivers. Mercifully, all development is prohibited in the area, so it was an attractive and relaxing drive, with minimal traffic. There was evidence of significant flooding from the recent storms. We encountered several people from surrounding areas who had come to check the progress of the floodwaters – it seemed to be a routine, daily activity, which reflected both the importance of the water system in their lives and a lack of much else to do in such an isolated area!

We crossed the state line into Kansas on Highway 54, near Fort Scott. After winding through the lakes area in Missouri, route 54 cuts long straight lines across the Kansas prairies. It is a primary route, but not a freeway.. There are only 4 or 5 multi-lane highways crossing Kansas, which is roughly the size of England and Wales, but with only about a fortieth of the population. Most of the freeways run west and southwest out of Kansas City which is, in fact, largely in Missouri.

The land in western Missouri and eastern Kansas is mostly used for beef or dairy cattle farming. We were struck by the very large amount of hay which had been cut and stored, and the quite small herds of cattle (particularly beef cattle) which, presumably, were to be fed with it. We assumed that the number of cattle was depleted either because many had been sent to slaughter prior to winter and that the herds would be restocked with calves in the early spring, or that the market for beef is currently depressed. The herds increased in size as we moved further west, but were never large. This area was the scene of the great cattle drives from Texas in the 19th century, for the fattening of the cattle before they were loaded on to trains to be transported to the growing populations on the east coast and in Chicago. Apparently the reason for the prairies’ importance for cattle is that the bluestem grass which grows there is very rich in minerals.

In the last 50 miles or so before reaching Wichita, more of the land was devoted to crop farming, particularly maize, though the condition of it suggested that it was still intended for animal feed rather than human consumption.

The small town of Eureka, which Philip recalled as being mentioned in accounts of the “wild west” (including, perhaps, a few cowboy movies) did not live up to its promising name. It had clearly seen better days in the past, but now appears to be depressed and shabby, despite some desultory attempts to brighten the place up. Nearing Wichita, the towns became much more prosperous, showing the benefit of the last two decades of economic growth and little indication of the recent recession.

As we approached the city of Carolyn’s birth, we were treated to a magnificent sunset, with beautiful cloud patterns and extraordinary colour changes, in the huge, open prairie sky. It was very different from our last visit here, 34 years ago, when the daytime temperature was around 40 degrees C. and there was the most intense electrical storm we’ve ever encountered.

Tuesday 3rd – Wednesday 4th November

Wichita is promoted as the “Magic city of the Plains” and is the biggest city in Kansas, with about 350,000 people. It’s an attractive town, with imaginative infrastructure development and architecture on a human scale. Its name is derived from the Wichita confederation of American Indian tribes who suffered the same shameful treatment by the US Government as many other tribes did, of being forced off their ancestral lands and settled in the area around the confluence of the Little Arkansas and Big Arkansas Rivers, before being resettled in reservations far south and west. The modern history of the city lies in the early days of the “wild west”, with the provision of facilities and supplies for the cattle drovers from Texas and the farmers on the surrounding plains, facilitated by the arrival of the railroad. Later, there was also some small-scale oil extraction (some abandoned) and early involvement in the development of aviation. A slogan in the city is “from plains to planes”, as Wichita is home to a number of aircraft companies, including Cessna, Piper and Beechcraft and the site of manufacturing facilities for others, such as Boeing. It was also a major area for the training of US Air Force pilots in the Second World War. We were told an apochryphal story of an Air Force officer who, when asked why so much of the training was carried out locally, replied “because there aren’t too many hills for them to hit”. Of nowhere else is this more true - Wichita and the surrounding area is pretty much entirely flat.

We were visiting Wichita partly to visit Carolyn’s uncle-in-law, Ken and his partner, Flo. As well as catching up with them on family matters, Carolyn and I visited a couple of museums and went to see The Keeper of the Plains, an imposing stylised statue within a display about the Amerindians, built at the confluence of the rivers. Every night, for 15 minutes, large gas burners are lit around the statue, creating a “Ring of Fire”. It’s quite impressive, even if there is a slight sense of tokenism and idealisation about it.

After visiting a new and very attractive Quaker Meeting House just outside Wichita, we looked around the Friends’ University, where Ken, Flo and Carolyn’s mother and aunt all attended as students. By an extraordinary coincidence, Flo and Carolyn’s mother had been in the same sorority, though a couple of years apart. Flo remembered Carolyn’s mother feeding her with a cracker spread with a proprietary cold and cough medicine, as an initiation rite! There was also an unexpected pleasure in looking through university yearbooks from the early 1940s and finding records and photographs of Carolyn’s mother and uncle.

Eating lunch in the university cafeteria gave us an interesting, if noisy reminder of our own student days, and neatly counterbalanced our first, very quiet experience of sleeping in the housing complex for elderly folk, where Ken and Flo live.

Rather unwisely, we sampled the evening entertainment on offer at the impressive Century II auditorium – Wicked!, a musical of a side story of The Wizard of Oz which had recently been on Broadway. It was a polished, highly professional production and mildly amusing, but it reminded us why we don’t usually “do” musicals.

Through Kentucky and Missouri

2009-11-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

Friday 30th Oct

Visiting a huge and otherwise empty laundromat early in the morning, we wondered why such a large facility was needed in a mostly rural environment and how it could be profitable. It was situated on a road like many others we had encountered, with continuous strip-development of shopping plazas over several miles. In reality these are vast surface carparks in front of a few shops, eateries and other commercial premises. They are almost identical and lack any aesthetic quality or charm. Most are largely empty, perhaps reflecting the depressed economy here.

We made our way to Berea, a small town with an unusual university and a thriving artisan community. Berea College was established in 1855 as a vocational college for black and white students from families of limited means.

Now a full university, it still operates on the same principle, whereby the students do not pay tuition fees, but are required to work at least 10 hours per week, in one of a large number of areas, including crafts, administrative work and PR. We were given a tour of some of the five craft workshops (broommaking, woodworking, weaving, pottery and metal work) in which students produce saleable items of astonishingly high quality.

A shop on the campus stocks a wide range of products, large and small. Following the lead of the College, many private artisans have set up workshops in the town. Most, like the dulcimer maker and the weavers we spoke to, are real enthusiasts as well as expert artisans and are happy to discuss their crafts with visitors.

Dulcimers are still widely played in Kentucky.

Eastern Kentucky is prosperous bloodstock land. Large houses with prominent (sometimes gross) pillars framing large porticos are set in lush farms, criss-crossed by miles of white or brown post and plank fences.

For the night, we booked into an Inn situated in a restored Shaker village at Pleasant Hill, just south of Lexington. Our very large but simply-furnished room was in one of the three communal “family” houses on the site, each of which originally accommodated about 80 people in 20 rooms. Each family house was a largely self-contained community, with communal cooking, eating and laundry areas and segregated washing and working areas for men and women.

This family house had two front doors, one to be used by women and children and the other by men.

The Shaker Village is a popular tourist attraction as a working village with a functioning farm, staffed craft workshops and exhibits. The Inn operates within it discreetly and professionally, with modern facilities and a renowned restaurant.

For some days, we had seen reports of an active weather front crossing the US from the west, with torrential rain causing serious flooding in Louisiana and other southern states. Overnight, the rain reached Pleasant Hill, but with much reduced severity

Saturday 31st Oct.

The rain had stopped by morning. We pressed on quickly through Kentucky (we admit to doing some ‘turnpiking’ from time to time)into Missouri, to ensure that we were within striking distance of our next arranged stopover with family members in Kansas. Western Kentucky appears to be less prosperous than the rest of the state, with poorer mixed farms surrounded by scrub and forest. The heavy cloud thinned and we entered Missouri in bright sunshine, as we crossed the Mississippi River. It’s not called the “mighty Mississippi” for nothing. At this point, the river is divided by islands. We crossed three consecutive bridges, each at least ten times the length of any of the Thames bridges. No doubt the heavy rains of the previous days had considerably increased the width of the river. The landscape flattened into alluvial plains. We headed up into the last hilly area before the Great Plains of the Midwest, the Ozarks, and found a cheap, basic, but adequate motel in Van Buren, close to Big Spring. Halloween is big in the US and as we ate in a local family restaurant, along with numerous locals (including what appeared to be the entire local police force of Van Buren), successive groups of small children entered, in costumes and accompanied by their parents, to collect “treats” of candy from the restaurant staff. Like much else in the US, this appears to have become standardised and automatic – the concept of demanding “trick or treat” seems to have disappeared, at least in Van Buren. However, we were also visited by two very effective ghoulish witches, who frightened the wits out of the children and unsettled some of the adults!

Sunday, 1st November

Van Buren is really (very) small-town America, but it has a few refinements and developments to accommodate the needs of visitors to the nearby Big Spring. This is the largest of several natural springs in this part of the Ozarks, which has been designated as the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. People come to “float” the rivers on everything from rafts to tyres, to hike in the surrounding hills and to enjoy the beautiful scenery. The locals all know each other and are somewhat rugged types, who nearly all drive large 4WD trucks (which, are, at least, justifiable in this area), but we have found them to be very welcoming, courteous and apparently God-fearing, in view of the number of churches in the area, all of which are well maintained, often set on large plots on the edge of town.

Our previous observation of the predominance of cars made by non-US manufacturers has changed. Since West Virginia, many more models by the major US manufacturers are evident. Apart from the 4WD trucks, though, they mostly still resemble European cars in both size and style.

It is interesting to consider why the US has (or had) such a poor record for motor vehicle accidents and resultant casualties. As we noticed on our last couple of visits here, the standard of driving is usually good, drivers are mostly courteous and speed limits (and driving speeds) are generally much lower than in Europe. However, although the standard of the roads is mostly high, turn-offs to the innumerable entrances to car parks, plazas and roadside premises are often badly designed and poorly controlled, and frequently require vehicles to cross considerable road widths. Intersections are often badly designed, with unclear signs and very poor lighting at night. There are huge numbers of traffic lights but, in towns in particular, advertising and other streetside lights create distraction and visual confusion. Drivers frequently use cellphones (mobile phones) when driving, but there has been little evidence of drunken driving. We have seen many cases of near misses, mostly not due to bad driving. Yet, in over 1500 miles of driving so far on the US part of this trip, we have seen only one minor accident. Perhaps the accident record has improved significantly here, as it has in many other developed counties over the last 30 years.

On our way to the Ozarks yesterday, we had noticed occasional signs of flooding from the recent storms which crossed the US, though it appeared to be fairly minor. When we went to see the Big Spring, we found that the area was closed, due to ‘emergency conditions’, but we parked the car and walked to the spring. The signs of extensive flooding were everywhere, with facilities, gates and paths under at least a metre of water, though it was clear that the water had been much higher very recently. We were able to reach the spring on an elevated roadway, which had obviously been covered a day or so earlier. At the spring, the mud and debris showed that the water level had reached 8-9 metres above its normal level.

The spring itself was not as impressive as it might have been, because it was under so much lying water. This is a mighty spring, the biggest in eastern North America, with an average daily flow of 286 million gallons.

Due to their peculiar geology, the Ozarks are reputed to have more “first magnitude” springs (with daily flows over 65 million gallons) than anywhere else on Earth. The Alley Spring, though much smaller than the Big Spring, with an average daily flow of “only” 81 million gallons, was actually the more impressive in the current conditions. From a large, relatively calm pool, with only a slight upwelling evident, a massive torrent of white water roared into the valley.

We ambled our way through the Scenic Riverways area, on largely deserted minor roads which passed through interesting small communities and attractive scenery. An armadillo, lying dead by the roadside, confirmed new knowledge that we had acquired earlier, that armadillos live in North America. They are apparently quite common in this area. [As a diversion, we have seen many road-kills over the previous few days, including deer, raccoons, squirrels and the first bear we have sighted since starting this trip! Later in the day, we nearly added to the total, as a buck sprang across the road just a few feet in front of us, and our wheels missed a startled squirrel by inches. We think we may have seen a couple of live bears scavenging carrion by the roadside in West Virginia, but we weren’t certain.]

At this point, we made one of our biggest mistakes on this trip. The Ozarks lakes area looked to be a nice place to find accommodation for the night. Branson, described as a resort area with a lot of family entertainment and C&W shows, was obviously a place to avoid. The Lake of the Ozarks looked to be a better bet - quieter, less developed... Anything but! It is a large artificial lake, made by damming at least 3 rivers to create a reservoir, a power generation facility and a water recreational area for the population of the central US. It has a shoreline of about 1600 miles, a large part of which has been developed for private properties and large towns have sprung up to service the tourist population. It may be a reasonable provision to make for a large number of people who are isolated from the sea, and it is still an attractive major water feature, but the towns are ugly. The only accommodation is in the towns. It was not where we wanted to be. We drove to the northwestern edge of the developed area to escape and found a reasonable motel in a slightly more pleasant location.

For the last couple of days, the weather has been superb - brilliant sunshine, about 20 degrees and virtually no wind.

Going west

2009-10-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 25 Oct.

The day dawned dry and sunny as we left Washington. Picked up a rental car and drove to Fredericksburg, scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

The traffic was very heavy and much less well-disciplined than when we were driving in New England.

Interesting walk around the old town, following the course of the battle in 1862.

Diorama constructed by reference to a drawing made the day after the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Despite the devastation wreaked on the town, there are still many attractive buildings standing from that time.

We decided to omit Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown from our trip, so we started west, towards the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley. to go west. Overnight in Sleepy Hollow motel, Culpeper - basic but adequate.

American Lingo

There is some debate about who said of the US and Britain that they are ‘two nations divided by a common language’, but it is an apt description. Even ordering food can be a confusing experience: ‘biscuits’ turn out to be scones, hotcakes are huge griddle scones, sausages are meat patties or burgers. (P: this is from someone who was born in the US and whose mother was American!)

Mon 26th Oct

Blue Ridge Mountains

Had brunch in an excellent and friendly local cafe. It's obvious why so many Americans are seriously obese. The portions given in cafes are huge, at low prices by UK standards. A medium choice for brunch included two sausage patties, two fried eggs and 3 thick plate-sized "hotcakes".

Carolyn wanted a haircut, so we tried a hair salon where, strangely, there was no staff member who could cut hair! So to Walmart supermarket where P did grocery shopping & C got a 'family' haircut including trimmed sideburns!

As we drove northwest on quiet roads through gently rolling green fields interspersed with stands of colourful trees, the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains really did have a markedly blue hue. We read that this is due to a gas emitted by the trees, but it seems to be an unlikely explanation. We headed for Shenandoah National Park, an area of lovely rolling wooded hills (max height about 1500m) with very pretty autumnal colours, lying along one of the Blue Ridge (part of the Appalachian chain), with views to the east towards Washington and to the west down into the flat glacial valley of the Shenandoah river. Due to an overbooking error we were given an upgrade in accommodation - a suite in a late 19th C. wood panelled cabin that had been the summer home of a noted academic.

Very rustic and full of woodworm (borer for the Kiwis) holes! In addition to the standard furniture, the lounge had two rocking chairs(!) placed in front of the large picture window, which gave an extensive and dramatic view out over the Shenandoah valley (mostly farmland). As evening fell, we sat and watched the beautiful changing colours in the sky. The night view over the valley was equally pretty, with the lights of farmhouses and a village spread out below us. A mist rolled up the valley late in the night.

Dinner was in a dining room in a lodge where we shared a table with 2 pleasant sisters from West Virginia then listened to a competent female singer in the bar, covering various old and new rock and C&W songs, before wandering back through the trees to our cabin.

P can't get Laurel and Hardy’s verson of “Trail of the Lonesome Pine” (the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia) and Robeson’s "Shenandoah" out of his head!

Tues 27th Oct

We woke to find the valley completely obscured by fog, but we were in the clear, with light cloud above. We picked up pre-arranged lunch boxes from the Lodge then went off to walk a trail (6.4 miles). through attractive deciduous forest.

It was mostly cloudy, occasionally misty and fairly mild. A few raindrops started to fall as we got back to the car and by evening the rain had really set in, along with strong winds. The evening entertainment (!) was by a troupe of cloggers (female tapdancers in cheerleader outfits) who ended their show holdng the US flag and leading singing of "God Bless the USA” - "I'm glad I live in America because at least I know I'm free" – and they were dead serious! If we had looked carefully, I’m sure we would have seen tears rolling down one or two cheeks.

Wed 28th Oct

The overnight heavy rain had largely cleared by morning but it was still windy. We drove out in bright sunshine, but we soon entered descended into the thick fog in the valley. Through the Washington National Forest, the previous brilliant fall colours gave way to rich chocolate browns, cinnamons and ochres.

In the narrow but flat -bottomed river valley, the farms were mostly agricultural and appeared to be prosperous. We drove down Highway 220 to Warm Springs , known as the Jefferson Pools because Thomas Jefferson soaked in them in his old age. Some accounts also credit him with designing the buildings (separate for men and women). They are certainly old and a bit decrepit, but the water in the pools was very clear, with the familiar smell of the hot pools of our New Zealand childhood .

We arrived too late for mixed "family" bathing so, as the day was moving on, we decided not to take a soak. Later, rounding. a bend in the valley, we encountered the ugly industrial town of Covington, dominated by the huge MeadWestvaco paper/cardboard and packaging factory. The characteristic sickening smell of wood pulp and paper manufacture is one which we know well and forever associate with Tokoroa and Kawerau in NZ. Entering West Virginia, in a more mountainous and poorer area with a mixture of sheep and cattle farming, we began looking for somewhere to stay near New River Gorge, with no sign of accommodation anywhere by the time evening fell.

A woman in the office in a State Park campground, which turned out not to have any accommodation either, said, with no hint of irony,: "You folks have a nice evening", (This not only seemed somewhat inappropriate , given our circumstances at the time, but it turned out to be a poor prediction for the actualité), . Along with “have a nice day” and “you’re welcome”, (which are now, unfortunately, creeping into Britain).it is one of several routine utterances which are presumably programmed into Americans at a young age.. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these expressions, but as they are delivered automatically at specific points of interaction, irrespective of their appropriateness, and often by people who are clearly bored or engrossed in something else altogether, their sincerity is seriously to be doubted.

A few miles after leaving the State Park, we came across a motel, just short of Hico. The illuminated sign promised “DIRE TV” (could it get any worse?), but we decided to give it a try. At the office, a sign read RING BELL. Thinking that there might have been someone in the office, which appeared to be dimly lit, Carolyn opened the flyscreen then tried the door handle. The door opened and a dog immediately appeared out of the gloom and bit her hand. A woman emerged from the back of the office and called the dog off, but was more concerned about pointing out the sign by the door than about Carolyn’s hand, which was punctured and badly bruised. As our immediate priority was to get medical treatment, we left, leaving the owners arguing between themselves about the adequacy of the sign.

We had to drive about 20 miles to the nearest hospital , where we arrived just before 7.30pm, but Carolyn wasn’t seen until after 9.30pm and we didn’t get out until after 12.30am! The care was very thorough, but the waiting between each stage was excruciating – this in the land of privatised medicine, where they criticise “socialised” medical services, like the NHS, for delays, etc. If this sort of wait happened frequently in a NHS hospital now, the Chief Executive would face some very awkward questions. We’re also hoping that we don’t come down with ‘flu – the casualty department was full of influenza cases, mostly children. Anyone with symptoms was required to wear a mask, so we hope that we weren’t exposed to too much virus!

We got to bed at about 1.30am in a hotel near the hospital .

Thurs 29th Oct

A late start for obvious reasons. We decided to report the dog attack formally to the police, necessitating a 30 mile drive to the appropriate County Sheriff's Department, who had already been notified about it by the hospital staff - something to do with reporting so-called “animal encounters” and ensuring that the dog had been vaccinated.

We looked forward to meeting the Sheriff, though frankly, we thought he should have saddled up his horse and ridden over to investigate the matter, as in the movies!! In the end, it was a bit of an anticlimax. Only a Deputy was available to confirm that the vaccination certificates were in order. He seemed rather unconcerned about the attack and ruled out criminal proceedings. As many Americans seem to think that it is acceptable to shoot a trespasser on their property, perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that an attack by a dog would be considered as not worthy of concern.

At 924 metres long, the New River Gorge Bridge is claimed to be the longest single-span bridge in either the world, or the “western hemisphere”, depending on what you read. It is an impressive feat of construction, at 267 metres above the gorge floor, but it doesn’t allow a good view of the gorge.

We took the very scenic old road via the gorge floor and the reconstructed old bridge, then followed Route 60 along the Kanawha River. Though quite attractive in parts, it is seriously spoiled by huge coal mining and oil refining plants sited in the valley. After a slow journey around Charleston at peak time, we were happy to reach Kentucky and stop for the night. Carolyn’s hand was already showing some improvement.

The Capital

2009-10-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

Evidence that Americans have a sense of humour, or that their habit of numbering, rather than naming, roads is sometimes taken too far?

Wednesday 21st Oct.

So to Washington DC, city of grand views and grand statements, both physical and verbal.

Travelled by train from NY to Washington - something of a rattletrap, compared with the Boston to NY train, but still compared moderately well with European trains. The industrial decay and poor housing in north Philadelphia gave way to more attractive views and more prosperous neighbourhoods across the top of Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore and North Washington. Because of the high cost of accommodation in Washington, we (like many people) booked into a hotel in Alexandria, one of several dormitory satellite towns, which are well-connected to the Capital by the subway. Alexandria was established as a port at the same time as Washington was built and was part of the District of Columbia for a while. It was subsequently reclaimed by Virginia and is now a large thriving town with strong provisions for tourists, particularly in the Old Town area, with continuous eateries & shops over about 1 1/2 miles, served by a free tram. There is also an attractive dock area, with an interesting large art gallery/workshop, in which about 200 artists and craftsmen have their studios,from which they sell their work. The complex includes an art school attached and there are also regular live music sessions, though one we attended was of dubious quality. We spent the evening walking through pleasant parks along the edge of the placid Potomac river, in warm weather (24 deg.C).

Not quite The Boat Race - two school crews training on the Potomac near Alexandria on the south bank

We've already made use of nearly all the apparently excessive baggage we brought with us, because of the huge temperature variations we've encountered and the widely differing environments we've been in, from snowy, forested mountaintops to smart(ish) restaurants on warm, sultry evenings.

Since we arrived in the US, we've intermittently had significant problems using UK tri-band phones, for calling locally and to the UK. We must get either a US sim card (not possible in Canada, apparently) or a US phone.

Thursday 22nd Oct.

A member of the paparazzi, with his guide book to aid identification of the building behind him.

Washington's neo-classical monuments and the buildings of the Capitol are even more grand than they appear in pictures. They nearly all record well-known elements of the great statements of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, or the utterances of great men (and a very few women) of US history. There are certainly well-preserved vistas on a grand scale, and wide boulevards, which add to the majestic appearance of the Federal Capital. Yet it all seems to be rather overblown and unduly sombre. The picture is somewhat spoiled by the moth-eaten appearance of the mile-long Mall, which should be a splendid sweep of grass, but is worn and churned-up, and the stagnant, dull and murky water of the "Reflecting Pools". The city is noisy with the machinery of transport. Aeroplanes fly low over the city, frequently, into and out of Ronald Reagan Airport, which is the closest of the three airports serving Washington. There are helicopters flying constantly back and forth, presumably ferrying political and business leaders to and from the airport. The avenues are choked with traffic, while the city streets are curiously rather empty of pedestrians. It may be due to the time of year, but we are surprised by the small number of visitors in most of the monuments and museums (with the exception of large school groups in the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials). The relative lack of advertisements and the discreet (i.e. lack of)signage in the streets surrounding the central area add to a slightly sinister impression of a lifeless, bureaucratic world dominated by machines.

Nevertheless, the lack of queues meant that we were able to see a lot with little difficulty. In the Capitol, we struck lucky with our visit to the visitor's gallery in the Senate, where a number of well-known faces appeared and lingered, including John McCain, Hilary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and Robert Byrd. We saw the closing stages of vote counting on an amendment to a bill. It appeared very informal, with senators drifting into the chamber to register their votes in person with the recorder. She called out the senators' names and their votes, while the senators wandered around, chatting and joking amongst themselves. Then 3 speakers gave warm tributes to a senator who had just become the third longest-serving member of the Senate, having represented Hawaii (as the first Japanese American senator) since that State joined the Union. Business then turned to a discussion re funding for troops for Afghanistan during which senator Robert Byrd (oldest senator at 91) from West Virginia gave a stirring piece of oratory, though to a largely empty House. The visit to the House of Representatives was not so interesting - seemed a more formal approach, with timed speech slots. Later outside, in the grounds of the Capitol, we encountered and watched a press meeting called by a group at of congressmen & women, concerning census procedures.

Apart from a complete lack of signs around the outside of the Capitol, the management of visitors was remarkably efficient, low-key and relaxed, with a very well-staffed system of moving people around the various parts of the building, while maintaining security and enabling the work of the Capitol to go on.

A thing of beauty or kitsch?

In comparison with many of the other buildings, the White House is quite modest in size. We didn't see Barack, but we did see one of a number of very well-photographed people, a sniper on the roof of the President's residence.

The people and government of DC are not altogether enamoured with their second-class status as the home of the federal Government. Their resentment at having only limited representation in Congress is clear for all to see.

Friday 23rd Oct.

Early start to get to the Washington Monument to get tickets for a visit later in the day. Despite the small number of visitors, the limited capacity of the monument means that only about 40 people can visit in each half-hour period, so the daily tickets (free as for all the other federal buildings, museums and monuments)are all distributed by about 9.30 am at this time of the year, and by about 6.30 in mid-summer. Walked (and walked!) around several of the mostly impressive war memorials and monuments. The obvious question that arises, however, is what was achieved by the loss of the tens of thousands of lives recorded in the Korean and Vietnam War Memorials, presumably to be joined eventually by memorials to those killed in Irag and Afghanistan. The US, along with its allies and client states, has a nasty habit of going to war with poor communities around the world, citing grand humanitarian and moral motives of dubious credibility, achieving little other than the deaths of huge numbers of people on all sides. Little or no mention is made of the deaths of either combatents or civilians in the countries being fought over. Despite the constantly repeated moral imperatives of democracy and freedom, which a large proportion of Americans appear to cling to resolutely and openly, there is a notable lack of reference to incursions, or logistical or intelligence support, by the US in countries, in Latin America and elsewhere, to dislodge leaders who have popular support. Curious, too, that the "Patriots" of the Revolution were not "terrorists", as are the patriots in the countries in which the US has intervened.

Washington Monument reflected in the name-listing at the Vietnam War Memorial

A volunteer taking a pencil rubbing of the name of the grandfather of a visitor to the Vietnam War Memorial

We greatly enjoyed a visit to the Hirshhorn Gallery, one part of the huge, eclectic Smithsonian Institute. Pleasing circular building, with a collection of many familar pieces of modern sculpture by Magritte, Matisse, Henry Moore, etc, as well as some of Alexander Calder's mobile sculptures, the forerunners of many a nursery adornment and executive toy.

The weather has turned overcast, so the view from top of the Washington Monument was not optimal, but it nevertheless gave an impressive overview of the city.

Finally visited the Ford Theatre, where Lincoln was shot, and the house across the road, where he died. The associated museum includes the pistol used in the assassination.

Saturday, 24 Oct.

Late start after sorting out problems with a rental car booking, not helped by on-going difficulties with the mobile phones (despite having now acquired a US phone). Spent more time in the excellent Hirshhorn Gallery, then visted the adjacent National Air & Space museum, which was the first place we encontered real crowds. Good exhibits including Apollo 11 capsule, Lyndburg's Spirit of St Louis, and an excellent display about the Wright brothers.

Philip in raincoat and hat, showing deterioration in his physical condition due to lack of food and excessive energy expenditure in walking the vast distances between the sights of Washington

Emerged into very heavy and persistent rain, which made a trip to the Library of Congress a little difficult. The interior decoration of the building is extraordinarily elaborate in the European Renaissance style. Unfortunately the 19th century artists were not in the same league as Michelangelo et al, and the inclusion of numerous overblown epigrams by the great and the good from history adds to the overall kitsch appearance, especially in the Great Hall. There are some more impressive elements, however, including the Reading Room and Jefferson's personal collection of books, which he donated to re-establish the Library after the original collection was incinerated by the British.

We were drenched going back to Metro - the worst weather we've had since starting the trip.

The Washington Metro is much more modern, spacious and altogether more pleasant than the New York Subway. The concrete honeycomb lining in many of the spacious stations is reminiscent of some of the Jubilee Line Stations in London. The lines are designated by colours, which is good in principle but difficult to distinguish in subdued lighting. The fare structure is much more complicated than that on the NY Subway, depending on time and distance of travel, and ticketing arrangements are not as easy as they could be. Many escalators for accessing the stations are open to air and hence to rain and snow. About half of all the escalators in the subways, monuments, museuems, etc, were out of action, under repair. With about a third of all subway ticket gates also not working, there were frequent frustrations and missed trains.

New York

2009-10-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

Sat 17th Oct

After greeting our hosts (Ralph and Micky) on waking and catching up on family matters over a late breakfast, we had a great visit to the Guggenheim Museum, to see an excellent Kandinsky exhibition. Kandinsky is central to the permanent collection of the Museum, as Solomon Guggenheim started collecting Kandinsky's works in 1929 and they were the core of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, established by Guggenheim and an artist colleague in 1939. This year is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which is housed in the (truly) iconic building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The stunning building is probably better known internationally than most of the artists' works exhibited in it!

Inside the Guggenhein museum

On to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a monumental institution somewhat akin to a combination of London's National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the V&A. Naturally, a single visit can only cover a minute part of the Museum, so we confined ourselves to a couple of excellent special exhibitions - American Stories (paintings of ordinary life from late 17th century to early 20th) and Robert Frank's photographs which he published as "The Americans" - then swept, indecently quickly, through the permanent exhibitions of 19th-20th century European and US painters/sculptors, with their extraordinary collections.

Around all of this, we are trying to keep up, along with most NY residents, with progress in the 7-game baseball series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels, which is taking place over about 10 days. As we know as much about baseball as most Americans know about cricket, this is not easy. Curiously, the games are often played very late into the night - the one tonight finished at about 1.30am. Surely,this is taking the 24/7 culture too far!

Sun 18th Oct

Late breakfast/brunch (partly because of the late-finishing baseball) with US Jewish specialties (lox, whitefish salad, cream cheese and bagels). In the afternoon, we went to a one-woman show - Carrie Fisher (look her up), which was very funny, but also quite sad in reflecting how celebrity destroys families and mucks up kids. This is not the sort of thing we would usually attend, but it was a memorable experience, as much for the enthusiasm and antics of the audience as for Ms Fisher!

Mon 19th Oct

To MoMA - the Museum of Modern Art - which has undergone a major expansion and rearrangement and, sadly, now has less impact than when we were last there (a view apparently shared by many New Yorkers). Nevertheless, it is still a great museum to visit. One of the special exhibitions was of the work of Ron Arad, a London-based Israeli designer.

Chair by Ron Arad

In the late afternoon we took the free ferry to Staten Island, along with as many other tourists as commuters.

There's not much to see or do on Staten Island, but we spent a pleasant hour in a local bar, watching another Yankees vs Angels game(this time in LA), before returning to NYC as night fell. The illuminated New York skyline is a stunning sight and the ferry is an interesting and very valuable part of the NY transit system, as well as an ideal way for tourists to see New York from the water. After an excellent Chinese meal with Ralph and Micky, we crossed 7th Avenue to the Vanguard jazz club for a great session by the resident jazz orchestra. Near the end of the show we were joined by Carolyn's first-cousin- once-removed, Seth, who is putting cats among the pigeons of the education systems of New York and Rhode Island by setting up highly successful "Charter schools". It was wonderful to see him again, albeit very briefly - we last encountered him as a very streetwise 10 year-old, who confidently guided us around New York.

Tuesday 20th Oct

We may be spending 3 months on this trip, but we're over a third of the way through it and this is our last full day in The Big Apple! As usual, there's never enough time to achieve what we want to do. On a lengthy trip like this, we also have to find time to do laundry, make bookings and pay bills online, deal with emails, edit and annotate photos, and update the blog!

It's not our first time in New York, but it still thrills with its vibrancy, complexity, multi-ethnicity and contradictions. Some things have clearly changed since we were last here over 20 years ago, apart from the huge hole where the Twin Towers stood previously. The cars on the streets are now so much more like those in Europe. The big American models have largely disappeared, except as police cars and taxis, and as older models in the poorer areas. Possibly this is partly a result of the "cash for clunkers" programme. In fact, some European-type cars are now appearing in the taxi fleet and even the police are adopting more modest vehicles!

Much of the hustling which was evident at our previous visit, particularly outside train stations and other public places where tourists are prevalent, has diminished. The city seems to be more controlled, and more sedate, than it was. Is this due just to a concerted effort to crack down on hustling, or partly to the subduing effects of increased security arrangements, the economic slowdown and a growing realisation that the USA isn't the overwhelming military and economic power that it was previously?

Some things haven't changed. New Yorkers of all ages are mostly still very polite and helpful, though we encountered an all-time low in a local supermarket, where the young woman at the till continued to eat her nectarine and virtually ignored us, while putting our few items through the checkout! Gum-chewing remains a popular habit. American TV continues to be even worse (much worse) than that in the UK. The Subway trains and stations, though evidently effective and efficient, remain significantly more gloomy and poorly signed than the London Underground. Directions for onward progress would be reasonably clear and helpful, if only we could work out where we are at the time! By contrast, Grand Central Station continues to impress as a magnificently elegant model for an efficient major rail terminus.

During our previous visit, we stayed on Manhatten, which was ideal for access to the essential tourist sights. This time we are in Queens, which fitted nicely with our intention to see some of New York outside the central business and arts districts. On our final day in the city, after visiting Ground Zero, we walked across the highly feted Brooklyn Bridge which, in our opinion, was interesting, but not particularly attractive.

In this part of Brooklyn, a hispanic element was evident, though not as much as in the Bronx, which required a long subway journey. A lengthy, but interesting walk to the Botanical Gardens revealed the impact of the predominantly hispanic and black residents in the area.

The Botanical Gardens are extraordinarily attractive and restful, with a diverse layout of lawns, formal borders and informal woods. The late 19th century Haupt Conservatory is large, elegant and beautiful. The signage in the gardens is generally both informative and restrained, but does occasionally raise some interesting questions.

The weather has suddenly warmed up - up to 20 deg C today and sunny. Back to wearing t-shirts!

Boston

2009-10-15T19:45:00.001-07:00

Tues 13th Oct
Another early start, to get back to Boston in good time. Woke to find about 2 inches of snow and still snowing heavily.

Good drive back to Boston on roads that were only moderately busy. Lots of difficulty finding way to Irving House B&B (one-way roads!!). Nice B&B in Cambridge, adjacent to Harvard University. in a very pleasant, quiet suburban area with good subway connection to Boston.

Widener Library, Harvard University

Drove into Boston to return car. (Advice to future visitors: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DRIVE IN BOSTON - even the locals don't recommend it!) Very difficult to find rental return site - it was on 9th floor of a parking building, with no signs or information to indicate the fact! However, it is easy and reasonably pleasant to walk around the city, which seemed less brash and noisy than other US cities. The locals were very helpful and polite. We had dinner in Mr Bentley's Burger Cottage in Cambridge - a Boston institution, renowned across the US for its excellent "gourmet" burgers and its many humorous signs and posters, many politically inspired.

Wed 14th Oct
Lovely sunny day, but extremely cold. Walked on Boston Common and Public Garden in morning - both attractive, restful areas, though not large. In pm went on guided tour of elements of the historical "Freedom Trail" with a National Park Ranger.

The Old State House, dwarfed by tall modern buildings

(Curiously, most of Boston's heritage sites constitute a US National Park). We learned much about the causes and course of the American revolution and War of Independence - the stupidity and arrogance of the British establishment and George III in particular, and the equally arrogant and somewhat fascistic rebellious leading lights in Boston who, amongst other things, didn't want their comfortable lives and privileges (granted by the Crown) to be disturbed. Their concept of democracy may have been revolutionary at the time, but it was carefully circumscribed and extremely limited. The fine words in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (the model for the later Constitution of the USA) appear to have been honoured more in the preaching than in practice. Tolerance seems to have been a relative concept, as the Salem witch trials and the persecution of Quakers (were they really much different from the Puritans?) suggest. Of course,the Revolution occurred nearly 150 years after the Puritans first established themselves in Charlestown, so perhaps the authors of the Constitution, and those who approved it, were more ready to embrace the lofty ideals, though the continuation of slavery for some years after the Declaration of Independence casts some doubt on that.

Also learned much more about Paul Revere then we already knew about his ride to warn the "patriots" that the British army was mobilising to confront them. As well as being a highly competent horseman, he was also well-educated and was a silversmith and an engraver by trade. He produced an engraving of a drawing of the "Boston Massacre" (of American patriots by the British army) which wasn't a massacre at all. Even the guides and National Park Rangers we encountered graciously admitted that it was a propagandist message which was disseminated widely by printing from Revere's engraving, with the (successful) aim of fomenting revolutionary fervour.

In the evening, we enjoyed a production of Pinter's "The Caretaker" at the Central Square Theatre, though it was a slightly odd experience hearing the English working class language occasionally delivered with an American accent or an attempted upper-class English one!

Thurs 15th
Went across the river to Charlestown on a harbour ferry to the Navy Yard (dockyard) to see USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides"), dockyard museum, and Bunker Hill monument (all 294 steps to get to the viewing platform, though the view wasn't particularly interesting). Later visit to the viewing platform on the 26th floor of the Old Custom House (now largely a Marriott Hotel) was more impressive. We visited a couple more historical buildings (Old State House and the Old South Meeting House, which was the scene of many historically important speeches, after one of which the signal was given for the dumping of the tea in Boston Harbour).

Families purchased box pews in the Old South Meeting House where they sat during religious meetings, or to listen to debates, hear political speakers etc.

Early evening to the Institute of Contemporary Art, the highlight of which was an exhibition of interesting deconstructionist and somewhat subversive artwork by Damian Ortega, Mexican artist (hint of Dali: eg a pickaxe with a floppy handle), in an impressive new building overlooking the harbour in an area undergoing redevelopment.

We have made frequent use of the MBTA ("T") subway - quite good, but stations about a mile apart and no indication of time to next train. Interestingly, the Silver line to ICA and Logan Airport uses electric trolley buses underground instead of trains. Weather still cold (max 9 deg)and windy with onset of showers today. Apparently very unusual for this time of year - more typical of December.

Friday 16th Oct

Walked to Henry Longfellow's house on the other side of Harvard Yard. Again, this is run (in part) by the National Parks Service and we took a guided tour by a Park Ranger (with only two other visitors). The house actually has two claims to fame. George Washington used it as his military headquarters in 1775-76. Subsequently, rooms in the House were let to lodgers, one of them Longfellow, who was an academic at Harvard and a proficent linguist who translated Dante, amongst other things. Later, after marrying into a wealthy merchant family, he bought the house as a family home. It contains much original furniture from the Longfellow family and is full of books, works of art from Europe, and many items from Japan and the Pacific islands (brought back by Longfellow's eldest, adventurous and rather eccentric son). We found the visit to the house also to be very instructive re Longfellow's impact on English language and literature - did you know that he wrote 'beneath the spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands' ... in fact we saw the chair made from the wood after THE chestnut, referred to in the poem, was chopped down.

In the afternoon, we left Boston by train for New York. It was an interesting and moderately scenic 4-hour journey, initially along the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and later in the more industrial landscape of Connecticut. Arriving in Penn Station, New York, in the rush hour and having trouble finding working elevators and escalators, we decided to take a cab to the apartment of Carolyn's cousin, Ralph, and his partner Micky, in Queens. As they were out at an important baseball game, which went on late, we had the slightly odd experience of arriving in a strange apartment (with the prearranged assistance of the doorman) and going to bed, not entirely certain that we were in the right bedroom!

Mount Washington

2009-10-15T19:43:00.001-07:00

Mon 12th Oct
Early start to go to the Mount Washington cog railway, the first mountain cog railway in the world (1869), though the technology had been developed earlier in Europe for mines, etc. The mountain is only 6288 ft high, but it is said to have some of the worst weather in the world, in particular reputedly the highest wind speed ever recorded - 231 mph. The cog railway still has one coal-fired steam locomotive - with an angled boiler for efficient heating on the slope (37 deg. max.), but the rest of the engines are biodiesel. Speed ca 5-6 mph, so we made the ascent in about 40 minutes, with 50 others, many very loud French Canadians. Several other trains that day, so probably about 500 people in all. During the summer, many more make the ascent via the railway and there is a road to the summit that can be driven in good weather. However, we had, initially, overcast weather, with the mountain covered in cloud. At the summit, the wind was very strong(ca 70-80mph) and it was bitterly cold (ca -9 deg C.), with freezing fog.

Gradually the cloud lifted to reveal a spectacular vista of the Presidential Range. After visiting the small but interesting museum about the mountain range geology and the establishment of the weather observatory on the mountain, our descent took about 35 minutes into a clear sunlit valley.

The weather was perfect, allowing magnificent views of the mountain and the trains, and in the afternoon we had a beautiful drive around the forest park on minor roads.

In the White Mountains

2009-10-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday 11th Oct
After an early breakfast in nearby cafe, then a short drive to a trailhead we hiked up over a ridge, mostly alone, to a mountain club hut where we sheltered for lunch. It was a relatively easy walk (climbing about 600 metres), but became increasingly cold and started to snow shortly before we reached the hut, where there were other hikers stopping either for lunch or an overnight stay. In the afternoon, after a very steep initial climb, we reached a dome at 1473m with good views but bitterly cold winds, before descending on aching legs!

There is a peak in the White Mountains named Imp Face. This isn't it, but it must be the Imp's brother!

The change in the vegetation according to the altitude was very evident - initially a range of predominantly deciduous trees in various shades of yellows and reds, later only a few yellow-leaved deciduous trees among firs, while at the top, there were only low-growing fir trees.

Destination: USA

2009-10-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

Fri 9th Oct
On standby, but got on a flight to Boston without difficulty. US immigration takes place in Ottawa Airport, before leaving Canada. Much less problem than we had anticipated, but Philip (as a non-US citizen) had to be fingerprinted and photographed. Getting to Boston and through the airport was the easy part of the day. Next came a long, slow car journey, with virtually nose-tail traffic for 50+ miles north to Manchester, the only place we had been able to book accommodation. When we planned our vague itinerary, we hadn't realised that Mon 12th Oct is Columbus Day and Americans descend on New England (especially Boston), in vast numbers, for their bit of nostalgia. (Memo to The Rough Guide: list Coloumbus Day as a national holiday). So now to Plan B: spend 4 days driving and hiking in the New Hampshire lakes and mountains area, then visit Boston later. However, this was 'Leaf Peeper' weekend when hundreds of thousands of people take advantage of the long weekend to go to ....the NH lakes and mountains to take in the fall colours. Accommodation was in short supply and at a premium. We had found a vacancy for the first night in a reasonable motel in Manchester and finally managed to book 3 nights in a drab but adequate motel in the north of the White Mountains region.

Sat 10th Oct
The drive to Manchester had been training for the drive north - nose to tail and crawling for about 50 miles, iitially along the multilane highway and later through small tourist towns with dreadful, tacky "attractions", intermittently set in attractive wooded and lakeland scenery (a bit like a cross between Ambleside and Blackpool on a bank holiday in the UK). Later, the traffic thinned and we drove the last 30 miles through forested mountains with spectacular fall colours. When we stopped at a National Park Rangers' Centre to pick up information about walking in the area, a flock of wild turkeys wandered through the car park and attempted to get at fruit on the lower branches of a tree, by jumping up, usually missing the fruit before crashing back to the ground.

Ottawa

2009-10-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

Wed 7th Oct
Museums!
Ottawa has some magnificent buildings - some like Parliament with its copper roof

but also many new, not too tall bildings of interesting glass and steel construction e.g the National Art Gallery. Particualrly liked the exhibitions of Inuit art, early colonial paintings, and work by the Group of Seven. We could have done with much more time in The Museum of Civilisation (another magnificent building) - excellent recreation of colonial Canadian development to 1970s + even better installations and displays of aboriginal culture.

In evening Barbara managed to get us tickets to the Diefenbunker a decomissioned Cold War bunker (built to house the PM and top govt officials) that has been made into a museum by the locals in Carp. A chilling reminder of a period of history that could so easily be repeated.

Family time

2009-10-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

Fri 2nd Oct
We drove down to Kingston, encountering yet more roadworks and horrendous traffic in Montreal. No fun!

We spent the weekend catching up with nephew Rob and getting to know Leila his new wife, Marnie his lovely 3 year old daughter and Oban his newly acquired 3 year old dog. At various times we did our share of child minding and dog sitting!

Sat 3rd Oct
We had a look around Kingston downtown and took a trip to Fort Henry (closed) to get a great view of the city and the St Lawrence River. Kingston is an attractive, well-heeled city with a lovely location beside the St Lawrence river.

Mon 5th Oct
Pleasant drive Kingston to Ottawa through pretty scenery beside Rideau canal/river/lake system. It was good to see David and Barbara again.

Tues 6th Oct
Went with D&B to Lee Valley store (full of gadgets and hobby equipment for retirees!), then to small village of Wakefield on Quebec side in time to see a steam train arrive, then the engine being turned on the turntable.

From there to Mackenzie King property in Gatineau Park for very pleasant walk in woods (with follies). M-K (a former Prime Minister) was slightly mad -talked to dead mother and dog for inspiration - but created and bequeathed beautiful park to the nation. Culinary highlight: BBQ salmon cooked on cedar board.

Heading west again

2009-10-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

Thurs 1st Oct
Low cloud or rain most of day. Stopped twice to look at places off the main road:at Grand Falls at waterfall/hydro scheme; at Hartland, at the longest covered road bridge in the world.

As always little traffic, lots and lots of road works. Stayed at a well-appointed, pleasant gite in Kamouraska, beside St Lawrence. The owners were Quebecois and spoke limited English, but were very friendly and provided a delicious breakfast of ham crepes , then bread with four jams/jellies including physalis (cape gooseberry) jam, gooseberry jelly, maple syrup and creme fraiche spread.

Whale watching

2009-10-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Tues 29th Sept
Did two walks in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Beautiful weather. Promises of moose, bear and whale sightings, but none seen, though some moose tracks evident. Only wildlife seen was an eagle by the coast + a few small birds. A lot of dead trees and much recent regeneration of forest after trees devastated by parasite in 1970s. Later to "Whale Interpretive Centre" near hostel.

Wed 30th Sept
Went whale watching from Pleasant Bay. Skipper was a French Canadian from the nearby Acadian settlement, Chéticamp. Saw a large pod of pilot whales including some calves swimming in between two females. They were swimming right alongside and under our stern. Lunch beside jetty in Cheticamp,then we began heading back west. Attractive countryside on drive across Nova Scotia; lots of brilliant autumn colours along motorways in New Brunswick.

Cape Breton

2009-09-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sun 27th Sept
The reconstructed fortress of Louisburg was windswept but interesting. Actors in period costume, stationed in many of the buildings interacted with the visitors. (Back in the mid 1700s Louisburg was a big and important harbour to the French because of the cod fishing).
Local food sampled: Seafood chowder (C) and hot beef sandwich with mashed pots and gravy (P). The Canadians do seem to like their carbohydrates!

Mon 28th Sept
Excellent museum at Baddeck where Alexander Graham Bell lived in the latter part of his life, had exhibits covering some of his many interests and inventions. Bell initially worked as a teacher of the deaf - married Mabel who was one of his pupils - using an alphabet system called Visible Speech based on how the sounds are produced by the vocal organs. Apart from inventing the telephone, he co-founded the National Geographic Society, was co-designer of the plane that made the first powered flight in Canada, was co-designer of the hydrofoil boat that set the world marine speed record in 1919, and did research on increasing multiple births in sheep, amongst other things!!.

Cape Breton (pronounced 'capbreTAN' by the natives) has a very indented coastline as well as a large sea loch in its middle (which almost cuts the island into two), so there are lots of pretty views out over water. The hillsides in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park are turning colour and would have been very pretty if we had had sun instead of heavy rain on the drive north.

Going east

2009-09-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

Fri 25th Sept

A long drive through New Brunswick, nearly into Nova Scotia. Attractive colourful forest scenery. No moose seen despite numerous warning signs!

Sat 26th Sept

The northern coastline of Nova Scotia is quite attractive, with more varied use of land than in the parts of Quebec and New Brunswick which we drove through - agriculture, housing, forests, shoreline.

Found a lovely park by the shore, with a view across to Prince Edward Island, in which to have a picnic lunch, watching a variety of birds feeding along the red shoreline.

There is clear evidence in the place names of the settlement at various times of Scots, Irish, French and the First Nation (Indian) people, the Mi'kmak. In some places it seem more Scottish than much of Scotland with the street names given in Gaelic and English. We stayed the night just out of the small university town of Antigonish at an excellent farm B & B.

The Nova Scotians appear to take their Scottish heritage very seriously, though whether largely for tourists is unclear.

Local dish sampled (C) and enjoyed: locally caught and smoked salmon, with eggs, for breakfast.

First destination

2009-09-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Quebec City on Sunday pm without too much hassle, having flown standby for the first time. Our auberge was right in the middle of the old city.
Bit of trivia: QC is the only North American walled city north of Mexico City. Overall impression: a prosperous city with substantial looking buildings some with bright red or green painted roofs some made of attractive copper, vibrant floral displays everywhere, people very courteous but all determinedly French speaking.
A very worthwhile visit to a museum brought home to me the diversity of the history of the French speaking people of North America. I hadn’t really thought about the French origins of New Orleans. The early French explorers and, subsequently, the Acadian settlers who were expelled by the English, sailed up the St Lawrence River from Quebec, across the Great Lakes then made their way down the Mississippi.

On the road Tues 22 Sept

Driving along beside the St Lawrence River through a fairly uninteresting agricultural area with a thin strip of housing running almost continuously along both side of the road, we picked a motel randomly, quite late in the evening. Next morning, we found it was across the road from a lighthouse. Nearby was the wreck of The Empress of Ireland - this was the the second worst maritime disaster in history, after the Titanic, with the loss of 1200 lives.

Gaspé Peninsula, Wed Sept 23rd

Next day there was hardly any traffic and the road was good apart from several patches of major roadworks. As we neared the head of the peninsula the terrain became more rugged and forested and as a result the scenery became more colourful.
Wildlife seen: chipmunks, a groundhog, a deer (on the back of a truck!), a fox, and a whale just glimpsed not far off shore as we were waiting at some roadworks.
We stayed in a hostel on the edge of the Forillon Forest Park. It was virtually empty so it was very peaceful.
Local dish sampled (and survived) by P: poutine, which is Quebec's fast food masterpiece(!) consisting of French fries with cheese curds coated in gravy!!

Gaspé Peninsula Thurs 24th Sept

We did a couple of walks in the forest park: one to a tower with fantastic views. The trees blanketing the hills were a lovely mixture of greens, yellows, golds and some reds. The other was to the lighthouse at the very end of the Gaspe peninsula. No black bears seen though we were warned they were around in the park, but we did come across 3 porcupines (on three separate occasions). One taught us something new - porcupines climb and eat in trees.

It's turning a bit chilly. Overcast for some of the day, but by late afternoon the sky was completely clear, which was nice for our evening guided visit to a beaver lake. The beavers became active as dusk approached, and it was a magical end to the day.