Our last blog for a while...

 Hello all.  Since we last blogged a lot of things have happened, some good, some bad.

In short, we have headed down the east coast just in time to avoid "Frankenstorm" Sandy and had a few pleasant days driving through Virginia and into North Carolina along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It was all very nice and relaxing, but the 400+ miles did seem to drag on a bit.  We then headed into the Great Smoky Mountains - bit of a mistake.

A nice mill scene

A nerdy road shot!

We had been told that quite by accident we had got there on the busiest weekend of the year due to the fall colours and it was heaving with people.  This made our time there a little less enjoyable to be honest - it was nice enough, but frankly had seen better elsewhere.  Moving on from there we didn't do much really - we thought about going to Graceland (or Dollywood -joke!) as it was on the way through, but neither of us were that bothered as it happened, so we just drove through and had a chill out until we got to Texas.

We only skirted across the top of Texas and went to Fort Worth to see a rodeo and try our hand at horse riding.  The Red Steagal rodeo was in town and it was actually really good.  We'd never seen anything like that (apart from in the movies) and we both really enjoyed it.  There were bucking broncos, wild cow milking (yes, its as weird as it sounds) and other cowboy things.  The highlight had to be 'mutton bustin' - basically seeing small children hanging on to a mad angry sheep running at full speed - hilarious!

Ouch!

Mutton Bustin'

The following day we went for our first horse ride - what better place to do it than in cowboy country?!?  Lisa was pretty worried about it, but after our cowboy guide Raul let her make friends with her new horsey chum (Pancho) she got into and we both really enjoyed our hour ride - not sure our bums would agree though!

That was the good stuff.  Right after the horse ride, Lisa received the very sad and unfortunate news that her nan had passed away (29th October 2012).  She had been taken into hospital for a few days prior and the outlook wasn't too optimistic, but naturally any news like this still comes as a shock.

In light of this news, we will be temporarily heading home for a short period in order to attend the funeral and allow Lisa to pay her respects and say goodbye - it just wouldn't feel right not to.

So after travelling over 14,000 miles through 30 states (plus 4 Canadian provinces), we have now begun an 1800 mile drive back to where it all began in Seattle 3 months ago in order to return the hire car and get a flight back to the UK. 

We have discussed things at length and despite the sad news, we've decided that it would not be right to end the trip abruptly under these circumstances.  This experience is something we have both talked about doing for quite a few years and it feels far too soon to call it a day - and it's certainly not something that Lisa's nan would have wanted.

So, we shall be continuing our trip after all of the personal matters have been sorted out and once we've worked out where we'll head next - lots of decisions over the next couple of weeks.

For the time being however, this will be the last blog post about our adventures.  Thanks for reading and all of your comments so far and be sure to check in once we get back on the road...

RIP Nan - we will really miss you x x