Andy and Wendy's RV Trips

psttt, watch this site, I think Mum & Dad are planning another trip, I don’t know why they can’t just sit back and relax – talk soon Millie xx

Well, we were right!

As we accurately projected in the last blog, we have been out of touch for just over three weeks!!!

Why! – Well, when we don’t have access to a secure WiFi, we turn on our iPhone ‘Hotspot’, then use that to access the web securely, its a bit slow, but better than not having access.

But, all the way across the South Pacific, we didn’t have a phone signal and not just the whilst at sea, but everywhere, every island we landed too!

”Mum, Dad, just get on with the blog, the readers don’t want to hear about all this signal rubbish” “Ahh don’t be bossy Millie, they might want to!” “ Ok then but keep it short” “Ok, will do”

Anyway, we have just been instructed to move on, so here we go;

After an uneventful drive back to Auckland, we dropped off the car and boarded our next Cruise ship, the Oceana Regatta, rather a small ship with only about 500 passengers, which was a first for us as we have always been on bigger ships before.

Our first port of call was back to the Bay of Islands, which we had stayed at a couple of weeks before, then it was back on board to set sail across the South Pacific.

 

BUT, bad news awaited, as when we set sail that evening, the ships Captain informed us that, because some cruise ships in Asia had contracted the Coronavirus that originated in China, then several Pacific Islands had closed their ports and were banning all cruise ships from entering – Ahhhhhh, still we couldn’t blame them and better safe than sorry, but it put a bit of a downer on the rest of the cruise, with all the meals, including buffets, being served by staff wearing gloves and passengers not allowed to help themselves to anything!

As well as this, every time we got off and on the ship at different islands, we had our temperatures taken, which was all good we suppose and thankfully, no one was detected as having any problems, which for an 18 day cruise was a very good thing!

Then we had a sea day, to relax and  drown our sorrows about the bad news in the pool side bar, just kidding, we spent the whole day swimming laps and running around the deck to keep fit – honest 😂😂👫🍺🍷

Ok, let’s go, after the bit of bad news, it was all systems go and we eventually arrived Noumea, New Caledonia, where surprise surprise, we did something completely different for a change, a Wine and Cheese tour, oh, nearly forgot and a tour of the beautiful island 😂😂

Then it was off to the beautiful island of Vanuatu, where we docked at the little town of Port Vila, where we jumped off ship – well we didn’t actually jump off, we walked down the gangplank!  To do an island tour on a bus with quite unique AC, well we thought it was unique there, only to discover later that it was almost universal around the Pacific Islands!

It involved putting the bus windows down to let air blow through as we travelled, how energy efficient is that 👍👍, it might even catch on world wide as energy prices rise 😂😂, or perhaps not!

 

Then it was cruising at sea for a day, until we arrived in Fiji, where we were really excited to be, as we had booked a Mud Bath, in a hot mud pool, followed by a dip in a hot spring, then a relaxing massage – Ahhh, this is the life 👍👍

That’s enough excitement for one day, more to follow soon 👍.

 

 

Right, first things first, we got the Maori greeting spelling wrong in the last blog, so that’s been corrected in the title of this one which means ‘Hi, good day’ (Kia Ora), ‘Welcome’ (Nau Mai).

So from now on, we expect all of you to use a Maori greeting and a Nose Rub and a Forehead ‘touch’, when we meet any of you, our blog readers 😂😂 from now on 😂😂

Well after our few days in the Bay of Islands, we set off for what we thought would be a five hour drive to a place called Tairua on the Coromandel Peninsula, but with all the ups and downs of the mountains we had to drive over, it actually took us 7 1/2  hours and we were rather tired when we arrived.

Again the view from our room balcony was stunning looking out over a beautiful bay, which once again had many islands and although Whales and Dolphins use this bay, on the two days we were here we didn’t see any – grrr!

For the first time in the six weeks we have been traveling, we managed to do a paddle in the sea (no, we didn’t manage a swim, but the paddle went down well), where we managed to find a few nice shells to add to our collection.

We were a bit spoilt for choice, because there were only about 50 million (estimate 😂😂) of them to chose from!

After a couple of days just chilling in a really peaceful place, we jumped in the car for a three hour drive to our next destination, a place called Rotorua, which for a change, was away from the coast and a very popular tourist destination, with a lot of Maori culture and where, unlike a lot of New Zealand, about 70% of the population are of Maori descent 👍.

On the first night of our arrival, there was a street market, with lots of food stalls and live music at several places throughout the market 👍👍.

Then it was time to start exploring some of the many attractions this place had to offer and where else could we start, but to try and see the bird that the NZ culture and The NZ people are named after – the world famous Kiwi bird 👍👍👫

The place we chose to visit first, was a Kiwi hatchery, where they are breeding the birds and then releasing them back into the wild 👍👍

As we were doing a guided walk round a Kiwi sanctuary, the guide got a message on his phone that a hatching was taking place, so off we rushed, up and down some steep tracks through the woods, down to the hatchery, where we had a real treat waiting for us!

The Kiwi bird is about 2 to 3 times bigger than a Chicken, but the Kiwi egg is huge, at least 5 or 6 times bigger than a Chicken egg and no wonder, because the Kiwi chick is really big and you have to wonder just how it gets in the egg, even one this size!

Many New Zealand birds are under threat from predators introduced by the Maori’s first, then by the European settlers 👿👿

The following night, we went to a Maori village for a tour, a meal (all cooked in hot springs in the floor), which was delicious – yum yum, followed by a cultural show, which was fantastic 👍👍👍

The next day, we continued to explore the Rotorua town and its surroundings, consisting of a lot of ‘old’ Colonial style buildings and big open spaces and parks.

What we forgot to say, was that when we arrived here, we could smell, what we thought were drains!, but which turned out to be the smell of the Sulphur Springs, that were all around the town and which provided a lot of springs of clean water and heated swimming pools around the hotels etc.

That’s all for now, as tomorrow we set off back to Aukland to catch the next cruise across the Pacific and it might mean that we are out of touch for three weeks or so – so bye bye for now 👫🍷🍷

Ok, as we said before, after visiting the Hobbiton site, we got back on the boat and set sail for Auckland, where we got off the ship and headed for our hotel, The Grand Mercure, just a very short walk from the harbour front (one reason we picked it, although it read well as well).

Of course, when we sailed across to the island of Waiheke, we fully expected to visit some Wineries, but again as we said, due to the Treaty Day, almost all were closed – ahhhh. 🍷🍷👫

Aukland was very very busy, with construction work going on all over the place, so we jumped on a couple of hop on hop off bus trips and explored the city that way during the day and in the evening strolled around the very picturesque harbour front, with loads of bars and restaurants, for a drink and a meal.

After a couple of days, we picked up our hire car and set off to explore more of the North Island of New Zealand, with our first stop, some four hours north of Aukland, a little town called Paihia, which was in the area, known as the Bay of Islands.

This is the view from our hotel in Aukland, on the day we left.

One good thing about driving in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand is that sensibly, they all drive on the ‘proper’ side of the road, like the UK, you know, the left side, ahhh that’s so easy 👍👍👫

This lovely place (Paihia) was just about a mile away from the sacred Waitangi Treaty Ground, where the Treaty between the Moari leaders and the British Crown, which started being talked about in 1839, was finally was signed in 1860, a hundred and sixty years ago.

This is the view from our room, across the Bay of Islands on the day we arrived, a great little motel called Breakwater Motel.

Any golfer who things hitting across water is problem, look at this, you can’t see it, but the tee is just across the bay (honest 😂😂).

We had a great guided tour of the Treaty grounds and also a Moari greetings dance, where out of a group of about 40 tourists, one of us was selected to be the Chief of the Tourist Tribe for the day (guess which one!).

The Chief had to greet the Moari warriors on behalf of his ‘tribe’, in the traditional way, by rubbing noses and by touching foreheads! 😂😂 a very big honour 👍👍 and to make matters worse, I (whoops, we mean HE), had to make a speech and welcome the Moari people in the traditional way, by saying Koari, which means Hello (we think).

It really was a great day out and one that gave much food for thought as to how we (The British Empire) ended up with so much land that originally belonged to the original people! 👿👿, not just here, but in many of the 54 countries around the world, that made up the British Empire in those days.

The next day, we took a ferry across the bay to a town called Russell, which 100 plus years ago, was where the sailors went for some R&R after being at sea for several months and it had a reputation as being a bit rough and ready, with some 30 pubs, which was rather a lot, for a town with a permanent population of only around 100!

However, now it is a quaint tourist town, full of colonial style buildings and one really great tourist attraction – see below 👍👍

The next day, saw us take a boat ride to explore the Bay of Islands and to see if we could see any Dolphins and luckily, we did👍👍

As well as seeing the Dolphins and seeing many of the Islands that make up this bay, we also did a very tricky trip through the ‘Hole in the Rock’ – fortunately, although the tour boat was quite a big one, the Captain managed to squeeze it through this very tiny hole 👍👍👍

We also saw several shoals of fish, being eaten by predators under the water and the seagulls above, don’t know how they survive, there must be a hell of a lot of them.

On the way back, so it must be nearly 5 o’clock 😂😂👫

It must be getting close to G&T time, so that’s all for now as it’s up early for another long land trip, about 5 to 6 hours, to explore some more of this great country.

Well, after wetting your appetite, we hope you are all looking forward to seeing some Hobbit’s in this version of the blog.

In fact, we are offering a prize to the first responder who replies and is successful in seeing a Hobbit 👍👍 and no, you are not allowed to have a drink before examining the ‘evidence’.

Ok, we docked in Tauranga and disembarked to board the bus that was taking us to the Hobbiton Movie Set and to be fair, although we were in a rush to get there and the trip took quite a while, we enjoyed some lovely scenery and we could begin to see why the movie makers picked such a great spot.

Then we started to see signs for the Movie Set and started to get excited.

Until finally, we made it 👍👍

It was brilliant, the whole valley was covered in Hobbit Holes, apparently 39 in total!

These are just a few and no, before any smart alec’s say they can see Hobbits, that’s us doing a self!

and a few more!

and a few more!

What do you mean, that’s enough!, no it’s not, oh, ok, here are the last few 👍

Ha ha, why show you a tree?

Well this tree is artificial and because original book, said that there was a tree behind Bilbo Baggies house and there wasn’t a real tree where they wanted to site his house, they built an artificial tree 😂😂

The building work for the original film ‘The Lord of the Rings’ started in March 1999 and the filming started in December and took 3 months.

The building work (improvements to the original set), for the second film ‘The Hobbit Trilogy’ took 2 years (yes, that’s right 2 years!) and the actual filming took just 12 days!!!

A couple more to finish.

Then off to the Green Dragon Inn for a couple of swift halves (beer).

Ok, that’s enough, back on the bus for the long ride back to the ship, after a great day out, then off to our final port of call and where we were getting of the ship in Auckland to begin our next part of the trip.

When we arrived in Auckland we were astounded by just how many ships/boats there were in the various harbours, so not to be left out we thought we had better buy one, so we chose a few first then decided which one after very careful consideration.

We looked at this one 👍

Then this one 👍

Then this one 👍

Then finally this one, which the Managing Director said we must have, not sure why?

But, unfortunately, when we went to buy it, we were told it was no longer available – grrr.

On our second day, we took a ferry trip out to Waiheke Island (see above) and on arrival we were amazed (honest) to learn there were 30 small wineries 👍👍😂😂🍷🍷 on the island!

BUT, on arrival, because it was a National Holiday called Waitangi Day, most of the wineries were closed – Ahhhhhhhh, but we still managed to keep smiling!

Waitangi, is the place where a treaty was signed between the British Crown and the Maori people and unfortunately today there is a lot of bad feeling about just what the treaty did to them.

Thats enough for today, more in the next blog about Aukland and where we are going from Auckland.

🍷🍷🍺🍺👫

“Didn’t we ought to do some more of the blog”  “sure, shall we have a G&T first?”  “No, we will not be able to type anything that makes sense if we do 😂😂”  “We don’t write anything that makes sense anyway”  “Will you two stop talking and just get on with it”  “Ok Millie, we are doing it”  “Go on then”  “Ok”

We have been told it’s time to do some more of the blog, so we have decided to wait to have the G&T and here we go 👍👍👫

After the visit to Christchurch, we got back on board and the ship set off further north, up the coast of South Island New Zealand to the port of Picton and Queen Charlotte Sound.

On arriving there, we were really pushed trying to decide what ship tour to do and a really hard decision it was, until we finally decided to do the ‘Iconic Wines of Marlborough’ which we chose, because the huge Marlborough wine region, the biggest wine region of New Zealand was so important to the New Zealand economy (honest 😂)

There are simply miles and miles of fields of wine bushes!

After quite a long bus ride, passing winery after winery, we eventually came to one of the 60 wineries in Marlborough, that the bus driver wanted to visit, so in we went, to sample four of the several wines they made, yum yum.

Then back on the bus, for another rather long ride, before turning into another winery, to sample four more wines that this winery made, again yum yum.

By this time, we had had enough wine (ha ha ha – not likely), so back on the bus for a ride to yet another winery, this one rather special as it supplied wine to the top secret government spy centre, just up the road, hence the name ‘Spy Valley Wines’, or so this was what they told us, as we were sampling yet four more wines that they made.

Whilst we were here, we were reminded, yet again, about the smoke haze blowing over from Australia and in the photo below, you can see the haze over the hills in the distance.

Then a last trip to a Chocolate Factory, to sample a few, before setting off back to the ship, to stagger up the gangway, ready to sail away to our next destination, which was a town called Napier.

Rather a somber message when we arrived there, because all everyone seemed to be talking about, was when the town was totally destroyed by an Earthquake, back in 1931 and has been totally rebuilt, but the bit that really caught our eye, was not the buildings, most built in the 1930’s, but the great old vehicles driving through the town 👍

As there were no wineries to visit 👿👿 we decided to not do a tour, but just do a trip into town for a stroll around.

Then back on board, to sail to a place where the trip we were most looking forward to was setting off from 👍👍

This was a town called Tauranga, where we were going on a trip to the Hobbit Movie Set – yippee, couldn’t wait 👍👍👫

So, now we’ve wetted you’re appetite, that’s all for now, more in the next blog 😂😂

Right, lets have that G&T 👍👍

Well, as we said in the last blog, we have now left the land of the Aussie’s and have set off to New Zealand, but what we forgot to say was how far we had travelled in this vast country.

We have travelled about 3100 miles on the train (3000 on the Indian Pacific and the rest between Perth & Fremantle), about 1500 by ship (mostly on the cruise ship, but some on the various ferry rides we took in Perth and Sidney) and about 400 miles by car and coach (about 300 miles on the various trips we did).

So that’s about 5000 miles in total around this great country of Australia, but even at that, we have barely scratched the service and there is so much more of it to see.

Once leaving Burnie, on the north coast of Tasmania, we had a couple of days sailing across the Tasman Sea, towards our first sight of New Zealand, on day three, where we sailed up and down Milford Sound and saw its spectacular scenery, with literally hundreds of beautiful and often very big waterfalls and no, we are not joking, there were hundreds of them.

We then sailed through Doubtful Sound and through Dusty Fford, before arriving on day four at our first landfall in New Zealand, called Port Chambers, on the Dunedin Peninsular.

Once we arrived in Port Chambers, we embarked on a great ‘Wildlife Safari’, where half of it was on eight-wheeled vehicles, across some really rough country and the rest on a coach.

But it was well worth all the bumping around over the rough terrain, because we saw fur seals and penguins 👍👍

Although we were not allowed to film the penguins as they were in nest boxes, which we peeped into, they came ashore on this beach.

Our next stop was Akaroa, where we embarked on a trip across to Christchurch, quite a long, about 1 & 1/2 hours (each way), coach trip, where we did a tour of the city, followed by a punting trip down the Avon River followed by a visit to the Melton Winery for some wine tasting Hic Hic!

We also did a ride around the 75 acres of Botanic Gardens in a caterpillar bus, which was pretty neat.

Sadly, Christchurch has been devastated by a number of very strong earthquakes, starting in 2010, with the latest just three years ago, which resulted in huge amounts of the city being destroyed and 185 people killed and many more injured!

This has lead to a total redesign of the building standards, to help to make buildings earthquake proof (hopefully) and a move away from high rise buildings, with the highest allowed now, just seven storey’s – let’s hope the new designs work.

Thats all for now, it’s time for a drink (it’s five o’clock somewhere ) 🍺🍺🍷🍷👫

 

Walla walla jumma jumma moy moy tabba

”Mum, Dad, what on earth are you writing?”  “it’s Aboriginal”. “No it’s not, you have just wrote rubbish – grrr”. “Oh come on Millie, our readers don’t know, they don’t speak the Aboriginal language”. “You two don’t either so stop it – I’ll let you keep the title though, that’s true Aboriginal”. “How do you know Millie?”  “I know everything now, you know that”  “Ok, we will keep the title, can we tell the readers what it means?” “Yes”. “Ok”

Where were we?

Oh yes, just writing some gibberish, we were going to pretend it was Aboriginal language, but Millie has given us a ticking off, so we can’t keep going.

The title though is Aboriginal and means ‘Hello – White Folk – Come Here – Mate’, go on, practise saying it “Kaya Gubba Cooee Bunji”, so that when we meet again, we can all say it too each other  –  Well done 😂😂😂

Right, lets get back on track, we finished the last blog as we were leaving Manly Beach to go to Sidney where we were booked into the Shanghai-La hotel for a couple of nights before we jumped on the NCL ship, the Jewel, for a two week trip, down the Australian coast, across to Tasmania, then on to New Zealand.

The first thing we realised, when we got to Sidney and took the hire car back, was that we didn’t need a hire car at all as there were very cheap frequent ferries from Sidney Central Pier all over the place, including Manly Beach and Bondi Beach, both places we hired the car so that we could visit!

The pictures below show the views from the three big windows in our hotel room!

Sidney Opera House

Sidney Harbour Bridge and the Sidney Observatory.

As you would expect, we managed to find the oldest pub in Sidney to refresh 😂👍

Ahhh 🍺🍺🍷🍷👫

Later that first day, we caught a ferry across the Harbour, passing the Opera House

on the way, to Taronga Wildlife Sanctuary, where we saw a variety of the unique Australian animals 👍

The next day we jumped on the Hop on Hop off bus service that runs all around the city, which is a great way to explore it.

Then the next day, it was on to our Cruise ship for the 13 day trip, with three more Australian stops before we sailed across to New Zealand, which were, Eden, Melbourne and Burnie (in Tasmania).

”Hang on, you’re doing it again!, the Garden of Eden is here in EVAN, not there in Australia” “Sorry Millie, it’s just a town called Eden, not the Garden of Eden, although there are a few campsites around the town that use that name”. “Oh, ok”

As you would expect, around Eden, there were a few places that added the term Garden to their name!

It was quite a small town and we were the first cruise ship there for several weeks owing to the bush fires that were still burning around the town

We would imagine that this had a severe impact on the business in the town

Then it was off to Melbourne for our next stop

Like most cities, Melbourne these days is a huge place with hundreds of high rise commercial and residential properties and we had booked a city tour plus a visit to a wildlife sanctuary, where they reared endangered Australian species (like the Tasmanian Devil) and also provided a hospital service for injured wild animals, usually damaged by vehicles or farm machinery, but recently a lot of animals injured in the bush fires.

And where we actually got to hold and pet a real life Koala (honest 😂) As you can see in the first picture below 😂😂

After quite a tiring day in Melbourne and only seeing a tiny fraction of it, we set sail across the sea to Tasmania, landing in Burnie quite early in the morning and were quite impressed with the view, when we looked through the window!

This huge mound is wood chips, that are exported all over the place from this harbour, to be burnt and they say that it is a sustainable fuel, as the 12 to 15 years the trees take to grow before they are chopped down, the trees absorb carbon dioxide!

So off the ship we went to explore the place and to our surprise, found that this is home to some cute little penguins

Which nested in hundreds of ‘concrete’ nests that were all along the beach/rocky shore alongside the town.

Although this was ‘Australia Day, we couldn’t find a single flag flying, which was rather a surprise, so we asked around, only to be told by the locals that the original Aboriginal people, were very offended by the thought of celebrating the day, when the vast majority of them lost their traditional homelands, so it was played down in many parts now!

The Aboriginal people call Australia Day, Invasion Day!

There was a great Scottish Bagpipe band welcoming us back on the ship, which we forgot to photo as we were in the big queue to get back on and being as we had a pocket full of change, the assistant popped back off to give them all our Australian coins (a lot of dollars worth!), whilst the Manager stayed on our balcony to supervise 😂😂👫

Right Bunji, we are off to the Billabong to have a Corroboree (right mate, off to water hole to celebrate), but don’t forget that there are between 100 and 250 different Aboriginal dialects, so in the few weeks we have been here, we haven’t quite learnt them all 😂😂 yet.

Well, after the hectic last day on the Indian Pacific train, we had a good nights sleep in the Mercury Hotel, then picked up our car (1 day late) for the drive to Manly Beach, where we had booked an apartment near the beach.

We only hoped it was better than the one on the Swan River in Perth and it was, a great little place, just 15 steps away from the beach front walkway 👍👍

The first day the weather was great (with noisy parrots calling, although we couldn’t see them in the trees), so we dumped our cases and walked down to the sea.

There were loads of people in the Sea, surfing or snorkelling and from the bottom of our street, we could see Manly Beach and town about five minutes walk one way and Shelly Beach about two minutes walk the other!

On the way along the beach walk, we came across this Water Dragon and no, we didn’t know what it was until we saw the sign, it was quite big, about a foot long and we have seen several since a little bigger!

It looked really tempting, so we donned the swim suits and wet suits and struck out for the waves, as you can see in the selfie below.

”Grrrr, keep it truthful”  “We are trying too Millie, but we keep getting carried away with all the excitement”  “ok, but don’t forget I’m watching 👿”  “Come on Millie, be a good girl”  “I am 👍”  “Ok xxxxxx”

After a day exploring and a bottle of wine! We went to bed, to awaken, in the middle of the night, to the sound of heavy rain falling and it was still falling heavily when we finally rolled out of bed.

We didn’t mind a bit, we would far rather have heavy rain, than the threat of the danger of the bush fires that were raging all around the area we were staying in, although we had not actually seen any, just a slight smell of smoke. 👿

As you can see below, the two days of rain had a massive damping effect on the bush fires, so we didn’t mind it at all.
One picture is on the 16th Jan and the other on the 18th Jan after two days of heavy rain 👍👍

On this first rainy day, we didn’t go far, just chilled, but on the second day (of heavy rain),  we decided to jump in the car and explore, so we set off to see the world famous Bondi Beach, although as you can see in the photos, there weren’t many people in the water.

But then the heavens cleared and it was back to sunny weather the next day, so off we went, along the sea walk to Manly, to find that there was some sort of beach event, with loads of people from different children’s ‘surfing’ clubs all competing in different events.

The next day was sunny too, so we decided to go to Shelly beach instead (even closer, but smaller than Manly) to have a look around.

When we got there, a snorkelling club had just arrived, so we joined them for a bit of snorkelling

“Will you two behave – grrr”. “Oh Millie, were just trying to make it more exciting 😂”  “I know, but don’t go too far”  “ok xx”

Where were we? Oh yes, just telling you how we joined the snorkelling club to have a dive in the Aquatic Preserve.

Almost forgot to say that on the way to Shelly Beach, we saw yet more Water Dragons and loads of what looked like wild turkeys.

To finish, look what golfers over here have to contend with 😂😂

Right, back to the apartment, to pack ready to leave tomorrow to go to Sidney, but we only just made it back before it thundered and poured it down with rain again 👿 and not just rain, but really heavy hailstones as well!

We have certainly had a range of weathers 👍👍 in Aussie Land.

Two days in the Shanghai-La hotel in Sidney, then jumping on a Cruise ship for a two week trip to New Zealand.

More to follow, so ‘See ya Mate’ xx

Ok, it’s time for the longest train ride we have ever undertaken.

We set off today (12th Jan 2020) at 10:00 am from Perth East Railway Station on the Indian Pacific Train, that runs between Perth, on the Indian Ocean to Sidney on the Pacific Ocean, 2500 miles away.

With all the twists and turns and ‘nipping’ down to Adelaide, we probably did more like 3000 miles, quite a way on a train with 30 carriages!

We had booked a Gold Superior room, which had a 3/4 bed and a pull down bunk bed, (which we didn’t use), a couple of easy chairs and a small table, along with an on suite bathroom and shower.

It was a bit like a small version of a cruise ship room, which, bearing in mind we were on a train, with a corridor running the full length of the carriage, was quite roomy.

The first day was spent going through the extensive urban area around Perth and we didn’t get into the Australian ‘Bush’, until it was almost dark.

We took a walk around the train, well, up and down the corridor and found the Lounge, Bar and Dinning car!

The Lounge Bar was open from early morning until late at night with any drinks you could mention – for free!!! 👍

Just after dark, we arrived at our first stop, at Kalgoorlie the most important Gold mining area of Australia and a place that has contributed greatly to the wealth of Australia.

After dinner, a lot of the 250 guests (40 staff to look after them), got off the train for a nighttime visit through the two to the Gold Mine, which is still operating at full production and is expected to keep producing Gold for another 150 years! 👍

The Gold deposits were discovered by accident by a guy called Paddy Hanson 1893, which triggered a huge Gold Rush and the formation of the town.

Ok, back on the train, a couple drinks and off to bed, ready for the next stage of the journey and a move out of Western Australia time (8 hrs in front of the UK and 13 in front of the US), into Central Australia time, which was another 2hr and 1/2hr added on!

Never come across a 1/2 hr time change with the zones, but that’s how the Aussies do it!

Not sure how we would sleep with the noise and the rocking of the train, but we slept well and woke up ready for breakfast and another day of adventures.

Our first short stop was at a place called Rawlina, where we jumped off for breakfast and which is home to Australia’s biggest Sheep Farm, with some 70,000 sheep.

We also had an onboard musician, who was very good and who also kept us entertained at some of the train stops and also ran trivia sessions during the afternoons on the train.

We did a number of very short stops at remote places, because, apparently, the Indian Pacific also delivers mail and a few other things at these remote places as it passes them – good on them!

At Last!!!  We started to see some wildlife, on the second day we saw 6 Kangaroos, 3 Camels, 1 Emu and 1 Dingo – great stuff, but, with the train moving so fast, by the time you spotted them and got your phone/camera ready, they were usually disappearing into the distance, but we tried.

Spot the wildlife above 👍

The view through the window really gave you a good feel for just how big this country is, with miles and miles and miles of rolling countryside as far as the eye could see, but virtually nothing in it, not much wildlife, certainly no homesteads and on the odd road we saw, no traffic – make no mistake, Australia is HUGE!

This is the main reason we chose to do the Indian Pacific train ride, as just flying over the country, from city to city, doesn’t give you a feel for the true Australia.

Our next stop was Cook, a town that 100 years ago had a School, Hospital, Golf Course and shops, but which today, only has 4 full time residents, so it is a ghost town, with a lot of tumbled down buildings, plus quite a few that look ok 👍, but retains an important role as a filling station for the Indian Pacific for both Fuel and Water, so we had quite a bit of time to wonder around the town and look at the old buildings (well, old in Australian terms).

A very pleasant afternoon and evening in the Lounge, meeting other travellers from all over the world, mainly the UK, but with a few from Canada, USA and real life Aussies, usually from the East Coast, who had been to Perth for a holiday.

Then off to bed again, before waking up on arrival in Adelaide, where the crew that had been looking after us, disembarked and another crew came on.

We did a walking tour of the City, with had a lot of emphasis to the fallen in World and regional conflicts and quite rightly so, as Australian fallen, were a far larger percentage  of their very small population, than countries like the UK or the USA, although in the First World War, the UK had lost more than 2 million men, dead or wounded, by 2017, when the USA joined in, which is a huge and terrible loss. 👿

After breakfast in 5 the city, it was back on the train and off we went, to a place called Broken Hill, again another mining town, but this time Lead, Zinc,Copper and Silver.

It is also the home of Australia’s Flying Doctor service, which covers the whole of this vast country and in fact, wherever we have been and however small the place, even isolated farms, they all had a runway for the Flying Doctor planes 👍👍👍

At Broken Hill, we popped off the train for another tour, this time concentrating on an arts and gift ‘shop’, which is home to the longest landscape painting in the world, taking the artist, more than two years to complete.

Back to the train for the evening meal at 7:00pm and at 7:30pm, disaster struck! 👿

An announcement was made that there had been a derailment somewhere in front of us and we couldn’t move on! – more news to follow, but it was likely that we might be late arriving in Sidney tomorrow lunch time – Mmmm!

At 9:30pm, another announcement was made and it was decided that the train would move up as far as possible to the derailment site, so that hopefully, by the time we got there, it would be clear.

So, it was have another couple of drinks and off to bed.

At 3:30am, the train stopped, it was still stopped at 5:30am, when the heavens opened, with a Thunder, Lightening and loads and loads of rain.

It had eased off by 9:30, but then another announcement to say that the storm had stopped the work in clearing the line and expected arrival in Sidney, had jumped from 12:30pm to 9:30pm, which caused a panic with some passengers, because on ongoing travel arrangements.

We weren’t worried, until we googled the car hire office we were due to get the car from, to find it closed at 5:30pm – Arrrr.

So we rang them (18 times), but couldn’t get through, so we then rang the apartment we had booked, to say we would be a day late, then set about finding a hotel near the Sidney station for a one night stay – done, thank goodness 👍

We eventually contacted the car people and arranged to pick up the car the next morning. 👍

The good thing was that when we got this news and realised we would not be driving that day, we were free to visit the train bar and drown our sorrows. 🍷🍷🍺🍺👫

We eventually got to the hotel at 10:00 and just flaked out!

The only thing we are worried about now, is whether this is the start of another three problems, we hope not.

”Mum, Dad, will you two stop worrying”  “ It’s alright you saying that Millie, but we don’t want any more problems”  “You won’t have this is the last of three new ones”  “What? How?”  “Well, you know the nighttime tour of the mine in Kargoolie and the tour around Broken Hill?”  “Yes, what about them?”  “Well, the silly driver kept asking you to look at buildings around the town, but nobody on the bus could see them in the dark!”  “Yes”  “And remember the driver on the Broken Hill tour insisting on showing everyone on the bus his house and trying to get everyone on the bus to invest and buy a house in the town, saying how much you could get for your money and getting on everyone’s nerves”  “Yes”  “Well, that’s THREE problems, of which the late train is the third – done, sorted, stop worrying ❤️❤️“  “Oh Millie, you are a little gem”  “I know 👍👍 now relax”  “ok xx”

Let’s just finish this part of the blog, by saying that even with the couple of ‘bus drivers’ and the late arrival, the trip was great and we would definitely recommend it, but if you do it, don’t skimp and don’t book less than Gold Superior, as those other cabins were rather small.

 

After a pleasant short 5 hours flight from Singapore to Perth we landed in a very sunny Australia.

We picked up our hire car from the Thrifty desk and set off for the apartment we had rented on the Swan River near Perth, but when we arrived we found it really dingy, smelly and not satisfactory, so we just turned around and left – grrrrrr.

It was nothing like the web site advert – so now what?

Well, we jumped in the car and set off to find somewhere to stay in Perth, eventually after driving around a little, we decided on the Hyatt, a nice hotel near the centre of the city.

After booking in we were told that there was a $30 (Aus), per day to park the car and we also found out that there was a fantastic ‘free’, yes that’s right, a free around the city bus service with several routes that ran all over the place and for further afield, the cost was next to nothing  – yippee!

Wait a minute! A free bus service! Cheap long distance bus and train service – What do we need the car for then?

Ok, we don’t, so off we went to take it back, within a few minutes drive (and walk) of the hotel, we found the Thrifty car rental office.

The very friendly guy there said he was happy to take the car back early and refund our fee and set about logging it in to their system – oh oh, a problem! Because we had booked it through Booking.Com he couldn’t do it and we would have to contact them directly and he gave us their number.

So we rang them, but they wouldn’t budge, according to them and their ‘terms of contract’, once we had picked up the car, we had to pay for the whole original rental period.

Despite telling them that was nonsense and talking to a supervisor and advising them that if that was their stance, we were going to cancel the three other cars that we had booked, they were adamant that this was their policy – grrrrrrr.

So we left the car and walked out, very disgruntled!

’Mum, Dad, don’t get upset, it’s only money haha’

’Yes Millie, but it’s our money – grrr’

’But look on the bright side’  ‘What bright side?’  ‘Well bad things always happen in three’s don’t they?’  ‘So?’  ‘Well, first you had the train cancellation, that’s 1, then the grotty apartment, that’s 2 and now this nonsense with not getting your money back on the car, that’s 3’

’Ahh Millie, thank goodness we have you to keep us sober’  ‘What do you mean ‘sober’, what’s drink got to do with it?’  ’Well if you hadn’t just cheered us up we would have probably drowned our sorrows in the free bar we have in the hotel’

’Just because it is a free bar, don’t get carried away’. ‘Ok xx’

Well as usual, Millie was right, the next five days in Perth were fantastic.👍👍👍👍👍

The first day we went on a River Cruise down the Swan River and although we were told there were some wild Kangaroo’s on an island we passed (twice), we didn’t see any.

After the cruise we explored the Elizabeth Quay area, which is a very vibrant downtown area, full of jetties, bars and restaurants, then got on the free bus back to the hotel and the free bar ahhhh! 👫🍷🍺
The next day we jumped on the train to Fremantle, a seaside town just south of Perth, famous for its beaches, diving, snorkelling and just boating.

The train cost $13 for an all day family ticket, which meant we could go anywhere (and return) on this particular train line – what about that for a bargain 👍

As well as the fantastic beaches etc, Fremantle is also home to the Fremantle Prison, which is a World Heritage Site and a very sobering place it is, with tiny cells where the prisoners were held for 15 hours a day and where the Aboriginal prisoners were kept, there were 6 of them in a 7ft x 10ft cell, with just one toilet bucket between them!

Then it was off on a whole day winery tour, followed by a Chocolate Factory! and although we only covered 5 Wineries and only sampled 7 (small) glasses of wine at each winery Hic Hic, so we were rather tipsy and struggled to take advantage of the free bar when we eventually got back to the hotel that evening.

The next day, was an absolute gem and was a whole day tour to Rottnest Island, which was cut off from the mainland about 6000 years ago and has some unique wildlife, the cutest of which is the Quokka.

Is it a Kangaroo – Noooo

Is it a Wallaby – Noooo

Its a Quokka, a tiny Kangaroo type of creature, about the size of a rabbit, but, because it has no natural predators on the island, is absolutely ‘tame’ and doesn’t even flinch when you touch it, it just ignores you – fantastic experience 👍👍

The next day was a chill out day, with free bus rides around the city, just sight seeing and relaxing, then in the evening getting ready for our next adventure, the Indian Pacific Railway, which runs over four days and goes the 2500 miles to Sidney.

Just a little point, for the next 6000 miles, until we get to Tahiti, we will be either driving, on a train or on a cruise ship, but no flying!

More later, the free bar has just opened 🍺🍺🍷🍷

At last, we are off on our round the world trip.

”hang on Mum & Dad, you didn’t start by flying, you went by train”

”you hang on Millie, you are jumping in too quick, we know we went by train at first, we were just about to tell everyone xx”

”ok then, just keep it accurate, don’t forget I am watching 😂”

Ok, lets start again and keep it accurate for Millie.

The first part of our trip started with a train journey from our home town of Chesterfield to Manchester Airport – and that’s when we had our first ‘minor’ disaster 👿

We boarded the train and just before we got to Manchester Piccadilly (City Centre), there was an announcement that the train from the City Centre to the airport was cancelled due to signalling problems and the train would be terminating at the City Centre and we all had to get off – so for a while chaos reigned as all the people travelling on to the airport, started to get off the train with all their luggage and milled around wondering where to go now!!!

After a few minutes and alternative train for the 20 minute ride to the airport was announced and we all rushed off to platform 13!, only to find it was already full of other travellers also going to the airport, there were thousands of travellers, it was chaos.

”Mum, Dad, you are doing it again, stop exaggerating, there weren’t thousands there, just a few hundred”

”Ok, ok Millie, there were only hundreds, but it felt like thousands, the platform was heaving!”

”Ok, but don’t exaggerate” “Ok”

The chaos bit was correct and when the train eventually pulled in, we all piled onto the train and it was packed with nowhere to sit, fortunately it was only a short journey.

We stayed at an airport hotel, the Radisson, that evening, as we were flying out early the next morning.

The flight was on Singapore Airlines, our first flight with them and it proved to be an excellent flight, very comfortable, spacious and excellent service from the cabin crew.

The only down side the while flight was the length of it, 13 hours 👿, but it went well and we managed to get some sleep in so weren’t feeling too bad when we landed in Singapore.

The taxi we ordered was there waiting for us to take us to our hotel, the Shangri-La, where we booked into a ‘Garden View’ suite.

The only bad bit was getting the head around the time difference, 8 hours in front of our home in England and 13 hours in front of our home in Florida 👿

These are some of the views from our balcony and some views around the city as we spent a couple of days, using the ‘Hop On, Hop Off’ excellent bus service.

Some of you may have noticed in the photos above, that we managed to find an Irish Pub, that sold Guinness and Gin & Tonic, so of course, it would not have been polite to walk past it!

The photo of the hotel with the three pillars above, was the very impressive Marina Sands Hotel, which had an infinity pool at the top and was so high it was visible from all over the city!

The Shanghai-La hotel that we stopped in was very impressive, with very friendly and at tentative staff and a very nice lobby area.

After just three days, much too short, it was time to head off back to the airport for the five hour flight to Perth Australia, again with Singapore Airlines and it is even in the same time zone, so no jet lag worries👍👍

More later, bye bye for now.

Wow,

Even though Millie is still in our hearts and minds, we never thought she would come back from ‘EVAN’, as she calls it, to continue to help with our blog.

We just don’t know how she knew, but yes, very shortly we will starting on a ‘Round the World’ trip for 3 months, so watch this space

👍👍

Shhh, if you are reading this, please do it quietly as Mum and Dad don’t realise I can still write now I am in EVAN – ha ha!

In fact, I’m not sure how I’m doing it yet either 😂😂

I think that they are planning another trip, but not sure yet and I don’t have all my writing skills back yet either, so watch this space 👍👍

Love to all my readers

Millie xx

Ok, as we said in the last blog, we have decided to pop over to Rome for a few days and so we started looking around for the best mode of transport.

Well, would you believe it!

Just a few miles down the road from where we were, was the NASA, Marshalls Space Research Place, in Huntsville, Alabama.

So off we went to see if we could hitch a ride to Rome!!

Little did we realise, that the only ride we could ‘hitch’, was one to the International Space station – well, we ask you, that was in totally different direction to Rome, so how could we possibly accept !

Ok then, back to the drawing board to plan our Rome trip.

As we were driving along we found yet another scenic stopover;

And crossed the Tennessee and Missisipi Rivers again

Well, as you can see from the photos below, we eventually made it to Rome and as you would expect, what a gem it turned out to be.

“Shhhhh, we have had some moaning from some people whilst reading the Blog”

“How do you know?” – “I’ve heard them” – “What are they moaning about, what do they want?”

“They want pictures of places like the Vatican and the Coliseum”

“How can they? – Don’t they know that we are in Rome Georgia, not Rome Italy?”

“No, they were getting confused” – “Oh well, they know now, so not to worry”

Much of this strech of our trip followed ‘The Trail of Tears’, with signs every few miles to something of historical significance, so we have detailed it below;

Ok, after leaving Rome, we turned south for a 480 mile drive back to our home in Florida and we made it and it is very, very, hot – phew!

With changing our plans and cutting our journey down, we have only done a little over 12,000 miles, just over 8,500 in the RV, at just under 7 miles to the gallon and just over 3,500 in the car at ??? to the gallon (not sure but plenty).

We have only, barely, scratched the surfaces of the places we have visited, in both the USA and Canada – they are both huge exciting countries to explore.

What was the best thing we saw on the trip?

Well, there were loads of great experiences, but what sticks in the mind the most, are the fantastic scenery we have seen on our travels, soaring mountains, deep valleys, crystal clear lakes, vast plains and huge waterfalls and our only two regrets are that we didn’t see a Bull Moose or a Grizzly Bear – although we did see a couple of female Moose’s and several Black Bears, as well as quite a lot of other wildlife.

Right, the fingers are aching and the Whiskey and Gin & Tonic calls, so we hope you have enjoyed reading our Blog and sharing our adventures – over and out!!

Well where do we start?

“What about at the beginning, you nitwit”

“Oh, ok”

Just before we left Nebraska, we stopped on an RV park called ‘Cape Camping’, next to the State Capital of Lincoln, where we intended to stop for a couple of nights to explore, but the traffic noise from the nearby freeway was so bad that night, that we ‘upped sticks’ first thing in the morning and moved on.

Travelling on, into Missouri, we crossed the Missouri River a few times, as both we and it, wound our way South, even passing through Daniel Boone country, which was news to us, as we did not realise that this was the area where he originally came from.

Earlier, whilst planning our journey South East, back to Florida, we came upon reference to a little town of Arrow Rock, in the middle of Missouri, that sounded interesting, so that is where we made our next stop for a few days.

So eventually, after an interesting drive through the Missouri countryside, we pulled into the Arrow Rock State Park, a neat park, right at the side of the town.

Why did we aim for here?

Well, during our research of where to stay, we found that Arrow Rock, which was right along our proposed route, was one of the places where the Lewis & Clark expedition crossed the Missouri River, back on the 9^th June 1804 and where the Santa Fe Trail crossing was established by a William Becknell, on the first West Bound trip along the trail, on the 1^st September 1821.

The first Wagon Train, using the Santa Fe Trail actually rendezvoused here at Arrow Rock on the 22^nd May 1822.

We told you this little town was a Hidden Gem.

Nowadays, the whole township is a designated State Historic Site, with many of the original houses and building still standing!!

One that caught our eye (well it would!), was The Huston Tavern, which has been serving fare and lodgings to travellers, since 1834 and is still doing so today – yes, we dined (and drank) there and it was great. 

We probably ought to use the correct definition/description here, because Arrow Rock is in fact called a ‘City’, despite only have 56 citizens at the last count!

Whist there, we looked around to see if we could find another ‘Boot Hill’ and in fact, just outside the town, we found one called Shiloh Cemetery, which did indeed hold a number of graves, dating back to the 1800’s and even a few dating back to people who were born the 1700’s.

But one that caught our eye, was a grave to a little girl, who was born on the 17^th March 1893 and passed away on the 18^th March 1893 – just one day old – RIP

Whilst exploring the area, we came across these (see below), painted on a number of buildings in the little town of Marshalls, just a few miles from Arrow Rock

We thought that they looked pretty ‘neat’.

Then Surprise – Surprise, as we carried on with our trip South, we came upon our Home Town of Chesterfield.

Just kidding, this was a ‘copy town’, our home town is 5000 miles to the East of this one!

Although we shouldn’t be, we were a little surprised at how many time the names of our (UK) towns and cities we saw as we travelled.

York, Lincoln, Manchester, Sheffield, Chesterfield, to name just a few of them!

Journeying on, we passed into Tennessee and crossed the Mississippi River, really wide and imposing, even this far north from the Gulf of Mexico

What do you think of this little Rabbit we saw the other day, doesn’t it look cute!

Somebody once said that pigs couldn’t fly, but that’s not true as you can see from this picture below!!!

That’s all for now, but don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for a while, as we have decided to go to Rome for a few days for a change.

Talk soon.

Our first trip out into the Big Horn country took us to the Crow Reservation Agency, near a town called Hardin, in Montana.

Whilst we didn’t visit the site of the Custer battle with the Native Americans, having visited it last time we were ‘out west’, when we saw the signs for it, we were reminded of how our little dog Millie, found the name Little Bighorn, rather confusing, as we think she mentioned when she was writing the Blog!

She couldn’t get her head around, how something could be called ‘Little’ and ‘Big’ at the same time!

Pretty soon, we were cutting across the North East corner of Wyoming, towards South Dakota, where a rather astonishing discovery was awaiting us.

This will take some believing, but when we arrived at our next destination, in the town of Custer, in South Dakota.

Who should we find on the RV site, but Millie’s old friend Trouper and his Mum and Dad!!!!!

Well, we didn’t realise it was his Dad, because he had lost his razor, but had run out of money and couldn’t afford to buy another, so he had grown a beard!!

Just joking! Well not about the beard, just about it being a surprise them being there!! – When we decided to cut back on our trip East across Canada and head back South in the USA, we emailed them to see where they were and imagine our surprise, when they said, that they were directly in the path that we had decided to take South East back to Florida, so we arranged to meet.

 We spent a couple of great days with them exploring Mount Rushmore

Crazy Horse Monument

Wind Cave National Park

And a great evening Magic Show in town, that taught the Driver/Hunter a few new tricks!!

All too soon, the couple of days with our friends were over and we were off again, from South Dakota into Nebraska.

The trip took us South over endless miles of Prairie, again, with Buffalo, Prong Horn Antelope, Elk and loads and loads of Prairie Dogs.

We were originally following the old Buffalo Trading trail, where during the early 1800’s, the Native Americans ‘sold’ Buffalo hides to the American Fur Company, for shipping back East on wagon trains.

Later on the trip, we ended up along the old Immigrant West Trail and the Cattle Driving trail towards the Hidden Gem of a ‘real’ old Cowboy town called Ogallala – no, we hadn’t heard of it before researching for this trip either, because Hollywood didn’t make any films about it!

As you can see above, between 1870 and around 1885, about 1 million cattle (between 60,000 and 100,000 every year) were driven up from Texas into Ogallala, to be loaded onto the newly built railroad, again for shipping back East, or a few driven onwards, up North, to the newly formed Native American Reservations.

All these cowboys, had to have somewhere to let off steam and ‘blow’ their wages from the long cattle drives and Ogallala provided it – along with the wild behaviour and shootings that accompanied it.

The ‘original’ Boot Hill is even right here (it pre-dates the ones at Deadwood, Tombstone by about 15 years!!!) and which had its first recorded burial, of three railway workers massacred by Lakota Indians on the 27th May 1867.

As the name suggests, it is on the hill overlooking the old town.

It got its name from the fact that the Cowboys, shot and killed in the area during this time, were traditionally buried with their Boots ON!

We think this is one of the original ‘Boots’ – honest!

Rather nostalgically, we found an old grave marker, of a William Campbell, who was killed in a gun fight and who died 140 years to the day, 1^st August, that we were there looking around the Boot Hill cemetery – RIP William.

Just north of the town is one of the largest man-made lakes in the US, Lake McConaughy, which provides much of the water needed to provide irrigation for the farmlands for about 100 mile radius – changing something once called a ‘Dust Bowel’ into something now called the ‘Bread Basket’ of America.

All too soon it is time to move on, further south, but more on that later – bye.

As we could now speak Blackfoot (sort of!), the first RV site we had chosen, now we were back in the USA, was on the Blackfoot Reservation and was called Chewing Blackbones (no, not Backbones, but Blackbones, yes, it isn’t a spelling mistake!!).

It was near to a little settlement (too small to be called a village) called Babb, which also had some very old original log cabins still standing in it.

We chose this site for three reasons:

One, it was right on the bank of the Lower St Mary Lake,

Two, it was the first Indian Reservation Campsite we had stopped on,

Three, it was right next door to the Glacier National Park, which we intended to explore for the next few days.

The only downside was that there was no Wi-fi and no telephone signal in the area, which delayed the publishing of the blog for a few days!

The last reason for choosing this site as mentioned above, was more than justified as we explored the Glacier National Park, driving up over Logan’s Pass, crossing the Continental Divide twice, once going to the west of the park and then again as we drove back home (the RV) on the East of the park.

The scenery, was once again, simply stunning, with soaring mountains,

beautiful blue lakes and

loads of Alpine Flowers in bloom.

The evening of the second day, we took a drive into the National Park, up a dead-end road towards an area known as ‘Many Glaciers’, hoping that the crowds of people we had met on the first day, would have gone home in the evening and we would have the place to ourselves – fat chance of that!!

There were numerous trails around the National Park, many steep climbs up the very steep sided mountains with, once again, constant warnings about Bears! – but we weren’t daft enough to do those and we only did the easy ones.

There was still plenty of snow around, but as we were spending most of the time between 8000 and 9000 feet it wasn’t a surprise.

Then, just when we thought we wouldn’t see a Grizzly, there was one as large as life – he was so friendly that we called him ‘William’, what do you think?

Almost everywhere we stopped, there were loads of Ground Squirrels, so busy on the short summer ‘awake’ period (about 3 to 4 months!!), gathering food, ready for their long sleep (8 to 9 months!!), that they ignored the people around and just got on with the job.

 Before far too soon, it was time for us to move on, further south, on our journey back to our US home and our next port of call was at White Sulphur Springs, in the south of Montana, passing through some spectacular scenery once again and the Lewis & Clark national Forest.

The campsite we stopped at, had all sorts of very realistic, wooden models all around the perimeter fence.

We visited the local Hot Springs, from which the town got it’s name and which had been an attraction for visitors since the late 1800’s, ever since the local Indian tribe, who had used them for thousands of years, introduced them to the western settlers.

But we didn’t like the strong Sulphur smell, so we didn’t take a dip in the water!

We will leave you with this sign, which was on the outside of campsite office wall and which we thought was very witty!

More soon!

Just a short Blog this time on one interesting topic;

Next stop after Calgary, was the old west town of Fort Macleod and the Daisy May RV Park.

From where we went to a very interesting place called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, which is a World Heritage Site.

This is where, for around 5,700 years, the Aboriginal People, used to stampede the Buffalo over a cliff, to gather enough food and provisions to enable them to live throughout the harsh winters.

Whilst this may seem rather cruel, to our modern sensitive culture, this was at a time, when this sort of activity was critical to survival.

Over the thousands of years that this site was used (which is one of the best preserved sites on the American Plains), the original cliff, which was about 60 feet high, was so full of Buffalo bones and remains, that it finished up when they stopped using the site, at only 30 feet high, which is what it is today!!

Ok, now for the serious stuff from the Blackfoot Tribe.

Anyone reading this blog has got to learn the following Blackfoot Tribe words and when we see you, you will be tested for proficiency – ready?

Yes, we will know who you are, because when we see you, you will have a bemused, confused look on your face.

Ok, onwards – As we ventured South towards the US border, the countryside was typical Cowboy country, with miles and miles of gently rolling hills and pasture/prairie land.

Before long we reached the US border, passed over without any problem and set off into Montana.

More again soon.

After Jasper, we turned south, along the eastern side of the Rockies, down to Banff.

Once again, along the way, we saw some stunning scenery.

Banff, as you would expect from its reputation, is a nice place, but was packed with tourists and it is where, we had only the fourth day of rain, since we started the trip back in April.

But it didn’t last long, before long the sun was back out and it was on with the trip.

The RV park we stopped on, which was a National Parks one called, Tunnel Mountain II, had an unusual way of arranging the RV’s, putting them on both sides of the park roads, which worked quite well.

Right, off we went to have some adventures, starting off with some very hairy, scary, White-Water rafting, as you can see in the photo below.

Still we survived and didn’t get too wet!!

We couldn’t come to this neck of the woods (UK term for ‘vicinity’), without visiting the world famous, Lake Louise, which features on many of the calendars from Canada, so off we went.

The route we took, was a back road called the Bow River’s Parkway.

It is a truly stunning location (look at the sun reflecting on the lake in the photo above), but once again, packed out with tourists and although we intended hiring a canoe and going out onto the lake, the queue (Line in US speak), was massive and we probably wouldn’t have managed to hire one for several hours, so we abandoned that idea and went off exploring the area instead.

After a couple of days exploring in and around Banff, we set of South East to visit Calgary, home to the Calgary Stampede, probably the most famous Rodeo in the world.

Eventually, we pulled onto the Bow River Campground and caught the train into Calgary, 20 minutes away.

Fortunately, we had managed to book tickets and an RV site near it, several months ago, otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been able to see the main attractions.

As we walked around, we felt so underdressed because we didn’t have a cowboy hat on, that we just had to buy one – how do we look?

Well, where do we start with this Rodeo, we have literally thousands of pictures, but we won’t bore you with them all, just show you a few hundred!

Stop panicking, we were just joking about posting hundreds of photos!!

The last three photos are of the evening show, but what about the skill of the tightrope walker in the evening show?, isn’t he amazing?

The only downside, were the funny looks we kept getting as we shouted ‘YeeHaa, Yeehaa’, we didn’t want to keep shouting it, but we just couldn’t help ourselves!

The day after the Rodeo, we went to Calgary’s Heritage Park, where they have collected and saved, a number of historic building and artifacts, including a very interesting and unusual collection of Petrol (gas) dispensers and quite a few very neat vintage cars.

Wow, its 5 O’clock -Talk again soon, as it’s time for a Cup of Tea (ha ha).

Well we arrived safely at Clearwater after the horrendous mountainous trip and sadly, almost the first thing we heard, was that the road we had just travelled on had just been closed, due to someone hitting a Deer and going over the edge of the road and crashing down into the valley below.

So very sad and something like this reminds you that you never know just what is waiting around the corner in life.

But to continue with the journey to Clearwater;

The RV site at Clearwater was, once again, very good, with views over Dutch Lake, which we proceeded to explore.

The following day, in a canoe that we hired, we decided to explore the lake and see if we could see its wildlife.

At first the lake was quite calm, but it soon turned into a ‘White Water’ adventure (Honest), when the numerous Turtles in the lake started churning up the water, as they tried to escape from us.

Still, it was our fault, because we approached too close to them in the canoe, however, we managed to stay upright and didn’t collapse the canoe!!!

The scenery around Clearwater was once again, dramatic and huge waterfalls abounded off nearly every mountain and especially up in the Wells Gray Provincial Park, which we explored the following day.

Ok, all too soon our few days here were done and it was time to move on, so we hitched up the car to the RV and set off to our next stopping point, which was at Jasper.

Jasper, although only a couple of hundred miles away, is in Alberta, so it is in another hour time zone, making it 7 hours behind the UK and 2 hours behind Florida.

Jasper National Park, is supposed to be a spectacular wildlife area, especially for Bears, but despite warning signs all over, we hadn’t seen any Bears yet on our travels, so we were a bit sceptical.

However, just after we drove passed the park gates, we saw a young Bear at the side of the road, trying to cross, unfortunately, as you can see in the one photo below, we didn’t see it until we had almost passed it, so didn’t manage to get many good pictures.

But we needn’t have worried, as just a bit further down the road, we saw Big Horn Sheep, Mountain Goats and Elk and that was just in the first day’s drive through the National Park, on our way to stay at the Hinton/Jasper RV park, just outside the gates.

The next day saw us up and off to visit the Columbian Icefield – no, not in South America, don’t be silly!!! – this was in the Jasper National Park!

You can see it here, behind us, in the picture below.

At the Icefield, we boarded a huge great Icefield ‘Bus’ and we were driven up onto the Icefield and onto the Athabasca Glacier and wow, what an experience that was, even the ‘Bus’ ride was exciting!

We managed to fill an empty water bottle from the glacial running water, for a freezing cold drink and our idiot Driver/Hunter was the only person on the whole of the Icefield, who was dressed in shorts and tee-shirt – brrrr!

But to be fair, even though we were stood on a whopping great sheet of ice, it wasn’t really cold, just a bit of a chilly wind, which is probably why there was water running down hundreds of channels in the ice, as the glacier melted in the summer warmth.

On the way back to the RV, we called to see the Sky-Walk, a Glass ‘Bridge’ that sticks out over a 1000foot drop over the runoff water from the Glacier.

Ok, back to the RV for a Hot Toddy (Coffee and Whiskey for the uninitiated!), then off the following day to explore Jasper some more and for a Boat trip down on the Maligne Lake, which is a huge lake about 9 or 10 miles long and about a 1000 ft deep, with beautiful blue waters and home to ‘Spirit island’, which features in many pictures and Calendars of the Rockies.

It is also still of spiritual significance to the First Nation people, who lived here in the past and thankfully are still around today.

Whilst here, as well as the animals we have mentioned earlier, all of which we saw several times, we even ended up seeing, eventually, our first full size Black Bear – yippee!

Just joking – ha ha – This is the real one and it was pretty Big!

We also saw our first Beaver Lodge and Dam here and although we didn’t see the Beavers, it was amazing to see the size of some of the logs they had dragged around to build their Dam wall.

Once again, all too soon, our time here was up and it was hitch and off again.

More soon.

Well, were do we start?
“At the beginning, would be a good place”, “oh, ok”

We set off for Whistler, via a small town called Squamish, on a bright sunny day, with fantastic views all around us as the West side of Canada certainly has some beautiful countryside.

The trip took us North, up past Vancouver and up the pacific rim of British Columbia.

Eventually arriving at the Whistler RV Park, where we parked the RV, facing some of the most stunning views, we had ever seen on any RV Park anywhere in the world we have travelled

The next day, Saturday the 1st of July, was Canada Day, celebrating 150 years since the nation was formed, so off we went to Whistler town centre (a few miles up the road), to see what was happening.

As you would expect, the place was buzzing, with crowds of people and musicians and bands everywhere you turned.

There was a great atmosphere and everyone was enjoying themselves.

This place (Whistler), looks a great place to come for a holiday, whether it is summer or winter, as there seems to be lots of activities, bars and restaurants all around the town.

Although, Bears are supposed to be common around here, with warning signs all around, during the 3 days we were here, we didn’t see one – grrr.

Ok, ready to move on, the RV packed, the car hitched and the GPS set, unfortunately, the Driver in his wisdom, decided that the GPS route was 100 miles too long and he could see a quicker route on the map, over the mountains to our next destination, a town called Clearwater.

So off we went, on the ‘shorter’ route – what a mistake that was!!!!!

There were very long mountains to climb, very deep valleys to descend into, both of which made our poor RV rev and whine, but we needn’t have worried as the RV was well up to the job we gave it.

Although some of the bends we had to take and some of the very narrow roads we had to negotiate, meant that we only averaged about 25 mph for the first 150 miles or so.

So, all in all, the 100 mile longer trip would have been considerably shorter in time and fuel costs, if we had taken it – grrr.

But make it we did and pulled into another very nice RV Park, on the shores of Dutch Lake, with its crystal clear waters and nice views from our site

Now, why the title?

Well, the ‘Good’, was all the fantastic scenery, the atmosphere and the friendliness of the people we met in Whistler.

The ‘Bad’, was the crazy driving we had to do, up over the Rockies, because we knew ‘better’ that the GPS, where the hairy driving conditions, made the mountain driving we did around Yosemite and Sequoia in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, seem like a children’s playground.

What about ‘Ugly’?  – Well the ugly part, is when we got to Clearwater, although we had insect repellent on, we still got bitten to death with the pesky, ugly little critters!!

Still, all’s well that ends well and we didn’t actually get ‘bitten to death’, otherwise we wouldn’t be writing this blog!

Ok, that’s enough for now, more next time.

As Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash would say

“On the road again”

“Goin’ places that I’ve never been”

“Seein’ things that I may never see again”

“And I can’t wait to get on the road again”

Well, that’s us, after a very busy three weeks we are back in the RV and have just set up ‘home’ at Whistler in the Rocky Mountains.

“Don’t start there, they need to know where we have been for the last three weeks”, “I know, I know, I’m just getting to it”, “Shhh, I can hear someone is reading the blog, get on with it”, “Ok”

Right, we suppose we had better tell you what we have been up to for the last three weeks.

Well after just four days in Vancouver, Canada, we jumped on a plane – “We didn’t ‘jump’, we walked on”, “I know, ‘jumped’ is just a figure of speech”, “Grrr, go on then”.

Where were we, oh yes, we had just ‘jumped’ on the plane to fly to the UK and as soon as we took off, we made the ‘bed’ and settled down to try and sleep for most of the 9 ½ hour flight with only limited success – as usual!

When we arrive at Heathrow, our son Steve was there to pick us up and take us home – yippee!

There were several reasons why we wanted to go home, half way into our ‘big’ trip, first and foremost was to see all our family and secondly to celebrate (or drown our sorrows) a 70^th Birthday – ok, we know full well that in all our photos we don’t look at day over 69, but that’s because all our photos have been ‘photo shopped’

A few days at home running around seeing family and friends, then it was time for the 70^th Birthday Party, which started at 2:30pm, with drinks, then afternoon cream tea, then more drinks, music and dancing.

Around halfway through the evening our birthday boy succumbed to ‘Jet Lag’ (or drink!!!!!) and started to get very sleepy, so we made him comfortable and carried on with the party, as it seemed such a waste to stop too early.

The day after the Birthday, we set off back to London, to catch a flight to Venice for three days with our son Steve and his wife Louisa (it was a Xmas present from them last Xmas, that we were only just taking)

Fortunately, it is only a short 2 hour flight from London to Venice and we arrived at our hotel, after catching a water taxi from the airport straight to the hotel door, mid-afternoon and went straight out to explore the city and see if Italian Wine was as good as it is supposed to be – Hic.

After three fantastic days taking in the sights, sounds and atmosphere of this wonderful place, it was time to catch our water taxi from the hotel back to the airport for our flight back to London.

Then one more day at home before setting off again to Heathrow and the flight back to Vancouver, where we spent the night in a hotel, before driving back to the RV on the RV Park for a few days R&R, ready to continue on with our ‘big trip’

In all, on the couple of weeks since leaving Vancouver, we had flown 11,000 miles and done about 500 road miles, so we definitely needed the R&R!!

But of course, we couldn’t sit still for long and explored Vancouver and one of its suburbs called White Rock before setting off tomorrow to spend the Canadian 150^th anniversary weekend of the formation of Canada in a place called ‘Whistler’ – more on that in the next blog.

“Is the Whiskey and G&T poured yet?” “Yes, of course it is” “Yum, Yum”.

Wow, what a week this has been, what with negotiating the twists and turns of the journey out of the Sierra Nevada Mountains out of Yosemite, including several 6 mile drops, with the engine breaking going full belt and the equally long and arduous climbs out of the valleys.

After some 70/80 miles, we found ourselves back on the valley floor and turned North for the start of our 1000 mile journey to Canada.

Driving through beautiful fruit, nut and vineyards, that stretched for miles of the Northern Californian countryside.

Then just north of Sacramento, we came upon mile after mile of ‘flooded’ fields, that we could only assume were dedicated to Rice Paddies – not sure what else they could be?

Then, as we neared our destination for the day, the Mountain Gate RV Park, at, well, Mountain Gate, where else?

We came upon signs for the Whiskey Town Lake and excitement started to build.

In fact, tensions and excitement started to build so high with the RV driver, that the Navigator, had to keep reminding him, that there was a speed limit on the road!!!!!! And for goodness sake ‘slow down’!

After we had pulled into the RV park and set up, the Driver still could not settle and tossed and turned all night, to the point where he came close to getting a ‘Clip’, for all the tossing and turning he was doing.

Eventually morning arrived, well 6:00am did, and both parties decided that stopping in bed any longer, would not result in any more rest, so up we got!

After a gobbled breakfast, our intrepid RV trippers jumped into the car to set off for Whiskey Town Lake, where our Driver (or Hunter, you pick), hoped to fill a large quantity of plastic water bottles with the Whiskey from the Lake!!

Which was a surprise for the car driver (RV Navigator) as she didn’t realise he had brought the empty water bottles to fill !!!

Unfortunately, when we arrived at Whiskey Town Lake, we found that the Whiskey was diluted by the water in the lake, so much, it just tasted like Water – Grrrrr!

Not put off, we searched around and soon found signs to a ‘Whiskey Creek’ and a ‘Brandy Creek’, which we were sure that at least one of them was the source of the Whiskey for the Lake.

But once again WE (Royal We) were disappointed, to find that both the Whiskey Creek and the Brandy Creek only had water in them and our intrepid Driver/Hunter was almost inconsolable, until our Navigator/Gatherer suggested that we find a Liquor Store and buy a bottle of Whiskey, which buoyed up the spirits no end (excuse the pun)

Ok, the next day, off we went to continue our North Bound trip through Oregon, with once again, beautiful scenery all around us.

Logging is obviously a large industry around Oregon, as there was extensive deforestation all around us on some stretches of the road – hopefully, it is being done sustainably, with replanting taking place as the woods are cut down.

After a couple of days, we stopped at an RV Park, from where we could do a short drive to take our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, but the wind was blowing so hard and cold, that we changed our minds about dipping our toes in and just limited ourselves to walking the beach and enjoying the sight and sound of it!

With our tight schedule now, we had to press on and we passed through both Oregon and Washington States far too quickly, to really appreciate the diversity and beauty of them, instead of just a few days, we should have tried to alter our time schedule to spend a few weeks here.

Passing along the way the 45^th Parallel (see below)

But Canada beckoned and we had to be over the boarder by early June, so Northward and onward we kept going.

The traffic around Seattle was horrendous, but fortunately, most of it was going South and we were going North, but we still had a few delays.

Eventually, we pulled into our site for the night, Lake Pleasant RV Park, just 100 miles short of the Canadian Border, from where we planned an early start the following morning to cross the border.

Over the last few days, we had eaten all the Fruit, Veg and Meat and managed to drink all the ‘Booze’, apart from 6 bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale, from our extensive stocks, so we were fairly confident that we would cross the border without too much hassle.

The Canadian Border crossing went well, apart from the space to drive through, being about 2” wider than the RV, causing a holding of breath, as we eased our way from the Border Post, with a sigh of relief.

We pulled into the Pacific Border RV Park, rather early, as we had made good time and set up, ready for our trip in the car the next day, to spend a few days on Vancouver Island.

However, that night the heavens opened and it rained Cats and Dogs (well, not really, Cats and Dogs, that’s just an expression for rather heavy rain!!).

Looking at the weather forecast the next morning, we saw that this heavy rain was set to continue for a couple of days, so that put the kybosh on our Vancouver Island trip for now.

We decided to have a few days ‘Chilling’, especially as this RV Park has an Indoor Pool, Hot Spa and Sauna – Ahhhh.

Ok, that didn’t work out, after a day of being cooped up in the RV with the rain bucketing down, we decided that rain or no rain, we were going out, so we set off to discover what Vancouver had to offer.

Well, we were not disappointed as on street after street, we found Pubs and Liquor Stores all over the place!!

However we shouldn’t have been surprised, as when we looked at one of those tourist maps that cities place around, we found that we were in the ‘English Bay’ part of Vancouver!!

Then at the north end of the City, we found a place called Stanley Park, a 1000 acre of woodland and it was completely surrounded by the sea, with great views across the water on each side.

Right, let’s have a drop of that Whiskey (ok and Gin) we bought as a consolation!!!

 

Wow, what a couple of weeks this has been.

From the Mojave Desert to the wonders of Sequoia and Yosemite, from the Giant Redwoods to the Magnificent Waterfalls and the Mind Bogglingly Fantastic Landscapes.

“Bogglingly!, what the heck does that mean?” “Well, you can’t use it on its own, but it means Amazing or Fabulous”, “Well, why don’t you just say that then” “Now hang on a minute, without Millie to help, we have to use some fancy words to keep their interest” “Shhhh, I can hear someone reading the Blog, get back to it”, “Ok”

 Right, where were we, oh yes, talking about the fantastic stuff we have seen this last couple of weeks.

The Mojave Desert lands were pretty bleak

And it was during this part of the journey as we entered California, that we came across the requirement that as we were pulling a tow car, the maximum speed was 55mph – we didn’t realise that this was a California requirement, until we found that it was common everywhere (up to now)

As you can see from the pictures below, the roads around here were very crowded (ha, ha)

Once again, some of the driving was ‘pretty hairy’, when in an RV pulling a tow car.

Eventually we left the desert country behind us and as we went further west, we started to see miles and miles of Fruit Trees, Nut Trees and Grape Vines.

We had certainly reached the Californian Agricultural Region and turned north again into the Mountains of the Sierra Nevada and the Sequoia National Park, where we were hoping to get our first glimpse of the largest trees on earth – The Giant Sequoia Redwoods.

Well, we were not to be disappointed as the trees we saw were breath-taking in their magnificence (we were going to say ‘Mind Boggling’ again, but thought we had better not!!)

We even managed to get up close and personal to the biggest tree on the planet earth – the ‘General Sherman’, at 1,385 tons, 36.5 feet wide and 275 feet tall, it is the biggest tree in the world in volume!!!

It was staggeringly impressive and it wasn’t alone as it was surrounded by other Giant Sequoia’s all equally impressive.

The drive up to the Redwoods, once again, involved quite a lot of rather hairy driving, fortunately, not with the RV, but we did go from 500 feet at the RV park, to 7000 feet at the Redwood grove, it quite took your breath away, even without the stunning scenery.

One thing we forgot to mention, was that it was our 51^st Wedding Anniversary whilst we were in this neck of the woods, so naturally, we went to one of the many Winery’s in the area and had a few ‘samples’

Then it was the national Holiday weekend, so we kept out of the National Parks as we knew they would be overrun with tourists and went to an RV and Golf Resort from some ‘Rest and Recuperation’ for a couple of days.

Ok, the holiday weekend over, we hitched up and set off for Yosemite, once again driving up some pretty steep and winding roads with loads and loads of traffic leaving the park

and seeing some, absolutely stunning, scenery along the way

Eventually arriving at our RV park, Lemon Cove, near the west gate to Yosemite, from where we intended to set of exploring the National Park the following day.

Even though the holiday weekend was over, the park was still absolutely heaving with visitors, well yes, including us, but the crowds still didn’t stop us from seeing the stunning waterfalls and scenery that this park is world famous for.

,

Look very carefully at the picture below (at 7000ft!!!!) and you will (may) see a huge waterfall in the far distance

From the pictures, it is difficult to envisage the shear size, noise and impressiveness of the waterfalls, there were huge ones every way you turned, with great clouds of water vapour and steam rising many feet into the air.

To give you some idea of the size of these, this one below is 2,425 feet tall!!, or should we say ‘fall’

From there we went to the Merced Grove, where yet more Giant Redwoods ‘grow’ and then we intended to go on to Tuolumne Grove, where the biggest ones in the National Park are, but unfortunately, the road up there was still closed with Snow and this is at the end of May remember!

Still we managed to get a bit of Tree Hugging in!

There were some very interesting old towns in the area as well, which we did a bit of exploring in.

Right, tomorrow we drive the 70/80 miles out of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, down yet more of the twisting and winding roads and up and down very long and steep mountain roads with the RV, to get to the plains of the wine and fruit region of California, then we turn North, for the 1000 mile drive to the Canadian Border.

Once again, we didn’t spend anywhere near long enough in this neck of the woods, to see all the fantastic sights to be seen and it is just a pity, that we are not 20 years younger, to truly explore this countryside as it should be explored.

Is it 5 o’clock yet?

“London Bridge is Falling Down”

“Falling Down, Falling Down”

“London Bridge is falling Down”

“My Fair Lady”

This is an old English Nursery Rhyme, dating back to the Middle Ages – “Ok, So What”

“What has that got to do with our RV Trip”

“Well, nothing directly, but it’s a good start to this bit of the Blog”

“Oh, go on then, if you must!”

“Right, ok”.

When we decided that we were going to do an extended RV Trip of the Colonies, we contacted Buckingham Palace, to see if there was anything special, they wanted us to check, whilst we were over there?

They said, that if we were going anywhere near Arizona, then back in the 1960’s, some American, with more money than sense, had bought the Old London Bridge and transported it over there, to use it as a tourist attraction, because there was nothing else in his home town worth going to see!!!

So, if we were going to Arizona, could we pop over to where the bridge is, to see if it was being looked after?

Sure, we said, where is it?

To which, Her Majesties spoke-person said “We don’t know, but surely it won’t be that hard to find?”

So, that was the dilemma we found ourselves in – Her Majesty wanted us to do something, so we were duty bound to try and do it!!!!!!!

Well after a lot of searching around, we eventually found that the Old London Bridge, was being kept in a place called ‘Lake Havasu City’ and NO, we had never heard of it either!

But, Duty Bound, we diligently searched, Google, GPS and the Maps and found it!

Just about 20 miles off our intended route along I-40 – How’s that for a coincidence?

Not knowing just how big this place was, we pulled into a Filling Station with Truck Parking and unhitched the car, so that we could drive the 20 miles down to Lake Havasu and the 20 miles back in a smaller vehicle.

When we got there, we found that they had looked after it ‘fairly well’, they just had to do a few repairs to the sides, for damage caused when some Colonials, driving on the wrong side of the road, to what the bridge was used to, had hit the side barriers and gone over, into Lake Havasu – whoops!

So, fortunately for us, we were able, to report back to Her Majesty, that the Old London Bridge was being cared for and that it was indeed, proving to be a tourist attraction and bringing a little wealth into the area!!

The only real drawback we could find, was a shop advertising ‘English Fish and Chips’, but on sampling them for Lunch, we found that they were far below English Fish and Chip standard.

We had a word with the proprietor, who promised to improve his fare!

On a more serious note, a guy called Robert McCulloch, bought the bridge in 1967 to put it up as a tourist attraction, for a brand new, Retirement Town he was building, called Lake Havasu City, to give it some focus and what a clever move it was, as the bridge does indeed, bring in loads of tourists, who of course spend a lot of money in the area – clever guy!

Ok, back to the RV to finish todays journey to the Mojave National Preserve and the Needles KOA RV Park and on the way we pass from Arizona into California!!

Form this point on the trip, we will be angling north towards the Canadian Border!

“What time is it?” “About 5 o’clock somewhere” “Ok, Fill those glasses”, “Don’t worry, I have done it already”, “Yum, Yum”

“Why have you called this one that?” “Well, look what happened to us” “Yes, but there was a lot of other stuff as well” “Shhhh, someone is reading the Blog, so we had better get on and write it” “Oh, Ok”

Well, after a very Windy start to Arizona, we got up early the next morning to visit the site of the Meteor Crater, a ‘Mile Wide’ sized hole, where a Meteor hit Arizona 28,000 years ago “Hang on, Arizona, was only created in 1912, so how could it hit Arizona, 28,000 years ago?” – “Trust you to nit-pick”

Anyway, there is this big hole, quite interesting to see, but a bit hard to visualize what actually happened, unless you watch the very interesting video in the Visitor Centre

After the visit, which only took about an hour, we packed up the RV and set off further West across Arizona towards the Grand Canyon, our destination for the day.

Once again, a very windy day, with the RV taking up about 1 ½ lanes for most of the trip (just joking), with miles and miles of very high plateau, ranging from around 5,500ft to 7,500ft, so there was nothing to shield you from the winds.

About an hour out from our destination, the clouds started to build and we thought we were in for some heavy downfall of rain, but rather than rain, we ran into a Herd of Insects, they splattered all over the windscreen and we had to get the washers and wipers going to wash them off!!!

OK, ok, we know that you should call insects a Swarm, but there were just so many, calling it a swarm just didn’t sound big enough!

Once again, we think we crossed the Continental Divide, though this time it was called the Arizona Divide at an elevation of 7335ft, so we might be wrong and it could be something else.

Turning off the I-40 into a town called Williams, we turned into the ‘Grand Canyon Railway RV Park’, where we were stopping for a few nights.

From ‘Williams’, there is a passenger train that runs up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

So early the next (very cold) morning, we went across the station at 9:00am, to catch the train, but what should you find when you get there, but a bunch of Cowboys, who appear a bit drunk, arguing about something and of course, everyone stops to watch.

No sooner had we stopped, than our intrepid Hunter/RV Driver (known from now on as ‘Mug’), was grabbed at gunpoint, by a Cowboy and forced to join in a game of cards with them in front of a couple of hundred train passengers!

How embarrassing – then to cap it all, one of the Cowboys, pulled out his gun and shot one of the others – oh heck (now what)

Just then, on hearing the sound of gunfire, the Sherriff arrived and demanded to know what was going on, whereupon, the drunken Cowboys, pointed their fingers at ‘Mug’ and told the Sherriff that he had done it – ‘what!’

Fortunately, the Sherriff thought that they were telling Fibs (lies) and called them out, whereupon, during the shoot-out, the Sherriff shot the lot of them and let the ‘Mug’ go – phew!!!!! – What a lucky escape.

After that, we all boarded the train for a 2 ½ hour trip to the Grand Canyon, with Breakfast and soft drinks being served on board.

During the journey, we were entertained by Wandering Minstrels (Cowboys) who walked up and down the very, very long train singing Country and Western songs – brilliant!

Then off the train and onto our tour busses for a trip along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Picture from the tour bus window! 

The view across the canyon, just takes your breath away and the train and bus tour are a brilliant way to see it.

Ok, train trip, breakfast, lunch and bus tour over, we climb back on the train for our 2 hour (slightly faster) return journey, with once again, food and drink was provided on board!

This is when disaster struck – a group of Cowboy Train Robbers, came riding along the side the train, forcing the driver to stop at gun point and boarded the train, whereupon, they made their way along the train demanding money – well, what can you do, we reached into our pockets, drew out $2 ($1 each) and gave it to them, whereupon they moved down the carriage to the next victim.

We were so shaken by this experience, we had to have double the usual alcohol intake on getting back to the RV to calm our shaking (from laughing so much)

A brilliant day and one we would highly recommend to anyone travelling this way.

The next morning, we couldn’t believe our eyes – looking out the RV window, it looked like 3” of Snow had fallen – We thought it was supposed to be sunny in Arizona – How wrong can we be.

Fortunately, the Sun came out and the snow started melting pretty fast, so we did as planned and set off to explore a place called Walnut Canyon, where there were more Cliff Dwellings.

Right, that’s enough, its five o’clock somewhere and the Whiskey and Gin and Tonic are calling.

By for now!!

‘Yiiihaaa’ We’ve made it out of Texas, ‘Yiiihaa’

Well, we shouldn’t be cheering really, because we have had a great time here in the Lone Star State, but it is BIG!!

After 1000 miles in Texas, taking 9 days with 3 x 2 day and 1 x 3 day stops of exploring, we set off this morning to escape from the Lone Star State and travelled further West, along I-10 and into New Mexico.

New Mexico, the Enchanted Land, at least that’s what it says on Billboards all over the place, so we assume it must be true.

Hi Guys, what do you think to the new RV Wendy has found (picture below), all we need is a horse – Does anybody know who has a horse for sale????

Our target today, is a small RV Park, just North of Silver City called ‘Manzano’s’, which turned out to be run by a very nice couple, who had to come out in their car and guide us into their park, when the damn GPS turned us the wrong way and we got lost, only about ½ mile from their park!

Apparently, it is a regular problem with GPS systems trying to find their place.

Apart from this bit of a problem at the end, the day went quite well, the rain held off and the wind dropped and the road was very busy again, as you can see in the photos above and below – ha, ha.

Right, made it, set up the RV and opened a bottle – whoops – sorry, should have said, ‘made a cup of tea’ – honest.

We had quite a bit of driving facing us the next day in the car, so we had an early night.

Monday morning, we set off early to drive into the Gila Mountain National Preserve, it was quite a trek, but spectacular scenery, as we climbed up into the Mogollon Mountain Range and once again going over Continental Divide at 7080 feet.

 

There were warning signs all over about Wolfs and Cougars, but we didn’t see any!

Plus, there were even several warning signs around about this being Bear Country, but despite shouting “Yogi”, “Yogi”, several times, we didn’t see any of those either.

Forget what it says on the posters and remember the important number one rule when meeting a Bear – “It is important that you can run faster than any of your companions”

When we arrived at the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, we went into the Visitor Centre to get our tickets, then we had to sit through a (very interesting) 15-minute video about the history of the Cliff Dwellings, that apparently date back to about 1200 AD, when they were built and inhabited by the Mogollon Native American tribe – apparently, they can accurately carbon date the timber that was used during the construction.

Notice on the bottom of this sign, it says ‘Deposit Gum Here’, but we didn’t have any Gum, so we just ‘Spat’ anyway to keep the Warden happy!!!

It was quite a trek up into the canyon where the dwellings were and it was a blistering hot day to boot.

One poignant piece of information, we picked up at the Visitor Centre, was that the Native American Chief, Geronimo, was born near here and wanted to be buried near here when he died, but unfortunately, the authorities of the day would not let him travel back to the place of his birth.

On the trip, back out of the mountains we took a different route and passed Lake Roberts.

Which reminded us of something/someone, but we couldn’t for the life of us remember who, until we were sat with the G & T, later that evening and then we remembered it was Beau Roberts, back in our US hometown – ha, ha (private joke).

(Pssst, we could remember, but thought it would give us an excuse to have a drink)

The whole 7-hour trip was amongst some beautiful scenery and some stunning views and it wasn’t until we were sat at home (the RV), that evening, that we realised that we were at the very Southern Tip of the Rocky Mountains, a range that we will be spending a fair bit of time amongst on this trip.

That evening we went to a local Cowboy Steak House for Dinner – it was packed and many of the local guys wore their Cowboy hats whilst they were eating – the food was delicious and we even had a photo taken with ‘The Duke’

For younger readers, ‘The Duke’ is John Wayne, famous for his Cowboy roles in several films!

Tuesday morning saw us up bright and early, as we had a 300-mile trip, across New Mexico and into Arizona, little did we realise what a ‘hairy’ trip that was going to turn out to be.

The first 150 miles or so were very slow, but great, along a minor road that lead up into the mountains, with most of the journey at a maximum speed limit of 45 mph, but as you can see in the photos below, quite a lot of very hairy bend, climbs and drops, where the speed was reduced to 30 or 35 mph.

The Navigator gave a few squeaks and squeals as the Driver took a few bends a bit too fast or went a bit too close to the edge of some big drops, but nothing that a few Whisky’s and Gin & Tonics wouldn’t settle, when – whoops, should have said IF, we make it over the mountains – which we did, because we are writing this next bit of the blog!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost all the 300 miles, was at an elevation of between 5500 and 7500 feet and the poor old RV (well 3 years – is that old in RV lifetimes?), took it all in its stride, both up and down the mountains.

That’s when Disaster (tried to) struck!

As we entered Arizona, the wind increased and the rain started.

But it didn’t stay as rain for long – within a few minutes the rain had turned to SLEET – yes, that’s right, it had started to Blxxxx SNOW – Ouch, just had a Clip “Well you shouldn’t swear” “I didn’t swear, I was going to say BLIMEY” – honest!

Where were we, oh yes, the sleet/snow – we thought Arizona was supposed to be hot and sunny – not on our trip!

To make matters worse, the wind was blowing a Blxxxy Gale – ha, ha, “Missed” – just ducked and missed a clip from Her Ladyship!

The next 150 miles, were all out on exposed Plateau’s, all over 6000 feet and there was a very, very strong South Westerly Wind that rocked the RV all over the road, quite a hairy 4 hours, about as bad as the trip across Louisiana, that we told you about earlier.

Eventually, after a tiring (shoulders, back and hands gripping the steering wheel) day, we arrived at our destination – The Meteor Crater RV Park in Arizona – set up the RV and totally flacked out.

In fact, we are so shattered, we are thinking of cancelling our membership fees for the local GYM.

Why pay them, when we can just go an RV trip on a windy day? – Oh, whoops, just remembered, we don’t belong to any GYM, damn, we could have saved a fortune!

What started out as a great day (in New Mexico), turned into Blxxxy hard work (in Arizona) – “I’m not swearing” “Yes you are, stop it, or you will have a Clip” ”Okay”

Time to put the kettle on, for a well-earned cup of tea – or something WET.

More next time x

Ok, we’ve seen the Alamo, but anyone who has looked at a map of Texas, will see that, all across the south of the State, there are loads of places called ‘Fort something’  –  Fort Bend, Fort McKavett, Fort Lancaster, Fort Stockton, Fort Davis, Fort Hancock and Fort Bliss, to name just some those along the I – 10 Highway, the main route we followed across Texas.

So, we decided that the next couple of stops would be near to a ‘Fort’ something, so that we could see something more of the history of the area.

But, first we have to get there, so off we go again in the RV on endless miles of road, through interesting, but very similar miles of country – it must have been mind-numbing for those hardy immigrants who made this journey on wagons, doing maybe 30 miles a day and wondering, in this dry place, just where they were going to find next water source!!!!!

Just before reaching our day’s destination, a sharp cry was heard from the driver, the RV brakes came screeching on and the navigator started squealing and shouting “What’s Wrong? What’s Wrong?”, to which the driver pointed a shaky finger out through the RV window at a road sign, which said ‘Sheffield’ on it and said “Are we dreaming?” “Is this trip real?” “How come we have ended up back in England?”

 

Now for our American readers, we have to point out that ‘Sheffield’ is a world-famous city in Yorkshire, just 12 miles north of where our RV couple live and where the best Steel and Cutlery in the World is made!

“There, there, it’s not a dream, they have just copied the name, so don’t worry” said the Navigator, as she stroked the Driver’s head to calm him down.

So, once his nerves had settled and his hands had stopped shaking, we set off with the RV again, still heading West.

Eventually, we arrived at Fort Stockton, about half way between San Antonio and El Paso, where we intended to stay for a couple of days to explore the area.

Pulling onto Fort Stockton RV Park, early in the afternoon on a windy and blistering hot day, we set about setting up camp – well, we parked up the RV, slid the Slides out and switched the AC on and decided that a couple of ‘Shandy’s’ (Beer and Sprite for our US friends) would go down well, as we had had enough driving for one day and would start to explore the Historical Fort Stockton area the next day.

 

Bright and early the next morning (well about 10:00), we set off ‘downtown’ to the Historical District and what is left of the old Historical Fort Stockton, which is about half of it.

On the way there, as we went into the town, is the largest ‘Road Runner’ that there is in the world (at least that is what Fort Stockton tourist information claim) so naturally we stopped for a photo!

Then we saw this one in the Tourist Office – brilliant

 

Anyway, back to the story – Fort Stockton, dates back to the middle of the 1800’s and featured in both the Civil War and the Indian Wars that took place around here, as well as a safe stopping off place for west bound immigrants.

One of its chief claims to fame, is being the home of the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ for a few years, a regiment of Afro-American soldiers, who made quite a name for themselves in both the American Civil War and the Indian Wars.

After we had left the Old Fort, we drove around the town looking at other interesting places and what should we find, but what is probably, the best, the finest, shop in the world.

It was a ‘Drive Through’, yes that’s right, a ‘Drive Through’ Liquor store.

 

Which had this sign outside as you drove into the store – wow!

By mid-afternoon we were starting to flag, the temperature was climbing and a long cool (No, not cold!) drink was beckoning, so we set off back to the RV and it’s AC cooled interior!

The next morning, we set off again, another 250 miles or so across Texas and as you can see from the photos below, the road was very busy – ha, ha,

We were heading to a State Park, just north of Fort Hancock, called Hueco Tanks State Historic Site and what a treasure it turned out to be.

 

After a rather lengthy signing in process – (they only let a maximum of 60 people per day in), everyone has to watch a (very interesting) ‘Interpretive’ Video, that talks about the history of the place, its importance and its fragility.

It’s a very rocky area, consisting of Granite Hills that were pushed up 34 million years ago, or so the experts say and it has been a valuable source of scarce water for thousands of years, hence attracting generations of Native American Tribes, who have left their mark with Rock Carvings and Paintings – that are just incredible to see!!!!!!!!

Because of its extreme importance, as a watering place, in an otherwise very dry land, it become a place of spiritual significance to the local Native American tribes, including the Kiowa, Mescalero Apache and Tigua tribes, who still inhabited this area and that significance continues to this day.

Early the next day, we set off to explore the area.

As we were on a ‘Self Guided’ tour, there were some of the site that we were not allowed access to, but there was plenty to see without venturing there.

Sadly, several idiots have damaged some of the carvings, by carving their names and dates right across some of them, instead of putting them somewhere else (if they had to do it at all)

It was a blistering hot morning and climbing up and down the granite cliffs certainly made the heart bump and the breath short!!!

See if you can see us in the two photos below!

 

(a clue, one of us is at the top of a mountain and the other one is at the bottom of one, although we did both scrabble up and down the granite until we were both na—, ouch, just had a ‘clip’ – was going to say tired – honest!)

We would certainly recommend anyone in West Texas to visit this place, it is phenomenal.

For the first time, we spotted some real live Road Runners and they are just like we imagined them to be, scooting along the road or across it, legs going 10 to the dozen (very fast)

 

Ok, we admit it, that very large one that we saw at Fort Stockton, was just a statue!

Right, its 5 o’clock somewhere, time for a Whisky, we fancied a Gin, but the bottle we bought a few days ago is empty – expect we must have spilt it – ha, ha.

Phew, at last our holiday has started.

After a pretty good 300-mile journey across the Lone Star State, we pulled in, in the early afternoon, into the San Antonio KOA and we almost burst into song again (yes we expect you know the one), but thought that we had better wait and see what the RV park was like first.

We needn’t have worried, from the very friendly staff to the interesting and friendly RV neighbours, it proved to be a great place to stay.

After setting up, we settled down in the shade of the RV awning to sample a bottle of wine – ok, we admit it, we buy the wine by the box, but not because we drink a lot, no, it’s to save the environment and minimize the number of bottles that would have to be thrown away – honest!!

However, we do buy Whiskey, Gin and Beer by the bottle, so we do pollute the world a bit – Mmmm (we will have to see if we can get them in crates or boxes as well – yum yum!)

Well the next morning we set off to explore San Antonio and the first surprise was that a ‘free’ bus stopped just opposite the RV Park – brilliant!

Jumping off the bus right in the centre of San Antonio, we made our way down to the River Walk, to walk along it to see the Alamo and what a nice surprise that walk turned out to be.

 The River Walk is a narrow river that runs throughout the centre of San Antonio and it is lined with Bars and Restaurants, with Wondering Musicians strolling up and down, playing to anyone who will slip them a few dollars!

The atmosphere and the ambience was brilliant and we would strongly recommend anyone in the vicinity of San Antonio to pay it a visit for Lunch or Dinner, or just to soak up the atmosphere and have a drink.

 

Eventually, after going the wrong way on the River Walk a few times, we found ourselves at the world famous Alamo Mission and Fort.

Fortunately, quite a lot of the old buildings have been saved and some rebuilt, so that a real feel for what the place must have been like in 1836 at the Battle of the Alamo can be felt.

To be at the real Alamo of Davey Crockett and Jim Bowie fame was brilliant.

Looking at the list of (American) men that fell at the Alamo, it was interesting to see how many of the them originated from Europe, so they were obviously ‘new’ immigrants to the newly formed USA and yet, willing to put their lives at risk to support the formation of the new state of Texas – and sadly, for many, losing that life at the Battle of the Alamo!

Sadly, we couldn’t see the names of the Mexican troops who also lost their lives at the Battle of the Alamo, which is a shame, as they would also be young men leaving their families behind too.

After two days at San Antonio, which we really enjoyed, we set off further West, across Texas, to a place called Junction, which is a small town on the Llano River, in fact at the junction where the North, South and Main branches of the Llano River join.

On the drive between San Antonio and Junction, we saw numerous bodies of Deer at the side of the road, more than we had seen, on the whole of the rest of the trip to date and whilst it was sad to see so much road kill, it was nevertheless an indication that the Deer population must be very numerous and therefore doing well.

We found out later that Junction is apparently popular hunting country with around 45 deer per square mile!

By the time we got to Junction, we had driven over 450 miles in Texas and we were not yet anywhere near half way across the Lone Star State.

The RV park we stopped at was called Junction North Llano River RV Park and once again we would recommend it – nice site, nice people.

This section of the drive, once again reinforced our awe at the sheer size of this country and at how little of it we will see, even on a trip of this size.

The vast majority, of our RV stops are for 2, 3 or 4 nights, so that we can jump in the car and explore our surroundings, otherwise, all you see are mile upon mile upon mile of vast swaths of countryside, which while interesting, looks pretty much the same after you have looked at it for a hundred miles or more.

Right, its 5 o’clock somewhere, time to wet our whistles – i.e. have a drink hic!

Will talk again soon.

Donner und Blitzen!

No, no, no, not Santa’s Reindeer – but the literal translation.

Let’s see if this helps;

“The Lightening Flashed, the Thunder Roared and all the World was Shaken”

“The Little Pig curled up his Tail and ran to save his Bacon”

Get it now?

Yes, the Thunder and Lightning that started on the way to and from New Orleans, just got worse and worse and worse and the rain that came crashing down with it was like being under a waterfall!

It sat over the top of us until 4:00am, when it settled bit and the rain eased off.

By that time, all the Electrical Power and the Mains Water throughout the RV site was off, which didn’t matter to us, as we had plenty of battery power and an onboard generator if we needed it and we always keep our fresh water tank half full, which lasts us for two full days at full usage.

So, with light rain and heavy clouds, we loaded up and set off on the next part of our trip, across Louisiana to the Texas town of Beaumont, about 300 miles away – little did we realise when we set off, what an eventful journey it would be!

That morning, there was still a very strong South Westerly wind blowing that buffeted the RV from side to side almost the whole journey and as we travelled across Louisiana, we crossed mile upon mile upon mile of concrete slab road, which was like driving on a corrugated sheet, shaking both the RV and us for at least 150 of the 300 mile trip  –  Ahhhhhhhhh.

With all the rain that had fallen, the State of Louisiana was very badly flooded, with houses and vehicles under water and herds of cattle stood in fields of water.

As we got further west, the clouds cleared, the sun came out and the winds died down (a little) and the roads on the west of Louisiana and going into Texas were fine, so we settled down to try and enjoy the countryside and the scenery.

However, we were very relieved to be pulling into the RV Park (the Gulf Coast RV Resort), in the early afternoon and we burst into song  –  you know the one, go on, you sing it.

“Zipperdy do da, zipperdy ahh, my, my, my, what a wonderful day, plenty of sunshine coming my way, zipperdy do da, zipperdy ahh!”

Well done! That sounded pretty good.

Usually we sing that song three or four times, but this time we didn’t, as we were getting some funny looks from the other RV campers, in fact they didn’t look a very happy bunch  –  We were soon to find out why!

We went into the office, paid the money and they directed us to our site (for two nights), but as we were setting up, it became apparent that ‘our’ site, near the front of the park was very noisy from the I-10 interstate road.

So, we went back to the office and asked to be moved further into the park, away from the traffic noise.

They moved us to a site right at the back of the site, which we found out very quickly was just a hedge away from another damn road, which was just as bad – Grrrrr

So instead of staying two nights that we had planned, after yet another bad night due to noise (that’s 1 from Thunder and 1 from Traffic), we packed up and left the next morning to drive another 300 miles into Texas and are we glad we did, because the next few days were really great.

You will have to wait for us to tell you more about it in the next blog!!!!

We’re off again!!

Well we set off on Sunday the 30^th April for our ‘big’ RV trip – Six months, covering about 17 US States, 6 Canadian Provinces and two trips back home to the UK for two weeks each – The first for a 70^th Birthday Celebration on the 19^th June (for Luna) and the second for a 1^st Birthday celebration on the 28^th September (for Andy).

Phew!

Did anyone spot the deliberate mistake in the paragraph above?

Shhhhh  –  Don’t tell anyone, but Wendy does sometimes say that Andy acts like a one year old!

We set off at 10:30am and Disaster almost struck at 10:35!!

An idiot driving along the road almost wiped us off as we pulled off the estate road (for our US friends – pulling out of Eastfield Path onto Pinellas) – they didn’t slow down as they saw us pulling out and swerved around us at about 50 mph, nearly hitting a car coming the other way.

Not a great start to the trip!

With just one stop for lunch, we arrived at our first site which was the Tallahassee RV Park around 2:40 – a nice steady first day.

BUT Disaster struck yet again!!!!!

As we settled down to a nice Whisky with Dry Ginger Ale and a Gin and Tonic with a slice of lemon – what should we find, but that we had forgotten to pack the Whisky and Gin – Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Could thing possibly get any worse – well yes they could!!

As we had no Whisky and Gin, we settled down to a glass of wine – Ahhhhh Bliss.

Taking one sip each and saying Cheers, we put the full wine glasses on the coffee table (low table) and sat back, then the Hunter decided to put his feet up and proceeded to kick both full glasses of wine over on the new rug (carpet) – ho no, spilling them over the Gatherer, who jumped to her feet squealing and shouting.

Ok, on the bright side, that was three catastrophes, so we should be ok now (fingers crossed).

During the night, the heavens opened and it rained cats and dogs (for our US friends, that means ‘rather a lot’) but we were snug in bed and after a few glasses of wine, we didn’t give a damn!

The next morning was rather cloudy, but not raining and we packed up and set off about 9:20.

Rather a windy day, with the RV swaying a bit and then some heavy rains, but nothing we couldn’t cope with, so after a couple of rest stops, we arrived at the second night’s site, Eagles Landing near Fort Walton at 1:50 – two very easy driving days to get us back in the swing of RV traveling.

Both the first two sites were fine, a little bit of traffic noise, but after a few glasses of wine, not enough to keep you awake!

The second morning, it was bright and sunny, the usual Florida weather (although we were now in Louisiana) – we set off about 8:40, having passed into Central Time Zone and passed through the rest of Florida, then through Alabama and then through Mississippi and into Louisiana.

We were going to stay just north of New Orleans at the Pine Crest RV park – it was very full and both the only two places they had left were a bit tight, but in we went – set everything up and set off to find the nearest store that sold Whiskey and Gin – found a shop just down the road and stocked up, now we can relax!!!!

We are looking forward to tomorrow, as it will be our first ‘proper’ holiday day, without moving the RV.

(Little did we know)

The morning was nice and warm, without being too hot and a little cloudy, so we took the bikes off the car and set off for the day in New Orleans, just a few miles down the road.

As we drove, the day got a little cloudier and as we got into the outskirts of New Orleans, the Thunder started along with some quite impressive Lightning Strikes – whoops, what sort of day do we have facing us?

By the time we had parked the car ($15) and started to explore the French Quarter, it had started raining – heavy, on and off and getting heavier and heavier – still we stuck it out for about three hours and had a look around the place, but at 1 o’clock, we decided, enough was enough and set off back to the car, getting drenched on the way

The ride back to the RV was horrendous, none stop thunder and lightning and torrential rain – still when we got back to the RV our troubles would be over and we could put our feet up – wrong again!

Before we set off in this morning, we opened the three roof vents, to let out the hot air from the RV during the day – wise move – no – under each roof vent, was a small pool of water – grrrr – which had to be mopped up before having a stiff Whiskey and a G & T and finishing the writing of this entry to the blog.

The only worry we have, as it is thundering and raining so heavy, is that you can hear what we are writing, we can hardy hear ourselves write it’s so loud!!!!

More soon.

 

Well, we have made it there and then we made it back!

We have made Millie’s prediction come true and been down to the ‘Keys’ for a week, but we can’t promise to match Millie’s oratory skills, so please bear with us.

Setting off last Wednesday (8th March), we drove the 300 miles to the Larry & Penny Thompson Campground, just south of Miami for a couple of nights, before venturing further South down the ‘Keys’.

Of course, it wouldn’t be us if some mishaps didn’t occur, well after booking in and unhitching the tow car, we found that it wouldn’t start – Ahhhhh!

The hunter one of the pair, had only left the ignition switch too far on, when he set the car into neutral before setting off and as it was a very cloudy day and we travelled with the lights on, it only flattened the battery – Grrr.

However, a kind fellow camper kindly pulled their car close and we applied the jump leads and away she went – phew.

Just after the site office closed, who should arrive on our camp site with their RV, was Jimbo, Cathy and Trouper, what a surprise! (you may remember them from earlier blogs).

Just kidding, we knew they were coming.

So we all set up camp and opened a bottle (or two) and awaited our next guests, Ed & Jan, arriving from England at Miami Airport about 5:30pm.

However, 5:30 came and went and so did 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30!

Panic was setting in, then at 10 ish, the message came that they had landed – good, see them soon – like heck!

After delays on immigration, followed by 1:30 hours in a queue (line in US talk) for their hire car, they finally got on the road and we notified the camp site security that they were coming.

They finally arrived at the camp site around 1:20 am!!!!!!!! – it’s a secret how much we had to drink whilst we were worrying over the extended wait period, so don’t ask!

The next day was hot and sunny and Ed took off back to Miami to show Jan the sights of South Beach.

It was her first time in the US so everything was new.

The four of us left, went to the Miami Zoo, which literally backed onto the 275 acre camp site we were on.

It was blistering hot walking round and with the very poor signage and Jimbo’s ability to keep getting lost, we ended up walking miles and miles round and round the Zoo.

We even went on a ride around the zoo on the monorail for a rest, but that was disappointing because you could see very little other than trees and bushes, which had obviously grown considerably sign the monorail was built.

Overall, we thought the zoo a little tired, just like us!!, but we still had a good day out with good friends and enjoyed ourselves.

Off the next morning for a short 125 mile trip down to Cudjoe Key and the ‘Venture Out’ Camp site with Jimbo and Cathy, whilst Ed and Jan went their own way to explore the Keys.

As usual, we had some fantastic sights as we drove over the causeways and down the length of the ‘Keys’ and finally we arrived at Mile Marker 23 and turned left down to the RV site.

Some very nice views out to sea from the site, but the lots were rather small and tight for a large rig so we will stop somewhere else if we come down here again.

Had a steady day then the following day we took off for Key West to see the ‘sights’ and to watch the sun set in Mallory Square.

Looking around for somewhere not too crowded to chill with a drink and an evening meal, we moved over a block from Duval Street where we found a truly fantastic Italian Restaurant, called Bruschetta, the food, the ambiance, the prices and the staff were all just brilliant – we definitely would recommend it.

Another couple of steady days and local sight seeing, then as the weather had started to worsen, we decided to set off for home.

We thought we would try and do the 420 miles in one go, the longest travelling day we had done to date, so we were interested to see how it would go.

Well, it went well and eight hours later, we pulled onto our drive and went Phew!!!!!!!!, then seconds later Brrrr, as a cold snap (well Florida cold) had set in and we almost had to resort to wearing long trousers, almost!

We enjoyed the trip and although we didn’t have Millie to keep us on the straight and narrow, we managed the trip without any real mishaps apart from the flat battery incident!!

A months rest to give time for the weather to improve around the USA, then we are off on our ‘Big’ tour  around the US and Canada.

Talk again soon.

Sadly our little girl dog Millie passed away on the 27th April 2015, just a month after posting her last ‘blog’, warning all that she thought her Mum & Dad were planning another RV trip, but somehow going away in our RV just hasn’t been the same since losing Millie, so over the last couple of years we just haven’t felt like going far.

However, we have now decided to make Millie’s prediction come true this year and we are setting off for a week in Miami and the Keys in a couple of weeks and after that, embarking on a very big trip across the USA going West, then returning via Canada, crossing Canada going East.

We will keep you all posted.

Andy & Wendy

 

Hi Guys,

It’s me, Millie.

I think Mum & Dad are planning another RV trip as they had that big map book they use out last night and we have been up to the RV a couple of times recently to take things up!

When I squeaked and asked them, all they did was rub my belly, but I think they were just trying to distract me, mind you it worked, as I like having my belly rubbed.

Where was I?

Oh yes, so watch this space.

Shhhhh, got to go they are coming and I don’t want them to see me on the computer, talk soon!

Your friend Millie xx

Hi Guys, it’s me again, Millie.

“No, Millie, budge over, we are doing this one”.   –    “Squeak squeak squeak”

“Yes we are, it will be full of facts and figures and you will only have to ask us about the facts anyway, now budge over”.   –    “Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak”

“Well ok, but the last sentence only – right?”.   –    “Squeak”

What a performance that was, getting Millie to let go of the computer so we could do the last bit of this trips blog and we still had to promise her that she could do the last sentence  –  kids! who would have them?

We left Magician Lake, Michigan and our friends Mike and Gayle and set off on the 1100 mile trip south to where we had set off from.

“Squeak squeak”.   –    “Yes and Beau, we haven’t forgotten him”!

Once we left Mike and Gayle, we decided to head straight for our base in Florida, without any deviations, a trip of just over 1100 miles and we intended to do it in 4 days, getting us back in Florida by just after lunch time on the last day.

The first night we stopped at an RV Park in Columbus, Indiana and during the way down we hit some of the heaviest traffic of the whole journey, especially around Nashville and then again in Atlanta.

.

We stopped the second night in Nashville, Tennessee and went to a Country Music Concert in the Grand Old Oprey theatre – great show, just spoilt a bit by damned adverts during the show, because it was going out live on the radio and TV!!!

.

But it was a brilliant show nevertheless and we were glad we decided to do this route and make this particular night out.

.

The scenery on the journey down through Kentucky and Tennessee was stunning (again), with rolling, heavily wooded hills, lakes and rivers.

.  

The third night was spent at an RV Park in Macon, Georgia, before heading out and arriving in Florida just after lunchtime on Day 4  —  Made it! .

By the time we got back we had visited 20 states, 4 of them twice as we drove around, we have done 6231 miles in the RV and 3204 in the car in 61 days, that’s 9435 miles, an average of about 155 miles every day!

We have used 1377 gallons of petrol (Gas in US talk) which works out at about 6.85 miles per gallon!

No, you don’t want to know the cost!

But we have really enjoyed it and would recommend it, or a similar trip to anyone who would like to explore the mid-west of the USA.

Have we seen everything on the route of the trip?

Hell no, we have just scratched the surface of states that we visited in this huge country, we could have spent a month in each state at least and then probably not seen it all.

So now we have to start planning the next trip so that we can see some more, but knowing our hunger for seeing new places and things, no doubt it will be a different route entirely.

We will let you know in the next blog!

“Squeak”.   –    “No, not yet, don’t be impatient, we have nearly finished”

We thank you for reading about our RV journey, we hope that you got as much enjoyment out of reading it as we got out of writing it.

“Squeak”.   –    “Oh, go on then, you do the last sentence”

“Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak” – Millie x

“But Millie, no one will understand it if it is all in squeak talk!”

“All my 4 legged friends will and Uncle Rusty, Uncle Steve, Uncle Mike, Auntie Jenny, Auntie Janice, Auntie Gayle, Auntie Sue, Uncle Ed, Auntie Eileen, Auntie Jen and Cousins Carly, Jessica, Sam, Josh, Louis, Polly will, as I have trained them all in squeak talk as well over the years. –  they can’t baby sit me without it!”

“Oh, ok”.   –    “Squeak”

Until the next time, your friend Millie x

 

 

Hi Guys, it’s me again, Millie;

Well I told you Mum and Dad promised me a surprise in Michigan, but you would never believe what it was, although I suppose you will believe it when I tell you.

Where was I? – Oh yes, doing the next blog;

First things first, this is Dad in his new ‘suit’ for doing the Sewer, he got it from Uncle Rick, don’t you think he looks quite smart (it is even the right colour)?

Anyway, as I said in the last blog, we set off half asleep from that noisy Truck Stop and kept going East (so Dad said, I haven’t got a clue which way it is) towards this place, or this thing, called Michigan.

The closer we got, the more I was slavering, just waiting to see what my surprise was going to taste like!

After just a fairly short drive of a few hours we drove up this hill and I could see some people jumping up and down and waving their hands in the air and I thought “who are these crazy people looking all excited”.

Well you wouldn’t believe me if I told you – but I suppose I better had or you won’t know, will you?

It was my friend Beau’s Mum and Dad, but no Beau – “where is he” I squeaked, but both Beau’s Mum and Dad and my Mum and Dad were all hugging and talking, nobody heard me for ages.

Then Auntie Gayle spoke to me and told me that Beau was waiting at home and it was a surprise for him too, as he didn’t know I was coming.

Wait a minute! – Wait a minute! – Was this the surprise that Mum and Dad had promised me?

Oh well, even if it wasn’t something to eat (my favorite surprise), then seeing Beau will be almost as good.

I jumped into Auntie Gayle’s car, under her feet like I do with Mum and I wasn’t getting out for anything and I knew Mum and Dad would follow me, because they wouldn’t want to lose me even with Auntie Gayle!

Mum and Dad and our RV followed Uncle Mike and Auntie Gayle’s car down some little lanes, into some woods with big trees and ended up parking right on the shore of this ‘huge’ lake – Mum said it was called Magician Lake and that Beau had a house there right on the shore.

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Then we went around to Beau’s house and there he was, barking and making such a fuss, you would think he hadn’t seen me for years, when it was only (whisper “Mum, how long has it been? – oh, just 9 weeks!”), 9 weeks since we last saw him.

He went running around barking and telling me all the things he had been up to since we met.

All the fun he had been having around the house and in and out of the lake, we need to bring the gang here so that we can all join in.

When we get back home, I am going to tell Trouper, Gracie (and even Annabelle), Sweetie, Rosie, Remy, Bubba, Poppy, Layla and Babes to come with me and Beau to play at the lake.

Just then Beau’s next door neighbour Dillon came out barking and so I made another friend, right there in front of Beau’s house.

Beau and Dillon might be brothers, although Dillon is smaller than me but just as cute as Beau and Me, we are like the three Musketeers (don’t ask me what they are, it was a suggestion from Mum!).

It is quite tiring with Beau and Dillon as they are both young and want to play all the time, but when I have had enough, I just chill and watch them or even sometime, have a snooze and leave them to it.

Where was I? – Oh yes writing the next blog.

After we had got settled in and had a look around Beau’s house, Beau suggested we could go for a ride around the lake in his boat, he said he lets his Dad drive it and he just supervises, so we all piled on board and off we went.

Beau said that i could skipper a bit (I didn’t know what that meant so I asked Dad, he said ‘be in charge’), I liked the sound of that so I said to Beau, OK!

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Beau’s Dad is quite a good driver and we didn’t bump into any other boats the whole trip around the lake and I think my Mum and Dad were happy with the way Beau had trained him because they seemed very relaxed.

Auntie Gayle pointed out Beau’s house from out on the lake and it looked very nice, just big enough for everyone to have some room to play.

That night, after Mum and Dad had got a bit merry with the type of water they were drinking, they joined Beau’s Mum and Dad for a game of Mexican Train – no please don’t ask me I have no idea what it is.

My Mum and Dad have played it before with Uncle Bob and Auntie Cathy (Troupers Mum and Dad), somewhere else on the RV trip and they said they, Trouper and Auntie Cathy, had to keep an eye on Uncle Bob because he made up new rules all the time!

Dillon let his Mum and Dad, Uncle Tom and Auntie Mary come around to play as well, but Dillon, me and Beau just had a snooze whilst they got on with it.

That afternoon, Mum had made an Apple Pie for Uncle Mike, but when they shared it out, me and Beau got left out – Grrr!

So, to get our own back, as it was close to my bedtime I started squeaking to remind them and a few minutes later they packed up playing and we set off home – I’ll show them, not giving me and Beau a piece of pie!

Psst – I used the same squeak I have used with Uncle Rusty and Auntie Janice, it works every time.

The next day Dad asked me if I wanted to go with them to play golf, “not likely” I squeaked, I would rather stay with Beau.

‘Sorry to butt in Millie, but the game was ‘Wack-a-Ball’ for me and your Mum, only Uncle Mike and Auntie Gayle were good enough to call it golf – back to you Millie’

Dad interrupted there;

Where was I? – Oh yes, doing the blog.

Well when they came back from golf, Uncle Mike introduced Dad to a fast little boat called a ‘Jet Ski’ and off he went wobbling all around the lake, looking like a drunken sailor, me and Mum were so embarrassed!

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 The next day there was a bit of a panic on – not sure why, but Dad was going on about the sewer thing again, I just hope he isn’t going to get covered by that stuff again, however much I love him, there is only so much one can take!

So we packed up again and moved down the road to an RV site and Dad emptied the Sewer again, this time without bathing in it.

Then we piled into Uncle Mike’s car to go to somewhere called Lake Michigan (that confused me a bit as I thought that is where we were already?), Beau didn’t want to come as he had been before, so he lay down for a snooze and off we went.

It was rather hot, so I jumped into my stroller and Dad wheeled me up and down the beach on the side of Lake Michigan – it made him blow a bit – I think he wants to get more exercise!

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Then we went to a little harbour town called Saugatuck and me, Uncle Mike and Dad had a minute, whilst Auntie Gayle and Mum did a bit of tourist shopping!

Dad said that this was his favourite way to shop;

Then we went for a meal and I shared Mum and Dad’s Chicken – it was nice but didn’t agree with me and I had no choice but to sick it up!

Oh well, if it is not right, why keep it down I say.

Back to Beau and then off home with Mum and Dad, a great day!

A golf day planned again today and I have just found out what it is.

When Humans play golf, or ‘Whack-a-Ball’ as Mum and Dad call it, they use a metal stick to hit a little ball a long way away, then they walk after it and hit it again, then they walk after it again and keep doing it until they knock it down a little hole somewhere, then they pick it out of the hole and do it all over again!!!!!!!!!

If I live to be twenty, I will never understand just how daft Humans really are, can you imagine any Dog being daft enough to play golf, no, I can’t either”.

Thank goodness they didn’t insist on me and Beau going with them, we stayed at the house and had a snooze, really great with the cool breeze blowing off the lake – ahhh, this is the life!

When they got back it was out on the boat again and Beau let Uncle Mike drive again.

 

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Supervising and cooling off;

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I think he must bribe Beau with treats or something because he lets him drive the boat  quite a lot.

Well that was it, the next day we set off somewhere else – not sure where yet I will have to ask Mum and Dad although we are all going to miss Beau and his Mum and Dad, oh and the lake, oh and Dillon, oh and I wonder if we will see Trouper on the next bit of the trip, oh and …… !

I was worrying about when I was going to see Beau and Dillon again, but Mum said we would be seeing Beau in a couple of weeks and Dillon in a couple of months, when he brings his Mum and Dad down to Florida for a holiday.

So bye for now,

Your friend Millie x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Guys, it’s me, Millie.

After driving for miles on quite empty roads we got here to this Salem place and I couldn’t see a Witch anywhere.

Well to be fair I am not sure what Witches look like, although I did have a good look around, but I couldn’t see anything that I thought might be one.

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After we set up the RV, Mum and Dad took me for a walk around the RV Park and although they didn’t say anything, I think Mum and Dad were looking for Witches too, but nothing was said so I don’t suppose they saw any either.

The next morning we all jumped into the car (well to be fair, I am the only one that jumped, Mum and Dad have long legs and they can just sit down in it) and set off to explore.

We went into a place called Sioux Falls, I thought somebody called Sue had fallen there (I hope it wasn’t my Auntie Sue), but Dad said no, these were famous water falls there that we were going to see – oh ok, I can’t know everything.

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We walked around the falls, which were impressive, even to me and even with my bad hearing they were noisy!

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Then it was back into Salem (probably looking for witches again) into the little town to a Farmers Market, well, all I can say is that the farmers around here are not too good because it was very small, but still it was big enough for Mum to buy a few things.

It was just a short stop here (just to see the Witches I think) as we were on our way east to a place called Michigan, where Mum and Dad said I would be having a nice surprise – yummy, I like surprises as they usually taste really good!

So the next morning we set off again and for a change and for only the second time on the whole trip, Mum and Dad had not booked us an RV site ahead.

It was quite a long drive and we were all tired when Dad pulled off the road into an RV site and said “we are here”.

But he was wrong, the site had no room! – “not to worry” he said, we will try another, well after a short drive, we pulled into another – same story, there was no room!

No problem, Mum and Dad got out the computer and found another one, which they rang and the site said “yes we have room” – yippee, I’ve had enough of driving for one day.

So off we went, we seemed to be driving for ages, but Mum said it was only about an hour.

Well when we got there, it looked a proper dump, but we pulled in anyway.

The RV’s and Trailers that were parked there were dirty and dropping to pieces and looked as if they had been there forever.

Whilst Dad went to pay, Mum was muttering to me that she “didn’t like the look of this place”, but it was late and when he came out of the office Dad said it was only for one night and anyway the Sewer (whatever that is) needed emptying.

So we paid up and pulled in, which is when disaster struck  —  Yuk!

Dad had set up to empty the sewer and as he took off the lid, the messy smelly stuff came out and went all over him before he could close the valve – even I thought it was rather a smelly mess and I usually sniff these things.

Well Dad was covered in it (at least that is how he described it, Mum said “don’t be a baby, there is only a bit on you”),  it was just on both his feet, his left leg, down both of his arms and down the side of his face, the rest of him was quite clean really, but he does like to make a fuss.

Well me and Mum hosed him down, using my shampoo, which Mum had in her hand all ready to give me a shower, I thought, goodie, I have got out of having my shower.

Picture of Dad ‘covered’ with the smelly poo!

(Censored)

Whilst we were hosing Dad down, we were trying not to laugh as we did it and we kept going until eventually he was fairly clean and tough guy that he is, as soon as most of it was off him, he carried on emptying the sewer – muttering and chuntering away.

When that was done, he took all his clothes off and went straight in the shower and me an Mum sat smiling to ourselves listening to him cursing and muttering to himself as he washed all over!

Then Mum took me outside to my shower kit and I had to have my shower as well, I will say this, I don’t like showers as much as Mum and Dad do, but Mum said I smelt doggie, but what’s wrong with that? I am a Doggie (I think!), anyway I did feel a bit better after my shower (but I would never admit that to Mum and Dad as they might give me more of them!)

When Dad came out of the shower, he and Mum looked at each other and without another word, they started to pack the RV away, I thought “what’s happening?”, then I realised, they weren’t staying here, although it was late we were moving on.

Dad said to Mum that we would find a Walmart and stop there, so we drove around and around and around and around looking for a Walmart.

Well you can never find one when you want one can you? – But we did eventually and Dad went off to check that we could stay and came back to say NO, not at this one – could this day get any worse?

So off we went again, I was getting proper fed up, it was getting towards my bed time!

Eventually, Mum spotted a Truck Stop, so we pulled in there, it was almost full and we took the very last parking space!

Five more minutes and we would have had to go somewhere else!

At last our luck for this day was changing – you think?

What a day! – At least we can look forward to having a restful night – who was I kidding, some of the trucks had their engines running all night long – Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

The next morning we were off bright and early, half asleep, well I was, I hope Dad was wide awake as he was driving, but I have to admit I didn’t look, I just had a snooze under Mum’s feet near my window!

Right, that’s all for now, I will tell you about the nice surprise waiting for me in Michigan in the next blog.

Bye for now
Your friend Millie x

Hi Guys,

It is me again, Millie;

Well we got here, at the Badlands and I don’t know what all the fuss was about, the place looks fine to me.

As soon as we had parked the RV, we all jumped into the car to explore the area and for once I didn’t snooze as we drove and I could see the ‘Badlands’ approaching.

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We were in and out of the car, looking at all these crazy rocks, well they just looked like mud to me to be honest, but when climbed up a few of them and you would have thought I was a one year old!

Every time we got near an edge, Mum was holding the lead tight enough to strangle me so that I wouldn’t fall over.

She forgets that I have sharp claws and not the slippery flat feet that humans have – ha ha!

 

 

Everywhere we went there were signs warning about Rattlesnakes, I didn’t see or smell one of them, but I could tell Mum and Dad were a bit nervous, the way they kept looking around, I am sure it wasn’t just the scenery.

We went to the top of here (photo below)!

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Even the view of the Badland rocks from the RV was nice, if I say so myself and the place was so quiet, a bit different from some of the places we have stayed.

Well the sun was baking hot and the mud rock was hot on my feet so I squeaked to be put in the stroller.

I didn’t like it when we first had it, but I like it now – Ahhhh, this is the life!

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There was even a place where there were fossils found, which Mum told me is all about animals that died many, many years ago (here we go again, this fascination with dead things!)

 

Well after a day exploring the Badlands, we packed up the RV for a drive to a place called Salam, where Mum told me Witches live.

Now I have to admit I didn’t know what a Witch was, but I didn’t want Mum to know I didn’t know, so I asked Dad and he told me they were people who did magic, like making things appear and disappear, well, I thought, that’s nothing special, Mum and Dad are forever making my treats appear and disappear – big deal!

Bye for now, your friend, Millie x

 

Hi Guys,

It is me Millie;

I have taken over again as Mum and Dad were getting a bit maudlin with the last blog and I am not having any of that, so I gave them a squeak and a look (this look)  and they couldn’t resist me.

You wouldn’t believe what I had to put up with on the way here, they were both singing this crazy song over and over again, until I could have squeaked with despair!

It went like this;

Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak hills

Squeak squeak squeak squeak dakota

Squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak love

I hope all my four legged friends are reading this and squeaking along with me.

Where was I? – Oh yes, doing the next (more cheerful) bit of the blog.

Well we got here after a long drive, I don’t know how far, Dad didn’t say, but it was three snoozes long, however far that is.

We set the RV up, well Mum and Dad did, I just supervised to make sure it was done right – it was, they are getting the hang of it now with my expert guidance.

The first thing that caught Mum’s eye was an Indian music and dance event that evening, she has a thing about Traditional Indian Dancing, don’t ask me why because I don’t know.

Well we all had tea and Mum and Dad went off, they asked me to come but I said no, all that drum beating gets on my nerves.

As usual when they came home I had to relive the whole thing until my ears ached.

Oh, sorry, I forgot to say that they came back with a CD and couldn’t stop playing the music all night – Grrrrr

Although I have to admit that the pictures they took were pretty good, here are just a few of them

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The next morning we all piled into the car to go exploring the area and ended up driving around a wildlife sanctuary, why they want to see all these scary big creatures baffles me.

Where was I? – Oh yes telling you about scary creatures

There were some deer, which is not so bad and then they drove straight into the big Bear enclosure, even though I squeaked “Turn Around”, “Turn Around”, in the loudest squeak I could.

But they just kept driving, well Mum did, Dad was just encouraging her – Grrr.

Just look at some of the scary things we saw, well Mum and Dad did, after they kept driving, I kept my head down, I didn’t want to end up as dinner for a hungry bear!

 

 

Once they had had their fill of that – phew – we drove on.

You just wouldn’t believe what we saw next, somebody had made some faces on a mountain, they looked quite real, but Mum and Dad said they were stone carvings of Dead Presidents (whatever that is), but here we go again, this fascination Mum and Dad have with dead people, I just don’t understand it.

I wonder if it is all humans or just my Mum and Dad, I will have to ask my four legged friends when I get home!

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I have to admit that when Mum and Dad told me they were not real people, I was very impressed that someone could chop stone that well, I mean it is very hard stuff, I know I thought it was a treat once and tried chewing some, never again!

You could even see them from miles away as well as close up!

 

Where was I? – Oh yes, telling you about dead people on a rock.

Well we drove on and turned around a corner and would you believe it, there was another one, this time Mum said it was a carving of Crazy Horse, well, all I can say is that the name suits him if he wants to be made of stone.

This is what he looks like now and what he will look like when he is finished!

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When we had stopped and stared at it for what felt like ages, we drove on, driving through the towns of Keystone and Hill City and back to the RV – not sure about Mum and Dad, but I was exhausted, with all the driving, the stopping and starting and the Ohhhing and Arrring, I couldn’t sleep a wink in the car and was glad to get back to home, I mean the RV.

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Next morning we were up and out at the crack of dawn, well about 9, which felt like the crack of dawn to me!

This time Dad said we were going to the Custer State park and around the ‘Wildlife Loop’ (here we go again, what is it with them and ‘wild’ animals?), well we drove through Hill City again and out into the Black Hills (that’s what these hills around here are called).

Once again we had Mum and Dad, Ohhing and Arring about the scenery (they are easily pleased that’s all I can say!)

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Then we drove on into the State Park, with Mum driving and Dads head on a swivel, you wouldn’t believe how fast he can swivel it as he looks both ways at the same time to try and see ‘wild animals’.

Mind, he is pretty good at spotting them, it’s just that by the time he sees them, Mum has usually driven past and Dad has missed the picture he is trying to take.

It is quite funny really listening to Dad saying to Mum, “slow down – damn, missed it” and Mum saying “I can’t stop on a sixpence (whatever that is), the car behind will run into me”

 

Then a bit further into the park we came upon a huge herd of Buffalo, they were running across this meadow and straight across the road, in front of the cars.

Even I thought it was exciting and I wanted to jump out of the car and chase them, but Mum wouldn’t let me, she said that they were too big to hunt on my own and that I would need my pack – I ask you!

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Perhaps one day I can bring all my four legged friends back and we can hunt the Buffalo, I will have to watch how Dad drives this RV so that I can do it, if I can get to grips with writing these blogs I am sure I could drive the RV – Mmmm!

Off tomorrow to somewhere called the ‘Badlands’, I don’t like the sound of that, so I will be watching through my window as we go to make sure that we don’t get in any trouble and if I don’t like the look of the place we are not stopping!

Bye for now, your friend Millie x

We have elected to do this blog, not Millie, because it is one of conflicting human emotions and we are not sure that Millie, bright as she is, fully understands this place.

After we arrived from the fairly short run (by American standards) from Cody to the 7^th Ranch RV Park, in Garryowen, we decided to leave the sightseeing until the next day and chilled out with the wine and beer – we are getting quite good at it!

Next morning we set off, first to the nearby town of Garryowen, which is the name of the 7^th Cavalry Marching tune and also the place where the Battle of the Little Bighorn actually began.

But, as we walked around the museum, dedicated to both the US Army and the Sioux Indians, we became more and more saddened by the story unfolding.

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This was a story of the treaty of 1868 broken, which ceded most of the land of present day Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota to the Indians.

Broken because gold had been found in Indian land in 1874.

It is the story of the removal of a people’s livelihood, by the wholesale slaughter of countless Buffalo (just for their hides) and the destruction of an ancient and free way of life, by the ultimate defeat of the Indian tribes.

After we had traversed the ridge where the battle unfolded, we went from there to the site of the actual last stand of Custer’s men and looked at the memorials to both Custer’s men and the Indian Warriors who died at this place,

 

As we drove through the beautiful area around the Little Bighorn battle site, we were cheered up seeing the ‘wild’ horses roaming free around the high plains that surround the area, plains that are now in the Crow Indian Tribe Reservation;

 

Although we had booked on the RV site for 3 nights, after one day looking around the area and in the several battlefield museums, we had seen enough and we decided to cut our stay short and set off one day early to continue the trip.

Perhaps these may sum the story up;

Are we glad we came? – Absolutely, we would not have missed the experience for anything.

Right that is enough melancholy, onwards and upwards, we are off to the Mount Rushmore area now in South Dakota, to see the rock carvings of the Presidents and Crazy Horse and to see the famous Black Hills.

We are going to sing the ‘famous’ song on the way and see if we can teach it to Millie, then if she can learn it in time, perhaps all her four legged friends can sing along with her in the next blog!

“Take me back to the Black Hills, the Black Hills of Dakota, to that Beautiful Indian Country that I love ……………..…….