THE BIG ROAD TRIP

Saskatoon

marcinoman — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 07:35:00 GMT

OK. I know I've been quiet for a while now ... it's because I've been chilling out in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, LEKs home town.

Now you may think that I've just been a lazy arse here, and you would be mostly correct! But I have actually gotten off the couch a few times to venture out.

I've taken a couple of long walks along the river, which is just at the back of LEKs house.

We had a barbecue and a great night of cards with LEKs family. I was enjoying myself so much and got so excited that I was heard to utter the odd expletive, which is very unusual for me, that made LEK and Jason (her boyfriend), chuckle.

I've been hanging out in the coffee shops and one thing that I've noticed is that lots of people eat cake with their coffee here! So of course, not wanting to be different or appear foreign, I took to this new custom like a duck to water. I think it's really good for my health because I've noticed that large muscle in my abdominal area is getting quite big and looking quite 'cut' these days. (^_^) Of course, no one can tell from my accent that I foreign!

We also went to the local Shakespeare Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was pretty good. Although the weather has been quite mild, that night (in a tent, by the river), was the beginning of a cold and wet snap. Today, it really set in and is like winter.
Tomorrow we are driving to Winnipeg (9 hours away) for a Folk Festival.

The big star that we're looking forward to is Elvis Costello. Arlo Guthrie is also playing, but on Sunday night and we may not stay for him. I think the weather is going to be pretty shitty for a couple of days so I will be taking all my woollies. With any luck this bad weather will move through pretty quickly and it will be fine for a couple of days. At least we're not camping there, we'll be staying with some friends of LEKs, so at least we will have a warm dry bed to sleep in at night, though during the day I think it will be cold and wet and muddy! Fun, fun, fun.

So that's Saskatoon up to now. Catch ya later.

Powering home

marcinoman — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:51:00 GMT

Taos was the sweetest little town with great galleries and quirky stores, and we wished we had spent 2 nights there instead of in Santa Fe. Had great food in Michael's restaurant and found 'the first trading post in the US', if you can believe the proprietor. Just a little store, very old and a bit messy, with just a little bit of stock ... but cheap, cheap, cheap. We bought wool and cotton rugs for about a third of the price in other stores. Earrings were $1! Unfortunately, he only had one pair that I liked. We spent a few hours in Taos and moved on. We've been waking up and getting on the road pretty early most mornings, stopping for a coffee 9 or 10ish.

Next we visited the Garden of the Gods, a group of very big red rocks that just stick straight up in southern Colarado ... very pretty. Then we just hoofed it up to Wyoming and camped for the night in a very small hick town called Kaycee, where the campground had a resident bunny hopping around everywhere, and trees that were shedding these blow-away seeds that covered the ground like a carpet. They got everywhere and in every thing. Wyoming had beautiful rolling hills, that flattened out a bit in Montana. Such beautiful countryside.

There was not really anything else we wanted to see or do so we decided to drive all the way home to Saskatoon on the last day. We drove for 15 hours, with LEK doing the bulk of the driving. She was getting so excited as we we getting close to home that she started farting! Hilarious!

We arrived around 10pm and there was a welcoming party of LEK's parents, with her mother frantically cleaning the house, and her boyfriend, Jason. All lovely people who were very welcoming to me. I have a bedroom in the basement that is very dark and quiet and the first morning I slept in till 11.30!! And today I slept till 10. Yesterday LEK and I went to town for haircuts, got a great haircut so am really happy about that. The Jazz Festival is in town and there was some great music playing in the street. Funny thing is the musicians are my contemporaries and they're all so old!! LEK says I'm in serious denial! We're going to the park this afternoon to watch some free shows ... looking forward to it, should be good.

Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona ...

marcinoman — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:57:00 GMT

Bette was AMAZING! Some great songs that I knew and some that I didn't. She really does have a great voice. And she was pretty funny. She told jokes and took the piss out of herself, and some other people ... like Sarah Palin. And she did some funny skits with her 3 back-up singers and a chorus line of dancers (all women) ... Like one where they all wore mermaid tails and pranced around the stage in wheel-chairs. Hilarious! She's tremendously fit and can kick her legs up as far as the chorus girls! I had the BEST SEAT ... in the centre, 5 rows from the front! Almost all of the performance was right in front of me! At the end of the show I went to the stage and shook her hand and was sitting on the steps outside waiting for Linda to come at the end of the show and she walked out the door, so I said Hi and told her the show was great. All up an amazing night.

Caught up with Linda after the show for supper. Food since San Francisco has been pretty grim. I guess that's because it's mostly Mexican, or Mexican inspired, and it just doesn't do it for me. It resembles geriatric food to me ... all mushy ... beans, tomato, cheese, tortillas! I'm craving something crunchy and solid. Maybe today ...

We camped at the Homolovi (the name made me laugh .. I thought it should have been in LA) Camp in the Arizona desert. It was the middle of nowhere and lots of jackrabbits running around and hardly any punters, but it was a good campground with good facilities. I set up and dismantled the tent all by myself ... I'm becoming an ace camper! ... while LEK went for a run both evening and morning. Her hip has mended pretty well and she's a happy runner. We had power on our site and were able to plug the computer in and get more than our 28 minutes of movie. However, we downloaded Revolutionary Road in LA, but, just like magic, it had disappeared when we wanted to watch it. So we had to be happy with 2 episodes of 30 Rock, which is pretty funny.

We've been following historical Route 66 some of the way, but you can't follow it all the way because some of it has been taken over by Highway 40. However we did enjoy Winslow, Arizona, made famous by the Eagles song Take it Easy ... "Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a pretty sight to see ...". Full of classic, run down motels and cafes. And we stopped at a cafe in Holbrook, up the road a bit, with lots of Route 66 memorabilia and had great coffee and disgusting apple tortilla things. But there were some great characters there, stuck in the 60s and full of stories of Route 66. Would have liked to buy some memorabilia, like key rings or something, but it was all cheap crap.

We legged it to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and saw some of those great, what I thought were Arizona landscapes, but are actually in New Mexico. And I have since learned that there's a place called Monument Valley in Utah, which we won't get to see, where they have those classic western movie landscapes. We took the back road and stopped at this gorgeous little town called Madrid, with lots of little shops selling Indian jewellery and pottery. Of course, I bought a few things.

Sante Fe is a very cute place, bigger than I imagained, and after much searching on the net, while we had a guinness, LEK found a hotel for $50. We will stay here 2 nights ... and do lots of shopping today, because this holiday has really been quite cheap and we haven't bought very much at all, and then go to Taos, another cute place, where will see lots of pueblos (Indian villages) on the way.

Ahhh ... off to the markets and shops now.

City of Angels

marcinoman — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:12:00 GMT

I'm just amazed at how Mexican it is here. All the names of towns and streets. Every second restaurant is Mexican (and I don't really like Mexican food either). Aparently it actually used to be Mexico and the States annexed the land at some point in history and named it California.

We're having a great time staying with Laura and Sean. I used to work with Laura in Japan and haven't seen her for 9 years! They live in Orange County, south of LA and we went down to the beach last night for dinner and today. We decided not to go into LA as the traffic was horrendous when we came through yesterday and we voted that it was just not worth it. We had a much more relaxing time, we all went shopping this morning and Laura and I had our hair curled in the department store, and LEK and I had a massage this afternoon. Sweet.

Nice to sleep in a bed for a couple of nights. But I have to say the mattresses we are sleeping on (called thermarest), in our new super-duper tent, are great. I sleep well and don't wake up with a backache, which is a bonus. When we stay in camping areas, we have this small tent, and a small gas burner to make our tea and a couple of tiny lights, really everything we need. And other people have huge mobile homes (called RVs here) or 3 room tents and deck chairs and tables and everything that opens and shuts. Anyway, they feel sorry for us because we must look like their poor cousins and are always offering to help us and lend us their stuff. We think it's hilarious because we actually like not having all that unnecessary crap, much easier to set up and pack up in the morning.

Forgot to tell you, somewhere up the coast (can't remember where. Yes I can, it was Depoe Bay), we went to the movies and saw "The Land of the Lost" with Will Farrell (because it was cold and rainy, much warmer in the ciimema!). Actually the movie was pretty funny and MUCH better than we thought it would be. Anyway, I got into the movies on a senior ticket ... first time in my life. That was a hoot. And LEK got asked for ID at a vinyard when we were wine tasting! So a few firsts!

Off to Vegas tomorrow and I have a ticket to see Bette Midler. Pretty excited about that. LEK's not coming, too expensive for her. Hope I get to see Linda. Couldn't get her on the phone for some strange reason, so just emailed her tonight.

Looking forward to some warm weather. We have been wearing warm clothing for most of the trip. Vancouver was the warmest so far, we didn't have to wear a sweater there during the day, but everywhere else has been quite cool.

If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair ...

marcinoman — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:49:00 GMT

“Wow!”, “Amazing!”, “Very pretty”. These comments were uttered the most as we drove down the Oregon coast and into California. The rugged Oregon coastline was so beautiful with its backdrop of pine trees.

Last night we stayed in a motel in Eureka, Oregon, a beach town with some stunning old houses. We had a Guinness and fish and chips in an Irish pub that had an Irish band.

Took off this morning heading for San Francisco and very excited. Drove right along the coast and into the Avenue of Giants when we hit California. Fantastic forest of the most amazingly huge redwood trees. Also saw herds of Elk grazing by the roadside. And the edges of the highway are just covered in the most amazing wild flowers. Huge azalea bushes and fox gloves and daisies and other things. Just beautiful.

Coming in San Francisco was very exciting. The traffic wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and we entered by driving over the Golden Gate Bridge! Awesome! $6 toll. LEK had booked a motel but we spent some time trying to get to it as there are so many one way streets, that we couldn’t find our way to it. We did eventually and the room is great … and cheap as they are doing some renovations. We will stay here 2 nights.

We went to fisherman’s wharf for dinner … loads of people and lots of crappy food. Then went for a drive through the Mission and Castro parts of town. Saw the Harvey Milk Academy and a place called Twin Peaks. Castro, the gay area of town looks cool and we will investigate that tomorrow. June is gay month in San Fran, culminating in the Dyke March at the end of the month. San Francisco is a cool town and quite easy to find your way around … with the help of a map of course. One of our favourite places so far.

Vancouver .. Portland ... Newport

marcinoman — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:59:00 GMT

Portland, Oregon … a gorgeous city. Happy, friendly people, beautiful buildings and tree-lined streets. Kinda groovy, bohemian.

LEK fell on her run the morning we left Vancouver and strained her hip joint, so in Portland we went to a sports injury clinic. We both baulked at the price $170! But her insurance covered it so she went ahead. She was in there for more than 2 hours and came out with railway tracks taped up and down her leg, bum and back. It’s a couple of days later now and she’s feeling a lot better, though this morning she put her foot up on the rear bumper of the car to do her shoe up and pain shot through her hip … so not better yet. Her hopes of running each morning down the Oregon coast and me picking her up after a few kilometers, are dashed!

We spent our first night in a tent (so small our two sleeping mats overlapped and we had to crawl in backwards!!) in the forest east of Portland and thought we heard something walking around outside the tent!! Soft foot falls, so not too big! LEK doesn’t think there are bears in that area! Anyway, whatever it was we survived. Had half an hour’s power left on the computer so watched the first installment of In Bruges. Was very good, though the sound quality was poor. Watched the second half hour last night. It may take a few days to see the whole movie. The battery in the computer doesn’t have very good staying power!

Bought a new tent yesterday for $30 … much bigger with plenty of space for our two mattresses and you can almost stand up in there. However, there was a rainstorm last night and we had some leakage through the zips on the window and door, though not much. Clever me suggested we turn our mats around so they weren’t up against the sides with the leaks, then used our sarongs to soak up the drips … an otherwise dry night. The tent was a bit wet this morning, and a bit muddy around the bottom, so we’ve left it there to dry out while we came for bacon and eggs (well, LEK the vegetarian isn’t having bacon), and café latte.

We are now at Newport, on the Oregon coast. It’s lovely to be driving down the coast and we will probably take our time. We might see some whales and sea lions here today … here’s hoping. The countryside in Oregon is fabulous, mountainous or green rolling hills, forests, waterfalls and now rugged beaches. I’m surprised at how much the people and culture, the houses and shops, are like home! Don’t know why??? It feels like I’m driving around Australia sometimes, even some of the houses look the same.

Oh, we called in to a couple of wineries yesterday to celebrate LEK’s birthday, which was the day before, when she was getting her body repaired. The wine wasn’t very good, (well I would say that because I don’t really like wine, but LEK didn’t like it either), but we had fun.

The first leg: Banff to Vancouver

marcinoman — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:05:00 GMT

The flight from Muscat to Calgary was long, 19 hours with a 3 hour stopover at Frankfurt, but not too tiring. Disappointingly, there were not too many movies on offer. The only good one that I hadn’t seen was The Reader, the movie that Kate Winslet won the Best Actress Oscar for this year. I loved it. In fact, I watched it twice. Towards the end of the journey, the guy sitting next to me was watching it, and I surreptitously watched it over his shoulder!

Leigh-Ellen met me at Calgary and we drove up to Banff, in the Canadian Rockies. We woke up to snow on the first morning, so like the Aussie that I am, I was out there taking photos almost immediately. There was just enough snow to coat the cars and the trees and it looked so pretty. The mountains were lovely, with snow on their summits, and in the morning after Leigh-Ellen left for her relay race to Jasper, I soaked in the jacuzzi while admiring the mountain views through the glass walls and watching the snow falling outside. Bliss!

Crystal, a friend from Japan, who lives in Calgary, and who I haven’t seen for 9 years, drove up to Banff in the morning with her boyfriend, John, and we drove up to Lake Louise for lunch. A beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, with an incredible glacier just hanging off the mountain, looking like it will fall into the lake at any moment. After they left I drove on to Jasper, picking Leigh-Ellen up on the way, after her run, all the way looking out for wildlife like bears and moose. Alas, no sightings.

I was keen to see some wildlife on our drive from Jasper to Vancouver and wasn’t disappointed. We saw a few bears and one in particular who stood up by the side of the road and then ran across the road right in front of our car. We also saw a gopher, a fox and some deer, however moose are still being elusive. The mountain views have been nothing less than spectacular since Banff. All snow capped and very pretty.

On the way to Vancouver we stayed a night in Chilliwack, a name that I loved to mispronounce, which made Leigh-Ellen chuckle. We didn’t know Wayne’s apartment number and squirmed our way into his building, after which he took us for pie at the airport! Very yummy! We stayed at an ancient, restored hotel in the centre of town, in a room that had the bathtub in the same room as the bed! I woke up in the middle of the night and Leigh-Ellen was sleeping on the floor!! Aparently I was snoring very loudly and she was trying to get away from me. But it was fun and they served a mean bacon and eggs for breakfast, for which Wayne joined us. Then we went shopping in the towns second-hand shops and I swapped the bag that I had brought with me for hols, that I loathed after one day because it was too deep and I couldn’t find anything, for a quilted jacket. Great bargain.

The weather in Vancouver, where we are staying with Matt, a friend of Leigh-Ellen’s, is much milder. Matt has a glorious apartment on the 7^th floor, all glass, overlooking English Bay and West Vancouver. He’s taken the day off work today and we’re going out sightseeing somewhere. We went to a vegetarian Mexican restaurant last night and Leigh-Ellen ate enough food for 3 people, it was so delicious! Leigh-Ellen made me buy some strips you put on your nose to decrease snoring and apparently I was good for the first half of the night last night, which is better than not at all!

2 Days to go ...

marcinoman — Tue, 2 Jun 2009 23:57:00 GMT

In 2 days I will be on the plane heading for Calgary, Canada. I've done the washing, mended the clothes that needed it, put a new light coloured lining in the new, black-fringed, suede shoulder bag that I'm taking, laid all my clothes and toiletries out on the spare bed ... and spent my last day at work. I just need to iron a couple of things that I washed yesterday (though I don't know why I'm ironing, because all my clothes are going to be in a bag for at least a month and will get creased anyway!). But I guess if I start out spiffy, I have a better chance of looking good at least for the first few days. And pack ... waiting ...

The flight, well flights actually, will be long ... Muscat to Frankfurt,9 hours, 3 hours in Frankfurt airport, which Leigh-Ellen says is not a good place, so I'm pleased it's not too long. Then direct from Frankfurt to Calgary, 10 hours.

Then it will all begin ...

Getting ready ...

marcinoman — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:30:00 GMT

Only 8 days till I leave on THE BIG ROAD TRIP. Starting to get all my things sorted now. Want to keep my luggage at a minimum as we won't have a lot of room in Leigh-Ellen's small car. But have to think about the weather. Starting in Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies and saw the minimum temperature in Banff a couple of days ago was -2 degrees centigrade!! Then in a couple of weeks we'll be down in the deserts of Nevada and Arizona so will need cool clothes for there. I think we're going to look very grotty for a few weeks, camping and all. Very excited!