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!

Some Promised Pictures of Our Final 10 Days in the US...

West Linn, Oregon: Terry, Mary and Bryce Cumpston. Our first time to Chipotle. A night time venture into Portland one evening involved queuing for half an hour for the (in)famous Voodoo Donuts. Well worth the wait, even amidst a feisty community of homeless people.

Picnic lunch in the park.Then south to the organic hazelnut farm outside Eugene, Oregon: Lisa and Martin Corricello-McDowell, with Liam and Giavanni. Gorged ourselves on lush organic fruits and waded in the dam...

Continuing South, through the Makenzie-Santiam Passes, where we came across unexpected volcanic-covered terrain, as well as a chain of surrounding volcanoes, including Mount Washington...

Arriving in Bend, Oregon where we stayed in Cathy and Mark Lee's 'cabin'...

and enjoyed a wonderful lunch with old Zim friends Lee and Lynn Poole...

Our last stop in Oregon saw us camping at the stunning Crater Lake, a crystal blue 6-mile-across lake situated in an open-topped volcano, said to have last blown 7,700 years ago. And due for another blow… (how soon unspecified!)

Phantom Ship Island

Leaving Oregon, we hit the famous I5 Highway into California…

Instantly, the feel of the place was different! It sounds like such a cliche, but it did. Helped along, I guess by coming across funky towns such as this one…genuinely named Weed. Naturally, it markets itself to its best advantage…

We drove through the luxurious vineyards of Napa Valley, until we reached the much-anticipated San Francisco. The flamboyant shops, streets and people did not disappoint. We wandered around, jaws agape, down hippy Haite Street, gay Castro district, and touristy Fisherman's Wharf…

Always foggy in San Fran! We never once saw Golden Gate Bridge in its entirety!

Darn, I forgot my flares

Pot is available 'medicinally' - yah, right!

loads of gor-geous guys round here

Leaving SF and the coast behind us, we headed into the famed  Redwood trees…
 to meet up with Adam, Dom and baby Ty…
…in the amazing Yosemite National Park…

Driving ever further South, through the Mojave desert, we camped out under the stars, just like we'd done in Africa all those years ago!

Our final camping in North America was in the eerie, but stunning, Joshua Tree National Park, where we were visited by a single coyote as we once again slept out on the desert sands…

The Joshua tree is otherwise known as the YUKA tree, of which there are many throughout the Californian desert

Skull Rock

Our final two days saw us in Claremont, a suburb of Los Angeles, with Adam's darling parents Eileen and Mark, where we were treated like royalty. What a fabulous way to end our three busy months…

Eileen Goor, with Ingram the service-dog-in-training (under the table)

And so… to LAX airport, having sold the faithful jeep for $1,000, now having to struggle with all  twelve bags' worth of our worldly possessions!

FAREWELL and THANK YOU North America, for showing us so many of your beautiful Parks, animals, coastlines, mountains and people - all true treasures for us to keep in our many happy memories.

Farewell, North America! Ola, South America!

WE HAVE ARRIVED! We are in Brazil and feeling somewhat disorientated, as the last two weeks have all happened so quickly. Our feet have barely touched down since leaving West Linn, Oregon, where we stayed with the lovely Cumpstons. The whirl wind tour started from there and led to the Corricello-McDowell's organic walnut farm in Eugene, to the Lee's country cabin in Bend, where we also spent a glorious lunch with Lynn and Lee Poole, to the breath-taking marvels of Crater Lake, into the Napa Valley of California (passing through a town that is genuinely called Weed, which tickled us no end!), to the legendary city of San Francisco, to the redwood country cottage of the Wilhites, to the overwhelmingly spectacular mountains of the Yosemites, to the bizarre and intriguing desert of Joshua Tree National Park, to the final resting place of the Goor's wonderful home in the outskirts of Los Angeles…
There is so much we have still to write up and blog about, but during this entire two thousand-mile section, we were without internet. So the stories will trickle in, once we've had a chance to reflect, breathe and find some more wifi!
After a long and sleepless 11 and a half hour flight from LAX, we arrived in Sao Paulo this morning, somewhat dazed and bleary eyed. We continue the marathon journey this evening, when we take a 12 hour bus ride to Muriae, the town closest to Gus' folks' farm in Minas Gerais state. In the meantime, we are resting in a hotel, restoring some energy, so we have the strength to lug our twelve immodestly-sized pieces of luggage to the bus terminal.
More to follow, with pictures… promise!

Some Facts About Alaska

 As you might have gathered by now from reading this blog, our travels thus far have been greatly impacted by our Alaskan experience. Even though we have now left the main Northwest, the memories we have from the 49^th American state have set the tone for our remaining four months of travel down the west coast and into South America: we now feel prepared for any weather, mountain hike and isolated wilderness that may come our way!

So to honour all that, here is a final piece about Alaska, some of which you may already know, much of which you may not. It’s a kind of Did You Know….

•      Most people assume that Alaska’s state capital is Anchorage. But it’s not! It is, in fact…….Juneau – the only state capital in the US which has no road access (so you can only fly in, or sail into its port, as we did)

•       The flag of Alaska was designed by a Native Indian boy, Benny Benson, when he was only 13 years old. Benny won a state-wide competition for the design back in 1927

The blue field represents the wide-open sky of Alaska, as well as the colour of the state’s flower: the Forget-Me-Not. The sole star in the top right corner represents the North Star, which shows the way of the future for Alaska, also the most northerly state in the USA. The other smaller stars represent the constellation of The Great Bear (or The Big Dipper), which reflects the state’s strength

•      Alaska is way bigger than you can even imagine! The combination of Texas, California and Montana does not even equal the land surface of the 49^th state! It is one-fifth the size of the entire United States!

Alaska measures a total of 586,412 square miles. (That’s 2,400 miles East to West and 1,420 miles North to South). Too much to get your head around, right?!

•    17 of the country’s 20 highest peaks are in Alaska! AND, all of those peaks, as well as another two, are over 14,000 feet. Mount Denali (also known as Mount McKinley) is the highest mountain in the USA at 20,320 feet

Denali is the Native Indian name meaning “The Great One”

•     There are more active glaciers and ice fields in Alaska than in the rest of the inhabited world. Alaska’s largest glacier is called Malaspina and measures 850 square miles!

Alaska has 6,640 miles of coastline AND a whopping 33,902 miles of shoreline (including all its islands). That’s double the amount of the ‘Lower 48’ (ie. the rest of mainland US)

There are more than three million lakes in Alaska. Its longest river is the Yukon River, which stretches almost 2,000 miles long. The Yukon River is the third longest river in the USA

•      Alaska is full of volcanoes! It has more than 70 potentially active volcanoes. The most violent volcanic eruption in the last century was back in 1912, when Novarupta erupted, creating the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park

•     North America’s strongest recorded earthquake happened in Prince William Sound, off the coast of Valdez. It occurred in living memory, in March 1964, wiping out the old town of Valdez and being felt as far afield as California, Hawaii and Texas

Alaska’s earthquake was the world’s second biggest ever and measured 9.2 on the Richter Scale