30/06/2016

The cause of why

Day five - Tallahassee to Alligator Creek - 340 mi.

Swami watching the Ibis

Good to be back on Alligator Creek. Sonny and his mom are still living across the street though we suspect Pops may have died and, when we pulled up, there was a huge flock of young Ibis grazing between their yard and ours. We stocked the house with food and saw some friends and now we're tucked in for the night. Funny, but sitting for five days in a car watching the miles flash by was exhausting. Tomorrow Kristiana and Thea arrive.Woohoo!


Day four

Day four - Shreveport to Tallahassee  - 649 mi.


Roadside pancakes for dinner

Flat, flat Florida.


28/06/2016

Roadside oil rigs

Day Three - Amarillo to Shreveport - 551 mi.

Roadside oil rigs
metal dinosaurs in the
hot Texas morning.

27/06/2016

Amarillo by nightfall

Day Two - Flagstaff to Amarillo - 608 mi 

 Flagstaff was fine, another Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. 

Land of the free
Land of the free

Don't mind us, wild things. Just passing through.


Texas afternoon
Texas afternoon

I feel sorry for the residents of Amarillo. In spite of the beautiful sky and having a gigantic wind farm nearby, Amarillo Texas sucked. Perhaps we put too much emphasis on dinner but, after another long day on the road, it's very important. So here's the deal. Don't eat at the The 806, a cafe, lounge, and bar with music at night unless you feel like lounging because, above all, The 806 is a 20-something lounge.


We waited an hour for what turned out to be little more than, as M. Lee put it, a bread sandwich. He  reviewed it on Happy Cow with a titled, "Unspeakably bad and lame". My cheese sandwich wasn't so bad but the diet coke was flat and warm. On the other hand, his "bread sandwich" which was thin bread smeared with a thin veneer of hummus—super lamebut the guy working his ass off behind the counter, probably his first job, was a nice kid. And we did manage to escape before the music started.

Roadtrip - Nevada to Florida - Day One

Day One - G'ville to Flagstaff - 664 mi

Are you ready?

There are two types of travelers in the world; which one are you?

     Source: Cooper Canyon Review by Sarah Cooper.

As one mefi commentator put it:

"For our honeymoon, Mr. Machine made a three ring binder with a detailed itinerary for each day, including not just attractions to visit and where we were staying each night, but also the mileage we would need to drive each day, alternate routes, alternate attractions in case of bad weather, options for eating, and places en route to buy souvenirs and snacks. It was more than 50 pages long for our two week trip, and was organized in a three ring binder and tabbed with section dividers.

"He sent the word document to his parents, so that they could admire it, and their first (loving) comment was that he had a typo on the first page."
-- joyceanmachine -- courtesy of M. Lee

Day One
Day One
- shortcut, outback Nevada -

The road is always a risk, best laid plans and all that but actually the grueling shortcut turned out to be one of the best parts of the day.  We saw wild horses and donkeys grazing in the desert hills plus several coyotes andlaterone jackrabbit scampering through the sagebrush.

Wild horses in Nevada desert
Wild horses in Nevada desert

The temperature was 108° by the time we got to Vegas and lunch at Sweet Tomatoes buffet. It was freaky sitting a table away from a couple of macho idiots exercising Open Carry. By the time we crossed over into Arizona, the temperature had climbed to a sizzling 116°.


23/06/2016

Here and gone

We returned from London on the 14th, spent a week in Portland and now we're back in Nevada for a couple of days. Sunday we leave for Florida. As usual, we're driving. And, as usual, M. Lee has already booked the motels and loaded the GPS with the addresses of the restaurants where we'll have dinner each night. You don't want to hit town after 12, 13 maybe 15 hours on the road and still have to find a place to eat, especially if you're vegetarian. We're not fussy though. A salad and baked potato will do just fine. But just for today, good to be home. Home—a strange and special place.

20/06/2016

Happy strawberry solstice


source: National Geographic

I was delighted to hear, via my son and daughter-in-law, that tonight is the summer solstice and full moon and that this conjunction hasn't happened since 1948. Wow!

I have a tradition of noting the solstice and equinoxes but I thought it was yesterday and didn't even know about the moon. We've been back in America for about a week but I must still be a bit jet lagged. This is a happy reprieve.



Einstein on good and evil




05/06/2016

Quick catch up

We've been in London now for three weeks and I've barely made a note. The emphasis of this visit has been the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. We went eight times, about four hours a visit, and saw everything. We've seen most of it before but after all the art in Italy, where the Renaissance began, we needed to take a another look at the Renaissance art here. So, done. And yes, it was different, more in context for one thing plus I had a better idea of who and what to look for.
Anyway, no time to go into details right now. I need to save my battery for Hampton Court. At the moment we're on the Overground headed there for a second look at well. For one thing, I want to get better photos of Henry's kitchen. Its fireplace alone is big enough to live in.