The Windy City...

All lies - it wasn't windy at all.

We spent a couple of days sightseeing in Chicago but before we got there we stopped at Lake Geneva for a game of mini golf in the pouring rain!  Rob won of course, I had to let him or there would have been tears ;-))

I think he was confused, see why I had to let him win!

She'd gone a bit mad!

Chicago was actually much better than we had expected!  Based on some of the news reports (364 murders this year so far!) and things we had seen, we were expecting it to be a bit shady, but it wasn't - well not the places we went to anyway.

We did a load of the touristy things....

• Rode the double decker train into downtown
• Visited the Willis Tower, previously known as the Sears Tower - Mrs Stephenson you would have loved it!  Stood on the glass floor and looked down 103 floors - scary (for Lisa, not Rob!)

Us on the glass balcony 103 floors up

The Willis Tower!

• Had a tour of Millennium Park by Maureen the English guide.  She talked/verbally gushed about the architecture, gardens, how everything was 'unique' and how fantastic Chicago is.  She needed a bit of a slap really.  The park was good though - we especially liked the Cloudgate sculpture which was designed by an Indian guy based in London!

We're in the reflection!

The "cloud"

• Walked the magnificent mile.  Magnificent? Ish I guess.  As Americans have no history I understand why they rave about it as it has a load of buildings that were built before 1980!  It was a pleasant wander though with the highlight being the old water tower.

• Buckingham fountain was visited and that just had to be done. Very grand it was too just like Rob ;-)
• Navy pier was just dreadful.  It had the most comprehensive collection of tacky shops and cheesy "attractions" this side of Great Yarmouth!  A dream holiday destination for a chav.

Hell!

So how would we sum up Chicago.  Well as cities go it was nice enough, has a surprisingly safe feel about it, but it doesn't have a "must see"tourist attraction.  Even so, we really enjoyed our time here and it was also nice not to drive a long distance for a couple of days.

The next update will cover our adventures back in Canada - Niagara Falls, Ottawa and Montreal.

South Dakota - done!

Having left behind Wyoming we continued our road trip heading east towards Mount Rushmore and the Badlands (oooh, scary) .  To be honest, there wasn't very much to see on the way across - its a pretty flat and dull expanse.  Didn't even know we'd crossed into South Dakota - no signs or anything - rubbish!

On the way to Mount Rushmore we had seen some ads talking about the 'Crazy Horse Monument' that was apparently "in the process of being completed".  As this is the largest mountain carving in progress in the world, we thought it would be worth a look - wrong!

Now call me (Rob) tight (and I have been many times), but I think paying $20 to see this:

when it should actually look like this:

is a rip off.

Apparently they are trying to get it completed by private funding only and not taking anything from the government.  Stupid idea bearing in mind this was actually started in 1948! Here's a tip - take the money you numpties and make a proper thing that people wouldn't mind paying to visit.

Moving on from this geological disappointment, we got to Mount Rushmore.  Couldn't believe it - someone had finished the job.  Good work.  To be honest, before we got there we were pretty sceptical about the place, but it turned out be better than we thought and we really enjoyed it.

You could see the carvings from a main viewpoint, but we also took a small boardwalk trail which was good and allowed some different views of it.  It was also amazing to see the amount of "exhausted" Americans taking this easy stroll.

If you look close, check out the glasses on Theodore (3rd from left) & the eyes - really clever!

They also have a "lighting ceremony" each night which is basically 45 minutes of spouting how wonderful the Americans are and how they are the greatest country in the history of the world - EVER! Oh yeh, and then they turn on the lights so you can see the mountain ;-)

How we stopped ourselves from throwing up we're not quite sure.

The following day we decided to do some spelunking.  Well not quite - we went on a tour of Fart, I mean, Wind Cave :-). We'd never done anything like this before and it was quite a neat experience - plus it was a nice place to cool off from the 100 degree heat outside!.  The cave system contained things like boxwork, popcorn and frostwork - nope, that didn't mean anything to us either!

Frostwork!

Boxwork!

Trolls!!!

On the way to Custer State Park we stopped by the local prairie dog town to watch the locals going about their daily business, these little rodents are really entertaining and really do bark like a very small dog!

Next were the Burros - a donkey to you and me.  These are wild in the park but have obviously got used to people in cars over the years, they wander beside the cars and poke their heads in through the window to see if you have any food for them. One of them got a bit frisky with Rob, greeted him with his massive tongue out, Rob puckered up as he thought his luck was in!

Whilst heading east we checked out Badlands National Park.  The landscape here was strange and at times it seemed like you were on a different planet (Lisa often is!).  Colourful rock formations appeared out of nowhere but after about 20 miles of it though it did get a bit samey!  This is where we've experienced the highest temperature yet, 103 degrees Fahrenheit - nice and toasty!

The last few days have been spent driving for the most part.  We've now left South Dakota and crossed through Minnesota.  We stopped in Wisconsin briefly, looked around the State Capitol building and Rob finally got his haircut after putting it off for a while.  He didn't end up with a weird mullet or anything, so relief all round!

That's genuine concern/fear!

Everything is under control in the Governors Office! 

Just having a rant!

We're still heading towards the east coast in time for the Fall colours in New England and we'll be popping into Chicago over the next couple of days for some big city action - will let you know how that goes...

Still here...

Finally a monster update after well over a week - sorry about that.

So, we made it to Yellowstone and were greeted with some more lovely sunshine, loads of annoying tourists and a lone black wolf having his lunch.  The wolf was fairly close and eating a carcass of some sort (sadly don't think it was an annoying American!) - even though his culinary choice was a bit grim, watching the wolf so close was excellent.

Mmm, yum!

Yellowstone is a pretty cool place and has a good variety of nice things to see (if you like that sort of thing - fortunately we do), such as...

Old Faithful to see the geothermal activity - lots of geysers and springs

Heart Spring and a geyser going off in the background

Lamar Valley to look for wildlife.  We came across some bison jams (as in traffic, not stewed in a jar ;-) ) and some pronghorn (Lisa's favourite)

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  We did the Uncle Tom's trail which involves walking down a few steep hills and 350 steps.  Walking down was fine, walking back - knackering.  View was worth it though.

Climbed a mountain to get an elevated view of the impressive Grand Prismatic Spring - you can see it from the ground and that's where most of the tourists go, but the view is a bit cack.  The climb was quite difficult hoisting yourself over some dead trees but was a good experience.  We were filthy by the time we finished but is was a "wow" moment when we got to the top.

Silly boy!

After all of this exercise we decided we deserved a good feed, so we popped to a small burger joint in a town called Gardiner and Rob gorged on a "Hateful Hamburger" - this was a monster!  One pound of beef, 3 cheeses, bacon, mushrooms, onion rings, salad and he polished off the lot with fries and washed down with an ice cream milkshake.  Ok, not exactly "Man vs. Food", but one word springs to mind - piggy!

After Yellowstone we headed down to Grand Teton. This national park is not as big and doesn't have as much variety as Yellowstone - it's mainly about mountains and wildlife. Moose were around and we did see a few bull moose along the riverbank. It's rutting season over here for the bison, moose and elk so we have seen a few of the fellas trying to charm the ladies!

Rob dragged me out of the tent early a couple of mornings for sunrises over the Teton mountains, one was pretty clear the other way too cloudy.

We also exchanged our rental car whilst in the Tetons as we've done over 6000 miles and the Ford Fusion needed a service.  After an argument with Alamo for the second time this trip and spending 2 hours in their office, we finally got a replacement car.  This time a Chrysler Town & Country "minivan" - a people carrier to you and me.  It's great - much more room to throw our stuff around in.  You can actually sleep in this one too, which we did the other night - quite comfy actually and not quite as chilly as the tent.

So... after having camped for 6 nights and having a fab time in the national parks it's time to head east to a whole load of places we've never been before...

Bye for now Canada and hello again USA

It's Labor (stupid spelling) Day weekend (bank holiday to you and me) here in the USA and we managed to cross the border from Canada without the need for any cavity searches (phew!).

We left Canada having experienced a massive thunderstorm whilst sleeping in a tent in the middle of forest.  I must admit I was a tad scared (Lisa that is!). 

Yellowstone National Park is the plan for the next few days.  The internet connection we have at the mo is a bit poor so we'll do a proper update and add some photos when we have a better one.

That's about it for now..... as we're off to have fun!!

Cold and knackered...

...well we were a couple of days ago anyway.

We left Jasper feeling pretty good, but by the time we were finished in Lake Louise we were in desperate need of sleep and warmth!  So how come?  Well sleeping in a tent at sub-zero temperatures is officially rubbish.  We had 3 nights in the tent and it was literally freezing - ice on the cars the next morning as it was that cold.  We had layers of clothing on, blanket, airbed, sleeping bags and were still cold!  If the cold wasn't enough the train kept running all night (tracks were next to the campsite) and honking its horn all hours!  We had enough of that so we moved onto Radium Hot Springs, booked into some warm and quiet accommodation and have appreciated some of the finer things in life - like sleep!

We had some really long days after getting up bright and early for not one, but two sunrises whilst in Lake Louise (all Rob's choice you understand).  In between we've been on a few walks, with the biggest being to the Big Beehive - this probably won't mean anything to you guys, but basically it was an 11km all-day hike which was really steep and our muscles really felt it the following day. The hike was worth it though, amazing views when we finally got to the top.

Rob also turned all Swampy eco-warrior on us and had a go at a load of Asian tourists that thought it was funny to be feeding the wildlife.  Soon put them right!

Today we are heading off from Radium Hot Springs towards Banff where Rob will be after a first - getting his hair cut abroad - woot, exciting!  As Banff is absolutely rammed with people this time of year I don't think we'll be sticking around there for long and by the weekend we are planning to be USA bound once again, heading in the direction of Yellowstone National Park.

Until the next installment...

Ahhhhh......this is the life!

So, we're now back in one of our favourite spots in Canada - Jasper National Park.

Jasper is having a mini heatwave at the moment so the shorts are on and our lily white legs are out! We're experiencing highs of around 30 degrees, similar to what you're having back home as we understand. The difference here in the mountains is that it drops to around 2 degrees at night so, it's good for sleeping.

Have had some really loud but interesting thunder storms over the last couple of days - sun is out it's nice and hot, it thunders and then hails - really changeable weather.

After the thunder & lightening!

So what have we been up to....  more of the same to be honest.  Lots of walking, exploring, getting bitten (by insects) to within an inch of our lives, seeing new things, more wildlife and oh, taking the rental car to the garage for an oil change and doing the laundry, just to break up the fun!

Us at Peyto Lake

Maligne Canyon

Waterton Lake

At the moment we're taking things quite leisurely so we can recharge our batteries in readiness for our massive hike at Lake Louise in a few days.  Rob is making me walk about 8 miles with an elevation gain of around 2000 feet.  I will need oxygen!  Should be good though.

Rob's new driving position!

We're spending about another week in the Canadian Rockies and then we'll drive back into the states to start our 3 month driving tour... Wonder what that will bring?!?!

We've been away now for 37 days, I miss some of my home comforts (but we'll get those back in a few months), people and Henry cat, who by the way is having a fab time without us.  He has already been filmed by Channel 5 to hopefully appear in one of their pet programmes after Christmas - what a little star *, can't wait to see that!

By the way, Rob's added some other links on the right hand side of the blog, some geeky things like the routes we have taken.

North America Road Trip - A small bit of Alaska...

After driving hundreds and hundreds of miles, we ended up in a small one-horse town in Alaska called Hyder, and to be honest, it looks like the horse left years ago.  This is the sprawling urban metropolis we were welcomed by!

Hyder town - not much there!

That pretty much set the tone for the whole place really - it was sleepy/comatose, with hardly anything there and nothing really open.  After trawling the internet, there are a massive 3 tourist attractions in the whole area and yep, we did them all.  On the plus side (especially for Lisa), the tent was avoided (again!) due to high bear activity, so we managed to get 3 nights accommodation in a real room.

The main reason for the trip was to go to a viewing area to see wildlife.  On this count it was very good.  In between the sessions of sitting around with nothing happening, we managed to see loads of grizzly bears, a few black bears, a couple of wolves and some bald eagles.  It did make for some long days though - 5:30am starts to catch the wolves and often later in the day to see the grizzlies.  It was good, but we could have got a bit bored if we had hung around Hyder for any longer.

Grizz going for a swim

Got one!

On one of the days, we headed up to the massive Salmon Glacier (tourist attaction #2) and it was worth driving the very bumpy road as it was quite spectacular.  At the top we spoke to this interesting guy known as "The Bear Man" who was selling books, DVDs and other stuff, he basically lives a a recluse for 3 to 4 months during the summer up there, sleeping in a tent and going for wilderness walks (don't think he has a wash either as there was no water, no wonder there were so many flies hanging around!).  Sounds a bit weird, but each to their own.

This part of our trip gave us a few firsts - some welcome, some less so.  We got to see wolves and bald eagles up close which was great, plus we spoke to some interesting people along the way.  Some unwelcome firsts - on the drive in we unfortunately spotted a dead black bear lying on the side of the road - obviously this happens more often than you would like to imagine, but not pleasant to see.  Lisa also had an "interesting" time performing an emergency stop on the main highway when a bear ran across the road right in front of us.  Lisa = traumatised, bear absolutely fine and legged it.

All in all we've had a good, if brief, trip into Alaska.  Hopefully we'll go back to see other parts of it in the future, but for now more of Canada and the Rockies are on the cards...