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2nd May 21st Century, Thursday
Los Angles, USA
Wow - two nights to go! Absolutley uncomprehendable! It feels no different (but strangly unsettling) to packing up and moving off to another place on our adventure - like we're off to say, Africa. The most reassuring thing is not having to go back and get straight into another blue chip FMCG marketing job - it's like we can do anything we want to do - and the pay will be wayyyy better than what we're earning at the moment (ie zero). I'm really interested in e-commerce. Nika is thinking about moving to France and learning French. Cool! Still it's a bit surreal, but not unpleasant - just different.
Our remaining time in San Fran was cool - Nika went to Alcatraz (and managed to escape) - I went on a 6 hour bike ride around the city (forgot my vow never to ride in anything but bike shorts - suffering now in a most delicate place). Rode over the Golden Gate bridge - super neat - there was a 60 km/h cross wind. Great adrenalin buzz, as the "safety" rail is only waist high. Fascinated by more mindless but absorbing stats - I never knew that there was 128,748 km's of cable in the bridge. Uhmmmm - don't know when I'm going to use that number again.
Visited Yosemite (along with about 20,000 tourists) - awesome place, but infested with "lowest common demoninator" people. It was really hard to get some solitude here. The climbing here looks absolutely awesome! Went for a hike through a giant sequoia forest (not sure that's spelt right) - this was stunning. These trees are massive - like the biggest tree I'd ever seen but twice as large! There was one which had a walkway carved through it's base (in pre-Greenpeace tree-hugging days) which we could have driven through (if it hadn't been a mile or two in the bush). We learnt that car breakins are a major problem in the park - each year about 1,300 cars are broken into - by bears looking for food! The not so cute side of Yogi Bear! Fortunately we were spared. Stayed in a super cool hostel in some middle of nowhere place 'Mid Pines' - it used to be a drug rehab centre - now it's a hostel complete with bar, outdoor fire place, and it serves this awesome brew "Yosemite Bug"
The next morning post getting the Bug Bite, we drove down the coast road between San Fran & this nowhere town Santa Maria. Spectacular drive - similar to the Great Ocean Road except on a larger scale and infested with mobile homes. We ran out of light and ended up in some farming town where the population was 99.9% Mexican - went to a great restaurant, complete with a 16 piece Mexican band - these guys were super sharp dressers and could they howl! After mucho-pain-reborne chile sauce it was kinda cool (all the senses were totally overloaded).
Favourite American quote of the week (second hand) - we met this Irish guy who was talking to some local women about how he used email to send letters home to his friends in Ireland. The response ....... "Wow - I didn't know you guys had the internet over there too!!!!"
Hit LA today - it's as much of a hole as I remembered it to be - Hollywood Bolivard is a pretty nasty hash of tacky souveniers and "star" wanna-bees. However, I was stunningly impressed by a KISS t-shirt collection one shop had. LA freeway driving is best described as being "invigorating" - we're about as likely to surive driving here unscared (crashing, getting shot, etc) as we are watching an entire episode of Xena without a lesbian scene. Tomorrow we're off to Disneyland - can't wait - should be more fun than being locked in a brewery on a sinking hot day!
27th April 21st Century, Thursday
San Francisco, USA
We haven't met the Village People yet, but have seen some pretty wierd stuff in San Fran... one of the best was a colony of sea lions who bask around just off pier 39 - sweet, cute, almost loveable (well, the wrong species, but would appeal to certain uhmm "special" people) - until one sneezed and dusted Nika in a liberal coating of sea lion snot! Tres amusing (for some at least).
On our last day in Seattle we hired a car (amazing people still rent them to us?!) and roared off to the Boeing factory. Now, without a word of overstatement, this is truly one of the "Wonders Of The (Boy) World". It's gi-normous! Technically the world's largest building, it could fit Disneyland and 12 acres of covered parking inside, or 74 American football fields (however big that is?), or 911 ice hockey fields side by side. First stop on the tour was walking halfway down an underground access tunnel (which was TWICE as long as the Titanic) to a view point in the middle of the 747 assembly line. All the parts are made on one side (wings, tails, etc) and then craned over and bolted together on the other - they have up to seven 747's on the build at once! The ultimate Mechanio set! Paralel to the 747 line was an identical 767 line, and a 757 line. Met up with Elizabeth (from Jackson Hole drinkfest) for lunch - she's an engineer at Boeing (some chicks have all the fun!) - overdosed her totally with my awe & enthusiasm for the Big B (ie "if it's not Boeing, we're not going!") while she countered this with stories of what engineers really do (our lips are sealed, but involves late night band groupie-ism after they've told all they're tired and going home for an early one...)
Mount St Helens was OK - would have been more fun 20 years ago - a blast in fact. Nowdays it's a National Park rangers shrine to how wonderful they are at letting things regenerate (I thought the countryside would have infact done this regardless if they were there....).
San Francisco's fun - awesome Asian food - but for a true cullinary "experience" we subjected ourselves to the Stinking Rose restaurant. This place is a vampires nightmare - everything contains mountains of garlic. After a full-on starter of a pan of whole roasted garlic cloves in oil to mash onto fresh bread, I went a bit easy on the garlic and only had the 40 clove chicken with extra garlic mashed potatoes (Nika had garlic caccoire, with chicken - somewhere in there). Today, we reak - no, we stink - no, we are walking biohazards.
Off now to check out the gay scene - think we'll be safe today. Next stop Yosemite, then a pleasant drive down the coast to LA, pilgrimage to Disneyland and then........
22nd April 21st Century, Saturday
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Shame to leave Denver (alway hard to leave somewhere which prides itself on exploits like being the "Mile High City"), but Seattle rises to the challenge awesomely! This place has a real high energy / but still really laid back feel to it. Must be the northern hemisphere capital for tattoos & piercing - great people watching. It was even really neat just wandering round mega dosing on expresso (everyone's coffee mad - maybe why they shake so much) and checking out the shops. Nah, I'm not going soft or changing teams - some of the shops were really interesting - from gritty post grunge to the hyper corporate slickness (sickness?) of NikeTown (tm registered trademark). Come to think of it, a year of travelling must have melted my brain - enjoying shopping when there's biking / climbing / saving the world from hordes of alien scum to be done ??!!??
We had a really cool but bizzare night with two local chicks we met (Sara-Dean & Amy). Got rather nailed on the sundeck of some Irish pub in Fremount and ended up in an Italian karaoke bar which was filled with black guys who really could sing (very honorable mention goes to this white guy who looked pretty redneckish who did an amazing falsetto version of "Tragedy" - watchout BeeGees!). Sara-Dean was born to sing - won't be surprised to hear her in a band some day... We also had an Elvis Presley (tm) burrito in the hyper-style Elvis room of Mammas Mexican cafe - I now understand why the King ended up looking like he did.
Caught up last night with Holly (aka Tripple H / Holly from Jackson Hole), her husband Eric and Elizabeth. Holly had just got back from a nuclear storage plant, and no, she didn't glow in the dark. Eric is a legendary chef - no, he's better - he's good enough to cater for the Second Coming! (he's been a high-end chef for 15 years, and his prowess with a knife would cummulatively shame all four Ninja Turtles). He cooked up an awesome feast and opened up the wine cellar. Huuugggeeee and terminal mistake - we've really been missing the big Aussie reds - and once the first bottle was opened, the grog monsters were unleashed and the next three bottles just flew down. Stunning wine!
This morning was ugly. Very ugly. Exceedingly ugly. Indescibably ugly. We were booked on a 8am highspeed ferry to Victoria which is about a 3-4 hour trip. We were feeling pretty sea sick - and this was while the boat was still tied up at the dock. Let's just say, as far as really noticing (very distinct from enjoying) every second of the trip, we got excellent value for money.... I did see a few whales en route (imagine a big gray fat cigar shaped thing surfacing, spouting water 5 or so meters into the air and then disappearing. Suppose it's interesting, but they're not something I'd spend the rest of my life chasing.)
Victoria is a quaint large town - lots to look at and aaahhh at - very nice - almost a bit too nice - a bit surreal. One can indulge in treats like a $C32 (each!) "High Tea" at the Empress waterfrount hotel (chill, we didn't!). However, we did marvel at some total bike studs trials riding around the streets - these puppies must have been on a serious low gravity diet and had no friends as kids. One of them hopped his bike up on to the seat of a park bench, then hopped on to the top (??!!) of the seat's back rest (it was about 4cm wide?!) , then hopped onto the top of a fence behind the seat, balanced there and then causally hopped down. His friend rode up to a terrace which was about 1.5m high, and lunged up onto it! They also made balancing on their rear wheels and hopping up steps look really easy. Sick puppies!
More of the charms of Victoria tomorrow - there's supposed to be "amazing" gardens here (yaaayyyy...???) prior to hitting Seattle again. Extremely high on the agenda is a tour of the Boeing factory (world's largest commercial building, huge planes in various stages of construction - YAAAYYYY!!!!). Haven't received the dinner invite from Bill yet - probably caught up ironing out the last bugs from Windows 2000.
18th April 21st Century, Tuesday
Denver, Colorado, USA
After 4,836 miles we arrived back in Denver - this time it was sunny, blue skies and damn hot! (when we left it was thumping down with snow..??). On the bus returning from dropping off the car I had a golden opportunity to "real-life" apply all my learnings from my hardcore "law & order" TV diet.
The bus I was on got pulled over by a cop, the driver gets off, and next thing the cop rushes on - gun drawn - and cuffs & marches off this black guy who was sitting down the back. Turns out he was reported as being armed & suicidal (a reassuring combo), and was going downtown to "settle some scores". My fine tuned tactical response to this nasty situation ... sit there with eyes & mouth wide open (upon reflection, there was a certain similarity to a bunnie caught in the headlights)..... good thing the bullets didn't start flying!
We're currently staying with some friends of friends, Alissa & Kirk who very kindly took us in off the street - Kirk makes the meanest BBQ this side of the equator! Later we found out he was a devoted disciple of "The BBQ Bible". Must get this holy scripture - it is awesome! Makes me want to leap on a plane and get home and just BBQ huge chunks of red meat, washed down liberally with full bodied Hunter reds ... enough self denial!They've got a huge German Sheppard "Heidi" whose key line of attack is 'death by licking'. Actually very effective (& kinda cute to go)!
Santa Fe was a cool "arty" town (286 galleries in a town of 60,000 people) with some of the hotest nastiest chillie we've come across. I had a red chillie burrito which I'm pretty sure the waiter served with asbestos gloves (and this definately was not due to plate being physically warm). The eating and post 24 hours are best remembered as a religious experience. Just like a Disney ride to the fires of Hell. Moooorrrrrreeeeeeee!!! Got hammered with a cool English guy Dave at the Cowgirl bar. Learnt 1) that beer can be made from apricots (not too good for the head the next day) and 2) the English know they can't play cricket, but keep trying anyway.
Denver's a mellow town (how can it be anything else being surrounded by Gods own playground of awesome skiing, killer biking & mindnumbing white water paddling ??!!??). The Denver Art muesum is literally world class - covering everthing from Aztecs to American Indians - really really worth seeing. One of the highlights was a collection of beyond cool designer chairs from the entire 20th century - I could use quite a few of them for my next office chairs (they's go quite nicely with some of the Bolivian pounchos we saw)
Very reluctantly leaving here tomorrow (BBQ for breakfast?) and jumping onto the big tin budgie and flapping off to Seattle.
15th April 21st Century, Saterday
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
We're in this really wierd hostel which is more like a commune where everyone we've met has taken waayyyy too many drugs for waayyyyy too long! Nevertheless, an amusing trip to Planet Vague.
The Grand Canyon was awesome! And huge! Literally - we did two all day hikes which can be sumarised as going down, down, down, take pictures, going up, up, up (and up, then up some more). The motivation of a $US2,5000 bill for a helicopter rescue kept us going! (seriosly we weren't even close - however there were a lot of 'walking heart attacks' puffing down the canyon - God knows how they would ever get up!). It's fantastic hiking - the scale is so large we felt like we had been shrunk and there were now about 20 steps to the metre (and we were sober!). Met a few rangers - these people all seem to have a compulsive expressive niceness disorder ("HI! WONDERFUL day! We are having FUN! Look at that PLANT!!!! WOW!!!" - they make the Crocodile Hunter look introverted). Also met two 80 year old ladies whose life hightlight was having lunch at "The Colonel's" house (as in Kentucky Fried Chicken fame) - interesting but rather sad. It would be insaine going to any National Parks in summer (peak season) - there's literally thousands of people in them now, and it's still tail end of the off season. Fortunately 99.5% of them never get further than 200m from the carpark / IMAX cinemas / visitors centers!
Post Canyon went to Messa Verde where the Indians had built some 13th century brick appartment buildings under cliffs in desert canyons - the most interesting Indian stuff we've seen! We drove through some resevations and Indian run parks - everyone lives in rundown trailers surrounded by 6-10 derilect cars in literally the middle of nowhere. Not a lot of fun. Weather's crazy - one day it's sweltering hot, the next morning the car is covered in snow and freezing.
It hasn't really sunk in yet that we have less than three weeks to go before we fly out (??!!??) - we know the number of days, but can't quite comprehend it! Very bizzare feeling - not unpleasant - just numb, like we'll deal with it no problems when it comes. I don't feel travel fatigued anymore - it's no hassle at all to pack up the backpack (one of the benefits with travelling with it a third empty!) - perhaps we've got travel fit? However, we are really looking forward to seeing everyone again and living in a city again (with thousands of things to do!). We've got a much different, more relaxed, much longer term outlook - money is no longer that important to us - it's more about what we want to do. It'll be interesting to see how long this outlook lasts!
After a few days in Santa Fe, back to Denver, drop off the car (4500 miles later!) & fly to Seattle -> San Francisco & drive to LA + Disneyland. Sounds fun!
9th April 21st Century, Sunday
Route 66, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Vegas was the perfect answer to National Park overdosing - mega-sized, million watt, over the top, glitzy extravigance - I loved it!!!! It's like doing a world trip in only two days, except everyone expects a tip and don't look too closely at the details. So many highlights, so much tack - hard to think where to begin.....
- The Stratosphere - our temporary home (all 1500 rooms of it), whose 'hook' is a 1180ft free standing tower. What was really neat about this was (after numerous beers) riding the "worlds highest" roller coaster which looped around the top of the tower, and almost getting shot into orbit on the "Big Shot". This fun machine shot me up a 200ft tower (which was on top of the main tower) at almost 80km/h and then free-fell back to earth at about the same speed. Almost returned my dinner to the roof of the casino - neat fun - must do!
- MGM Grand - they've got a really neat lion enclosure on the casino floor, complete with a perspex tunnel that we walked through and got an ants-eye view of where the sun doesn't normally shine on lions. Strange, but always have wanted to see that! More fun than Discovery Channel and the Crocodile Hunter combined!
- The Venitian - complete with a perfect half scale piazza San Marco and Rialto bridge - right on the main strip! Even better inside - there is a replica of the Grand Cannel lit to look like sunset (very strange coming off the street at 11pm to see the sky still "perfectly" light - instant jet lag) complete with gondola rides. Except these gondolas were fakes! Jokes! Farces! They had hidden propellers driving them (the 'gondaleer' still waved the paddle in the water for effect) and seat belts to keep the enthusiatic tourists from getting up close and personal with the Grand Cannel. Oh, and the cannel was also a fake - the water was clean & didn't stink! Also - The Venitian has my vote for the most gorgeous coctail waitresses in Vegas!
- Paris - complete with a half size Eiffel tower and the second best looking coctail waitresses.
- Bellagio - world's largest (man-made) fountain, syncronised remarkably well to music and at it's peak shoots water over 20 stories in the air. File memo - will install one in my backyard when / if I ever buy a house.
- Caesars Place - most ugly waitresses on the strip - been around since late Roman times - too many orgies too long ago.
- Flamingo Hilton - The pinkest Flamingos in the entire world, colour coordinated to the decore, and a clientle older than Frank Sinatra.
- Sahara - home of the Nascar Cafe and one of the world's coolest arcade racing games. I raced against 7 hardcore rednecks in a 3/4 sized car which was mounted on a bone shaking hydrallics system with huge wrap-around screen and ear splitting speakers. Awesome - but not a repsonsible influence on my driving.
- Circus Circus - pedophiles paradise.
- New York New York - imagine NY skyline compressed into one block and then threaded swiss cheese style with a rollercoaster. Cool!
- Treasure Island - surprisingly groovey navel battle complete with mass explosions and sinking ships (what was even neater was watching them miraclously refloat / repair themselves post battle)
Most amusing question I was asked (seriously) in Vegas "Did you fly or drive from Australia (to Vegas)?". After two days of abuse we drove out to Death Valley (very hot, very dead), couldn't find anywhere to stay so came back to Vegas. The only place in our price range (everything is 2 - 3 times more expensive without prior reservations) was some dump in "downtown" Vegas. This is the low end of town and was fascinating! Casinos were dark & smokey, full of 70's throwbacks, old retires, drug dealers, hookers and trailer park trash - just like a scene out of a G grade movie - excellent! In one of these dump casinos had the most awesome pancakes ever - floating in enough syrup to float several aircraft carriers! The orange dusk decor, sammon fake leather and toxic smoke levels were just art! The sad thing about this end of town was it was actually more expensive to stay / eat / gamble here than it was in the glitzer "amusement" mega-casinos on the strip. Whatever....
Spent the last two days driving what's left of Route 66 (it's mostly been cannibalised by Interstate highways). There's still some beyond cool diehard shops en-route, literally in the middle of nowhere (railway closed down in 1950's - time stopped). The usual possie of old cars out the frount, with panels thick enough to stop small arms fire. One place had the world's best bathroom (for guys) - sports videos continuously running, complete selection of Playboys 1970-2000, duke box, fridge (full) and foot stool. Plus an eye candy selection of posters lining the walls.
I'm still on a hardcore diet of law & order TV - arson investigation, maxmium security prison construction, profiling, capital punnishment, SWAT training, drug detection, etc etc. I don't think this is doing me any perminant damage, but (confession) I did buy a copy of "Soldier Of Fortune" the other day. But chill, I have not responded to any of the ads therein (like "learn the secrets of unarmed combat in 4 easy lessons and be able to defeat angry squads of crack Navy SEALS"). Had a few very interesting beers with some bikers in an old ming town Jemore who couldn't believe that I didn't own any guns ("none in yer car? not even any burried in yer backyard? what yer gunna du when the Government comes?") - the conversation was circular but very amusing!
Tomorrow off to the peace, quiet and solitude of Grand Canyon for a few days..
4th April 21st Century, Tuesday
Zion National Park, Utah, USA
We've got "canyon fatigue"!!! We've been to dozens of amazing National Parks (Deadhorse NP, Canyonlands NP, Bryce NP, Zion NP, Arches NP (twice) and others that I can't remember the names of!! These parks are awesome - every one is a variation around cliffs that are a thousand or so feet tall which are spectacularly eroded into amazing and magnificient contorted shapes (like arches, bridges, tall pointy spires, rocks which look like poodles one that look like Queen Victoria - admittedly it was hard to tell the difference between those last two). There's also really deep canyons which filter the light in beautifully subbtle ways - all framed by day after day of warm, blue cloudless weather. It's awesome hiking - really refreshing and soul cleansing. But there's only so much of this we can stomach - so we're off to Vegas tomorrow for some instant gratification and plastic culture.
Speaking of culture - on our road trip we are coming face to face with some of Americas finest insitutions! The endless driving miles are punctuated with hyper-cal feeding stops at diners in the middle of nowhere - every place has half a dozen pick-ups outside and two dozen sleepy looking guys wearing the standard issue baseball cap redneck uniform inside. The food's fantastic, once we got used to the constant "diet" of a fully loaded burger, fries and milkshake. "Milkshake" is a bit of a misnomer - imagine a few litres of icecream and two or three Snickers bars blended together (with extra sugar) and you've about got it.... they are so thick that they stand about 5cm above the top of the cup (unmoving), and they give us a spoon (not a straw!?!) to consume them with. Awesome! Not good for the waistline though....
Another cultural treasure is the radio - it's a constant blend of country "music" (off key songs about intimate relationships with ones animals that turned bad) and talkshows. My favourite talkshow to date is "Handle on the Law", hosted by a guns blazing lawyer (named Handle) who dispenses from the hip & lip legal advice to down & out callers. His advice is strictly 1) You've got no case - loser! (click) or 2) SUE THEM on the grounds of x, y or z!!! Get a lawyer and go for it!!
This brings us to the joys of cable TV. When the Boss sang '52 channels and nothing on' he was wrong, wrong, wrong. The people here (me willingly included!) are addicted to law & order TV docudramas! There's the standard fodder of Cops, then multiple nightly docos on high speed car chases, non-fatal weaponry, covert survailence, intergogation techniques and more! Not sure when I'm going to be able to apply my new found knowledge, but it pays to "be prepared". Scary!
After taking all this in, we have stumbled across the great untold truth - the Satan behind the crumbling of American values - the real X-File - move over Mulder and Scully - click here if you're brave enough to handle the truth!
Well, almost time to leave Mormon country - been fun - but rather strange; everyone smiles serenely, it's damn hard to get a beer (what's a "bar"?), too much free religious liturature (nothing else to read) and everything closes by 8pm. Viva Los Vegas!
The BEST Things About Peru
* Machupicchu at dawn (cliched but amazing)
* Inca 'trial with United Mice
* Inca culture and ruins
* Trampolining on the Floating Islands (Puno)
* Porno pottery in the Gold Muesum (Lima)
* Paved roads
* Aussie cafe in Cusco
* "Last Supper" painting (complete with guinea pig dish) in Cusco
* Lomo a la plancha (garlic fried alpacca with french fries)
* Free (toxic strength) drinks in some bars
The WORST Things About Peru
* Rare, but nasty scams & robberies
* Lima pollution
* Lima beaches - literally "scummy"
* Not enough time to go everywhere in this cool country!
31st March 21st Century, Friday
Moab, Utah, USA
Going from skiing nivarna to biking & hiking nirvana... Yesterday I rode Slick Rock, which is the most famous Moab ride. Awesome! Multi-excellent! Sell the kids, come do it immediately! (this advice also applies to travelling in general).
The scenery here is like the old Westerns, except the rock towers are huger and more twisted in real life. The ride was seriously good - the surface is (like the name suggests) almost entirely rock - pretty smooth and unbelievably grippy. The ride was a 21km loop rollercoaster of short really steep descents followed immediately by equally nasty ascents - the angle of the rock was up to 45" ??!!?? My biggest problem (appart from my chronically unfit beer/lard butt which consistently refused to obey its master) was believing that the rear tire would stick to the rock going up! At times I was so far over the frount wheel I was almost licking the frount tire (not pretty but it seemed to work...). Never lost traction - but lost leg power a few times and had some really cool step offs / abandon bike / run ungainly back down the slope. Miraculously no major stacks (good thing, as the rock's like a cheese grater) and didn't go off the edge (equally good thing - 50m plus drop to the Colorado river). Only bummer about the ride was there were no serious drops - everything was roll downs (at crazy angles!). Had the need foe serious air time. Post ride learning - never ride in ordinary shorts - my more delicate anatomy is very tender and rubbed raw (mantra ..."pain is weakness leaving my body"). Nothing that beer won't fix.
Today visited the Arches National Park - amazing hiking - there are several dozen huge rock arches sticking out of the desert and low mountain ranges. These are the ones in the film Barraka - great nature flick. Resisted the temptation to climb / tightrope walk across them - a) the off trail terrain is really ecologically fragile and a no-go zone & b) they are really really high! The gaps in the arches frame the canyons / desert amazingly! Enough rambling .. have taken roll & rolls of film (what's new?) and will subject everyone we can tie / sticky tape / super glue / nail / hypnotise to a chair to them when all we're back. Next stop Canyonlands NP (wonder what we'll see there?).
28th March 21st Century, Tuesday
Aspen, Colorado, USA
Life is tough - Yellowstone was closed (snowed in) and Nika has a severe case of "shredder babe" - the complusive and all consuming need to snowboard as much as possible. So we raced from Jackson to Aspen, saloming through 000's of deer who aspired to do little more than wander around on the roads with the sole objective of ending up on our BBQ. Unfortunately we somehow managed to miss Bambi and her friends & family but very fortunately found our friends Isabel & Brads house (we met Isabel on Ios a few lifetimes ago - actually 10 months ago - she was jointly responsible for damaging / prematurely aging me on my last birthday).
Aspen is a breathtaking mountain to ski - both in terms of the 'don't bother if you don't have a private jet' price and the awesome skiing quality. The slopes are a combination of monster bumps that seem sooo deep I'd need headlights to navigate through them and awesome fast hyper-groomed slopes that are groomed and buffed better than a billard table! Speed was my friend and I was embracing it - warp speed without a ripple! The slopes are in such perfect condition they even made me look psuedo competent ??!!?? Nice touches everywhere - free fresh biscuits & hot cider at the top of the lifts. Brad & Isabel work as ski patrolers and were kind enough to ski with me showing me what the mountain had to offer - fortunately they stopped every now & then to pick up some fallen skier, giving me enough time to catch up & pant. The skiing was seriously awesome - not a cloud in the sky - need to go learn more superlatives.... Also fascinating was listening to the conversations on the chair lifts - money & sex (in that order). I rode up in a gondla with a couple - she complained she was too hot, so she unzipped her one-peice suit & stripped down to bra & panties - both her boyfriend and I wished I was elsewhere!
Nika has done three full days of snowboard lessons - now serious carving shredding "planker" with heaps of grrrrll attitude. A few more beers and she'll take this up as a full time career.
Aspen is a really friendly (& slightly old) town - everyone seems to know everyone. Some shocker sights wandering around - fur coat monsters and severe face lifts (look like they're stuck in a wind tunnel - move over bride of Frankenstien). Great food - had an Oreo milkshake - try this one at home kids!! (ice cream + Oreos blended with whipped cream on top - not low cal!).
Brad & Isabel have a great house they're doing up - complete with a huge old truck, three 4 wheel drives, a wagon, old Saab, snowmobile, camper, boat, an avalache dog (works on ski patrol), a psycho dog and timid cat. Plus a cute kid Sonia - 7 months old and growing rapidly (proportionally out eats both of us combined). Moving the cars is exactly like a scene out of The Castle (move the Torana to move the Commodore to move the ute etc etc - way cool). Frantastic to stay - thanks guys / thanks Turtle (psycho dog) for not eating us (yet).
Today I became one step closer to becoming a true American - we went to the shooting range (in the huge old Ford truck which we parked next to half a dozen old pickups) and blasted away with 9mm and .357 handguns at any paper targets that looked at us in the wrong way. A hundred or so rounds later I'd scared them plenty and even winged a few. The noise and recoil were amazing - the cowboy movies are a load of crap - these need two hands and serious aim to hit anything! The .357 was still short of Dirty Harry but left the ears ringing and eyes tearing - despite the ear protection. Kinda fun in a morbid way - worth doing.
We've now got the itinery sorted for the rest of the trip - next stop Moab for some serious biking (Slick Rock), then Canyonland, Zion/Bruce, Las Vegas staying in the Stratosphere, Death Valley, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, back through Arizona, New Mexico, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Disneyland, then arrrgghhhhh ... the unthinkable).
Check out the eight new photos that we took here on Isabels digital camera - go to overseas photos / USA (we've got 18 rolls of conventional photos from Peru / Bolivia - need to find a scanner). Later y'all.
23th March 21st Century, Thursday
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA
Left New Orleans - eventually - I got a few beads, Nika left with dozens! Americans sure appreciate quantity and quality! Before we left, met up with Glenda & two cool friends of hers Ann & Jonathan. Drank lots of Hurricanes together - ground started to sway dangerously, visibility dropped to a few meters, coherient conversation proved to be impossible, lucky to make it back home in several pieces. After two days of this the only thing holding us together was the recuperative power of a few bowls of gumbo (dosed with "extra pain hurt me" hot sauce). Neat!
When we went to the airport (feeling tres ordinarie after a leaving lunch), we got to the counter and they asked if there were any volunteers to give up their seats, as they'd overbooked. Quicker than you can say "uh me?" we crash tackled the guy at the counter, seduced by the offer of $400 of flight vouchers each plus a night at the Hilton. Everyone has their price, and we've found ours! It was delightful but strangely unsettling staying in a luxury hotel - vaguely reminisent of a past working life?
Jumped in our car at Denver (after calling 3000 different rental companies to get a price that we wouldn't have to subsidise via selling our internal organs and unborn children / rabbits) and headed up towards Jackson Hole. All was cool - in fact it got cooler and cooler - started to snow - the road was coated in ice - trucks were jack-knifing in frount of us - cars spinning off and getting squashed to half their normal hieght (bit of a headache for those inside) - and then a really bad thing happened - we lost the signal on the only cool radio station we'd found. Taking this as a sign from above we stumbled into a motel with the loveliest, deepest, roll on me, most sensual candy red shagpile carpet and 12 hours later woke to a perfect sun drenched day. Oh went to an "authentic" Chinese restuarant where the waitress asked if "many people in Australia spoke English". Depends on how much they've had to drink I supose...
At Jackson, met up with Rob & Jen & Wadw & Dave & 20 of their friends who had rented out an awesome wooden lodge. Fantastic place, and it was awesome to stay with them all - thanks heaps y'all!!!! After a soak in the hot tub, a few (dozen) beers and a roll in the snow we totally crashed out - waking up to yet another perfect day. Had an awesome day skiing with the guys (+ Jen) - this mountain totally rocks! It's huge! It's fast! It's groomed like cordoroy! It's forgiving of my recklessness and lack of ability! No lift lines X awesome slopes = skiing nirvana! Fantastic group of people to stay and ski with! Rather sad that they all had to leave to go back to work - we tried to convince them to take a month or two off!!
Went snowboarding this morning - still amazed I survived (the wipeouts were world class - inspired by watching the "I can't watch but I will" spills that were happening on the downhill race course that was set up for the US Olympic team trials). Late in the afternoon switched back to skis - the need for terminal speed was calling. Legs are totally shot now - fortunately we're staying right next door to a great ski pub "The Mangey Moose". Heading off there now for therapy. Next stop Yellowstone NP, followed by hell mountain biking at Moab. We're sorry that we are a bit behind in replying to everyone's emails - we still love you all - we will reflect deeply on our conduct (over a beer or ten!).
17th March 21st Century, Friday, St Patricks Day
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Love New Orleans! This place rocks! It's just after Mardi Gras, and there's still millions of people goin' crazy! Firstly, to show our true class and breeding - the cultural low-down. Went on a great walking tour around the "Garden District" - oohh & ahhhed at the huge southern mansions - including Anne Rice's (she owns a matching three black stretch limos named after the vampires in her books), Trent Reznor's house (of "I wanna fuck you like an animal..." 9 Inch Nails fame), and a few other presidents / generals / authors / plantation owners we'd never heard of. These mansions are huge - 12 bedrooms + slave quarters + stables are not uncommon. And cheap! Some massive (over 1000m2) were selling for around US$600-700k. Post the trip, think I can still afford the mailbox of one... Also went to a really neat cemetary - the graves are all vaults aboive ground, as the area is actually below sea level. Not uncommon to put 20-50 bodies in a single vault (they wait a year and a day for the body to rot, throw away the casket (in a dumpster on the street), poke whatever's left to the back, and stuff in the new casket - not quite my ideal job, but will see how hard up for $$$ we are when we get back!).
Enough culture - the real low down on the place. This place is a seething cess pit of seriously intoxicated people desperate to lose all morals asap! Love it! Wandering down Bourbon St there's hundreds of pubs, and hole in the wall bars dispensing essential cheap beer - thirst is not an issue here! Further down the street it just gets better! There's a block of bars with balconies overlooking the streets packed with people all tastefully (??) screaming "show us ya tits!" (*feels just like home*). This is serious sport. And a major breast-fest! Serious eye candy! Lots of girls walking past lift up their tops, showing the world (or the nearest appreciative 500 people) what they have or haven't got. In exchange & encouragement the crowd throws the girls strings of brightly coloured beads. Beads worked in Indian times - still work now. One girl threw her panties to the crowd, then flashed a few more times & got them back! The most unlikely girls flash as well ... enough said!
We've also been to the Preservation Hall jazz hall - neat, full of really mellow old black guys really squeezing it out from the soul. Look like they've been there for 100 years...
Tonight we're out with a friend Glenda we met in Costa Rica - I have a feeling this is going to be a crazy, wild, hardcore, messy nite. And not just because it's St Patricks day (people started drinking in the streets at around 9am this morning!). Assuming we're still functional, we're off to Denver then Jackson Hole on Sunday morning to catch up with Rob & crew.
14th March 21st Century, Tuesday
The Everglades, Florida, USA
We File memo; must buy convertable - it's awesome fun to drive around topless. Leather seats get a bit hot - strangly arousing! Left Key West (too many scantily clad bodies), but not before witnessing the all night Harley parade - there must be 500 (yuppie) hogs there who do nothing but cruise up & down the main drag seeing whose steed has the loudest exhaust. What ever gets them off..... (obviously they're too fat to mountain bike)
Went to the Everglades national park this afternoon - surprisingly really neat! This place is filled with cool birds, fish, snakes, sinister aligators and "swamp rabbits" (we saw thousands of everything except no bunnies! Someone was not happy!). Creepy to watch the aligators silently stalking the birds / fish - totally oblivious to us a few meters away.
Currently in an awesome hostel - just had genuine Southern home (hostel) cooked chile - burnt so good on the way in - not so sure about the way out yet! Next stop New Orleans tomorrow.
13th March 21st Century, Monday
Key West, Florida, USA
We escaped South America, we escaped being robbed / getting sick / buying a llama, and we even escaped the cute little doggie and "rubber glove welcome" at Miami Airport (Nika was "a little" worried after carrying around coca leaves for six weeks...)!!!
Florida is cool, but after the depths of third world South America, is very expensive - brutally expensive - drag money through your nostrils, cut me open and auction my internal organs, sell our unborn children expensive! Our accomodation bills have gone up by a factor of at least eight (choak gasp arrrgghhh). Enough moaning - that's what we're here for!
Right now it's "spring break" here - which to the uninitiated (ie. us), means tens of thousands of college / uni kids who come down South to the beach during their holidays to a) go to the beach, b) get drunk, c) have sex, d) do options a&b&c together while their friends watch. South Beach at Miami was really cool - thousands of people, neat bars, funky restuarants (well they looked great from the pavement - still trying to rationalise spending 3 days budget by eating in one!) and great beach weather (at least that's free!). It's really neat to see the lifeguards posed in their "Bay Watch" huts cooly scanning the beaches (for babes in bikinis - the surf is only about 10cm high tops).
We're currently in Key West (the Southern most tip of continental USA) - great drive down here, over lots of small islands which are connected by really long bridges - think; the missile / bridge scene of Arnie's movie "True Lies". Even cooler, when we picked up or rental car, they upgraded us from our requested sewing-machine-with-wheels-cheap-as-poss-please-car to a rip-snorting-tyre-shredding convertable. Neat story on how we got it - all convertables have been reserved months in advance here - I went to the company to pick up our micro-cart just in time to see the most amazing prima-donna display of this young dickhead trying to rent the convertable without a drivers license or a credit card. The good bit came next! When he was refused, he screamed (amongst other things) "YOU CAN'T DO THIS - I AM AN AMERCIAN CITIZEN AND I'VE GOT RIGHTS! I'M GOING TO ENGAGE MY ATTORNEY! YOUR JOB IS HISTORY! YOU'RE ON THE STREETS!". The rental guy was so pissed that he offered me the car while the guy was still there just to piss him off further. Magic! Must fly - time out! Next Stop - New Orleans
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