Why We Loved the USA....

One word. Diversity. Just check this out. Take, for example,  our last week in the USA. We started in Bend, Oregon, which has more breweries than high schools, and where the quickest way to get through town is on a canoe.

Avoiding the traffic in down-town Bend

Bend houses with individual parking bays for canoes

Then we stopped in at the Crater Lake national park, which would have been the highlight enough for any normal holiday, were it not for the fact that we've had highlights coming out of our ears....

Crater Lake National Park - is this for real?! 

The boys take it in turn to laugh politely at Dad's crap jokes

A quick game of piggy-in-the-middle in our Crater Lake campsite

Thence on to San Francisco, surely one of the world's most desirable cities, where the hippies still hang out and the fog hangs loooow over the Bay

A very famous junction indeed, with ludicrously priced ice-cream shop in the background!

Hippy Heaven

Why kids shouldn't smoke...

Max gives up on sightseeing to harass the poor photographer

A day later and we're experiencing our first frost in Yosemite national park (which feels for all the world like Juliasdale on steroids).

Hang on, isn't that the Ruparara?!

Early morning frost at our campsite - 2,300 metres altitude

And then within a few hours of leaving Yosemite, we were camped wild in the Mojave desert. Wasn't Sudan, but it sure as heck felt like it! Somehow felt wrong not having the Harford-Adams there with us....

Max shows off his beer-opening skills to a sceptical audience

Early morning tranquility in the desert

And then before we knew it we were sweating to the beat of U2 in the Joshua Tree

From frost to 35 degree heat in a single day's drive.....

And then, hey presto, we were in Los Angeles. 

What a week that was, let me tell you! And totally illustrative of the kind of soaring scene changes you get throughout the American west. 

What a country. What a trip. What a heart-wrench to have to leave. 

But hey, now we're in South America, and wait till you see the landscapes here!