Before I start today’s post there’s a couple of things I forgot to mention yesterday!

Firstly, hands up all those who watch ‘The Big Bang Theory’, this will be mostly Americans I think! You know how Howard’s Mum is always going on about eating at the Red Lobster, well we had dinner there last night, the first time ever and the food was excellent and guess what, it was right next door to the Olive Garden, another one of her favourites!! Shame we didn’t have one of Howard’s Mum’s coupons!!

Secondly, granola is one of my most favourite breakfast cereals. Can anyone from the US tell me when they started selling it in individual breakfast packets? I only discovered the individual packets yesterday when we went for breakfast at the hotel where we were staying. I must check this out when we get back home.

A swing and a miss

Base hit

Homer?

Play ball

Take a walk

Struck out

The Gang!

Terry

Anyway, today was the last our long drives, just over seven hours from Ohio, through Pennsylvania and into New York State. The journey was mostly made up of long boring roads with lots more road works and the speed limits only ranged from 40 to 65 so it felt as though we were driving for ever!!

We are now staying with our good friend’s Dot and John, and their lovely dog, Kasha. We also had the pleasure of meeting their son-in-law, Terry.

We had a real treat this evening, we all went to see the local baseball team, The Pioneers. After visiting the ‘Field of Dreams’ site recently, we felt that we knew everything there was to know about the game, but of course we didn’t. We weren’t lucky enough to catch a ball but we did partake in the singing, the eats and beverages. Our section was even lucky enough to win vouchers to be used in the local Christmas store! I knew our holiday was passing very quickly but surely it can’t be Christmas already?

Today we will be going up to Dot and John’s summer camp so you may not hear from us again until Sunday when we return to Elmira as the wifi at camp is not quite so accommodating!

We started the day sorting out Beast 3! We visited the Firestone facility just across the road from our hotel as we were told that they maintain the rental fleet for Alamo/Enterprise. I’m very pleased to say that they serviced Beast 3 for us in just 30 minutes. That saved us travelling the sixteen miles to the airport to swop him over. Everyone please keep everything crossed that we have no more tales of woe regarding Beast 3!

Columbus was really just a stop over on our way back to stay with our good friends Dot and JB and we were planning on just an easy day not doing much. However, we discovered that the Ohio State Fair started today and was being held just down the road from our hotel, so we jumped in our newly serviced vehicle and headed out.

A giant slide at the Fair

It’s my slide!

Four days old!

A camel at the Fair – they were giving rides

Peyton Taylor singing at the Fair

The butter cow and calf

The choir sculpted in butter

The State Brass Band

The Fair is huge and last year received over 800,000 visitors during the ten days it’s on. The organisation was excellent, we were in and parked in no time. Once the car was parked we jumped on a tractor/trailer and they dropped us off right at the entrance.

I have to say that of all the county fairs we have visited in England, I don’t think we have every seen so many food stalls, they went on for miles. There was also a huge fair ground to keep the children amused.

We saw just about every animal you would see on a farm plus camels, lamas and one or two we had never heard of!! There were two calves, both born within the last four days and there were even two cows due to give birth whilst the Fair is on. Now that would be something to see. We also just missed a chick hatching from its egg.

One amazing thing we saw was a cow, calf and the Ohio choir modelled out of butter!! They were made out of 2,000 pounds of butter and took 543 hours to complete. Now that’s dedication.

If you ever find yourselves in Columbus at this time of year, then make a diary note to visit the State Fair. It was excellent.

This time next week we will be preparing to board the plane for our flight home!!

The monsoon

Well, what a day it’s been! We had a long drive today, about eight hours! It started out lovely, warm and sunny but we ended it in a monsoon. We drove across four States, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. We were a little concerned when one County sign said ‘Entering Madison County’. Our first thought was that we had been driving around in circles and had ended up where we started a few days ago, in Winterset! We were very happy when we realised that Ohio also has a Madison County!!

I have to say that our sat-nav (Margaret), has not exactly been at her best today. She did all she could a couple of times to send us in the wrong direction. I think she’s starting to feel the strain of the ten weeks she’s been ‘on the road’.

We passed the time by listening to an audiobook called ‘Undaunted Courage’ by Stephen E. Ambrose.

The book is the story of the Lewis and Clark Expediton, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, that was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in May, 1804 from St. Louis on the Mississippi River, making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast.

The expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, consisting of a select group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. The duration of their perilous journey lasted from May 1804 to September 1806. The primary objective was to explore and map the newly acquired territory, find a practical route across the Western half of the continent, and establish an American presence in the territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.

The campaign’s secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and establish trade with local Indian tribes. With maps, sketches and journals in hand, the expedition returned to St. Louis to report their findings to Jefferson.

Crop duster

Crop duster

During he drive we were treated to the sight of a ‘crop duster’ plane that flew really low over the road.

We’ve had two disappointments today! Firstly, we had to return the suitcase we purchased on Sunday because when I went to pack it last night it became apparent that there was a strange smell to the interior lining. It smelt of moth balls! There was no way I was packing clothes into that! We went to the store today to change it and we had quite a battle on our hands. Because I had removed the sales tags they said it would be treated as a used item and could not be changed! Yeah right! We stood our ground and tonight we have a replacement all ready to be packed.

Beast 3

Welcome to Indiana

Welcome to Illinois

A Police Call Box we saw along the way

Welcome to Ohio

The Mississippi at Le Claire

Fancy seeing you here!

The second disappointment was ‘Beast 3’. We had only done about 400 miles today when the oil light came on again saying ‘change oil as soon as possible’. Well, that’s a battle we will be fighting tomorrow when we once again, visit an Alamo facility to change the car yet again! My goodness, there’s going to be a really long letter when I get home to the people who arranged this car hire!!

To overcome the disappointments of the day we enjoyed a really ‘naughty’ meal at California Pizza Kitchen. I had the largest glass of wine available while Si downed a couple of beers!!

‘Tomorrow’, as they say. ‘is another day!’

Well, first of all it’s ‘Many Congratulations’ to William and Kate on the birth of their baby son and our future King!!

Wetting the baby’s head!

Dyersveille home to ‘Field of Dreams’

Donny Lansing

Me and Donny discussing corn!

Field of Dreams

Babe Barrett!

And she makes Home Plate

Field of Dreams

On the bleachers at The Field of Dreams

Who’s that coming out of the corn?

Field of Dreams

Si at Antique Archaeology

Miss River Lily

Miss River Lily

Iowa scene

An Iowa road!

It was actually Cindy, who I met in Forks (big Twilight fan), who emailed me and said Kate had gone into hospital and then it was my bro who texted me during lunch to say that ‘it was a boy’.  Being a big Royalist I’m very sorry that I was not at home for this big occasion but ‘here’s to the next time’.

Today has been another movie buff’s day!

It’s been a really exciting day all round really, first of all with the Royal birth and secondly, the fact that I realised a dream today in visiting the baseball field from the film ‘Field of Dreams’.  In fact, I’m so excited that I’m finding it hard to sit here and type this.

It was exiting enough to just go there but then we were in for a really exciting event. As  Si was taking photos of the field and the house, a man approached us and asked if we would like a photo taken together, which he did. After that he introduced himself as Donny Lansing!! Well, most of you are not going to know who he is but I knew because I’d been reading about him this very morning. He’s the man who owned the farm house next to the baseball field in Field of Dreams and he even had a role in the film!! Well, to say I was flabbergasted is an understatement.

He was the most loveliest person and we spent ages talking to him about his home, the field and the film. He was in three scenes in the film but two of them were cut out but at the end of the film when all the cars drive down at night to the baseball field, well he’s driving the lead car.

We were talking to Donny about corn. The whole of Iowa appears to be one huge corn field and it got us to thinking about how much corn must Iowa produce.  Well, Donny couldn’t remember the exact amount but he said it ran into billions of bushels. After further investigation, this is what I’ve found. The 2013 projections indicate 2.45 billion bushels of corn on 13.97 million acres of land. I hear you asking “well how much is a bushel?” Well, one bushel equals approximately 35.24 litres or a measure of capacity equal to 64 pints  used for dry goods. Or in layman’s terms ………………. rather a lot!

Everything is still as it was when the film was made with one exception, there is now a gift shop. Well of course there had to be one!

Do any of you know the American TV show, American pickers? Well, Si and I watch it all the time back home and here in Le Claire is where the show is based and partly filmed. The name of the shop is actually Antique Archaeology and is owned by Mike Wolfe, one of the pickers.  It’s always surprising how small these places are compared with how they look on TV. Sadly, Mike, Frank (the other picker) or Danielle (she takes care of things while they are both out picking) were not there today but it was exciting to see the place anyway.

You remember I told you yesterday that we staying by the Mississippi River, well below is a photo of a flower that we saw on the river this morning.

Tomorrow we leave Iowa and travel to Columbus, Ohio. One thing we will not miss about Iowa are the dusty roads. Apart from the highways most of the roads are gravel, dusty roads. Beast 3 is already needing a wash!!

White Lions B&B

Kayla, Hank and Mark

Hank (so Regal)

Hank sure loves his Mum

It rained!

Bike night in Winterset

Bike night in Winterset – no helmets here!

A Harley Davidson

Bike night

A ‘Victory’ bike

We had to say goodbye today to our lovely hosts, Kayla, Mark and Hank as it was time to move on. We’ve had such a wonderful time here at the White Lions B&B and hope to return one day. Kayla and Mark gave us ‘going away’ presents, two Madison County t-shirts. Every time we wear them they will stand as a reminder of the lovely people we met and the super time we had here.

Winterset is truly a treasure and if any of you find yourselves this way then make sure to visit and of course, stay with Kayla and Mark. You just have to sample Kayla’s cooking.

Every third Saturday of the month a ‘bike night’ is held in the town square and last night was that night. The square was full to overflowing with ‘bikers’ who had come from far and wide to meet up, have a drink and listen to music. The range of bikes was truly amazing.

Today started cooler at 64ºF (17ºC) and just before we left the B&B we had a thunder storm with torrential rain. We hadn’t seen rain like that in a long long time. The rain followed us on our way to Le Claire but it’s now sunny and 84ºF (28ºC) so a tad warmer.

Iowa is a very pretty state, it’s lush and green and most of the crops grown here would appear to be corn.

Alas, our first impressions of Le Claire were tainted by the fact that when we checked into our ‘non-smoking’ hotel room, someone had in fact …………… been smoking!!! Our hotel overlooks the Mississippi River and we were on the third floor with a balcony, so the view of the river was lovely. Unfortunately, because we asked to change rooms due to the smell, the only one available was on the ground floor. We are still overlooking the river but the view is not quite so grand but we do have a small patio area.

The next thing we are ‘miffed’ about is Beast 2!! You remember I told you how we went into the Alamo rental facility on Wednesday and they told us we didn’t need to swop the car in? Well, on the way to Le Claire today a warning light came on telling us to ‘change the oil soon’. You can imagine what was said when that appeared. So, this evening we discovered there was a small airport just sixteen miles from the hotel that had an Alamo facility. We went along all ready for a big fight but we were greeted by two of the nicest ladies and they said they could swop the car over very easily and they even had another Ford Edge in dark blue. It turns out that the one they gave us is more highly-speced than the one we returned and is a limited edition. It has a leather interior and if the weather should suddeny turn cold, it has heated seats!!

There is just one other thing to report. Those of you who have been following the blog from the beginning of our trip will know that it soon became apparent very early on, that we would need to purchase a third suitcase as we were running out of space. Well, today we purchased the fourth!! Enough said I think!!

Tomorrow we will visit our own field of corn that grows along the side of a baseball field …. the one from the film ‘Field of Dreams’. I wonder who we will see appearing out of the corn!!

Jay, Hank the dog and Gloria

John Wayne

Si outside John Wayne’s home

So we started the day by saying ‘farewell’ to a lovely couple we met here at the White Lions B&B, Gloria and Jay, from Houston, Texas. The B&B only opened in May and Gloria and Jay were the first guests to ever stay at this wonderful home. Hank, the dog lives at the B&B.

We then went to see John Wayne’s birthplace. He was born here in Winterset on 26 May 1907 weighing in at a hefty 13 pounds! His Dad was a pharmacist who worked on Winterset’s town square before opening his own pharmacy business elsewhere.

As some of you will know, John was born Marion Robert Morrison. He hated his name because he was teased at school for having a girl’s name. He had a very large dog called ‘Duke’ and he used to hang out at the local fire station because the men there were always nice to him. They didn’t know what his real name was but knew his dog, so they always used to say “here comes big Duke and little Duke”. He went home and told his parents that from then on he wanted to be called ‘Duke’ and that’s how he got to be called ‘The Duke’.

The house has had some famous visitors in the past, one of them being President Ronald Reagan.  The town is currently raising funds to open a John Wayne Museum.

Bob Fogler Museum Guide

The Bevington-Kaser house

Me in the pharmacy, it is said that President Theodore Roosevelt was served through this window!

The three-hole privy!

Me ‘back at school’

A lawyer’s office

A pioneer mother’s note to her daughter on how to wash clothes

An old petrol pump

Log rolling at the County Fair

Winterset’s Courthouse

The ‘Blue Note’ Lounge from ‘The Bridges of Madison County’

Our next ‘port of call’ was the Madison County Historic Complex or “History on the Hill”. From its humble beginning in 1904, the Madison County Historical Society has developed into a complex which includes 14 buildings located in 18 picturesque acres.

We were advised to make sure we visited the complex before we left Winterset and we are so pleased that we did. It’s a magnificent place full of historical artefacts and old buildings. We were very lucky to be guided around the museum by Bob Fogler, a young man of 84 years, who also told us about his family and lovely wife, Marjory, who showed us around the show piece of the complex, the 1856 Bevington-Kaser House which was constructed by C.D. “Doc” Bevington. The house has been restored and furnished in Victorian richness.

The Bevington-Kaser House and the Limestone (three-hole) Privy are on the National Register of Historic places.

After taking a history lessen we made a quick stop by the County Fair and one of the events taking place was log rolling. Rather them than me, but I guess it was a quick way to ‘cool off’, it’s been rather hot today.

Just to finish off, at the bottom of the post is a photo of the lovely courthouse here in Winterset and one other photo related to ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ film, the ‘Blue Note’ lounge (or it’s really called the ‘Pheasant Run Pub and Grill’). This is where Francesca and Robert ‘got out of town’ for the evening to where no-one would know them. The interior was used for the scene but the outside shot was actually a tractor garage located in Winterset’s City Park! The powers of Hollywood!!

Tomorrow we leave Winterset for another film location, this time in Le Claire, Iowa, to see the baseball field in the film ‘Field of Dreams’.

Unless you are a covered bridge or The Bridges of Madison County fan then I guess this post is going to be rather uninteresting!!

I’ve been watching The Bridges of Madison County and anyone who has a heart and has seen that film will understand how I feel right now as the tears splash on to the keyboard!!

Twilight was the love story with the happy ending while The Bridges of Madison County is the love story with the heartbreaking ending. If you haven’t seen it then you won’t understand when I say, that when it gets to the part towards the end where Francesca (Meryl Streep) is sat in the truck with her husband and Robert (Clint Eastwood) is stood in the rain staring at here and she reaches for the door handle, even though I know she won’t open it and go to Robert my mind is screaming for her to open it and go with him. What is the right thing to do?

The most famous of the bridges Roseman Bridge. This is the bridge where Francesca pins the note to Robert and I’m pinning mine!

Me pinning my note to the bridge

The Holliwell Bridge, again used in the film

The stone bridge where Francesca and Robert go for their picnic together

Middle River Ford where Francesca’s two children go to discuss her diaries

Is that Clint driving away? This is where they filmed the rain scene at the end of the film

The ironing board from the film – it’s in the Chamber of Commerce who show the film all the time. We just got there in time for the heartbreaking scene

Me driving across Cedar Bridge – the only one now able to take traffic

Roseman Bridge plus a smaller version in the Gift Shop garden used as a bird feeder!

Imes Bridge

Hogback Bridge

Cutler-Donahoe Bridge

Francesca’s house from the film

Anyway, today we visited the six covered bridges that Madison County is famous for, including the ones used in the film together with some other locations too. All of the bridges were built between 1870 and 1890, although Cedar Bridge after an arsonist burned it in 2002 was rebuilt to the original plans and consistent building methods and was rededicated in 2004. Here are the photos. Enjoy!

OMG, where’s the road gone!

Along the way

Smiley at Adair

MV Sergeant Floyd

Sergeant Charles Floyd

So, as you can see, we are speeding our way across the highways back to New York to stay with our dear friends Dot and John before we fly back home. It doesn’t seem possible that two weeks today we will be home in good ol’ Blighty!!

I’m sorry to have to tell the photographers reading our blog that from now on it is unlikely that we will have anymore mind-blowing photos to post. From here on it’s more likely to be of the holiday-snap variety!!

Today was another five hour drive, some of the roads were the same as yesterday, very straight and not much to see but there were also times when we were treated to hills and trees and the odd photo opportunity.

Today we were introduced to Sergeant Charles Floyd, another U.S. pioneer. Another moving historical story.

When we passed from South Dakota into Iowa we visited a very unusual Visitors Centre. This one was on a boat in dry dock and was called the Sergeant Floyd River Museum and Welcome Centre. The Sergeant Floyd was launched at the Howard Shipyards of Jeffersonville, Indiana on 31 May 1932 and was under the jurisdiction of the Missouri River Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It was named in memory of Sergeant Charles Floyd, a soldier who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their epic 1804 expedition of the Pacific Northwest. In 1803 Lewis was picked by President Thomas Jefferson to lead an expedition through the Northwest. His instructions were to explore the Missouri river. Lewis chose Clark to join him and to share command.

Sergeant Charles Floyd (1782-1804) was one of nine young men from Kentucky chosen to accompany Lewis and Clark on their expedition and he kept a regular journal of the trip from 14 May 1804 until just prior to his sudden and unexpected death on 20 August 1804. It is thought his death may have been caused by a ruptured appendix.

He was buried on the top of Floyd’s Bluff with military honours on 20 August 1804 and the river where the expedition camped that night, was named for Sergeant Floyd. His grave was a well-known landmark but in the spring of 1857 a high and irregular river washed away part of the bluff and exposed his bones, which were seen and rescued. On 28 May 1857 the bones were re-buried approximately 600 feet east of the original grave.

The discovery of Floyd’s Journal and its publication in 1894 led to a search for this second grave site and after finding it the Floyd Memorial Association was formed to recognise the area, mark the grave and construct a suitable monument to the first and only member of that historic expedition to die.

That monument, standing 100 feet high, can be seen today next to the Floyd River. When the bones were studied between 1895 and 1900, photographs were taken of the skull and lower jaw and an impression made of the skull and a plaster cast was formed and the head and face of Sergeant Floyd were reconstructed and is now on display at the Floyd Welcome Centre.

Winterset

Our B&B

Winterset

The Courthouse in Winterset Town Square

Me outside the Northside Cafe

Clint sat here!

This says it all!

After reaching Winterset in Madison County and checking into our lovely B&B we set off to find a hairdressers as it was time for another trim (how the time flies).

We are here in Winterset primarily to see the sites where they filmed The Bridges of Madison County (have you watched it yet, did you cry?) so the obvious place to start and to eat at the same time, was the Northside Cafe. This is where one of the scenes was filmed and it’s still possible to sit on the same bar stool that Clint Eastwood sat when he was filming there. The fourth one from the door, so of course I had to do that and have my photo taken too.

I was rather surprised when I started talking to the young waitress that although she knew the significance of where she was working, she has never actually seen the film!! What!!

Winterset is also famous for other things, John Wayne was born here and they have six covered bridges.  These we will be visiting over the next couple of days.

Just a couple of things I forgot to mention yesterday. One, we were talking more about The Homestead we visited that was settled in 1909. The family travelled there in a wagon drawn by a team of horses and the home and outbuildings were dug more or less by hand, some by digging holes in the earth. It was only 60 years later in 1969 that man walked on the moon!!!! Food for thought indeed!

Secondly, for those who have followed our blog from the early days, you will know the story  of Beasts 1 and 2.  Well, we visited the rental facility again yesterday as four weeks had passed and you will be pleased to know that it was a straight forward visit.  We just had to collect a copy of our updated contract and were allowed to keep Beast 2! Hooray! There was no need for us to unpack the car and we didn’t lose USA Licence Plate Game version 2.

First of all, congratulations to Lisa and Malcolm! Ten points to you both. Lisa, because you knew the film I was referring to was The Bridges of Madison County starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep (anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, watch it now. It’s heartbreaking!) and also to Malcolm because being a guy, he’s probably never heard of The Bridges of Madison County but he knew there was a film called Winterset and also that John Wayne was born there. Your points are in the the post!

Five hours of this!

In the middle of nowhere

On the way

In the middle of nowhere

Five hours of this

Those French get everywhere!

Five red trucks

On the way

Cornhead

On the way

Today was another driving day, this time to Sioux Falls. It was a five hour drive and the scenery was basically the same all the way and the five hours were spent on one road, the I90, more or less a dead straight one.

Luckily, as always, I spent all the trip with the ‘resident photographer’s’ camera on my lap taking photos as we sped along. Here are a few for you to enjoy.

I keep meaning to say that at the moment the whole of the U.S. is undertaking a major highway refurbishment and I think we’ve been through them all.  My understanding is that the roads in the U.S. were so bad with potholes (a little like us in the U.K. then!) that it was decided to upgrade the Interstate system thereby improving the roads and possibly helping the economy at the same time.

An interesting fact for you, is that under President Eisenhower, one mile in every five of all Interstates had to be perfectly straight to be used in case of emergency aircraft landing!! I bet not many of you knew that!

Another thing I wanted to share with you all was …. roundabouts or circles to those in the U.S. It’s true to say that there are not many roundabouts in the country and on the Montana map we had there was an explanation of how to use them. Well, I’ve been keeping a hold of the map to take a photo of it to share with you all, but now I’ve been and thrown it away! Those in the U.K. would have loved it. I’ll have to keep an eye out for another one.

One more thing I’ve been meaning to say during our visits to the National Parks is, if any of you ever come here and intend on ‘doing’ the National Parks then make sure that at the first Park you visit you buy an Annual Pass, currently for $80 (£55). Some of the Parks can be very expensive and we have saved a butt load of money by getting the Pass. For instance, Yosemite and Yellowstone each charge $25 (£18) per park for a seven-day ticket.

After our overnight stay here in Sioux Falls we move on tomorrow for another film stop in Winterset. See you there!

First of all, congratulations to Nat who guessed correctly that The Devil’s Tower is indeed from Close Encounters of the Third Kind! Your ten points are in the post Nat!!

It’s been really hot today, 94ºF (34ºC) so we’ve had to make sure we were drinking plenty of fluids.

Wall Drug Store

What can I say?

Me at the Wall Drug Store (I’m on the right!!)

A welcome at the Wall Drug Store

The Prairie Homestead

The Prairie Homestead

The Prairie Homestead

The Prairie Homestead

A white Prairie Dog at The Homestead

Welcome to the Badlands!

New life in the Badlands

The Badlands Yellow Mounds Overlook

The Badlands

The Badlands

The Badlands

The Badlands

The Badlands

The Badlands

We started the day with a visit to Wall Drug. Now the Americans reading the blog will know what that is but for those back home, Wall Drug is the Wall Drug Store and is a tourist attraction located located in the town of Wall, South Dakota. It is a shopping mall consisting of a drug store, gift shop, restaurants and various other stores. Unlike a traditional shopping mall, all the stores at Wall Drug operate under a single entity instead of being individually run stores. The New York Times has described Wall Drug as “a sprawling tourist attraction of international renown that takes in more than $10 million a year and draws some two million annual visitors to a remote town.”

The small town drugstore made its first step towards fame when it was purchased by Ted Hustead in 1931 with a $3000 legacy. He bought Wall Drug, located in a 231-person town in what he referred to as “the middle of nowhere,” and strove to make a living. Business was very slow until his wife, Dorothy, got the idea to advertise free ice water to parched travellers heading to the newly-opened Mount Rushmore monument 60 miles (97 km) to the west. From that time on business was brisk. Billboards advertising the establishment can be seen for hundreds of miles throughout South Dakota and the neighbouring states.

After ‘buying up the place’ which believe me is very easy to do, we headed off towards the Badlands National Park but along the way we were sidetracked to see one of the most moving things I’ve seen in a long while ………. the Prairie Homestead.

The Prairie Homestead was the original home, known as a sod home, of Mr and Mrs Ed Brown who homesteaded the 160 acres in 1909. All but one of the buildings have survived and just needed a small amount of restoration to bring them back to how they looked when they were originally built!  Homesteading was a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It is characterized by subsistence agriculture, home preservation of foodstuffs, and it may or may not also involve the small scale production of textiles, clothing, and craftwork for household use or sale. Use of the term in the U.S. dates back to the Homestead Act of 1862.

Mr Brown was 55 when he moved part of his family, his wife Alice and grown son, Charles, in a wagon from Nebraska to the Badlands of South Dakota. After 18 months of working the land he was able to pay $80 and receive a patent on the land. This he did.

The home and outbuildings were literally dug out of the ground and it makes you appreciate what hard working, fearless people these pioneers were. Visual memories of homestead days are fast becoming extinct. These pioneers played a very important part in setting the Great Plains of America.

The home had not been lived in since 1949  when In 1962 it was bought by Keith and Dorothy Drew. It was Dorothy who had the desire and vision to restore the Prairie Homestead for future generations to enjoy.

One strange thing we saw today at The Homestead were white Prairie Dogs!!

After spending an enjoyable hour there we moved on to the Badlands National Park. It consists of 242,756 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest undisturbed mixed grass prairie in the United States. For 11,000 years, Native Americans have used this area for their hunting grounds.

About 75 million years ago the area was covered by a shallow sea teeming with life. In today’s Badlands the bottom of that sea appears as a greyish-black sedimentary rock called Pierre shale and the layer is a rich source of fossils.

Tomorrow we leave Rapid City and drive to Sioux Falls. This is just a stopover on the road to our next main stop, Winterset, Iowa …….. a film stop! Another ten points will be awarded for the first person to tell me which film that may be!!

So, with this post we will be all up to date, hooray!

We awoke to a lovely hot sunny day in the Black Hills of Dakota and set off to see the Mount Rushmore National Monument.

Mt. Rushmore

The hordes at Mt. Rushmore

Mt. Rushmore

Us in fron to Mt. Rushmore

Fort Hays (Major Fainborough’s office) from Dances with Wolves

Sandra in the office of Major Fainborough

Major Fainborough’s office

The bullet hole in the window pane where Major Fainborough shot himself!

The Rope Shop at Fort Hays

A coffin at Fort Hays!

Welcome to Deadwood

Bill Hickok’s Bar & Steakhouse

More of those mail boxes I was talking about yesterday!

Mount Rushmore National Monument is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota. Sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum.  Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865).^] The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres (5.17 km²) and is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.

South Dakota historian Doane Robinson is credited with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region.

Robinson wanted it to feature western heroes like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud and Buffalo Bill Cody but Borglum decided the sculpture should have a more national focus, and chose the four presidents whose likenesses would be carved into the mountain. The memorial began in 1927, and the presidents’ faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Upon Gutzon Borglum’s death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum became sculptor in charge of the commission and the last drilling was done on  October 31st 1941.

Some of you know that I like my films (movies) so you can imagine how surprised I was today when we were driving down to Mount Rushmore and there on the side of the road was a sign advertising a Dances with Wolves movie site!! Further investigation was required.

On the site there are the buildings that were used in the filming of the Fort Hays scenes in the film. The scenes were actually shot using these buildings sixteen miles away and were supposed to have been torn down after filming was completed but the production company just left them. Someone local bought them and moved them to their current location, had them rebuilt as they were, including the bullet hole in a pane of glass. They have photographs of the shoot, scenes from the movie showing and a behind-the-scenes DVD with Kevin Costner talking about making the film.

There’s a yellow piece of tape on the floor where Kevin Costner stood when shooting the scene where he first went to Fort Hays and spoke to Major Fainborough about a posting and who subsequently shot himself. Of course, I had to stand on that piece of yellow tape!

After that we went to visit Deadwood. The town attained notoriety for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok and the local cemetery remains the final resting place of Hickok and Calamity Jane.  Deadwood became known for its wild and almost lawless reputation, during which time murder was common, and punishment for murders not always fair and impartial.

The road to nowhere!

The long and winding road!

The inevitable RV!

Oh dear, an RV wreck on the highway but everyone was okay

Just a nice red barn

On the road scene

Mail Box

A young lady from Ranchester

How did he get up there?

We didn’t see a nodding donkey in Texas but we did in Wyoming!

Old Glory!

Granite Pass

The end of the Rockies

The Devils Tower

The Devils Tower

Prairie Dog

Two cows, two buffalo and one Texas Longhorn passed by the Devils Tower

Bighorn National Forest

Well, today we left Cody after a quick visit and set off for Rapid City.  The drive was scheduled to be about six hours ………… which of course turned into nine!!

Once again the terrain we have crossed has been so varied. From lovely green mountains with fir trees to complete desolation. We drove across the Rocky Mountains and the road was very winding and at one point in Granite Pass, we were at over 9000 feet. On the way there were signs pointing out how old some of the rocks were, in one particular area they were 2.5 billion years old!! How can they possibly know that?

The drive across the mountains took so long because it was mostly single-lane road and there were lots of RV’s out and about too, so we stopped for lunch and had a traditional American meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn followed of course with apple pie! It was all delicious.

We then decided to take a little detour of about 60 miles round trip to see something of particular interest to a movie fan ….. me of course! I’ll give ten points to the first person to write in the ‘Reply’ section which movie Devil’s Tower was in!! Of course, there is a lot more to learn about this tower than just being in a movie but I just want to say that today we saw ‘the dark side of the moon’!!

People were living around the tower more than 10,000 years ago and it is still of great importance to the Native Americans who come here and leave prayer offerings. They believe the ‘claw-like- marks on the tower were created by a bear chasing two young girls to the top but it is actually weather erosion.

The area has hundreds of Prairie Dogs, they are so cute and so tame. People are told not to feed them but going by the size of one or two, I think a lot of people are not adhering to the rules!!

One thing we have found interesting on our trip are American mail boxes and we’ve seen a few. I expect most of you know that mail in the US is usually delivered to a box at the end of the property and not as in the UK, actually put through the door. Last week I saw a line of about thirty all stood together. This was because all the houses were dotted about a mountainside so the mailman leaves the mail in all the boxes and the people collect it themselves. Also, we’ve noticed the variety of boxes, some plain, some decorated and some like the one above!! How sweet is that?

I think it’s official now that the older we get the stupider we get.  For some reason and I don’t know why, but every time I talk about Yellowstone I keep calling it Yosemite!! I need to go back and check all the posts because I think I may have been writing Yosemite instead of Yellowstone too!! I think I’ve been on holiday too long, I need to go home for a rest!

We arrived here in Rapid City in very poor weather and the temperature had dropped from 85ºF to 55ºF. Fingers crossed the weather is a little warmer tomorrow!!

Saying goodbye! Cheryl on the left and Brogans in the middle!

Goodbye to our cabin

Buffalo’s Rear!!

Spot the coyote!

Coyote on the hunt!

Beartooth Mountain

The long and winding road that we travelled along

Another Yellowstone view

A view along the way

Wyoming panorama

The Shoshone National Forest sign or as I like to call it The Shoeshine National Forest!!

Storm clouds over Wyoming

Me outside the Buffalo Bill Historic Centre

Buffalo Bill’s boyhood home

A ‘little friend’ outside BB’s home!

So today we said ‘goodbye’ to Cheryl, her dog George and the Brogan family and we came down from the mountain and our Little House on the Prairie for the last time to travel to Cody, Wyoming. Luckily, ‘Margaret’ our sat-nav (GPS) took us the pretty route out of Yellowstone through the Beartooth Pass on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway via Cooke City. The highest elevation at the Pass being 10,947 feet or 3,345 metres. The road to say the least was very winding and at times breathtaking  and we were once again treated to some of the most magnificent scenery on Earth!

Yet again we were treated to huge herds of buffalo and even found ourselves in the situation of having to wait to cross a bridge because a buffalo had decided he was going first. Poor thing was quite grumpy, he was having a really bad time with all the flies! Still, it gave us time to really study his rear-end. Mine doesn’t seem half as big after staring at his for 10 minutes!!

Then, we noticed a traffic jam ahead and wondered what it could be and coming out of the tall grass to cross the road was a coyote!! He was very thin and his coat very mangey and I certainly wouldn’t want to feel the sharpness of his teeth.

We passed through the Shoshone National Forest (or as I initially called it, The Shoeshine National Forest), while storm clouds had started to gather over our destination at Cody. Still, we didn’t see any rain at all.

We stopped at the Buffalo Bill Historic Centre before checking into our hotal in Cody. It turned out to be a much larger and more magnificent museum than we had expected by far and we really should have had a full day visiting there.  We would certainly recommend anyone visiting Cody to visit the museum. The strangest sign we saw was one on the door that said “No Firearms”. Not a sign we see everyday back home!!

The museum showed every aspect of William F. Cody’s (aka Buffalo Bill) life and times from a small child to his time with his Wild West Show which he toured the UK with and once, performed in front of Queen Victoria. He was instrumental in the building of the town of Cody but his show never performed there.

Elk and Fawn coming down the mountain

Elk and Fawn

Upper Falls from Uncle Tom’s Trail

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Us at Grand Canyon of Yellowstone from Artist’s Point

Artists Point

Is it a mouse?

Dragon’s Mouth Mud Volcano

Sulphur Cauldron

Oh my! Wonder who’s upset him!!

Buffalo Herd

Buffalo Herd crossing the road and causing chaos!

Feeding Time!
(Another Sandra ‘special’)

Bear and cubs

Bear and cub

The Yellowstone River

Me at the 45th Parallel stood on tiptoe!

And last but not least for the second time this trip … the Roosevelt Arch!

As we drove down from the mountain this morning we were treated to the sight of an elk and her fawn crossing the road right in front of us. What a lovely way to start the day!

Today was our last trip to YNP and the weather has been slightly cooler which was a good thing because Simon did the Tom Thumb Trail (aka Uncle Tom’s Trail) which consists of a zig-zag path leading down to 328 metal steps to an overlook of Lower Falls.  It’s said that there are 2,000 steps back up but in reality there’s only 328 plus a lack of oxygen and because of the altitude makes it feel like 2000.

The trail was originally constructed in 1898 by park concessionaire, “Uncle Tom” H. F. Henderson when he was granted a permit to operate a ferry across the Yellowstone River. Henderson ferried park visitors across the Yellowstone River then escorted them to the trail and they travelled down to the base of the Lower Falls via ladders and ropes (even ladies in their long dresses). Upon their return, visitors were provided a picnic lunch on the south rim of the canyon before returning via the ferry. In 1903 when the original Chittenden Bridge was built, Henderson’s ferry business began to decline. In 1905, when the government built a wooden stairway, visitors were increasingly unwilling to pay Henderson the $1 fee for the tour to the base of the falls. 1906 was the last year he operated tours in the canyon. The trail has been maintained and improved by the National Park Service to this day.

During a visit to one of the Visitor Centres today we saw this little mouse-like chap ….. anyone know what it is?

We visited Artists Point in Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon too and saw a man painting this view. Although there are lots of places to view this part of Yellowstone, it is said that this point in the Canyon is the best for painters and photographers.

We visited the Sulphur Caldron and Mud Volcano and although they were not as colourful as the geysers and Prismatic Lake we’d seen before, they were still a wonderful sight to see and watching the mud bubble up and particularly the smell of rotten eggs was quite fascinating.

It was also fascinating to see a buffalo wondering through the car park. Buffalo can outrun man so we were rather worried when it suddenly charged off and jumped over a fence.  We saw it later ripping a branch off a tree. I think us humans had invaded his territory and he was rather cross!

Today was also exciting for a couple of other reasons, firstly we saw a herd of buffalo crossing the main road, some with their calves and later saw a calf feeding from its mother and then to Si’s absolute delight we were treated to the sight of a mother bear with her two cubs, again crossing the main road.

You can be driving along the roadway and suddenly encounter a huge traffic jam and that’s an indication that it’s either a buffalo, bear or elk jam meaning the animals are very close by and of course, everyone stops to take photos.

Then, driving out of the Park we crossed the 45th Parallel which is called the halfway point between the Equator and the North Pole!

Tomorrow we leave our log cabin in the mountains for Cody, Wyoming and Buffalo Bill!

Old Faithful

Grand Prismatic Spring

Grand Prismatic Spring

Excelsior Geyser Crater

Not a sight you see every day!

Wonder where he’s going!

A buck Elk with six points on each antler with his harem!

The Fishing Hole!

Today the main focus of our visit to YNP was to see ‘Old Faithful’ which is a cone geyser. It is called the most predictable geographical feature on Earth erupting almost every 91 minutes and each eruption can last from 1.5 to 5 minutes. The average height of an eruption is 145 feet (44 metres) with the highest recorded eruption being 185 feet (56 metres).  It is the most viewed geyser in the Park and each time Old Faithful erupts there are hundreds of people there to record the event.

We also went to have a look at Grand Prismatic Spring. It is the largest hot spring in the United States and the third largest in the world The lake is known for its turquoise colour and so our ‘resident photographer’ was rather disappointed not to be able to see it due to the rising steam.

The vivid colors in the spring are the result of pigmented bacteria in the microbial mats that grow around the edges of the mineral-rich water

As you travel round the Park, Yellowstone has so many different faces, meadows, mountains, rivers, streams, lakes, canyons and rolling hills it’s no wonder that it was made the first National Park. It covers over two million acres!!

We were lucky today to see a Buffalo treading the highway and a big buck Elk with his harem, they decided to spend the afternoon sitting outside the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.

The last picture is of a small lake we pass when we drive down the mountain ….. we’ve christened it ‘the fishing hole’.

Roosevelt Arch at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park

Pallete Hot Spring

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Crackling Lake

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

Si at Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs

Sandra at Lower Yellowstone Falls

Yellowstone Lower Falls

Buffalo

Buffalo in his mud patch!

Elk

Si’s bear!

First Chance Mine up on the mountain

Sunset on the mountain

Sunset on the mountain

Sunset on the mountain

We awoke in our log cabin to yet another hot sunny day and after eating a magnificent breakfast cooked and served by Cheryl, we headed out to Yellowstone National Park (YNP).

We have seen some mind-blowing, magnificent sights on our travels across the USA but what we have seen today at YNP outweighs everything we have seen so far.

Yellowstone lies over a hotspot where light, hot, molten mantle rock rises toward the surface. While the Yellowstone hotspot is now under the Yellowstone Plateau, it previously helped create the eastern Snake River Plain (to the west of Yellowstone) through a series of huge volcanic eruptions. The hotspot appears to move across terrain in the east-northeast direction, but in fact the hotspot is much deeper than terrain and remains stationary while the North American Plate moves west-southwest over it.

Over the past 18 million years or so, this hotspot has generated a succession of violent eruptions and less violent floods of basaltic lava. Together these eruptions have helped create the eastern part of the Snake river Plain from a once-mountainous region. At least a dozen of these eruptions were so massive that they are classified as super eruptions.

Yellowstone was established as the world’s first national park in 1872 primarily because of its unparalleled collection of geysers, hot springs, mud pots and steam vents. It is classified as an active volcano and has approximately 2000 earthquakes annually!

The highest point in YNP is Eagle Peak which stands at 11,358 feet above sea level. YNP gets approximately three million visitors a year of which only 140,000 visit in the winter.

The 300 plus geysers make up about two-thirds of all those found on the planet! Combine that with more than 10,000 thermal features and you have a place like no other.

For those who like the technical detail; Geysers are hot springs with narrow spaces in their plumbing, usually near the surface. These constrictions prevent water from circulating freely to the surface where heat would escape.  The deepest circulating water can exceed the surface boiling point (199ºF or 93ºC).

At Norris Geyser Basin a scientific drill hole measured 401ºF or 200ºC at just over 265 feet below the surface. Hot then!!

Hot springs are the most common hydrothermal features in the park. They vary from frothing mocha-like boiling water to clear and calm pools of unfathomable depth. The colours of the hot springs are magnificent and the water is mostly clear.

Travertine terraces are found at Mammoth Hot Springs, where interactions of water and limestone create chalk-white travertine.

The overriding smell where the geysers are is one of sulphur or rotten eggs, although it was nowhere near as bad as we thought it would be!! We were lucky enough to actually see one geyser erupt just as we arrived.

YNP as a whole emits 30-40 times more heat per square feet than the rest of North America.

Wildlife roam freely all over YNP and today we were lucky enough to get ‘up close and personal’ with a buffalo, see a herd of elk and today …………. Si actually got to see a bear in the wild! We also saw an Osprey’s nest high up in the cliffs.

YNP even has its own Grand Canyon called Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and it has a magnificent waterfall (Lower Yellowstone Falls) which looks just like a miniature Niagara Falls with the most wonderful rainbow.

We hiked down to the Lower Falls which are actually twice as high as Niagara Falls at 308 feet (94 metres). The hike is a one-mile round trip with a drop of 600 feet but then of course we had to climb the 600 feet back up to the top, which at the altitude and heat made us a little breathless. The hike is classified as ‘strenuous’.

We were ready for our dinner tonight, Cheryl cooked lasagna with salad and garlic bread and it certainly went down a treat. The other family from England have left and so today we were joined by the lovely Brogan family from the US.

Si took a walk to take some sunset photos for you to enjoy!

Tomorrow we continue our adventure in Yellowstone and will be visiting ‘Old Faithful’.

Well ‘what a difference a day makes’ ……. we awoke this morning to bright sunshine, blue skies and it was warm enough to get the shorts back on!!!

Crater Lake

Crater Lake

Simon and Sandra at Crater Lake

Sandra at Crater Lake

Chipmunk at Crater Lake

Rogue River near Crater Lake

Rogue River near Crater Lake

The US Army on manoeuvres

Portland Traffic!

As we would be passing Crater Lake again on our way to Portland we decided we should do a little detour to see if Si could take more Lake shots. This is the actual colour of the water, the photo has not been altered at all.

Well, the weather at the Lake was beautiful, such a change from yesterday, although at 8,000 feet the wind was a little chilly.  So, Si got his shots and then we headed off for Portland.  It all turned into an eight hour drive and when we got to Portland it was rush hour, so you can imagine what the traffic was like and to add to that there was a car breakdown and road works!!

We came to the conclusion that the whole of the US Army was on the move today as we passed lots and lots of army trucks on the way out of Crater Lake.

We couldn’t complain about the drive today as about six hours of it was through forests and forests of pine trees.  There’s no shortage of wood in the US that’s for sure.

This is going to be short and sweet today as we are very tired and need to get our beauty sleep!!

More from Portland tomorrow!

Well today, the ‘all-weather’ photographer’s assistant is not so ‘all-weather’, rather ‘under- the-weather’, I’ve managed to get a head cold from somewhere so I’m sneezing and using tissues as though they are going out of fashion!

Crater Lake

When we woke up this morning and it was cloudy but dry we had a little hope that it would be dry up at Crater Lake and we would be able to get good views and Si some good photos.

Crater Lake

Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the U.S. and is fed only by rain and snow (but no rivers or streams) and so is considered to be the cleanest large body of water in the world! The water is exceptional for its clarity and intense blue colour.

The lake rests inside a caldera (a caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption) formed approximately 7,700 years ago when a 12,000-foot-tall (3,600 meters) volcano collapsed following a major eruption. The eruption may have been the largest in North America in the past 640,000 years!

Crater Lake

Alas, when we arrived it was raining. To view the Lake you drive either via the west or east rim drives and we decided to start on the west side.  Good job we did because by the time we came to end of the first half of the drive on the west side the east side drive had been closed off due to the bad weather. As we progressed around the west drive climbing to elevations above 8,000 feet the weather became appalling. We couldn’t see the lake as it was covered in a rolling mist and the rain was pouring down and it was difficult to even see the road which at time was rather hairy as there are no barriers to protect drivers from going off the edge.  We sat for a while in the hope that it would clear but when it didn’t we headed down again.

However, by the time we reached the bottom the sun had appeared and Si was able to grab a few photos of the lake.  Sadly, the blue of the water was not evident all over but just in certain areas.

Crater Lake rim today with snow!

Photographer in the snow!

One thing that surprised us as well was the amount of snow from the bottom to the top of the Lake. They have an annual snowfall of 43.5 feet (13.2 meters) and start to clear the snow in April ready for the 500,00 visitors that come every year. The lake last froze over in 1949.

It would have been a very beautiful place to see if the sun had been shining so we’ll just have to mark it down for another visit in the future.

Mummy bird at Crater Lake

Baby bird at Crater Lake

We didn’t see much wildlife today but did see the two birds below, mummy and baby.

Also below, are another couple of photos we took on the drive back today.

Oh, and before I forget …………… Si had his wish come true today and he saw a bear! “At last” I hear you say!  Well, here’s the photographic proof!! Ha, ha, ha. I bought it for him in the gift shop at Crater Lake.

Si’s bear – Bruno!!

I’m sorry to say there’s not much to report today!! We’ve driven up from Mount Shasta to Klamath Falls but it only took us a couple of hours and it rained most of the way.  The clouds are very low over the mountains.

Mount Shasta – the best shot we could get!

Again, the best shot we could get of Mount Shasta

We did have one stroke of luck as we left Mount Shasta and that was to arrive at a view point of the mountain just as the sun came out for a second and showed the snow on top.

We are supposed to be ‘doing’ Crater Lake tomorrow before moving onto Portland on Thursday but we are told the weather will be bad again so we will have to wait and see what occurs in the morning.

I’m sure there must be some good shops around here somewhere!! Maybe we could get Si that extra jumper.

Photographer’s Assistant!

Me doing what I do best ……….. eating chocolate!

As we are a little short on photos today, here’s a funny shot of me taken in the rain yesterday and one Si took today of me eating chocolate!! How come I never manage to get a funny picture of Si?

The hotel we are in at the moment is giving away free soup and bread at 4.30 pm so as it’s such an awful cold day, only 56 degrees F. at the moment, perhaps us ‘old folk’ should trundle down to take advantage of their kindness to feed the poor and hungry!!

Well today was a bummer on one front but good on two others!!

We awoke this morning to rain and a temperature of 46 degrees F. So it was on with the jeans and wet coats.  We came to see Mount Shasta but alas as of yet we haven’t been able to see it because most of it is covered in mist.  Fingers crossed we get to see it before we leave tomorrow.

The new Licence Plate Game

The two good things were, one: we have a new LPG (License Plate Game).  Hooray! Who would have thought that in a small town like this that we would walk into a book store and they would have one. As we are halfway into our holiday, we think we will start over with the game and see how we get on from now until we get back to New York and see if we can do as well as we did with the first one.  I think I’ll put this one on a chain around my neck to make sure we don’t lose it!!

The second good thing was ………….. I managed to find a lovely hairdresser, Mary from Studio B. here in the town to colour my hair. She did a really good job and I look decent again.

McCloud Lower Falls

McCloud Middle Falls

Us at McCloud Middle Falls

The photographer’s ‘all-weather assistant’

As our plans had to be changed due to the weather, we decided to do a small hike to see the beautiful McCloud lower and middle falls.  The area was once inhabited by Wintu Native Americans and they named the Lower Falls ‘Nurum-wit-ti-dekki’ meaning Falls Where The Salmon Turn Back.

Archaeological excavations in 1986 at Fowlers Campground by the Falls, revealed that the Native Americans came on a seasonal basis about one thousand years ago. They used the camp as a base for hunting, processing food and fishing.

You will notice that the photographer has his ‘all-weather photographic assistant’ with him today, carrying the tripod.  For the fashionistas among you, you may like to know what the modern ‘all-weather photographic assistant’ is wearing this season and who dresses her!! Well, our model today is wearing The Jeggings and a Limited Collection grey sweater from the world-famous Marks and Spencer store at The Meadows, Camberley, her wet jacket is courtesy of a stall at The New Forest Show in Hampshire (August 2011), her hiking shoes are from the Bass store at the Waterloo Premium Outlets in New York (thank you Dot for the introduction) and her leather backpack comes courtesy of a store (name unknown) in Guildford, Surrey.

Especially for you Nat, today we actually used the camera remote and it worked first time so there was no need for swearing, cursing or foot stamping by the photographer!!

Si has become obsessed with bears during this holiday and he’s expecting to meet one around every corner!! There was a small spat between us in the middle of the forest while visiting the Falls today as we both felt the need to carry the tripod so that we had a weapon to defend ourselves should that bear appear. As I am more agile and can run faster than my husband I decided to let him carry it most of the way!!

Tomorrow we leave Mount Shasta for Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.  See you there!!

It’s so lovely to be back in contact with the world!

The Beast 2

Today was a driving day.  It occurs to me that I haven’t posted a photo of our new chariot, ‘the beast 2’ so here it is! This one’s a little smaller and only seats five people!!

We left our fabulous B&B and the lovely people we met there and are now ensconced in Mount Shasta.  The weather’s a bit of a shock, at the moment it’s cooler and cloudy.  We had some rain on the way here but only a cupful.  We have come to the conclusion that we have probably seen the last of the very hot weather and plan on getting our jeans out tomorrow.  Hey ho!

Lake Shastina

Northern California seems to be the home of fruit growing.  We passed through miles and miles of fruit trees, nut trees and acres and acres of sunflowers.  Then it turned mountainous and very green with lots of fir trees. I was taking photos as we travelled but this is about the best one, a view of Lake Shastina (not bad for being taken through the car window).

Tomorrow we explore the Mount Shasta area.

PS: For those taking an interest in Si’s eating habits, tonight he had a beef short rib ……….. he said it was fabulous.  I should have taken a picture of the look of pleasure on his face!!!!

Well today was interesting!! We decided to do a small hike, just a two-mile round trip that should have taken 1.5 hours!! Being the Brits that we are we set off about 11.30 a.m. just in time for the hot midday sun. The lady at the Information Centre told us to take plenty of water and at the time we thought that as the hike was only going to take a short amount of time so the water we were carrying would be plenty. How wrong can two people be!!

The rock before the hike! That’s me trying to stop it from rolling any further!!

The hike we were going to do was the Upper Yosemite Fall Trail to Columbia Rock with an elevation of 1,000 feet above the valley floor, so in total about 5,000 feet above sea level.

The summary of the hike was that Columbia Rock is a massive granite rock jutting from the north canyon wall a thousand feet above Yosemite Valley with the rail-lined overlook atop the 5,031-foot rock offering a distance and detailed view of the valley. The hike follows the first steep mile of the Upper Yosemite Fall Trail – with the aid of 60 switchbacks – through oak and manzanita groves. The trail was built in the 1870s by John Conway and his crew.

Not even a quarter of the way yet!

Upper Yosemite Falls – this is where we should have turned round!!

Help! I’m exhausted.

Upper Yosemite Falls – I’m feeling a lot better now!

Upper Yosemite Falls and Half Dome

So, we set off at a steady pace in the sunshine.  Yesterday was a lovely day but cool so we expected today would be much the same but no, it’s been much hotter. The path we were on first of all was gritty sand and the incline rose slowly.  We stopped at various points to admire the view, take photos and refresh ourselves.  However, it became apparent after about two hours that we had gone wrong somewhere!! We soon found ourselves climbing over fallen rocks and up very steep inclines.  One man told us we had about another 15 minutes to walk until we reached the end of the hike and then another told us it was at least an hour. By now we were starting to feel rather tired and our water was running low.  Every time we turned a bend we were confronted with more steep slopes to climb and fallen rocks. To cut a very long hike (story) short, we consulted our hiking book again and soon realised that we had already reached our destination about an hour earlier and should have turned back then!!

Are we stupid or what! I told Si it was all his fault of course as he was the one who picked the hike in the first place and he should have realised sooner that we had been hiking for far too long.  Us ladies know that it’s always the man’s fault, not the lady’s!!!!

We were in fact now doing the 7.2 miles round trip that takes six hours to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls and Yosemite Point.  This is usually undertaken by the more experienced climbers, not just us hikers.  We decided the best thing to do was turn around and start the long decent.  Well, as is usually the way, the decent was worse than the ascent.  The rocks were slippery and the sand very difficult to walk on.  Good exercise for the legs though and the views were magnificent!

In the end the ‘small’ hike took us 5.5 hours and we covered seven miles and were at an elevation of about 6,500 feet above sea level.

The snake – anyone know which snake this is?

We saw a snake on our travels and a blue-jay seemed to follow us all the way up and down the hike, every so often it appeared that he was laughing at us.

We hadn’t eaten anything substantial since breakfast so were very tired, dirty and hungry when we returned to the B&B and didn’t feel like going out to dinner but the day was saved when Scelestia here at the B&B kindly offered to share their wonderful family dinner of lasagne, salad and wine with us. It was like manna from Heaven!!

Our B&B – Yosemite Rose

Tomorrow (Sunday) we leave Yosemite and move on to Mount Shasta in Northern California and there hopefully, we’ll be able to update the blog for the past three days.

Where’s BT Infinity when we need it!! Still can’t post to the blog so am typing this for when normal service is resumed.  Hopefully on Sunday (and here we are!)

Bridal Veil Falls

Cathedral Rock

We spent Friday enjoying the wonder that is Yosemite National Park. There are many magnificent things to see and photograph and we captured a few of them.

Yosemite covers an area of 761,268 acres and is visited each year by over 3.7 million visitors. It is internationally recognised for its spectacular granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams and giant sequoia groves. Almost 95% of the park is designated wilderness. The park has an elevation range from 2,127 to 13,114 feet (648 to 3,997 m).

We felt as though we were at the

There are climbers on El Capitan!! Can you see them?

top of the world today when we reached the end of the road at Glacier Point.  It stands at an elevation of 7,214 feet (2,199 m) and there is a sheer drop of 3,200 feet (980 m) to Curry Village standing below. You need a good head for heights to peer over the barrier that’s for sure.

Here they are!!

El Capitan

Tunnel View with Half Dome the first view that Euro-Americans ever had of this magnificent place

Us at Tunnel View

Yosemite Valley

Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point

Si at Glacier Point

El Capitan is a vertical rock formation 3,000 feet from base to summit along it’s tallest face and is one of the world’s favourite challenges for rock climbers. Today we were treated to such a spectacle and saw climbers on the sheer walls. Some of those who undertake the climb will do it over two days, so get to the halfway point, string up a hammock and spend the night suspended on the side of the rock before finishing their climb next day.  We were told that some of the more really extreme climbers have scaled it in two hours!!!!!! It would take us two years!!

Tomorrow (Saturday) we return to hike some of the less challenging trails.

Tonight for dinner we found a little gem of a place called Charlotte’s Hotel in Groveland. Great food, super atmosphere and was very popular with the locals. Not your typical American food, instead they served small plates of different foods that people could share instead of everyone getting oversized portions that mostly end up being thrown away.

Today we are bereft on two fronts! First of all we left Vegas, which we think of as a second home as we feel so comfortable there (I tried to persuade Si that we should cancel everything and spend the rest of our trip there but he wouldn’t do it!) and secondly we have lost a travelling companion!!

Alas, we no longer have LPG (Licence Plate Game) travelling with us.  We are so sad that he has gone.  It appears that when we swopped the car over last Sunday and in all the confusion he got left behind on the back seat of ‘the beast’ and is now travelling far and wide with another family.  All I can hear in my head is his little voice when he saw us driving out of the car rental facility calling ‘wait, stop, you’ve left me behind’.  We didn’t realise until this morning that he was missing.  We feel like Tom Hanks in Cast Away when he realises he’s lost Wilson the basketball and he sobs uncontrollably ……….. we now know how he feels. LPG served us well for the first five weeks and five thousand miles of our trip and if we ever see his like again you can be sure we will snap him up. At least we have a photograph of LPG so we’ll never forget him.

Saw this on our drive today! Um, interesting!!

So, we drove from Las Vegas to a place called Groveland today which is just on the outskirts of Yosemite and we are staying in a lovely old B&B. We went to the local golf club for dinner (no photos of that I’m afraid) and were treated to the wonderful spectacle of deer coming out for their dinner too. We didn’t manage to get a photo of the deer but here’s one of the golf course.

Driving today we saw lots of different landscapes, we had barren desert, forests, lakes and best of all snow-capped mountains and a glimpse of Half Dome at Yosemite.  We even reached the dizzy heights of 10,000 feet above sea level. The temperature has gone from 102 degrees in Las Vegas to 64 degrees here!! 

Lake in Yosemite

We managed to sort out the problems we were having with uploading photos over the past couple of days so here’s a few pics taken while we were at the Bellagio and especially for Steve Blewitt, here’s Si eating and drinking!!!!

Tomorrow we will spend the day at Yosemite and I think we will have to put away our summer gear and get the jeans out ……… it’s going to be cooler!! 

What stomach!!??

Si and his Tennessee Highball!

Sandra and her Nigori Aviation!!!!!

The cheese plate!

One of the pools at the Bellagio

The pianist at the Petrossion Bar at the Bellagio

Oops, forgot to include the marmot we saw when we first entered Yosemite!

Hooray!  We are now at Mount Shasta and wifi has been restored!

We are currently staying just outside of Yosemite National Park and the wifi is very poor so don’t be surprised if you don’t see any additional blogs for a few days or it may be that we don’t post any photos.

Hopefully, normal service will be resumed once we move on.

Today was our final rest day in Las Vegas.

We had a lovely day, spending the morning around the pool and then we went and did the one thing that just has to be done on a Vegas holiday and that is to visit the Petrossian Lounge here at the Bellagio Hotel to partake of their cheese plate and to drink cocktails.

The cheese plate consists of about a dozen different cheeses, fig, raisins, slices of apple, apricots and something that kind of tastes like liquorice and to go with the cheese is three types of bread and crackers!!  It is one of the best things ever!! There is also someone playing the grand piano.

We took some photos of us enjoying the cheese plate and cocktails particularly for one of our followers, Steve Blewitt, to enjoy!! They were taken taken on my phone as we didn’t have a camera with us but for some reason I’m currently having trouble getting them onto the laptop so no photos today I’m sorry to say but once we sort out the problem we’ll post them.

This evening we enjoyed Celine Dion’s new show at Caesar’s Palace. She has the most magnificent voice and this time she had a great orchestra with her. Her dresses were beautiful and the light show was amazing.

Alas, we will be leaving Vegas tomorrow without winning our fortune but we’ve had a great time.  It’s another long driving day as we head for Yosemite National Park.

So today is rest day two.  We spent this morning around the pool again and Si went off and took some photos of the Bellagio reception and atrium.

Bellagio Reception

The atrium is re-dressed four times a year to mark the changing of the seasons.

The light house: the first lighthouses were built by the Egyptians as far back as 283 A.D. to guide ships away from rocks and land and bring them safely into harbour.  The first lighthouse in America was built in Boston Harbour in 1716 on Little Brewster Island.  This one is 32ft tall and has a real working light on top.

The greenhouse is 13ft high, 36ft long and 14ft wide and at the moment is home to lots of beautiful birds i.e. Rosey Bourke, Parakeets, Canaries, Cockatiels and 50 Finch birds in nesting units.

The bridge is 24ft long and 6ft tall and the tree house is approximately 15ft tall.

The chocolate fountain (photo below, especially for Steve Blewitt) is the largest in the world and is made up of white, medium and dark confectionary grade chocolate.  It has over 500 feet of stainless steel piping, and the chocolate rises 27 vertical feet from the lower level pump room.  It took two years of engineering, planning and design. Quote from the Guinness World Records Ltd:  The largest chocolate fountain measures 8m (26ft 3ins) tall and circulates 2 tons of chocolate (4409 pounds) at a rate of 120 quarts per minute. Is that enough chocolate for you Steve?

Approximtely 25,000 flowers make up this snail!

Flowers outside Sensi restaurant in Bellagio

The chocolate fountain in Bellagio

This afternoon we went Downtown and visited the most famous ‘Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in the World’.  For those who don’t know, there is a programme on Sky TV on the History Channel (don’t know if it’s on cable too) called Pawn Stars and it’s about     this shop in Vegas owned and run by the Harrison family. They are Richard aka the ‘old man’, his son Rick, Rick’s son Corey and Corey’s friend from school, Chumlee.  There’s usually huge queues to get in but we were lucky today and we didn’t have too long to wait.  Sadly, we missed them because they were in the shop this morning but this afternoon we were told they were ‘out the back’ filming.  Still, it was great to actually be there to see the shop first hand.

The blog for the next three days is going to be rather lacking I’m afraid as there’s not a lot of action this end as we are on a total rest period to recoup after the first four weeks of our big adventure.

Today has been rest day number one which included lazing around the pool, fine dining and gambling (no big wins today!) so today’s blog is rather short. We found an Elvis slot machine that’s rather a lot of fun and we had a few wins but when it came to the big wins then Elvis had definitely ‘left the building!’ We did have some photos to post but it seems as though most of them have taken a leaf out of our book and are having a rest day too because for some strange reason we can’t get them to load. Will have that sorted out by tomorrow when we should also have photos of the atrium here at the Bellagio.  Each season the atrium is changed to represent the time of year and they do an excellent job.  Thousands come to the hotel every day just to look at it. They are never disappointed.

We did buy two tickets today to go and see Celine Dion’s new show at Caesar’s Palace on Wednesday evening (Tony, sorry you can’t be here to enjoy the show with us).  We saw her original show here in Vegas a few years back and it was excellent.

Anyway, I’ll say ‘goodnight’ as it’s nearly midnight here and we have another hard day ahead of us tomorrow so we need our beauty sleep and leave you with another look at the sight I’m looking at right now, the fabulous Las Vegas strip.

The Las Vegas strip at night from our hotel window

The Las Vegas strip at night from our hotel window

The Las Vegas strip during the day from our hotel window

Me with the ‘big win’.

Well it’s official, we are all arched, canyoned and hiked out so have  come to Las Vegas for a rest!! I know, ‘a rest’ you say! Yes, for the next three days we will lounge around the pool, weather permitting, yesterday we had temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees and today in Las Vegas it’s currently about 100 degrees and we are told that last week it reached 112 degrees, so quite warm! After sunning ourselves we will eat good food, drink good wine and do a little gambling.  Speaking of which, tonight we had dinner and then had a quick look around the casino because we’ve had quite an exhausting day and are a little weary and gambled $20 (£13 ) on a Monopoly machine and won …………… $440 (£300).  So, all in all a good start to our little ‘break’.

On the drive from Panguitch this morning we saw three interesting things but alas, did not have the camera handy so couldn’t take photos.  First, was a red and white lighthouse in the middle of the desert, second was a sign on the interstate saying ’80 mph’ …. how many of those do you see in the UK and thirdly was a large roundabout, how many of those do you see in the US ….. answer, not many.

It was our intention to stop off at Zion National Park this morning but the crowds were so bad we decided to give it a miss.  We have been to Zion so it was no big deal.  We did see this tepee on the way out though. Bookings being taken now!!

We passed briefly through Arizona today on our way to Nevada