To the land of cheese and clam chowdah

Boston - the capital of a Commonwealth and of course the site of the famous tea party. For our first full day in this bustling city we were blessed with sunny warm weather, perfect for strolling along the red brick road (the Freedom Trail). We downloaded an audio guide from the internet and set off at our own pace. We got to visit old cemeteries where important historical figures such as Samuel Adams were buried, and the Old South Meeting House, which had a very impressive small museum. The Trail highlights Boston's role in the American Revolution, and provided a great introduction to the city. Unfortunately we did not get to finish the entire walk, as the temptation to try some local clam chowder got the better of us and we checked out what is allegedly America's oldest restaurant, the Union Oyster House. Clam chowder is actually quite nice, and is a much more delicate flavour than I imagined.

The next morning I got up early to hang out with three great local birders in Mt Auburn Cemetery, which is more like a huge city park in the middle of Boston. The primary aim of the morning was to chase down some migrating warblers. I was informed that the spring had come early this year for the trees, and so the leaves were out earlier than usual, making it much harder to find these tiny birds amongst the foliage. Despite the threatening rain, we saw some great little warblers, including chestnut-sided, magnolia, and black-and-white warbler. We also got to see scarlet tanager and Baltimore oriole. To finish off a lovely morning, we went to a great local diner for breakfast. The afternoon was spent relaxing at Ken and Meredith's house where we stayed in Boston, trying to identify the birds, butterflies and frog we encountered in their yard.

The next day it was off to New England on a mini driving trip for me and Shelly. We first drove to Portland in Maine, north along the coast from Boston. We stopped via Salem to check out the House of Seven Gables, where the author Nathaniel Hawthorne used to visit, and to have a quick wander around the town. We stayed at a tiny B and B within walking distance of downtown Portland, and had a wonderful evening at the Street and Co restaurant. Shelly had soft-shelled crab while I tackled lobster. I was surprised at how small Portland was, and also at how vibrant the nightlife was - lots of pubs and restaurants and lots of people walking around the cobble-stoned streets combined for a friendly and festive atmosphere. In the morning we checked out the Portland Museum of Art, which turned out to be a lovely little gallery. I was impressed to see they had some local art, including a sculpture of a ram with seashells and other beach debris adorning his fleece. We also saw some lovely glassware, and some Homer, Wyeth, and of course the reason Shelly insists on visiting galleries in the US, Singer Sargent. They also had McLellan House from 1801, which had plenty of wallpaper to keep Shelly happy.

From Portland we drove north along the Maine coastline for a bit until we reached Booth Bay via some osprey and scenic views, but we weren't overly impressed and decided to press on to our next destination, Franconia in the White Mountains, New Hampshire. We arrived in the dark and so got a nice surprise in the morning when we saw where we were! Beautiful countryside, lots of little babbling brooks, and many of the fruit trees were still in early blossom. We went to Polly's Pancake Parlour for a delicious breakfast of organic banana pancakes, smoked maple bacon, French vanilla coffee, blueberry pancakes and locally produced maple syrup. Best of all we got a great view across to the mountains and were able to watch the birds and butterflies hanging out around the verandah. After pausing at an incongruous old iron smelting furnace, we checked out Franconia Notch State Park for the rest of the day. Our first excitement was to see a black bear cub gambolling across a pasture, with no mother bear in sight. Next up we did an amazing bushwalk to the Flume, which reminded me very much of Chinese and Japanese landscape paintings with many wooden bridges over waterfalls and lakes and wonderful foliage hanging down. There was a microcosm around the waterfalls consisting of mosses, lichens, violets, ferns, and many other plants I didn't recognise. We got to see and walk over some covered bridges, and saw a few different forest types. I was highly impressed with the signs on this walk, which were meaty enough to be worth reading but also accessible enough to keep people interested, and included notes on geology, flora, fauna, history and climate. As with everywhere else in New England, there were hardly any people, as apparently spring is the off season - I found this strange because the weather was perfect, everywhere was open but cheap due to off-peak rates, and the ubiquitous and deliciously fragrant lilac was in full bloom!

We drove to Shelburne Inn next near Lake Champlain, place of tasty chocolate and battleships, knowing little more than they had a farmyard with chickens somewhere on the property. Turns out chooks are a good way to pick accommodation - we stayed in an amazing room in a grand old house formerly owned by a Vanderbilt, and got to sleep and recline and bathe in furniture from the 19th Century onwards! The restaurant was just as incredible as the room, with everything tasting fantastic (well when you add Vermont cheese to the dishes...yum!) and a focus on local organic produce (a very Vermont thing to be into as we kept finding out!). The next day Shelly made a beeline for the free-ranging chooks (Plymouth rocks, Rhode Island reds, silkies, wyandottes) which were very tolerant of being picked up by small children and Shelly and carried around the paddock in rather ungracious poses. We also saw red squirrels, chipmunks, and what I think was a woodchuck. We got to see cheddar being made here too. After this we went to the Shelburne Museum, an open-air collection of old American houses (and weirdly, a boat) which had Shelly drooling. It was kind of like a Disneyland for art and cultural and architectural historians, only everything was real.

To get to our next destination (still in Vermont), we had a very scenic drive via covered bridges and back dirt roads and through wonderful greenery. We arrived at the Applebutter Inn, a delightful B and B in Taftsville. The breakfast here was sensational, and we got to watch ruby-throated hummingbirds a few feet away at the feeder while we ate! It poured with rain, which seemed to fit in nicely with our verdant surrounds and made everything look even more lovely. We checked out a local raptor rehabilitation centre down the road, which was a bit depressing but we we did get to see a snowy owl very close up. We then drove to our art deco hotel in Brattleboro. Brattleboro felt a bit like Asheville, but not quite as vibrant. I was a little disappointed in the hotel, which felt more like a school/public institution than a hotel, and the room (a bit like the town) just felt tired. The hair plastered to the bathroom walls, the hand and face marks on the mirrors and windows, and the dust/random debris on many surfaces didn't help either. The town was friendly however, and there were some interesting buildings to see, and the food we had for dinner was excellent.

Unfortunately we had to return to Boston the next day, so we decided to make one last stop at Concord to get a literary fix. We did a tour of Louisa May Alcott's family home, which was very interesting, and we went to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to see the resting places of Alcott, Emerson and Thoreau/do some quick birding/help Korean tourists with directions/save a turtle from becoming roadkill. As a side note, I still have skunks and racoons on my roadkill list only - I'm beginning to worry I won't get to upgrade them to the live specimens list for the trip :(

Reluctantly we headed back into Boston traffic, met Jon at the Liberty Hotel (former jail, now jazzed up as a fancy hotel, very comfy as you'd expect, but a bit pretentious) and went over to Cambridge for a delicious home-cooked meal at Kristina and Dean's place, where Kristina was very excited to present us with some chocolate mice with ribbons for tails that she had told us about many times when they lived in Canberra. A fantastic way to end our New England part of the trip!

While Shelly checked out the retail delights of Asheville, Jon and I decided to go for a walk in the Great Smokey Mountains, which straddles the Tennessee and North Carolina border and is at the southern part of the Appalachians. After reading about the high diversity of salamanders in the park and having never seen one before, I was determined to find one.












Not only were we successful in finding several different species of salamander, we also found some beautiful snakes, heaps of southern leopard frogs by the river, and lots of butterflies! I was very excited to find orchids too - with much larger flowers than I was expecting. We also found the trees at the top of the ridgeline did not yet have their spring leaves, while the trees in the river valleys were in full leaf.




After the Carolinas we went to Chicago for a two-day intensive and highly enjoyable architecture course, with the tours run by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. First up we checked out the rise of the skyscraper, where we saw buildings from the 1880s through to the 1930s, and learnt about the structural differences which allowed skyscrapers to exist. Once we had the architect-guided tour of downtown Chicago, our next tour indulged in the outstanding art deco buildings. I would highly recommend this walking tour. We got to see some interiors the public was otherwise unable to view, and stared at several fascinating elevators with wonderful golden detail. Unfortunately one of my favourite buildings on the tour (lovely intricate bird carvings on the facade) was one of several buildings at risk of demolition. Our last tour was a boat ride along the river, which while interesting, had too many Modernist buildings for my taste, and the biting cold wind and rain which wasn't too noticeable while maintaining a brisk pace walking downtown became miserable sitting on a boat. For a Canberran, it was thrilling to be in the city where Walter Burley and Marion Mahoney Griffin came from and to see the same buildings they saw before coming to Australia, and it was also interesting to see the city that attracted Miles Franklin in the Edwardian era. I have to say though that this was not my favourite city despite the incredible architecture - it was the first place on our travels which wasn't terribly friendly, negotiating the traffic as a pedestrian was interesting, and even the local accent seemed harsher. Then again, perhaps the continual rain, cold and wind affected my impressions of the city.

Boston on the other hand was immediately friendly, engaging, and even had warmer weather. But more on that in the next post.

Why, Asheville, I do declare!

After the excesses of Disney World and Miami Beach, Asheville, North Carolina, was a very welcome relief. A small and compact town which has banished its chain shops to its fringes (even some locals were asking us where the mall was), Asheville seems to have had a number of lucky breaks in its history to even out the economic decline of the mid-twentieth century that has preserved all its gorgeous old buildings. A Vanderbilt decided it would be a good place to put his faux gothic chateau-esque mansion in the 1890s, and people (first guests and now tourists) have been flocking to this ostentatious building ever since. Young Vanderbilt went to Europe, like what he saw, and wanted it all. He sure got it, but this really isn't a good thing. I preferred the Singer Sargent and Whistler portraits to their architecturally messy settings. They did, however, have very interesting information on the restoration of some of the rooms during the 1980s, including a video of a dude handprinting wallpaper.

As well as the Biltmore Estate, Asheville also has a lively little downtown area filled with art deco buildings, boutiques, chocolate shops, vegetarian restaurants and arts and crafts. This brings us to the next lucky break. Artists of all kinds abound in this place. Some of the Bauhaus staff, including Anni and Josef Albers, relocated to nearby Black Mountain after the Nazis shut down the school in Germany, and the area has a very strong arts community still. There is a lot of local pride in the locally made, with most stores displaying a sign reading "Put your $ where your <3 is. Shop Asheville." Our most exciting discovery in Asheville was that Jon (or perhaps Jocelyn!) has been leading a double life as a restaurateur. Doc Chey's Noodle House serves excellent Asian fusion food and hilarious fermented tea that tastes kind of like sweet carbonated vinegar. We were pleased that the food at a place sharing Jon's uncommon name was so good.

After spending about five days in Asheville, we drove south to Charleston. Suzi and I went on a ghost tour where we saw no ghosts but learned a lot about Charleston's history (gruesome murders, mass deaths from explosions in battle, that kind of thing). Unlike the one we took in Edinburgh where they locked us in a mausoleum, this tour was quite sanitised in where we went. So the tour guide told us about these locations where pirates were hanged, where the inn keepers had a racket to kill people and hide the bodies in the cellar, where a woman haunts the graveyard waiting for her husband who died in Baltimore to return to her, but we didn't go to any of them. It was a nice way to see a lot of the old town and hear about the history nonetheless.

Charleston's wealth was originally gained from rice crops, so we went out to two plantations the next day. The first was Drayton Hall, a lovely Palladian and Georgian 18th century house which has been preserved rather than restored by the National Trust. No furniture, no expensive knick-knacks, no tourists. Excellent. They also had a fascinating talk about the plantation's slave workforce - their origins in Africa, their culture and how it developed in America to form Gullah, a language and culture which is still alive today. The second was next door at Magnolia. Also owned by a branch of the Drayton family, this place has had several homes on the site, but people keep burning them down. After the Civil War had ended, former slaves went through the neighbourhood burning the sites of their oppression, including Magnolia but sparing Drayton Hall, where yellow flags had apparently been put out to indicate the presence of contagious illness. So the current house is the hunting lodge, shipped down the river and put up in place of the burned plantation house. A particular fixation of our guide was the value of objects rather than how the objects tell us about the lives of those who lived there. Apparently, a vase is like a man - much more attractive when you know how much it's worth. We also discovered during the "From Slavery to Freedom" tour that the descendants of slaves still work on the property, not as tour guides but as gardeners. No wonder there aren't a lot of African-American tourists around these parts.

Next stop: Chicago's intensive architecture history lesson.

A change of pace, fun times in the Magic Kingdom

After too much nature, peace and quiet, we decided that a day of indulgence was in order at America's happiest place, also known as the Magic Kingdom; a place where grown men and women walk around with Mickey Mouse ears on their heads and no one makes fun of you for sitting in a mechanical cart promenading past mechanical pirates. To complete the experience we booked in at Coronado Springs Resort, one of Disney's many themed hotels that are within the extensive bounds of the Disney World complex.

We didn't choose but were assigned the faux-Spanish/Mayan theme of the resort we were assigned - I'm guessing that it is perhaps one of the less popular venues, perhaps as it doesn't fulfil a core fantasy for too much of the audience at the park. Not having visited the on-site archaeological dig re-creation/pool and bar, we perhaps can't fully judge how appealing or historically accurate the illusion presented at the resort is, but I do have to say that what we did see was pretty lame. For over $200 a night, I was expecting something more than a slightly beat up hotel room with some pastel paint, a pool that probably contained too much kiddie urine and a complete lack of internet access (that even a $50 a night roadside motel is able to provide anywhere else in the country).

But the hotel isn't the main story at Disney World, it's the park and rides, right? Only having one day, we chose the Magic Kingdom, the most iconic of the four sites within the mega-complex. Initial impressions did not disappoint: the wide avenue through the creepy "Main St USA" set leading to the Fantasia Castle set, obese men hugging and posing for photos with Minnie Mouse, screaming children times a thousand and a general air of determined enjoyment by all despite multi-hour waits for rides and desperate grabs for cash from vendors and sidewalk peddlers of all kinds.

Wearing her glamorous cowboy boots, Suzi attracted attention from a bevy of males again, including the "Mayor", who insisted on posing for a photo with her. On finding out that we were from Australia, we prepared ourselves for the usual "I've always wanted to go there" story, but were pleasantly surprised by an anecdote from his actual trip to down under several years before. It concerned a pair of gold satin shoes that he chose to wear and the word "poofta" - one we didn't expect to hear in the sanitised Disney kingdom.

Having signed up for the Splash Mountain ride, we wandered off clutching our tickets that allowed us to return in an hour and half, a clever idea that saves one from waiting in line for that time. We were surprised to find that there was no such line for the Pirates of Caribbean ride, an old favourite that we were all keen to re-experience. Unfortunately, despite the substitution of Johnny Depp animatronic models for some of the previously anonymous pirates, our combined opinion was that the Florida version of the ride is considerably less cool that the Californian version, perhaps explaining the relative lack of a crowd queueing for it.

Next on our itinerary was the Haunted House, a considerably more interesting ride than Pirates, whose highlights were both the holographic ghosts, particularly the one projected onto Suzi, as well as the person who screamed out "DON'T TOUCH ME" at the top of their lungs when the lights went out. Props are also due to the "cast" who scurried out from their emergency access points to pour chemicals on the pile of vomit at the exit and quickly erect barriers that prevented any of the happy guests from a spew-related intrusion into their enjoyment of the day.

Disney World is a fantasy; the world reduced and sanitised for clean and safe enjoyment. But I found it completely uninspiring compared to the very real and very beautiful Wakulla Springs that we had just visited or the Everglades that we were heading towards. I'm sure it has something very profund to say about the human condition, but I'm quite sure what it is.

Leaving the carefully manicured grounds of the Magic Kingdom, we decided to skip our intended destination of Sanibel Island and make a dash for Miami in order to give ourselves a bit more time for the Keys and Everglades. For the first time, we checked into a hotel on the backpacking circuit complete with the usual complement of Germans and assorted Scandinavians that one finds in these joints. But it was actually a pretty decent place so long as you kept the windows shut to keep out the ravenous Florida mosquitoes.

Suzi and Shellie promenaded around the Art Deco district while I retired to the beach for a swim. I was disappointed in the usual lukewarm and flat Florida water as well as the amount of flab and fake tans on show (I was expecting better from South Beach). But the Mojitos we had at the local Cuban bar were very good and the raw sugar-cane a nice complement.

From Miami, we then raced down the Keys, but only made it as far as Marathon (about half way down) before we decided to turn around and head for our new base in Florida City. They early part of they keys are pretty much what you would expect if you tried to fit a strip mall on a narrow strip of linked islands. But the occasional view over the turquoise waters of the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico do a lot to remedy the succession of chain restaurant signs.



Our Florida City motel was another first: this time the first single level classical motel where we pulled our car up in front of our room. The room itself, while perfectly clean and adequately sized suffered from the excessive humidity (currently running at 100%) and smelt a bit like a dog that had been too long between baths. But it was a perfect base for our trip to the Everglades that we made the next day.

Suzi has already spilled the beans on the Everglades. It only remains to say that we stopped at the famous fruit stand on the turn-off to the park for a delicious breakfast of local fruit including mamey sapote (tastes weirdly like pumpkin pie filling), mango and fresh coconut water. And that on the way out, we cooled down with a key lime milkshake.

Next up: Asheville and Charleston.

A tale of three swamps

Honey Island Swamp, Wakulla Springs and the Everglades to be precise. Let's start with one of the wonderful Louisiana bayous: Honey Island Swamp. I was surprised by how much I liked the bayous of Louisiana - think warm, humid, verdant and heaps of wildlife; just perfect! This was where we first started seeing Spanish moss adorning large trees, and where our introduction to American alligators began.


We took a nature tour boat ride here, although at the start of the tour I was a little concerned when our guide mentioned we could see birds such as herons, egrets, and little 'baby birds'. It was obvious that everyone on the tour had come to see an alligator, and the tour operator lured a few gators to the boat with marshmellows and hot dog snags. While it was nice to see the gators a bit closer, it seemed like cheating to lure them to our boat with food. My first impression was that they seemed smaller than I imagined them to be, and did not seem as feisty as salties, an impression which was reinforced in the Everglades (more on this further down). We saw our first wood ducks, including their tree hollow where they nested, yellow-crowned night-herons, various egrets, various herons, osprey, and nesting swallow-tailed kites. We also got to see the Louisiana crawfish. The experience of being in a flooded cypress forest on a boat in the morning light was beautiful. We also saw some floating camps of ramshackle, and not-so-ramshackle houses along the river, most accessible only by boat, with those that survived Katrina bearing high tide watermarks between the door and the roof.

The next swamp was Wakulla Springs in Florida. We stayed at the 1930s lodge in the Wakulla Springs Park, which featured some wonderful architectural features and provided a grand view to the Springs through some of the hotel grounds. This was a very peaceful and beautiful spot to stay in. It is a geologically interesting area with an extensive underground cave system, and judging from the diversity and abundance of wildlife and flora, is also a very important ecological area. We went on the boat trip at the Springs, hoping to see some mastodon bones embedded in the riverbed. Despite the glass-like water conditions, apparently the water was too murky compared to what it was normally like to see this, so we had to content ourselves with the most amazing views of heaps of awesome fish including gar fish, bream, mullet and bowfin. The striped mullet were particularly engaging as they would leap out of the water in a spectacular attention-grabbing fashion.

Most of the birds had young (least bittern, wood ducks, egrets) while others were in the process of producing young (herons, osprey). I could not believe how much we saw on this boat trip, it was hard to know where to look there was so much going on. We also got to see the film locations for Creature of the Black Lagoon and Tarzan, which prompted a passenger on the boat to volunteer her best Tarzan yodel. We also checked out the walking trail through hardwood forests of sassafras, American beech and American basswood, and saw sinkholes with cool white yabbies in them. Jon however was tempted back to the water and jumped in with the friendly gators for an icy swim.






After being blown away by Wakulla Springs, I held out little hope that the Everglades could prove to be half as good, and was worried it would be over-run with tourists in a similar fashion to the Grand Canyon. I was also concerned that Shelly would not last the day, as southern Florida (much to my delight) was very warm and muggy. My concerns about tourist numbers were unfounded as we kept bumping into the same 20 or so people at various walks around the park, including one terrified German boy of about 12 who did not appear to be enjoying his Everglades wildlife experience, particularly when the pigeons and gulls came to relieve him of his food. The main walks were well-designed so as to showcase the different habitats in the park, and there were canoe trails cut through the swamps. One trail was excellent for wildlife - we saw our first snake for the trip here, had close views of waterbirds, saw several species of turtle and heard pig frogs everywhere. We happened upon a smooth-billed ani at very close range, which turned out to be the thousandth bird for my world bird list :). There seemed to be huge densities of gators here, and we saw one lying across the path where people would step around it as it 'slept'. I could not imagine this occurring with salties!

From Austin hipsters to Louisiana museums via some poor French.

We have quite a bit to update! It will have to be in two parts; the tales of Walt Disney World, the Creature of the Black Lagoon and Miami Beach flashtrash will be appearing shortly!

Firstly, to finish up Austin, TX. The junk shop that drove Jon to iced tea at an oyster bar was actually a lot of fun. I like rummaging through other people's things (it's one of the reasons I like the Library - one never knows just what will be in a drawer!), and this was a hilarious and eclectic collection of super well-priced stuff sold by different vendors within the one store. I didn't see the brick on a string that Jon spoke of; I must have had my AWESOME STUFF RADAR working that day to filter out the rubbish. In another shop I found an amazing strapless pink and fuchsia horizontally striped floor-length 1950s frock. And a very cleverly cut 50's day dress in shot cotton, cut on the bias with buttoned cuffs on the short sleeves. Suzi and I finished up our day of hipsterism at a neat place called the Parish (exposed brick interior with framed wallpaper panels!) seeing a few bands - one of which was amazing and one of which was average. I really liked Austin.

As Jon mentioned, we drove from Austin to Lafayette, Louisiana. There was a festival on so we wandered around listening to the best marching band ever and wishing we hadn't eaten so much for breakfast at the Cafe des Amis en Breaux Bridge, une petite ville pres de Lafayette. A museum in St Martinville examined the history of the people in the area after white colonisation, discussing the Acadians and the Creoles (and explaining the two different uses of the term Creole!). The Acadians were originally French settlers in Nova Scotia but were thrown out by the British. France did not particularly want les Acadiens back, so they eventually made their way to the bayous of Louisiane and became Cajuns. The Longfellow-Evangeline State Commemorative Area's primary site is a small two storey house originally built around 1800 for a Creole businessman (in this case, the term means American born of European descent) by his slaves. It's a very interesting little museum, with excellent early nineteenth century furnishings that show how it would have been (the original furnishings are long gone). While Suzi and I looked around the house, Jon chose to immerse himself in the full Southern experience by taking a nap in a rocking chair on the porch. Apres ca, we drove to a bayou with boardwalks where I proved a butterfly-magnet again and we saw a rookery of waterbirds and a folly that appeared to actually be someone's house.

After small-town Louisiana, we drove into New Orleans and stayed at one of the city's allegedly most haunted hotels. Our ghost magnet reported no events, occurrences or happenings of any sort, so we're not sure we believe the hype. They did, however, have a doorman in a pith helmet, and free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the lobby for supper. It was a strange place. The French Quarter in New Orleans proved to be mostly as we expected: beautiful buildings with tacky tourist junk spilling out the doorways. Thankfully it wasn't all sideshow; once we left the main roads and explored some of the quieter streets of the quarter there were some lovely buildings unobstructed by porn mag ads and fake voodoo dolls. The Hermann-Grima museum was one such beauty. The French Quarter was actually built mostly by the Spanish when they had control of the area circa 1800, and the buildings are characterised by narrow asymmetrical facades and wrought iron balconies. The Hermann-Grima house was built for a dude called Hermann in 1831 in an American Federalist style - symmetrical facade focussing on the centred imposing doorway with fanlight above and, to begin with, no balcony. Possibly also exposed brick instead of plastered brick exterior. It's an interesting statement to make in such a European part of America. Later a family by the name of Grima bought it, hence the museum's double-barreled name.

The museum's curator has restricted the non-original furnishings to a thirty year period (1830s-1860s - amazingly, some original Hermann and Grima items are still in the house), which works well. They also run cookery demonstrations and classes in the external reconstructed kitchen. It seems that their brief here is to make history accessible and more "real" by making it an experience, something the museum-goer can relate to more easily than a discussion of Federalist architecture in a European-derived context. This is an interesting idea which definitely has merit - the irons and washing contraptions were terrifying to this lazy 21st century girl. However, I did worry about the fact that they had brought the food from these demonstrations into the museum. There was an Easter cake in the shape of a lamb, covered in enough white icing to make me think it was porcelain, sitting on a sideboard in the dining room. The guide explained that the cake was something that would have been done in the nineteenth century, although she'd never heard of Isabella Beeton, and that the curator had just made this one for Easter. Maybe they remove it each night to discourage vermin but I'm still unconvinced that the benefits of the experience of real things of this sort outweighs the potential damage to their collection.

One thing I loved about the museum was the wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom. It was a reproduction of a design found at Versailles (trade routes make this less implausible than it first sounds, apparently) - a trompe l'oeil depicting sky blue draped fabric topped with a frieze featuring a Native American head as design motif. This fascination with colonised people reminded me of Lucien Henry's late 19th century Australian designs featuring an Aboriginal man's head as a decorative sculptural element. Elsewhere in the museum the walls were mostly plain painted with maybe a frieze, which seems like a twentieth century imposition to me. The modernist fear of the decorative and all that. But as there is an absence of documentation regarding the decorative scheme I will say instead how lovely and well-interpreted the interiors were, how well-informed the guide was, and how pleased we were to discover this little treasure.

Next stop: Florida, land of the golden slip-on shoe.

Corpus Christi might be a place that old people without enough money to go to Florida retire to. It's got all the over-development, strip malls and chain restaurants but it's the wrong side of the Gulf for nice beaches. If you like oil wells though, it's a pretty cool place - I counted 26 from the beach.

In the usual way, the local wildlife seems to hang on and prosper. We saw spoonbills next to the highway and other cool birds hanging out in the estuary along with the garbage and idiots hooning around in powerboats. Suzi will elaborate on the exact details, I'm sure.

In desperation, we were reduced to eating at a chain restaurant for the first time on the trip. Olive Garden breadsticks are doughy, salty and sweet and that's about the best that could be said of the place. It could be the Italian version of the what Outback Steakhouse is to us Australians (i.e. a joke). Perhaps the only thing worse was the subway sandwiches made by a server who appeared to have swine flu judging by the number of times she coughed and sneezed while putting the ingredients together. Am I a hypochondriac because I couldn't force myself to eat something that probably had some unintended "special sauce"? Anyway, Suzi and Shelly don't appear to have come down with anything yet, so perhaps I am.

Even mini-golf was off the cards, as the desolate mall that housed the golf course was practically deserted at 10 in the morning. The only life was a class of septuagenarians practicing their tai-chi. I'm not sure that grimy concrete and dusty plastic plants are conducive to Chi flow, but I'm glad they were trying nonetheless.

Having extracted our car from the pot-holed mall carpark without breaking an axle, we headed to Austin on the back-roads rather than the interstate. This proved to be a wise decision as the roads were traffic free and took us through some bucolic countryside. The verges and fields were covered in an incredible profusion of wildflowers of all different colours. We provided some amusement to the friendly locals in a Tex-Mex lunch place before arriving in Austin.

Harvey and Leah filled us in on all the cool stuff to do in Austin and met us downtown for a great dinner at East Side Showroom. I'm normally reluctant to try new cocktails as they generally prove the value of the experience that has gone into the classics, but the hipster bartender at this joint came up with some remarkably good original creations. Definitely recommended if you are ever in this town.

The next day we headed down to South Congress to browse the stores. Or, more accurately, Shelly browsed while Suzi and I skimmed and then hung out until we were able to prise Shelly away. Many vintage items were purchased. I flew into a rage in the antique store when I realised they were trying to sell a half-brick tied onto a piece of string so had to retire to a cafe to sit it out.

Austin and hipster seem to go together like wine and cheese. At Jo's Coffee in the morning, I spied one whose look was Southern yokel/bum complete with floppy felt hat and overly large dirty overalls. He was drinking a latte and doing Sudoko. At the other table, the virtues of Ubuntu were being debated by what looked like the members of an alt-country band.

Dinner was more great Tex-Mex (captured here in Hipstamatic splendour - thanks Harvey!) followed by bat viewing at the Congress bridge. Thousands of little bats come out at sunset, watched by a pretty substantial crowd including a couple in a canoe who hurriedly backed off from under the bridge after what looked like a direct guano hit on her hair.

The next morning we had breakfast with Harvey and Leah and walked downtown to check out Art City Austin, which turned out to be more of a market than the exhibition we thought it would be. Lacking suitcase space, we didn't pick up any sculpture this time.

After a longish drive, we're now finally out of Texas and into Louisiana. Dinner was our first Cajun meal of the trip - gumbo for me and crawfish for Suzie and Shelly along with a communal helping of Hush Puppies. Good stuff although we had a little trouble understanding how cornmeal could be "freud".

Looking forward to checking out the bayous and New Orleans over the next few days.

Adventures in Mission, TX

We have spent the last few days in Mission, a small town right on the Mexican border. It is basically composed of strip malls with everything in Spanish. We stayed at the Indian Ridge B and B, where we essentially had our own flat, a swimming pool, and chookies! These lovely Rhode Island reds were at first uncertain about taking our tortilla scraps, but once we offered our restaurant leftovers to them the next day, we were best friends. Every time they saw us outside they would run to the fence with high hopes. Mission roads were in poor condition, and we encountered goats, dogs and children wandering over the road. We suspect they have a serious vampire problem here too, as all the restaurants have a wall of crucifixes and garlic is applied liberally to dishes.

The only reason for coming to Mission was the "World" Birding Centre, which comprised several state parks that were excellent for wildlife and birding. I went on a morning bird walk led by park naturalist Javier (sporting an excellent Amish beard) which was completely unlike the Grand Canyon nature tours - we saw green jays, plain chachalacas, great kiskadees, javelinas and Altamira oriole. Inspired by the awesomeness of Javier's tour, I also went on the butterfly tour led by Jose. I was the only one on the butterfly tour, and it turned out that Jose was an ornithologist filling in for the lepidopterist, so we had a great afternoon of being distracted by cool birds while trying to figure out the butterfly species we were seeing. Continuing the butterfly theme, I walked the 2 km to the North American Butterfly Association garden while Shelly and Jon were on a fruitless search for a supermarket. As I entered the gardens, everyone stared at me walking up the driveway, and the staff member informed me that 'people don't really walk around here much'.

I did convince Shelly and Jon to come and watch for the elf owl (North America's smallest owl) emerge from its hollow in a telegraph pole. Despite the ticks and ferocious mosquitoes, they came and sat in the fading light and stared at the pole like idiots with me for 40 minutes. This effort was rewarded with wonderful views of the bird perched at the hollow entrance. It definitely outranks puppies on the cuteness scale. We also had our first firefly sightings of the trip which caused much excitement.





The three of us went to the Estero Llano Grande State Park for some hot wetland action. Here we got to tag along with two of the park's naturalists, Huck (he of the awesome ringlet mullet) and Kyle. We saw alligators performing the motorcycle imitation call and accompanying dance moves, and Shelly got to hold a baby gator (also high in the cuteness stakes). Roseate spoonbills, least bittern and Wilson's phalarope in breeding plumage were also here. We heard cane toads, which are native here apparently, and saw giant tarantula burrows. And what we think was convict labour. Best of all though was getting to see a common pauraque sitting on her nest perfectly camouflaged on the ground.

Shelly discovered some pretty good wildlife back at the B and B, where she was lounging by the pool instead of baking a cake due to inability to find a supermarket. There she found buff-bellied hummingbirds, green parrots, and a friendly green anole, a type of lizard. The anole showed off for Shelly, displaying his extensible peach throatfan. After these wild times poolside, we were unknowingly in for a wild night too. At about 10pm, we suddenly heard helicopters and sirens REALLY close to the house. Jon decided to investigate outside and, yes, the helicopters were over the house and the police vehicles were circling our block. This continued for about two hours. Checking the net, we discovered that there had been a home invasion by an armed gang two blocks away and that the police were now chasing the suspects. Not cool.

We are now in Corpus Christi, which has some nice coastal birds like American skimmers, but that is about it. We have, however, seen a giant faux sandcastle next to a mini golf place. We may just have to drop in there tomorrow before we head for Austin.

From Marfa we drove south to the border at Presidio and turned left to follow the Rio Grande to Lajitas - Mexico on our right and the Big Bend Ranch State Park on our left. This drive was incredibly scenic. When we arrived at the Badlands Hotel, designed to look like an old town from the Wild West, there were not many other guests, and of those there we were definitely the youngest. Seeing as we were in Texas, we figured we should learn how to shoot and ride good. That afternoon we were taken out to a shooting range that looked like an old film set of a town from a Western. We learnt how to shoot a colt .45 revolver, a Winchester .45 lever action rifle, and a sawn-off shotgun. We were all very good shots, and the rifle and revolver were the favourite weapons. Shelly definitely looked the part with her boots and her Stetson hat, and Jon's practice at first-person shooter games seems to have paid off.



The next morning Shelly and I embarked on a sunrise horse trail ride. I was very happy to be given the disabled kids' horse (Clovis) given my lack of equine familiarity, and Shelly got a pretty and feisty horse called Poncho. It was just us and the instructor (the lady who taught us how to shoot) wandering along canyons and up on mesa tops in the early morning light. It was nice to see the desert landscape and the birds (including a roadrunner! They're everywhere at Big Bend!) from a different perspective. It was also cool to ride a Western-style saddle.


The rest of the day was spent playing phone tag with a birder I was hoping could take us out the following morning, and we ventured down to check out the Rio Grande up close. That evening we went to the old ghost town of Terlingua to the Starlight Theatre (spelling is correct!) for a great dinner with live music and awesome margaritas. It was here we tried our first meat-fried-in-other-meat-fat dish - antelope fried in chicken. The Starlight was the local cinema in the olden days (1930s and 40s) when the local mercury mine was still active. After the mercury mines were no longer profitable, everyone left the area and the town became a ghost town. Recently, people have returned and started reinhabiting the buildings and it seems to be quite an arty and free-spirited community.

Very early the next morning, we returned to the Starlight to rendezvous with Betty the birder. It turns out that Betty helped work on saving peregrine falcons and Californian condors in the US, and so knew exactly what raptors were present and nesting in the Park. She took us to Cottonwood Campground in Big Bend NP and we saw many new birds, such as summer tanager, nesting grey hawks and yellow-breasted chat. We continued on to Santa Elena Canyon and had lunch with a spectacular view in the Chisos Mountains in a very nice 1970s dining room. We then went to the Rio Grande Village Campground to see nesting common black hawks.

We then drove out of the Park to Marathon, via a Border Patrol station. This time they did want to see our passports, and although they were happy with me and Jon getting out of the car to present them to the armed officers, Shelly was instructed to immediately return to the car. Clearly an untrustworthy alien. Upon arrival at Marathon, we decided we needed some road-trip ice-creams. Except Americans don't really seem to be into ice-creams. So our choice was somewhat limited (surprisingly for American consumer goods), but Shelly and Jon did find the frozen Snickers bars appealing. Jon also bought some Mexican candy, which had salt, sugar and tamarillo in it, and tasted as good as that sounds. We then continued along the border to Del Rio, where we were greeted by gorgeous scissor-tailed flycatchers. Dinner was at a suburban family-run Mexican place where Shelly unknowingly ordered two plates of food, one of which was a plate of steak. The food here was very tasty, and Shelly even managed to eat most of her food. We sampled cool Mexican soft drinks here too - pineapple and strawberry flavoured.

Guns and babes in Texas

Today we did some Cowboy Action Shooting here in Texas. This involved a Colt .45 revolver, a shotgun and a Winchester lever action .45 rifle. If the zombies ever attack, we're totally set.

Border Patrol times

Our time at the Casa de San Pedro (place of the giant breakfasts Jon mentioned last blog) was just wonderful. I lazed around in the courtyard taking photos and making good use of the free internet and free homebaked pie (five different types!). Suz went birding into Ramsey and Miller canyons and saw lots of nice birds, including spotted owl, painted redstart, red-faced warbler, magnificent hummingbird, Arizona woodpecker, Hermit's warbler and Bewick's wren. She came back a bit excited. The only downside was that the trogons, a bird she really wanted to see, were only likely to be on the Fort Huachuca land at this time of year. Since 9/11, foreigners have not been allowed in the fort. Never mind the US military bases in Australian land or Australia's allegiance to US causes in recent wars!

While Suz was fuming at American caution, Jon and I went for a drive to see Mexico. There's a little town called Naco right on the border with Mexico which has a border crossing and a post office. We decided to use the post office instead of the crossing, but we did have a peek at the country beyond the faux adobe official US border building. The Mexican side looked the same as the American side. The Americans have built a fence that runs along the border for a way (not the whole way, just part of it) in order to keep the Mexicans at bay, but it seems rather ineffectual. Apparently about 40,000 people cross the border per year in about a 30 mile section near Naco. Also the fence has all the support structure on the Mexican side, so it acts as a ladder. Smart one.

After we left Arizona yesterday, we drove through New Mexico and into Texas. We've been seeing hundreds of border patrol vehicles for the last few days, so today before we left El Paso, we decided we had to check out the Border Patrol Museum. It was a surprisingly decent little museum, especially in comparison to one we went to yesterday in Bisbee, AZ, which had 1800s clothes on wonky and handless 1970s mannequins. No zombie in a poker bar, but it was mouldy instead. Ick. I was expecting the Border Patrol Museum to be super-strength American patriotism and a bit kitschy. Instead, the lack of wall text presented the objects without too much propagandising, and left the focus on the objects, albeit within the context of the Border Security Museum. It also indicated how dangerous the job was and the lengths drug smugglers in particular have gone to in order to breach American borders. A group of Colombian drug smugglers built a submarine in order to get their goods into the US. The highlights for me were the vehicles. There was a fantastic Pontiac Firebird in a great shade of green, but the best two were the jeep and the helicopter because you could hop into them and move the controls and stuff. I like interactive displays and being able to touch stuff in museums.

It seemed it was the day for Border Patrol, as we got pulled over at a patrol stop near the border:

Border Patrol officer Lara (a dude): Hi there. Are you US citizens?
Jon: Ah no, we're Australian tourists.
BPoL: Do you have your passports?
Jon: Yeah, they're in our luggage in the trunk.
BPoL: Right, okay. Off you go.

Rather different from El Tovar's cocktail lounge!

Right now we're staying in a place called Marfa. It's a funny little town, a lot of abandoned buildings as well as some nice ones that have been fancied up. It seems like a tiny little place, way out in the (lightning stormy!) wilds of west Texas but Yeasayer played here last night. It sucks a bit that I missed them by just a day, but our hotel is one of the fancy buildings, and dates from the 1930s and is real purty-like. When Giant was being filmed out here in 1955 the Paisano was where they stayed too. It's possibly enough consolation for missing Yeasayer.

There's not a lot to say about Tucson. It seems to basically be a smaller version of Phoenix and a little bit cooler, both of which are good things.

In the morning we checked out the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It's really a zoo in the desert just outside town and was pretty popular on Saturday morning. There were some cool things to see like the roadrunner in the prairie dog cage, the butterfly house and the walk-through hummingbird aviary. Shellie continued her tradition of attracting invertebrates by getting a large butterfly to land on her. We were latched onto by a very friendly old man who "loved Australians" and wanted to talk about square dancing. Many photos were taken.

The afternoon was Shellie time and we headed downtown to the stoner/student district where Shellie picked up a sarong suit but unfortunately declined the silver satin hotpants. Suzi and I had coffee in the Revolutionary Grounds Maoist bookshop/tea room although I was too full to try the fine selection of vegan cakes. We passed by the hydroponics shop, herb store and hookah bar without making any purchases.

Moving on, we reached Tombstone late in the day and checked into the Tombstone Bordello (Shellie's choice) which we were sharing with several middle aged bikers. The couple from Liverpool who run the establishment had moved out to Arizona several years ago after deciding to live the western dream for real rather than continuing their western themed pub in northern England. Seems like a sensible decision.

Tombstone is a town that has done a lot without very much. Basically, it was a bunch of wooden shacks in the middle of nowhere that probably should have fallen down and blown away in the desert wind a long time ago, but a bunch of oddballs have kept it going and managed to squeeze a living out of the OK Corral gunfight myth. It's all rather charmingly ramshackle and unpolished. The OK Corral itself is like somebody's clapped out backyard with some rather creepy stiff animatronic puppets that reenact the gunfight. The Birdcage Theatre museum smells like a cross between a serial killer's basement and your grandparents' sock drawer. It's not entirely clear what the zombie cowboy is doing in the poker room but who really cares? Anyway, Suzi and Shellie enjoyed the eccentric displays of old artifacts and snapped up some very tasteful cowboy boots (Suzi's with yellow, red and aqua insets cut into black leather and Shellie's in luminous turquoise and brown).

Dinner was the usual overly large American portions - in this case a very nice USDA Prime steak and some commendable hamburgers followed by cowboy sized portions of apple cobbler and chocolate brownie. This made it kind of hard to force down the fruit salad, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and toast that the brothel owners served up for breakfast, but we made a valiant effort.

Heading further south, we stopped off at the San Pedro river reserve for a bit of birding, but it was hot and the birds were being a bit shy so we moved on to Sierra Verde and stocked up on food for our two days at Casa de San Pedro. Being only a few miles from the border (we can see the fence from the highway), we inferred that the big white blimp hovering over town is some sort of observation platform. Border patrol agents are everywhere down here and we're expecting to have to through several checkpoints on our way out of the area.

This B&B is undoubtedly the best place we've stayed so far. It's a small place with a courtyard and fountain in the middle. There's a salt water pool, good internet access, a laundry, large grounds with access to the river and four kinds of pies baked daily sitting out temptingly, along with oatmeal cookies and brownies. We barbecued our dinner out the back down near the river while hummingbirds buzzed us and quail ran around under the mesquite. The only annoyance is the millions of tentworms that are dropping from the cottonwood trees now that they have stripped the leaves from them. Luckily our invertebrate magnet, Shellie, deflects their attentions from Suzi and me.

Breakfast, needless to say, was too large again. We were distracted from our massive portions by roadrunners running around in the garden outside. Today is a day for laundry and relaxing as tomorrow will be a long drive to El Paso after Suzi's birding pal takes her up into the mountains for some hot bird action in the morning.

IPad is proving to be a wonderful toy. It's an unmatched content consumption device - this is how the internet, google maps and browsing photos was meant to be. It's also going to be a great gaming device when some decent software starts coming out. Sitting around it playing Small World is a new kind of board gaming experience where you don't have to count tokens, check rules or worry about bumping the board. Makes cheating a bit hard though.

But the IPad is pretty useless as a work machine. Typing gives me a cramp and the lack of windows and multi-tasking makes serious work on it pretty much a joke. It really occupies a new niche, somewhere between a laptop and a smart phone. It's not a niche I was aware needed filling until I held one in my eager, sweaty hands.

Grand Canyon and beyond

The drive from Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon was memorable for the fog-like sandstorms and tumbleweed loping over the road. By the time we reached the Grand Canyon the sand and tumbleweed had gone, but the biting cold wind was still strong enough to knock the unwary elderly to the ground. We emerged from our car at the first viewing point along with all the other tourists for our first glimpse of the Canyon. It is incredibly vast, and you struggle to maintain any sense of scale it is so immense. The colours of the different geological strata are a visual treat, and you get glimpses of the architect of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River. We continued on to our accomodation just outside the national park at Tusayan. We had booked this as we could not find many options left within the park, and the reasons why this hotel still had space left soon became apparent - a toxic smelling room, raw hamburgers for dinner, no wifi "due to the effect of the Grand Canyon", and tasteful 70s decor.

Excited by the prospect of a ranger-led fossil walk of the Canyon, I got up early the next morning and drove into the park while Shelly and Jon opted for the quality of the hotel breakfast instead. This was the best thing I did as the Canyon was lovely first thing in the morning. The wind had gone, there were no crowds, the sun was shining and the birds and mammals were out. I got in early to get a car park and wandered around. I found an elk, squirrels, various birds including nuthatches at their nest, woodpeckers and juniper titmouse. The light over the Canyon was beautiful. All this magic vanished as a large crowd gathered for the fossil walk - at least 100 people. Everything after this point was marred by the sheer number of people in the park. I went back and collected Shelly and Jon and we returned to the park for the nature walk in the afternoon but soon gave up and did our own walk. It was at this point the highlight of my Grand Canyon experience appeared - a Californian condor soared through the Canyon! It was huge!

We had managed to book a table at El Tovar, a fancy Arts and Crafts hotel for dinner. Although nothing spectacular as an Arts and Crafts example, it did feature a stone exterior, exposed beams and a wooden balustrade inside. When we arrived, we pushed through the throng of people in the lobby to the bar to get a drink before dinner. Upon ordering, we were asked to show some identification. Nothing unusual there. Except that by identification, they meant they wanted to inspect our passports. Which we didn't have on us. We then found out that our dinner reservation had been delayed by at least half an hour to 9pm. So back to Tusayan it was, to a delicious, prompt non-hotel dinner of pizza.

After some of the disappointments of the Grand Canyon, our drive to Sedona was much better. We stopped at the Flagstaff Arboretum and met some captive Harris hawks, and came across bluebirds and a confiding golden-mantled ground squirrel eating new green plants poking through the snow. The drive into Sedona was impressive due to brilliant red rock formations and forest. We checked out the Red Rock State Park, which turned out to be fantastic birding - with the added bonus of hardly any people! Stacks of feisty hummingbirds, a great riparian walk with petroglyphs and butterflies, and our first reptiles of the trip due to some welcome warm weather. We also visited the Page Springs Hatchery, where we saw our first chooks of the trip happily scratching away in knee-high lush grass. I think I walked about 50m in total, and managed to see heaps of great bird species here, including cedar waxwings (I suspect these were migrating, as they were in groups passing through) and secretive spotted towhees, two species I really wanted to see. The town of Sedona itself had a definite hippie/New Age feel to it, and was relaxed and friendly.

After Sedona we ventured to Phoenix, where we visited the amazing Desert Botanical Park, which had a great layout of the local Sonoran Desert cacti, including the saguaro and cholla cactus we had begun to see from the road. Many of the desert plants were in colourful flower, and it was here that we learnt that the palo verde (green trees) had chlorophyll in their green trunks. It also proved to be a great wildlife watching venue, with cactus wrens, curve-billed thrashers, phainopeplas, gila woodpeckers, several species of hummingbirds, lizards, and mammals.


While Jon went off in search of an IPad, Shelly and I retreated to the air-conditioned Phoenix Art Museum for their supposed fashion collection, but all we could find was a single room of American WWII frocks, much to Shelly's dismay. It was interesting however to see jackets by Adrian, underwear made from parachute material, and detailed military maps made of fabric. The wall text was inadequate, and even with the exhibition booklet in hand, it was hard to make sense of the items on display - what was made clear was the donor from whom the item came from. There was also an Ansel Adams exhibition which was interesting, as it contained some of his urban architectural works I was unfamiliar with. We could not help but be reminded of Frank Hurley, Olive Cotton and Max Dupain.

Our next destinations will take us even further south in Arizona - to Tucson and beyond.

Photos to come when we are able to post them!

The roadtrip begins!

So on Saturday 3rd of April we flew from San Francisco to Durango, Colorado. Perhaps stupidly, I was surprised by the presence of snow on the ground. And the accompanying cold. As the guy in the outdoor clothes shop said "You came to Colorado without bringing something warm??" Yeah. It was cold. We were only using Durango as a springboard for starting the roadtrip as near to Mesa Verde as possible, which the dude at the hire car place seemed really surprised by.




The highlight of Durango was not the people of Walmart but the hotel at which we lodged. The Strater was built in the 1880s and has been redecorated in a loosely Victorian style. Gorgeous handprinted reproduction wallpapers have been used in a typical late nineteenth century combination of frieze, fill and dado. The frieze in our room and many of the public areas of the hotel was a spectacular Aesthetic movement-esque number featuring stylised floral elements and geometric patterns (hello Owen Jones!) tumbling all over each other. The fill was a lovely William Morris style trailing willow leaves - gold leaves on a white background. The dado was sensible wooden panelling painted white. The rooms were furnished with original nineteenth century American walnut beds, dressing tables and side tables; as it turns out, the Strater has the largest collection of Victorian American walnut furniture.



The total effect was interesting. Aestheticism is all about excess - consumption of goods, display of goods, a profusion of eclectic objects and pattern EVERYWHERE. Often, there would be three different patterns upon the wall in the frieze-fill-dado combination, as well as many different textiles on furnishings and window dressings. Unsurprisingly, this style seems too cluttered for modern tastes as there is stuff everywhere, and (allegedly) the eye can't rest. The furniture in the room doesn't appear particularly Aesthetic to me (but I am better with wallpaper than with furniture!), being much simpler in design - maybe even a bit colonial revival? The textiles were similarly muted, although in a Victorian kind of vein. What I liked was how, in combination, the two quite distinct styles of the furniture and the wallpaper gave the broad appearance of historical accuracy, whilst remaining comfortable for modern sensibilities. Is the success of the interior design scheme postmodern comfortableness with the mixing of historical styles or is it just playing on popular conceptions of what Victorian style was about? Either way, it was cool.

From Durango, we drove to Mesa Verde for architecture of a completely different kind. Between around 750 AD and 1300 AD, people called Anasazi by the Navajo and Puebloans by the Spanish inhabited the top of a huge mesa in the southwest corner of Colorado. In the thirteenth century they were building the most amazing houses wedged in the cliffs that were accessed by ladders. However, around 1300, they all just left. Didn't even pack up - just left. The Hopi tribe claim to be descended from the Anasazi, and the ranger who led us around the Spruce Tree House dwelling emphasised the continuing nature of the culture that inhabited the area. He said that the Hopi and Navajo traditions argue that the people left the mesa because, spiritually, it was time to move on; western archaeology thinks maybe there was a catastrophe of some sort.

After Mesa Verde, we drove through Utah into Navajo land (best road sign: "Friendly Indians behind you!") and into the Valley of the Gods, a precursor to Monument Valley. This whole area would make the best geology excursion ever. There are layers of rock, which have eroded at different rates and now form weird shapes (including a chicken!). Valley of the Gods is an apt name. It's as though one is trespassing in an alien landscape, and the huge formations seem uncannily watchful. Going to view the Goosenecks, where the river had gouged out canyons in a looping, gooseneck shape, was a bit of a relief. There was water and there were birds, including a swift that buzzed Jon. Life makes the landscape seem friendlier.

Monument Valley was not quite like in the movies. Impossibly, it was bigger. And better in its lack of John Wayne. There was also quite a high wind whipping dust and red sand into the air, which, as we came in just before sunset, made the most amazing atmospheric effects on the mesas and buttes. It was less weird than Valley of the Gods, maybe because there were people there, and a few buildings. One of the buildings was the View Hotel, which had a room with a view that I doubt will be bettered this trip. I voluntarily got up early to watch the sun climb (not quite from the horizon, I wasn't that motivated!) behind the Mittens. This was definitely worth the sandstorms we encountered getting there and away!

Jon admires the view from our balcony at Monument Valley :)

Third day in San Francisco and we have technology to blog!

San Francisco is a cool place. In no particular order, things we have discovered so far:


Minako Organic Japanese restaurant is tasty tasty and is run by an awesome woman with excellent taste in music. A combination of the Church, the Strokes and the Stiff Little Fingers was the soundtrack to amazing food - simple preparation let the flavours properly show through. Best miso ever. Seriously, not hyperbole, but actual best ever.

There are eucalypts everywhere here! Is a bit disconcerting to see them along roadsides when driving up to Point Reyes to look for American birdies (more on this topic later. Much, much more, no doubt). Also we saw bottlebrush and grevillea used as street plantings, which is both cool and strange.

San Franciscans are nice. Intersections have weird give-way rules, where everyone lets everyone else go first because they're so nice. Also, if there's no pedestrian light the pedestrians have right of way when crossing the road. The lady at Minako Organic spent about half an hour with us discussing good places to eat in SF, even though the restaurant was super busy. She was nice, which was rather contrary to what people had said in online reviews of the place. And Pete in the Best Buy shop who sold me my $25 phone spent 45 minutes trying to make it work, which he really didn't have to do. Also, it's a very green kind of city. A billion Priuses (Prii?), cyclists everywhere, lots of runners and dogwalking types, organic food shops aplenty, and there's always options for recycling and compost, even in our hotel room. Also, the current obese person count is very low.

Suzi's favourite discovery is that she likes hummingbirds a lot. We arrived at the Hotel Del Sol before our room was ready, so we went for a bit of a walk around the neighbourhood. We found the Fort Mason park which had lots of dogs with their owners, some strange public art and a garden of hummingbirds! A purple-flowered bush was attracting all sorts of insects and birdies, but when Jon spotted a hummingbird we had to stick around to watch it. The reward was getting to see two hummingbirds DUELLING and DOG-FIGHTING through the sky. They're so leetle and sweet-seeming it seems strange to think of them as aggressive territory-defenders, but they really were fighting properly. And so quickly! (Witness poor attempts at photography.)

Michelle's favourite discovery so far was a ribbon shop. An entire shop with ribbons - silk, grosgrain, rickrack, jacquard, novelty, vintage, and more and more and more and more. The shop has a rudimentary online presence, according to the owner, so there may be some more purchasing done later on... Also, elsewhere, I found some great printed canvas or linen (designed in California) for $4 a yard. And it's only the third day away!

Jon probably has liked stuff but he just left to hang out with his friend Joe at a place called the Final Final for "beets" [yes, spelling is correct], so we can't ask him. Maybe it was the steak dinner we had last night at House of Prime Rib. We had scoffed at the name and exterior of the venue when we drove past, but oh wow they were good steaks when Joe and Ashley took us there for fancy dinner! Or maybe he liked seeing the harbour seals that were loitering in the Bolinas Lagoon (part of the San Andreas faultline) on our way to Point Reyes. Or the pouring rain and crazy wind today that meant he and Suzi couldn't get to the redwood forests.

But now for today's most awesome thing. We went to the LucasArts studio in the Presidio area of town (a former navy base) and had a bit of a look around. It's kind of like a museum of all the stuff that has had anything to do with Lucas films (and George Lucas's vintage film poster collection), scattered throughout the building where people work on games and films and stuff. Props and models were set up and there was nice wall-text panels to tell you what the hunk of wood or whatever was. But HAN SOLO IN CARBONITE was not requiring of such explanatory notes. It was the actual item used in the films. A bit exciting. This was defs worth tourist-vision. It would seem that, deep down, we are all just geek-children.