What's in a Name?

As more wasn’t added before posting last time, we’ll bring you up to speed with the latest wanderings since Trinidad.

What’s in a name indeed? We have visited much of the UK and parts of Europe on our way to Canada, just by travelling up the west coast and into the Rocky Mountains (more later). We have stayed at or driven through/near the aforementioned Trinidad, then Denmark, Florence, Newport, Kent, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Lincoln (City), as well as the delightfully thought-provoking Humptulips (!) In Canada our mobile provider is Fido and the network is operated by Rogers. There y’go.

After a very pleasant sojourn in Trinidad, we progressed up the coast. The weather was getting cooler, but still mainly sunny and we availed ourselves of a variety of casino free RV parking – one of which was right by the sea and gave us one of the best sunsets after a very unpromising cloudy day. The west coast above San Francisco, into Oregon and Washington State is uniformly wonderful and spectacular, with some truly breathtaking scenery. It was quite tough driving, but worth the effort.

On Friday 19^th June, following a long wait at border control, we drove into Canada, breaking our routine of arriving in new (or at least leaving previous) countries on the 21^st of the month. Strangely, the Canadian border guard asked if Gillie had had a traumatic experience the last time (34+ years ago) she had travelled to Canada. Something about pepper spray…

Anyway, having been thwarted in our attempts to visit Vancouver Island by outrageous ferry costs and full boats, we booked in to stay at a campground nearest downtown Vancouver and availed ourselves of the delights of that city. Vancouver is divided into three main areas – each a city in itself – North, West and East (didn’t see South mentioned – may be wrong) and has a variety of great places to see.

The women’s football world cup was being held while we were there and Canada Women had just beaten Switzerland to get into the semi finals on our last night. They may have won it by now, for all we know…

We were very fortunate to have another ex-pat, Tyson, as our guide while we were in Vancouver and can unreservedly recommend his restaurant (well, not his, but you know what I mean) Tacofino for great grub and atmosphere. The sangria was very nice too. Thanks for putting yourself out and showing us round Tyson, we had a great time.

We did some serious walking while in Vancouver, so got a good ‘feel’ for the city. It has a bit of a London vibe in some parts but is small and friendly enough not to feel too overwhelming. It’s great for cycling and walking too, especially around Stanley Park, where we saw several games of cricket being played. On the subject of which, it was nice to see England win some one-day and T20 matches for a change. Bring on the Ashes!

We also met a very nice chap – Barry – whilst in Vancouver who gave us lots of ideas for camping when we get to ‘The Prairie’ – the seemingly endless stretch of flat featureless land we have to cross between the Rockies and the Great Lakes. He also invited us to use the drive at a house he has at Delta Beach while we explore Lake Manitoba.

We put in a couple of hefty trips out of Vancouver, stopping at surely one of the most spectacular truck stops in the world at Ten Mile Hill before traversing Rogers Pass (more name-checks) and arriving in Lake Louise in Banff National Park.

If you’ve been to The Rockies, you’ll know what we mean when we say it’s some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world. Like New Zealand, but on a massive scale. Huge snow-capped mountains (even in June), beautiful bluey-green rivers and lakes, acres upon acres of pine forest. Just stunning. Then unfortunately bits of it devastated by widescale logging. However, we have been amazed by the beauty of the area and Molly Too hasn’t had too much in the way of steep winding mountain roads to handle.

We’re sitting in the forest at Tunnel Mountain campground writing this, surrounded by marmots and thinking about more foccary* tonight. The sky is a deep blue, it’s about 32C – wasn’t expecting this! Last night was epic – warm enough to sit out till after 10.30 – still light – in t-shirt and shorts with the fire going beautifully and as much firewood as you want. As we said in the facebook post ‘foccary fuckin heaven’!

*if you don’t know what it is – look it up! If you can’t find it, you may never know…

PS.  Hi there, happy Wimbledon, Glastonbury, lovely summer evenings to you all.  The schools in Canada finish today, so it all kicks off and we’ll have to fight to get a camp spot (luckily, being pensioners, our elbows are sharp!) 

Now what about Canada…Wow, what a place, it’s fabulous!!  I’ve been to the east coast several times during my flying career (and no, I didn’t have an ‘incident’ with a pepper spray – I thought he was joking but border control don’t joke, do they?  Anyway it was someone with a name ‘like mine,’ Andy pointed out that I wasn’t called Rogers last time I came, so they let us through!!) 

I loved Toronto and Montreal, however I’ve never been to the west and as Andy said, it’s just breathtaking.  The people are so friendly, the weather is gorgeous and the scenery is wow, wow, wow.  We couldn’t believe it when driving through the Rockies we found we had to put our watches forward an hour which means that the sun is still shining brightly at 9.30pm…wonderful! 

We’ve just spent two nights near Banff, which is a perfect little town, surrounded by snowy mountains. it has the air of Queenstown in New Zealand, really busy and buzzy, a real fun place.  Tomorrow it’s Calgary and then east…  Andy and I are thinking about doing GCSE geography when we return, or at least going on Mastermind, to show off our newfound knowledge of the world. 

Oooh, I forgot to mention Vancouver, another Wow!  I just loved the city, it has such a lovely energetic feel and it was made all the more special by having Tyson to show us around, thanks again!  Golly, I’ve gone on a bit haven’t I?  We are just so taken with Canada, so if you ever have the opportunity you must come to see for yourselves.  A final word, we are on series 5 now of ‘Breaking Bad’ and I’d just like to know if there is life afterwards???  Bye for now from gorgeous, sunny Canada.  Love G  xxxx  

Four Mile bridge between Oregon & Washington 

Molly Too at sunset courtesy of Quinault Resort & Casino!

Gorgeous weather in Vancouver

Two cool dudes!

Famous landmark - with Canada Women football shirt

Farewell to the sea for a long, long time...

Mountains

Mountains and waterfall 

Mountains and important sign - zoom in

More mountains

Mountains, lake and thoughtful Gillie

Gillie in typical pose - Banff

Mountains and foccary fucking heaven!

Important sign. We're obviously distant relatives of a mighty Canadian conglomerate - as long as they don't have fast food chicken restaurants!

Molly Too in the Mountains - Ten Mile Rd Truck stop - just making friends

Marmots? meerkats? mice? monkeys? or a new breed - Rogers' Rodents?

I Must Go Down to the Seas Again

Las Vegas was outlandish, over-the-top, ostentatious and all sorts of grubby, plasticky words beginning with ‘O’, but quite magnetic too, especially as it was so hot. We had another night there following the last blog post and went to see Blue Man Group at the Monte Carlo. They’re a sort of theatrical drum n bass group with lots of colours and some interesting lines in comedy. Plus a great band.

The walk back to our Molly was very entertaining. The Strip is littered with people dressed up as Elvis, Spiderman, Showgirls, Star Wars etc. and we were able to watch the musical fountains at Bellagio and see the amazing glitzy, kitsch, tacky indoor garden ‘Under The Sea’ theme, there as well – brilliant!

Leaving Las Vegas, we headed west on a very long, challenging drive through the desert to end up in Bakersfield Walmart, not far from where we started, two weeks ago!

The next few days we headed north by north west through Sequoia National Park to see some amazing trees and go on some lovely walks. The NP campgrounds are really good, as every site comes with its own firepit, so foccary to the fore!

During our walks, we were fortunate enough to come across three wild bears! One cub with its mum keeping a watchful and another when there was no-one around but us and it – a bit scary, but we kept our distance!

The Sequoia trees are something other than else, as well! Standing at the bottom looking up it’s easy to get a sense of vertigo, believe it or not. The world’s largest tree in terms of volume is named the Sherman Tree. Still not sure why a tree is named after an act of onanism…

The next point in our whistle-stop tour of South-West USA’s National Parks was the oldest of the lot – Yosemite. We camped outside and had a great day walking around some lovely scenery, checking out climbers on El Capitan – the iconic image of Yosemite – and generally enjoying the beautiful weather.

Having spent the best part of six weeks away from the coast, we decided we needed to see the sea again, hence the title of this post. So, we set off west for San Francisco, camped in Napa, caught the ferry from Vallejo into San Francisco Pier ½, didn’t wear flowers in our hair, but generally had a great time walking up and down some famous streets. We got very excited when we found we were at the top of Lombard Street – made famous by Steve McQueen’s car chase in Bullitt. But we were at the other end. Hey ho. Had a lovely sandwich at the famous, we were advised by Lonely Planet, Molinari’s deli (est. 1896).

We decided to chill out a bit after Frisco and stayed a couple of nights just outside the little coastal ‘city’ of Mendocino (pop 1000), a lovely place with a great genteel/hippy/edgy vibe if you can picture that! Plus it’s mentioned in a Frank Zappa song…and it was the location for many famous films – notably Rebel Without a Cause East of Eden and The Majestic (?) us neither. While we were there, we met a couple on their way from Florida to Alaska for some fishing. He’s a retired naval pilot, Vietnam vet, still cycling all over and in his words, ‘doing, not waiting’. He’s 83 and looks 15 years younger.

More foccary that night and a chance to educate the campers with some proper English music – John Martyn, Nick Drake and Pink Floyd all got an airing that evening. We did hear Cream on the radio in the campground office, though.

The drive from Mendocino to Trinidad was a mixture of enjoyment and attrition. It took what appeared like 8 ½ weeks to get the short distance to Leggett – officially the end of Big Sur, then we had a great drive through the Giant Redwoods and the Avenue of the Giants. Have to name check a biker lady we met when we stopped for lunch. Hayley O’Ryan (hope I’ve spelt it right) – Ukulele Hayley -re-tuned the ukulele and gave us some excellent advice (‘my dog has fleas’). Don’t put it back in the case!

We are writing this sitting in a very pleasant car park at the Cher-Ae Casino in Trinidad - $20 for three nights. The weather is blissful and we are going to catch the shuttle bus into the small ‘city’ (pop 320) to check out the Trinidad Fish Festival (we hope) this afternoon. Fish festival not on till next weekend – but bought some ‘Steelhead’ fish for supper and drank champagne at $4.75/schooner in the Seascape restaurant…

More will be added before posting, as we don’t have wifi, so watch this space…

PS.  Hi there from Gillie in Trinidad!  We originally planned to spend this Christmas in Trinidad (Caribbean) but a while ago changed our minds and decided to maybe spend it in Florida instead.  However here we are in Trinidad and it’s only June!!  We came for one night, but have stayed for three, as it’s such a gorgeous little place, full of clapboard houses and quirky shops and cafes. We found it completely by accident, which is just what we hoped would happen when we began this trip.  It’s perched on top of a cliff with amazing views over the Pacific Ocean.  After an ‘American’ size Sunday brunch we completed a 2 mile walk over the headland…wonderful! 

The wild flowers have been a wonderful feature for the last few days, once we’d left the desert and found our way to the coast.  Even though it’s the middle of June it feels like Spring, as the roadside verges and fields are full of forget-me-nots, wild clematis, daisies, lupins… so many familiar plants, we feel at times as if we’re back in Dorset!!  However we haven’t seen any stinging nettles in all our travels, does anyone know why?? 

We had no real ideas about this part of the west coast, but have found it to be just so lovely, hidden gems around every corner and an ‘out of the way’ feeling.  We cross over to Oregon tomorrow and hope to take the ferry over to Vancouver Island on Friday…Canada here we come!! 

Hope you are all enjoying the light evenings with the promise of lovely sunny days ahead. I can’t believe it’ll be Wimbledon in a couple of weeks…wow, we’ve been retired for nearly a year!!  It doesn’t seem five minutes since we were sitting in our kitchen planning this trip, we must (and do) savour every second.  Bye for now, love G  xxx

Foccary in Sequoia

Yosemite Falls - in Yosemite

Not the Caribbean!

Some big trees

Another big tree

A bear (big!)

Look what the tide washed up!

Trinidad CA

Under the Sea in Bellagio

Some wood 

First saw this band in 1972! (Bickershaw Festival, nr Manchester)

Glam in glamsville!

Add your own caption

An oil derrick near Bakersfield

Route 66 And All That

Had a bit of downtime recently, so this post is a bit tardy. Suffice to say that we’re back on the road as of 23^rd May.

Anyway, written test passed with flying (well, rather earth-bound, actually) colours, so next hurdle was the ‘behind-the-wheel’ drive test. Couldn’t get booked in till 22^nd May, so nursing poor old Bob suited our freeloading in Santa Clarita perfectly – or at least it made us feel better about hanging around at Hannah and Jai’s lovely house!

It was with some trepidation that we drove out to Tehachapi in the desert north of LA to pick up our new home, but we got there - and back – in one piece and prepared for our first excursion to San Diego the following day.

San Diego was a lovely experience – although the drive down was fraught. Driving on the wrong side of the road in six lanes of screaming traffic in a vehicle that steers like a boat and weighs about 6 tons is a bit, well, scary. But we got there (and back) with no physical scars to show (but a few mental ones).

Our first experience of US RV parks/campsites was less than positive, so we moved on after one night.  While we were there, we very nearly bollixed the RV by putting the levellers down, then forgetting to put them up when Gillie wanted the vehicle backed closer to the power hookup. Weeping and a’wailing and a’crunchy crunch crunch, meant we were unable to move!!! The very nice man – Dominique – whom we bought the RV from received a phone call in some panic, however he was able to calm us down with some suggestions as to what we might do. Without boring you further, the shop (store) at the campsite had some more 30 amp fuses and things were mended. We’ll never do that again!

Our next camp was the car park at Silver Strand beach, much better, even though it was simply a car park right on the beach, specially for RVs, with power and water hook-ups and we used that as a base for taking a trolley-bus tour of San Diego – great.

When we returned to Santa Clarita, the day before Hannah & Jai set off for Yorkshire, we found out that Bob cat was off for a remedial operation the following day, so we were feeding him on his return, plus administering a pharmacopeia of drugs while they were away.

Without going into too much detail, Bob lost his appetite and did not take kindly to us trying to force anti-biotics and painkillers down his very tender throat.  He eventually needed to be fed by a tube, which caused more problems, these were finally overcome and he is now on his way to a full recovery.

Got very depressed listening to the General Election results coming in on BBC World Service, but it was great listening ‘through the night’ in the afternoon!! Only up side is that Lib Dems seem to have lost any chance of sharing power for a generation. Let’s hope that Sturgeon can keep some sort of rein on Cameron’s tory boys and their lust for wealth at any cost. I fear for the Welfare State, the NHS and state education.

Anyway, much of our sojourn in Santa Clarita was spent kicking back and watching ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Peaky Blinders’ and ‘The Fall’ on Netflix – definitely something for the shopping list when we get back!

We spent a day doing the tourist thing – open top bus around Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach and Beverly Hills and got Molly Too ready for the trip with fresh oil and coolants. Also had a great time catching up with another of Andy’s ex-students, Laura, who lives in Hollywood – very desirable address – she took us to The Griffith Observatory, where we looked over LA from this amazing 53-acre park in the centre of the city!

Friday 22^nd May was a very important date, as Andy had his driving test, miles out in the desert in a place called Lancaster, waiting over an hour for the test, which was booked in for 3.15. All over in 15 minutes, with the all-important pass at the end of it! Relief!

Next day, we set off, first stop Bullhead City. Where the fuck is that, I hear you ask. Well, we still don’t really know, but we drove along a stretch of the fabled Route 66 until the road became so bad that we had to get back onto the highway. Later we discovered that the road had been so bad, it had shaken off one of our lovey shiny hubcaps. Fortunately, we had some spares, but still. We spent the night in Walmart car park at Bullhead City and it was fine. After that we went on to Williams, a small town with the only railway station serving the Grand Canyon, which we didn’t use as it was over $75 each.

 We got up early the next day and caught the Arizona Shuttle bus to Grand Canyon(a lot cheaper). No matter how many pictures, films etc you’ve seen, nothing prepares you for Grand Canyon in the flesh, as it were. We won’t go on, suffice to say we were, literally, breathtaken (there- made up another word).

We’re writing this post in a Rest Area (Truck Stop) on the I-15, having camped at Bryce Canyon last night (Friday) and on our way to Zion National Park tomorrow, before meeting up with friends in Las Vegas on Monday.

Since the Grand Canyon, our senses have been assailed with some of the most amazing scenery that we simply never expected: Monument Valley, Arches National Park, Bryce NP. All completely stunning and quite wonderful. This loop wasn’t part of the original plan, but we’re so glad we did it. It has been a truly humbling few days that words and pictures simply cannot do justice to (or not ours, anyway). We’ll probably add a few more words after no doubt more wonderfulness at Zion NP, then post this when we have wifi (hopefully) at Vegas.

Something about this country…they get so much surprisingly right – protecting their amazing landscapes (maybe a bit late in some cases), while paying lip service to environmental issues. There are recycling bins all over and some stupendous free camping and national park campsites, but there’s not a washing line to be seen!

We’re in our RV (recreational vehicle) park just off The Strip – whatever that is – in Las Vegas. It’s hotter than the devil’s jockstrap (and twice as sweaty), there’s a wind coming off the desert as hot as a furnace and we’re having to pay $1.75 to dry our clothes in the tumble driers, cos there’s no washing lines!!! Wtff?!!!? More than half the washing machines don’t work, the showers – all two of em - look like they were chucked out when the Ark had a refit. This is premium priced RV accommodation. We’re used to Aussie and Kiwi-style campsites and parks. Where’s the fucking kitchen?

This country has some of the longest and most amazing stretches of road, but prolonged riding on them rearranges your innards something rotten. It’s like, well, very very bumpy, man. The people are either amazingly friendly and helpful – in fact the friendliest group we’ve met was a young man called Sam and his girlfriend and dad, they were from Melbourne…Or they’re right miserable fuckers.

Till the next time, which won’t be quite as long a gap…

PS. Wow! What a long time since I did this, I’ll have to sharpen my typing fingers again.  Thanks again to Hannah, Jai and Leo for their hospitality in L.A.  We were thoroughly spoilt.  They have now got their lovely house back to themselves, with the good news that Bob the cat is back on the road to recovery.  A month in L.A. was not in our original plan, but you never know what’s around the corner and that’s the beauty of this trip.  It’s taking us time to get used to being on the road again as things are a lot different in the USA than in Australia and New Zealand.  Things seemed to be easier there, definitely the camp sites were so much better and a lot cheaper which has surprised us as the Yanks are supposed to be so good at this camping lark. 

We had a lovely time yesterday, in Las Vegas, with our good friends Ann and Stewart and they agreed with us as to the quality of accommodation.  We are hoping to camp more in the National Forests, which in our experience so far, are less like car parks!! In fact as Andy has said, they are stunningly beautiful, with breathtaking landscapes and scenery. I’ll never forget my first view of Grand Canyon. I felt quite emotional.

Now, back to Las Vegas… what a place! Full of flashing neon and dancing fountains, it's a great place to visit, but two days is quite enough, thank you. It’s as hot as hot, but everywhere is air conditioned up to the hilt so it’s bearable. We got half way down ‘the strip’ last night and tonight we are planning to attempt the other half before going to a show by Blue Man Group.  Andy has heard of them, so hope it’s not too weird!  We said goodbye to Ann and Stewart as they have flown on to New York today, before they continue with more exciting adventures.  We set off tomorrow heading back to our original route, Yosemite, San Francisco, Vancouver and on…so more in a couple of weeks…

Bye for now    G  xx

PPS For some reason there's an enormous picture in the middle of the photo selection. It's of Molly Too outside Hannah & Jai's house. It doesn't appear in the draft and I've no way of editing it, but it's there and she really is quite big!

About to start descent into Bryce Canyon... 

Views from here are, well, stunning 

Zion Nat Park

Watching the gunships from the beach at San Diego

Sundowner by the pool at Hannah & Jai's

We have no idea what it was either!

…But you can never leave

With Laura overlooking LA at Griffith Park

Words and pictures simply cannot do justice to Grand Canyon

Great free camp at Navajo National Monument

Lunch spot in Monument Valley

First camp fire - foccary alive and well and being taught to Yanks (sort of)

It really is a long way down!

View from the top of a bit of Bryce

Gillie having a little snack before dinner

Our lovely hosts taking their ease in Molly Too before we depart 

Get your kicks...

An arch - in Arches NP, surprisingly

With Ann and Stuart in Beer n Burger joint, the Strip

The ladies had some wine...