OK, there are lots more photos online: we now have galleries for Grand Canyon, AZ, Navajo Nation, AZ, Albuquerque, NM and Santa Fe, NM. We also have a shiny new Index.
If you haven't managed to join ImageStation yet, you need to go to their Sign Up page, give them your name and e-mail address, and a username and password. It's very easy :-).
Having overnighted in a school in Tuba City, we left bright and early and headed to Navajo National Monument, a place where a bunch of Amer-Indians lived several hundred years ago, until they overfarmed the land or got hit by a drought or somesuchlike. After a short walk (compared to the down and up the Grand Canyon experience), we got to an point overlooking the ex-village. The whole thing was in an alcove in the canyon cliff opposite us and remarkably well preserved.
From there we went NE into Utah just, before turning back into Arizona to get to Monument Valley. Sadly once in the visitor centre (or center if you like) our rear right wheel was looking a bit poorly. A trip to a nearby gas station reinflated the thing, though a small hiss was noticeably... Still, we drove around looking for 'Dean" and his trading post where there might have been a spare tyre. Sadly all we found were his 10 pet dogs. Quick tyre check was okay, so we carried on, on a 17 mile dirt track route round Monument Valley. If you haven't seen them before, they're basically huge red sandstone blocks reaching straight up out the ground to the sky. They're in a lot of old westerns. Pretty aweinspiring.
Well, the tyre seemed to survive that, so off we (Tom) drove into the night, arriving eventually in Gallup, just out of the Navajo Nation, where we stayed overnight.
When we woke up, the tyre was down again, a slow puncture from an embedded nail was surmised to be the cause. Tyre was replaced with temporary one, drove about 200m down the round to a service centre, where some nice old chap repaired the hole in the tyre and put it back on for us. And away we went!
Las Vegas is an entirely amazing city. Without a doubt, it's the most visually stunning place we've been to yet. Everything you've heard about it is true - the cheap, plentiful food; low cost hotel rooms; neon lights everywhere; wedding chapels; and of course the gambling...
There is a lot of money floating around, almost all of it profits from gambling. I arrived with a house limit of $5 - not much! - and promptly lost it all :-). $3 disappeared into slot machines, the rest on roulette. They say you should quit while you're ahead, but I never was, so that wasn't a problem. Andy initially had substantially more luck than me (an $8 jackpot from a 5 cent slot!), but went downhill after that ;-).
We stayed in El Cortez, a hotel / casino / restaurant (they all are) in downtown Las Vegas, as opposed to on the much more trendy Strip. Our room, under $50, was the most opulent we've stayed in so far. I only ate two meals the whole time I was in Las Vegas (one a day!) - for $9 you get a gigantic food buffet, with pizza, Chinese and Mexican food, as well as infinite cake, ice cream and chocolate. Very nice!
Leaving Las Vegas on Monday morning, our next stop was the Hoover Dam. The highway runs over the dam itself, so we parked the car and leaned over the edge. It was a fantastically hot day, definitely over 100 degrees: the sight of all that water was frustratingly tempting!
After a night's stay in Nowheresville, we finally arrived at the Grand Canyon. It is, of course, every bit as Grand as its name (and reputation) would suggest. No American hyperbole here, the Canyon definitely lives up to its reputation as one of the natural wonders of the world. Words cannot describe - I took far too many pictures, and I'm sure those won't do it justice anyway. We took a bus westwards along the rim, and trekked down a mile and a half into the canyon itself (hot work!), and watched the sun set over the horizon.
And here we are in - of all places! - Tuba City. The name is, I think, a corruption of a Navajo word. Perhaps its most interesting feature is to do with time. Two tribes, the Hopi and the Navajo live here - one observes daylight savings time, but not the other, and so the time changes by an hour as you walk from street to street! Check-out time here is "11am", which is in fact 10am for us.
Internet access is sparse around here, as you might have guessed, so posts will surely be few and far between. We'll keep you up-to-date as and when we can!
Hello, it's Andy special guest appearance (like the Conan O'Brien show) and all that. Tom and Katherine (henceforth TK) arrived at LA airport before I did at 9am. Finally touched down there myself at about 2pm, though due to my dodgy nature and suspicious immigration officials didn't get out till about 4pm. Hired a car and then left LA pretty soon and overnighted in some small town called Barstow in some motel or other.
In Las Vegas the day after, staying in some hotel/casino called El Cortez, full of old aged gamblers and the like. Lots of casinos, by the time we left on Monday morning, Tom was down $5 and I was down ... more.
From Las Vegas, to the Grand Canyon. Lots of impressive rock formations and all that. A lot of squirrels too and elk on roads (almost disasterous) and coyotes. Now in Tuba City, staying in a school. Bizarrely half the town uses daylight saving time and the other doesn't. More later...
BTW our car is a blue Hyundai Accent.
After a brief stint on the Internet yesterday morning, we hiked up to Coit Tower, which is plonked right on top of a hill and overlooks all of the city. It's almost as visible a landmark as the Transamerican Pyramid.
'Hiked' is the right word. Attractive it may be, but San Francisco is in a woefully bad location for a city. We were exhausted by the time we got to the top.
Rather whimsically, I had thought that Coit Tower was named after the game in which you throw hoops at a peg in the ground - the tower representing the peg. This was somewhat too imaginative, however. The game is spelt 'quoits', and the tower is named after one Mrs. Coit, who gave some money to someone once. Ah well.
So we walked back down that hill, then up another, via Lombard Street, famous for being one of the world's most bendy. In the space of one block there are eight hairpin turns, designed to allow cars to drive up the steep bank. It's hard to explain - this picture does it justice!
Not relishing the walk back home, and eager to try out another of SF's tourist attractions, we hopped on board the cable car that chugs through the city centre. Hanging daringly out over the road, it's hard to imagine that no one gets killed falling off one of these contraptions! :-)
I was tempted by the Sony Metreon, but frankly we were both too tired to get enough pleasure from their Playstation 2's... however, I'm sure we'll find time to visit later today ;-).
Today is our last day here in SF - tonight will be our last Greyhound journey. Next stop is Los Angeles, to meet up with Mr Andy Wong, and begin our 'road trip' out towards New Mexico. Should be fun!
Looking through the Seattle gallery reminded me of the Wheedle on the Needle. So that's where all the rain was coming from...
Most of our photos are now hosted by Sony at imagestation.com. I think that means you'll have to register with them to browse our galleries, but that shouldn't be too arduous a process.
We arrived in San Francisco this morning, after a couple of days in Portland, Oregon. Time is ticking away, but most likely we'll be back tomorrow, so watch this space.
I have dreadful taste in films, but at least I'm honest about it... In my defence, it only cost five bucks.
Bah, Mariners lost, so I'm in a foul mood this morning. :-(
More on the game later... After we bought the tickets on Sunday we walked out of town towards Volunteer Park, via "Group Health Central Hospital", which appears on my birth certificate as "place of birth". Spooky! We went into the North Building, which houses the Maternity Ward, but got a bit freaked and ran away before we could see much!
The hospital is at a junction between 16th Avenue East and Thomas Street. Coincidence? I think we should be told ;-).
After a healthy Subway lunch (we've collected loads of Club Stamps!) we explored Volunteer Park and its conservatory. Much to my surprise I actually recognized several of the flowers and cacti there - I've even got one type of cactus at home, and mine's much bigger! (No thanks to me, of course :-).
That was Monday. On Tuesday we went to Klondike Gold Rush Museum, to learn about how Seattle became a staging post for the last great American gold rush to the Klondike River in Alaska. (We had actually tried to go the day before, but a TV crew were filming a commercial on the street outside so we couldn't get in!). After a bit of window shopping (in the famous Niketown store) we went to Starbucks, of course! We first visited the original, first ever store, on Pike Place, which is still going strong, but doesn't have anywhere to sit down, so we headed downtown to a more central - and comfortable - location. I had a "Chocolate Brownie Frappuccino"; Katherine a "Caramel Apple Cider". Very nice - although drastically out of our price range!
We went down to the waterfront, and then came home via the Market to buy some fresh veg. We cooked an early meal, then hopped on the bus at 6.15pm to Safeco Field.
You can read the gory details on mariners.org - it was a far more exciting game than the one we watched at Wrigley Field. Initially it looked like the Mariners would win relatively easily, 4-1 up in the seventh, but it all went horribly wrong after that, and they ended up falling apart and losing 5-4 in the tenth. Whatever the result, it was still fun to be there. Safeco was built in 1999, so its PA and video system is state-of-the-art, and it's a lot of fun responding to the "Make Some Noise" signs that flash up whenever there's a full count, or a runner on third, or whatever. Lots of the Mariners have their own jingles (Edgar Martinez's tune is the Star Wars theme :-), and fancy graphics that play whenever they're doing well. Disappointing to lose - particularly at this vital stage in the season (and worse, Oakland and Boston both won) - but there's always tonight's and tomorrow's matches to make up lost ground...
OK, that's what we've done up to now. We're going to head out towards the Cultural Center (home of the EMP and of course the Space Needle) this morning. We'll let you know how it goes!
PS. Anyone got our photos safe and sound? Anyone? :-(
Oh dear, it looks like our photo album host has gone belly-up, taking all our pictures with it :-(.
If you've downloaded any of the originals, or - more likely - have them floating around in your browser cache, could you please save them somewhere and let me know? Thanks!
Well here we are in Seattle - home of Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon.com and, er, me.
We spent our last day in Vancouver resting - we saw another cheap movie (Le Divorce), and spent some more time as mallrats. We cooked ourselves a nice meal and watched Canadian TV all evening :-).
Our bus left Vancouver this morning at 10am, crossed the US/Canada border an hour later and we arrived here in Seattle at about 1pm. Our hostel is well-located (although pushing our budget :-), a couple of blocks away from the historic Pike Street Market, and within walking distance of all the sights - the Space Needle, of course, as well as all the posh downtown shops.
We've only just arrived, but it looks like there'll be plenty to do. Unfortunately the Seahawks - Seattle's (American) football team - played their first game this afternoon, so we just missed that. With any luck, though, we'll get tickets for the Mariners game (against the Texas Rangers, at the shiny new Safeco Field) on Tuesday.
The hostel has free internet access (yay! we love free internet access!) so watch for more posts over the next few days.
Yeah, yeah, so I committed fraud and broke the law - thanks for telling everyone. Sheesh.
Bah! "Childlike delight"? Grr...
Today promised to be fairly quiet, but a couple of bizarre coincidences made it really cool!
There's a cinema not far from our hostel, and we stumbled across it, so we popped in to watch The Medallion. Not exactly a classic, but fun nevertheless. Possibly the best bit (for us) was the baddies' secret hideout: Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland. They even fly a helicopter into the cave beneath the ruins! We've been there! So cool :-).
As if that wasn't fun enough... We were walking down Georgia Street when we happened to walk past the new MTV Canada studios, just in time to join the audience for MTV Select. It was the first time they were recording in the new studio - the audience was pretty small (about forty people, tops), so we got plenty of camera time! The show airs next Wednesday (3.30pm ET) on MTV Canada, so there's no way we're going to be able to see it, unfortunately - we're missing an exciting "She Says, He Says" debate on the burning issues of the day ("I've been dumped. Will I ever get over it?"); a review of some silly new mobile phone / Game Boy clone / MP3 player; and a book review (of Dumped - a common theme :-). Still, it was fun to watch Brian and Amanda do their stuff live!
After that unplanned excitement, we headed out towards the harbour area, and bought IMAX tickets for tomorrow: Space Station 3D, narrated by Tom Cruise. Then we came back, via the 7-Eleven for a soft drink and a cheap pizza place for some pizza.
We left SLC early Tuesday morning, and got into Vancouver, British Columbia around lunchtime today. The journey was uneventful, but, again, spectacular. The Greyhound route takes you though mountain passes and "Big Sky" Montana, as well as past the eponymous Salt Lake.
We changed buses in Butte (ugh! ghastly place!) and Seattle (yay!) - we got a good view of the Space Needle at the latter. All in good time :-).
Incidentally, our hostel here is the cheapest we've been in so far - just C$15 a night, around 7 of your pounds :-) - so we might end up staying here a while!
I should say that pre-SLC I was a bit hazy as to what exactly Mormons were. I'd heard something about lots of wives, but I think I must have had them confused with the Amish, because I kind of expected funny hats, beards and no electricity.
(We did actually see some real Amish in the Cleveland bus terminal - maybe their horse had broken down).
Instead, the Mormons are just as modern as any other religion, and not ashamed to splash a bit of cash. 32 acres of SLC, their spiritual home ("Zion") is given over to Mormon buildings and temples - there doesn't seem to be much else to the place apart from them. 70% of the population of Utah are Mormons, and even their state capitol has a statue of the second Mormon prophet in pride of place. (So much for church / state separation...).
So that's the main difference between the Church of JC of the LDS and, say, Catholicism: there is a prophet (appointed by God, apparently) and twelve apostles who lead the Church. They also have a couple of extra books in their Bible - one of which is the Book of Mormon, hence the nickname. Other than that they seem mostly similar to 'mainstream' Christianity - although according to our guide book, that's what they want you to think :-).
We spent a day pottering around Temple Square. Its focus is the Mormon temple, but non-Mormons aren't allowed in, so we had to look from the outside. We also listened to an organ recital in the Tabernacle (fun fact: the Mormons' favourite hymn, Come Ye Faithful or something, is sung to the tune of Danny Boy!), and went into the various assembly halls and visitor centres dotted around the place.
Another peculiar Mormon trait is the obsession with ancestry. There's a good reason for this: there's a special ceremony to 'convert' any dead relatives into Mormons. Once that's done you can meet them in Heaven. That seems a bit spooky to me - I'm not I want anyone converting me in the distant future :-). Anyway, because of this, there's an entire building devoted to researching your family history, full of banks of computers connected to the FamilySearch database. Katherine and I both tried to look people up, but the most recent UK data was from 1881, and we couldn't remember that far back :-). We did discover that George W. Bush is (very) distantly related to Winston Churchill. Interesting! (We also tried to read our e-mail, but got some nasty looks from the Sisters, so we gave up :-).
Ah yes, the Sisters. Dotted around Temple Square were dozens of young (20s) women, with little badges with their names and countries of origin. I guess it's a great honour to be a Sister on Temple Square, but it seems the entry requirements are pretty strict (young, female, attractive). They're hard to avoid, too, always handing out postcards, Books of Mormons, or just random bits of advice ("Join us!").
One good thing about Mormons is that they're very rich (a result of hard work and pro-industry policies): practically everything in SLC is free, and there's even a 60 minute, big-budget, Hollywood-style movie, Legacy complete with CGI Temples and action-packed stunts (I'm serious!). There're lots of touch-screen terminals, too, which 'answer' such woolly questions as "What is a family?" and so forth. It's generally pretty hard to gauge the Church's opinions on most contemporary issues: vaguely pro-war, definitely anti-homosexuality, pro-family unity etc. Nowhere made mention of the polygamy thing, although they haven't done that since 1890, so I guess they'd rather forget about it.
We also popped into the Capitol Building, which is on a hill overlooking Temple Square, and spent some time in the flowery parks that dot downtown SLC.
Well, this is a bit out-of-date by now, but here's what's happened to us since the morning of Friday 29th August...
Wrigley Field was fantastic, and we both had a great time. Perfect weather and a good view. Our cheap seats ($12 a shot) were pretty decent - there are no bad seats at Wrigley! We were up in the stands behind first base - a couple of foul balls headed vaguely in our direction but never close enough to catch (or to hit us on the head :-).
The Brewers, despite my faux-confidence, had actually been doing rather well, not having lost for 10 games. It was a close game, although the Cubs were always ahead by at least one run. Damian Miller (who?) hit a home run to go ahead 4-2, and Sammy Sosa - my hero! - got three hits. Only one fielding error by the Cubs - it was a bit of a disaster, but I had my back turned trying to buy beer at the time :-(.
There's a full match report over at cubs.com.
Oh, and the Cubs went on to lose the next two games of the series of three, so I guess we picked our day well!
OK, we're back on-line. They don't really have computers in Utah (ahem) - we're in Vancouver BC, now, writing from our hostel.
We're too tired to be very coherent yet, but watch this space for news on the Cubs game, as well as our 'pilgrimage' to the Mormon capital of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Welcome to our weblog. Tom's pretty lazy and Katherine isn't too keen on the whole idea, so don't hold your breath for reams of scintillating content. With that caveat in mind, read on... :-)
