USA Blog Part 2 – Weeks 3 & 4

After yet another scenic drive we stopped off at Kolob Canyon on the north side of Zion National Park for a quick hike up to the viewpoint.  After enjoying the lovely views of the Canyon we hopped back in the car and drove around to the main entrance on the south side of the park.  As it is at a much lower elevation the weather was significantly warmer than Bryce or Grand Canyon National Parks and we were able to camp as planned.  However, as it was the last week of Utah’s school holidays and a free entrance week for National Parks, it was pretty busy.

We just managed to secure a camping spot on a shared site for the 1^st night, but we had to get up early for the bun fight to get a site at the other long stay campground for the next 2 nights.  Luckily for us we met Bruce who was moving sites and he let us have his one.  We then took pity on a young couple who arrived after us and couldn’t find a site so we agreed to share with them.  It was plenty big enough and it meant we split the cost – never a bad thing when you’re on a budget!

On the first night we shared the group site with an American family of 5, a French couple and their baby, 5 Koreans, and an American couple – quite a mix!  The 5 year old American boy very kindly made Le Roux and I a “smores” each – for those that don’t know, these are an American campfire classic of campfire roasted marshmallows squashed onto a gram cracker (thin biscuit), sprinkled with chocolate and topped with another cracker – delicious!  We chatted with the American couple who were drinking red wine and thoroughly enjoying the antics of the Koreans putting up their tents and the young kids running around causing trouble – it was a bit like a comedy show!  One of the Korean guys kindly gave Le Roux and I a taster of his favourite liquor aka “fire water” as it definitely warmed the belly!  It was pretty cold that night even despite the daytime was warm and sunny and although we were fine in our 4 season down sleeping bags, the American family must have got too cold as they’d upped and gone by the time we got up at 6am!

Having secured our new campsite we packed our picnic for the iconic Angel’s Landing hike which we’d decided to do.  The NP walking guide warns of it being strenuous and unsuitable for children and those afraid of heights.  We like a challenge so off we set.  The first part was easy and we powered up the switchbacks passing many puffing people, making it to the first plateau with no issues.  This was known as the chicken out point as when people see what comes next, many don’t attempt it!  

It was ½ a mile of high, narrow ridge which involved lots of boulder hopping and clambering.  I have to say that I tried to stay as far away from the edge as possible and not look down, whereas Le Roux was bounding around with no cares in the world!  I’ve nick named him Speedy the Mountain Goat as he zips up any terrain with remarkable ease and speed!  

The view from the top was well worth the climb and we sat and ate our sandwiches looking out at the scenery.  I actually found the way down harder than coming up as you couldn’t avoid looking down! I was glad when I’d made it back to the chicken out point.  Having completed this hike in around 3 hours, we decided to pack in another short one to the Emerald Pools.  Big mistake.  It was heaving with lots and lots of families with little kids and we were permanently trying to squeeze past so that we could walk at a reasonable speed.  Also, the so called Emerald Pools were more brown and muddy than vibrant green.  A disappointing hike, but at least we’d burnt off a few calories and earned ourselves a couple of drinks.  On arriving at the only bar like place in the nearby small town, we discovered that it is illegal to serve alcohol without food in Utah, so we had to have a plate of sweet potato fries to go with our drinks – naughty but nice!

On day 2 we hiked up to Observation Point on the recommendation of one of the rangers and after climbing for nearly 2 hours we were rewarded with a fabulous view of the river gorge and we were able to look down on Angel’s Landing.  Well worth the effort.  The way down was quicker although pretty tough on the knees and I wasn’t up for a 2^nd hike this time! 

Our 2^nd camping spot was also pretty social as we spent quite a bit of time chatting with the young couple sharing with us, with Bruce and his wife Vivian who’d moved just across from us, with the red wine couple who’d also moved over to the long stay campsite and we also met Aerwyn & Jared and their 6 lovely kids who very kindly lent us foil to make baked chocolate bananas in our campfire.  It was much friendlier than being in a motel!

Next on the itinerary was Las Vegas.  We had an intro to Vegas on the way as we passed through the town of Virgin and stopped in at the Ragged Ass Saloon which had a mini wild west village out front, including a mini jail – cheesy but fun.  We left Utah behind and headed into Nevada, the Silver State.

Where do I start?  Las Vegas was all I expected and more – it was fabulous!  It is so over the top that it is cool, with everything so well done that it is not in fact tacky.  We spent 2 days and 2 nights here and we loved every minute but it was exhausting – there’s lots going on 24 hours a day – the city truly never sleeps!  

We spent a lot of our time wandering around soaking up the atmosphere and taking heaps of photos.  We toured around the many themed hotels taking in the incredible detail – the New York New York had an entire NYC street scene inside, the Paris had a replica Eiffel tower you could actually go up, while the Venetian had gondolas and replicas of the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile Tower, but my favourite was Caesars with the Forum Shops, a Roman street scene complete with fountains, statues and a fake sky – amazing!  I also loved the stylish Bellagio which had an indoor garden made from beautiful real flowers as well as a multi storey chocolate fountain! As we explored we passed quite a few homeless people and some were pretty entertaining as they had signs saying things like “why lie, I need a whore!” and “too dumb to work and too ugly to prostitute”, which we couldn’t help but chuckle at.

We stayed in the Flamingo having got a cheap deal and it was brilliantly located in the middle of the “strip”, aka Las Vegas Boulevard.  It even had real flamingos in the garden!

There are slot machines literally everywhere and with people on them 24 7 – when we got up for breakfast in the morning there were plenty of people already losing their hard earned cash!  We had to have a go so we put a few dollars into the 1 cent machines, but as we didn’t really know what we were doing we soon lost it.  Having decided that we’d better find out what “lines” meant before gambling any more of our $100 budgets, we got chatting with this woman who kindly explained what it was all about. We certainly made our money last longer, but still managed to lose it all in the end!  

As well as the slot machines we played  roulette and black jack.  Unfortunately for our low budget, the minimum $10 bet meant we got through our remaining cash pretty quick but I did at least win a couple of times on each before losing it all.  At least we were entertained for the evening!

Las Vegas is also known for its shows, so we decided to go to X-Burlesque at our hotel, a sexy dance show which was good.  I am in awe of the girls who can hold their whole body weight upside down or sideways on a pole!  Le Roux was pretty tired and despite the semi-naked, attractive girls dancing in front of him, he kept yawning and struggled to stay awake – I have to question his red blooded male status!

I wanted to take a photo of the “Welcome to the Fabulous Las Vegas” sign all lit up at night so we drove all the way down the strip with me snapping photos like a paparazzi, of all the neon signs – LV is definitely not a green city and I hate to think what its electricity bill is!  Next on my sightseeing list was the neon cowboy on Freemont St in the old town.  On the way we passed quite a few cheesy wedding chapels as well as the Stratosphere – the huge tower.

Another must see when in Vegas is the Bellagio fountains.  We eventually managed to time it right to catch the show and we were not disappointed – the water shoots up incredibly high and it is really pretty to watch.  We were also lucky enough to see it from above when we went up the Eiffel Tower, which also provided us with great views up and down the strip.  Somehow, despite my research and planning we managed to miss the Mirage volcano show and the Treasure Island sirens show – next time...

After 2 crazy days in Vegas we headed back into California to Death Valley National Park, which was pretty warm even this early in the year - very welcome after all the snow and cold of the Grand Canyon and Bryce!  I hadn’t originally planned to come here, but having heard good things we squeezed it in and I’m glad we did.  Despite its name there is quite a bit of flora in the valley and we were lucky enough to catch the end of the pretty spring flowers.  

It is the largest national park in the US so we had quite a bit of driving to do to cover the key sights, but the scenery throughout the park was really interesting.  There were so many different rock formations and colours, with our favourite being the Artist’s Palette, which was an area containing rocks of many colours.  Badwater Basin, a large salt plain, is nearly 300ft below sea level, the lowest point in the US, and as the valley is so hot and dry the basin does not fill with water, which would normally be the case at this low altitude.  

There was a great view from Dante’s Point across the salt plain and Mosaic Canyon was interesting as it was very narrow in places with lots of different patterns in the rock, some of which was marble. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the “Racetrack” as you need a high clearance 4 wheel drive and you have to be prepared to put up with 3 hours of bumping along to get there – we decided that we’d better not risk a large bill for damaging our hire car!  We camped both nights in the valley but although it was warm, it was very windy and with no trees to provide protection against the howling gales we didn’t get a lot of sleep with the tent flapping madly around us!  I also had a red wine incident as my proper wine glass full of red wine blew over and tipped the contents all over me, just as I sat down to eat dinner!  With no showers and not many clean clothes I was somewhat pissed off, although luckily the wine glass didn't break!

The journey from Death Valley to Yosemite was somewhat longer than we’d expected due to winter extending into spring and probably into summer this year!  The mountain pass we needed to take across the Sierra Nevada mountains was deep in snow and therefore closed which unfortunately meant we had to take a 200 mile detour around the top of the mountain range and back down the other side to enter Yosemite NP – very frustrating!  We went from dry barren desert to pretty snowy mountains to rolling green hills all in one day.  It was odd going from flip flops and shorts at breakfast to thermals and fleeces by lunchtime as we stopped off at Mammoth ski resort!  You can in fact ski here till the beginning of July.

The drive was pretty long so we stayed in the old gold mining town of Sonora for a night.  As we’d expected to be camping we’d bought dinner provisions so while Le Roux did our laundry, I cooked up dinner on our little gas stoves on the floor of our motel room – it must have looked very odd!

Unfortunately the weather in Yosemite was pretty wet, which was disappointing after nearly 3 weeks without any rain – I guess we were overdue some.  We lucked out and managed to get a tent spot in Camp 4 as a couple were leaving early having put up with rain all week and they’d finally had enough.  When we checked in the ranger warned us about the bears and explained that we had to put all our food and toiletries in the bear locker and leave nothing in the tent or car.  You’d have thought things would be safe in the car, but the photos on the side of the rangers hut showed me how wrong I was – there was this great picture of a huge bear sitting in the driver seat of a pick up having broken the window and bent the door open – incredible!  There had been sightings of bears in the park as they were just coming out of hibernation and were hungry.  I kind of hoped that we’d see one, although not up too close, but it wasn’t to be.  We did, however, see plenty of squirrels who were definitely not going hungry – they were the biggest, fattest squirrels I’ve ever seen - they needed a trip to fat camp!

We managed to get the tent up before the rain started coming down harder and having donned all of our warm and waterproof clothing, we headed out on the Yosemite Falls hike.  Even though the weather was rubbish we were visiting the park at the perfect time to see the waterfalls in full flood – nice but they weren’t Iguazu!  We’ve been forever spoilt now that we’ve seen that magnificent set of falls.  

We had hoped to walk up Half Dome, but again we were there too early in the season and the walking route wasn’t yet open.  Most of the time we were in the park we couldn’t even see Half Dome so the view from the top wouldn’t have been good anyway.  After our wet and windy walk we made ourselves a hot chocolate with marshmallows to warm up – yummy!  We shared our marshmallows with the family on our campsite as the kids were keen to toast them over our campfire.  They had great fun burning them to a crisp!  We continued to brave the cold and rain to cook dinner but afterwards we headed for the nice cosy lodge for a drink and to play some cards. I had hot cider with spiced rum and ginger syrup – delicious!

We spent our 2^nd day doing the Vernal and Nevada Falls hike which was nice, although there were some tricky bits as avalanches had covered the paths and we had to clamber around them.  Le Roux or should I say “Speedy the Mountain Goat” had no trouble and was whizzing on ahead while I wobbled and scrambled up the uneven path!

The park was very busy as it was the end of the school Easter holidays and that combined with the cold wet weather meant we didn’t see the Yosemite at its best.  It is a beautiful place though with towering granite peaks, lots of lovely waterfalls, and plenty of trees and wildlife – reminiscent of Torres del Paine NP in Chile, in some ways.  What I hadn’t realised until I read the Yosemite article in the May edition of National Geographic is that Yosemite is a rock climber’s mecca and some of the crazy things people do seriously scare me – free climbing up El Capitan, which is 910m high and includes a major overhang?!?!  It is actually surprising that only 83 people have died while climbing in the park if this is what they get up to.

Yosemite was our last stop before returning to San Francisco.  We had to switch hire cars which was a bit of a pain, but we managed to organise our luggage and make the switch without too much hassle. For this visit to the city, we were very kindly put up by my work friend Simon, his wife Collette and their little boy Josh, in La Fayette which is a district of San Fran over the Bay Bridge.  

As we’d not managed to do all the sights last time, we had to pack in cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge, visiting Alcatraz, wandering around Fisherman’s Wharf, climbing up the steep zig-zag stretch of Lombard St and riding on the other cable car.  We had a beautiful sunny day for the cycling and the bridge looked great as we appreciated views of it from various spots along the route.  

The weather stayed nice for the boat ride to Alcatraz and we enjoyed learning about the jail and its history, particularly the escape attempts, as the audio tour was excellent.

We’d now completed the first part of our US road trip, the San Francisco loop taking in four states (California, Arizona, Utah and Nevada) and we’d thoroughly enjoyed it.  The US is definitely exceeding my expectations, with great cities, beautiful National Parks and very friendly and helpful people.

Part three to follow...

USA Blog Part 1 – Weeks 1 & 2

I was so excited as we set down at San Francisco airport as I’ve been wanting to do an American road trip for so long and finally the day had come.  Also being back in an English speaking developed country after 7 months was going to be so nice.  We arrived at midnight so we’d booked a hostel in town to guarantee ourselves a bed for the night.  This was one of only a couple of reservations we’d made throughout the last 2 months which is a complete turnabout for me, Mrs Organised - Jinny you’d be proud of me!

I fell in love with San Francisco straight away and it would be a great place to live.  The seaside location, the mild climate, the sights, the shops, the restaurants and the atmosphere had me hooked.  The only downside we’ve noticed are the number of homeless which is a result of both the mild climate and the closure of all the mental hospitals c.30 years ago.  So as you walk around you are regularly asked for money, although not in an aggressive way.  There’s even a guy by Fisherman’s Wharf who hides behind a big tree branch and jumps out in order to provide some entertainment for a donation – he’s known locally as the “Bush Man”.

Breakfast in our hostel was self-made pancakes – they provided the pancake mix and syrup, and you cooked.  Le Roux and I were entertained by the very poor efforts of other guests – somehow they managed to turn a pancake into unbrowned mush which looked very unappetising.  Many were looking on enviously as we turned out some pretty decent looking pancakes!

We spent our first day catching up on some chores, including some much needed shopping – I was like a kid in a sweet shop with proper western clothes shops to browse around!  I also had lunch with an old work colleague, Simon, who has now moved to San Fran - the city is known as San Fran not SF for short.  It was great catching up with an old friend, especially as he was the first person from home that I have seen in 7 months.  

Our 2^nd day was spent doing touristy things such as a walking tour of China Town, the Coit Tower, and the three major hills which afforded us great views over the city and of Bay and Golden Gate bridges, as well as Alcatraz.  I have to admit to cheating and not walking up them all as we hopped on the Cable Car to travel up and down the iconic steep streets of the city.  It was interesting to see that it is still turned around by hand on a turntable at the end of the line.  In the evening we went to the cinema to see the King’s Speech, which was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as we hadn’t been to the cinema since we saw Harry Potter in Santiago, 5 months previously.  The only disappointment were the snacks which were not as good as in the UK or in Chile – no pick ‘n’ mix, no icecream counter and no sweet popcorn!

Unfortunately it was time to leave the city and begin our actual road trip, but luckily we were coming back in 3 weeks time so we could tick off a few more sights then.  We’d finally made the decision to rent rather than buy a car as the cost was pretty similar and it would be less hassle to hire one, so we picked up our Jeep Liberty and headed to the outdoor shop on our way out of the city to pick up a few extra bits of equipment now that we don’t have to carry everything.  I decided to invest in a better, thicker camping mat and it was the best purchase I’ve made in a long time – I actually get a good night’s sleep in our tent now, which is a good thing as we’re doing a lot more of it given accommodation is so expensive in the US.

We headed south from San Francisco and picked up Highway 1, also known as the famous Pacific Highway, with good reason as the views of the coastline and ocean are spectacular.  First stop was Monterey, set on a lovely bay.  We drove around the headland stopping every few yards for photos.  At Lover’s Point we watched on, chuckling to ourselves, as this cheeky squirrel tried to steal a piece of chicken from a sleeping vagrant – although we were rooting for the squirrel it was unlucky as the guy woke up in time to shoo it away.  We also saw lots of friendly fat ground squirrels and playful sea otters.  The scenic 17 mile drive through Pebble Beach, also on the headland, caused us a few issues as we managed to get a bit lost even with a map, but we did manage to see the Lone Cyprus Tree and Bird Rock as well as some picture postcard coastline. 

We camped at Veterans Memorial Park Campground in Monterey and were horrified to find that it cost $27 for the night for a tent spot – twice what we’d been paying for hostels and hotels in Central America!  Le Roux cooked up a seriously spicy chicken stew for dinner, after we’d argued about which chilli to buy in the supermarket and I lost - he promised not to put too much in and that he’d taste it before adding more. It did not work out well as he’d picked a scotch bonnet chilli so even a quarter of it was too much, and I sweated and practically cried while eating my dinner - I had to give up in the end!  That night we left our washing up to dry on our picnic table and a naughty raccoon stole our wooden spoon. 

We visited Monterey Bay Aquarium which was fantastic – it was huge with all manner of different species of sea life.  It took us ages to wander around all of the tanks and exhibits, snapping away with the camera.  Although we missed the otters and penguins being fed, we did see the diver hand feed the sharks with squid which was pretty cool.  My favourite creatures were the jelly fish, the sea stars and the sea horses which were really so interesting and weird to look at.

Next stop was Carmel-by- the Sea, a charming rich seaside town.  We stopped in at the Mission San Carlos De Borromeo De Carmelo (aka Carmel Mission) which is one of the prettiest missions in California and so it provided me with yet more great photo opportunities.  Unfortunately due to time constraints we didn’t have time to explore the town so we did a quick driving tour of the town and beach instead – very pretty with lots of huge expensive ocean front houses and fancy shops.

We had hoped to drive all the way down the coast to LA on the Pacific Highway, but unfortunately due to a few mud slides onto the road and a rock fall out from under the road, we weren’t able to make it to Big Sur.  We drove inland down Highway 101 instead and looped back up Highway 1 a little way to visit the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas and Hearst Castle.  Unfortunately we couldn’t see Hearst Castle as all the tours were sold out, but we did get to see lots of massive female elephant seals with their young pups. They were packed onto the beach, jostling and wriggling in tight groupings.  As you’d expect we spent a while taking lots of close-up photos of them – Le Roux loves their eyes and got a great picture of one seal looking straight at him with its doe eyes.  We camped at nearby San Simeon in the state park and we were even more horrified at the cost as it was $35 per night for a tent and you had to pay extra for a hot shower - all we got was a patch of grass, a picnic table and the use of a toilet!

Le Roux’s friend Neil had recommended a stop-off at the Madonna Inn on our way south towards Los Angeles so we pulled off the highway at this crazy place and were dumbfounded by the kitschness and OTT nature of the hotel – a very bizarre place!  The pecan buns were amazing though and we were gutted they only had one left which we had to share.

Next stop on the drive south was the Santa Maria valley for a spot of wine tasting.  As Le Roux wasn’t feeling great he kindly offered to drive which allowed me to indulge in a few different wines.  I’d picked the Foxen winery from the ones listed in the book as it sounded nice, and it was.  However, I hadn’t realised that it was one of the ones featured in the movie Sideways so I had my photo taken in the same spot as the guys in the film – cheesy but fun.  As part of the tasting I got to keep my glass, so in amongst all our plastic hard-wearing camping gear I now have a glass wine tasting glass.  Amazingly it is still in one piece and I feel quite proper drinking wine out of it at picnic tables in our various campsites!

From Santa Maria we drove onto Solvang which is a very OTT Danish style town, overrun with Japanese tourists - I wasn’t a fan of the place.  However, we hunted around to find the icecream shop we’d been told to try and finally found it.  Le Roux made the mistake of asking for 2 scoops and ended up with the biggest icecream I’ve ever seen.  I only had one scoop but I still struggled to finish it and I can safely say that was the first time I have ever had to throw away icecream!  It’s one of my favourite foods, but I just could not eat it all and Le Roux definitely didn’t finish his 2 scoops.  American portions are way too big and we need to remember to order one between the two of us in future.

After the wine and the icecream we rolled in to Los Angeles.  Le Roux’s good friend Hendrik (aka Krokkie), his wife Carol and their little boy Jaco kindly agreed to let us stay for a few nights.  It was so lovely to stay with friends in their home after being in hostels and campsites for so long - they made us feel so welcome.  Krokkie cooked up some delicious lamb chops on the BBQ to go with the good bottle of red we’d picked up at the winery.  It was great to have lamb, my favourite meat, as it had been ages since we’d come across any. 

We spent our time in LA doing some very touristy things and we loved every moment!  We drove over the hills to the Malibu coast and enjoyed the pretty coast and the massive celebrity mansions, before accidentally driving through Beverley Hills, having missed Sunset Boulevard!  We eventually made it to Hollywood Boulevard which we strolled along, gazing at the stars in the pavement as well as at the Chinese Theatre.  The Hollywood sign was a must so we headed up to the Griffith Observatory to get a good view of it and we were also rewarded with a great vista across the city which is a vast urban sprawl, home to 10 million people.  

Next stop was the Warner Bros Studio where we did the excellent tour – we saw all sorts of cool things including the real bat mobile, Harry Potter costumes and props, the set of Ellen’s chat show, the Friends coffee shop set, the outdoor street sets, the largest prop department in the world and the tallest sound studio in the business.  Whilst looking round the Harry Potter memorabilia, we were sorted by the actual sorting hat used in the first movie which was cool – I was a Gryffindor but Le Roux came out as an evil Slytherin!  

Our final activity in LA was a hike through Malibu Creek State Park with Krokkie, Carol and Jaco – a beautiful area not far from their apartment and it was nice to see that LA is not just an urban sprawl but has lovely green areas too.

We bid farewell to the Tredouxs and headed off across California, into Arizona.  Our destination was The Grand Canyon.  The drive itself was great as we travelled along historic route 66 and the scenery was fantastic - we stopped so often for photos!  We passed through beautiful mountains and some classic themed gold mining towns, one of which even had donkeys roaming freely on the streets.

We left balmy LA wearing t-shirts and flip flops and arrived in Williams 9 hours later to find 3ft of snow and freezing temperatures!  There was no way we could camp so we had to shell out for a motel.  My vision of the Grand Canyon was hot, sunny, dusty and vast.  We got sunny and vast, but it was snowy and cold but actually very pretty sprinkled with snow.  The highlight of our visit was the helicopter ride over the canyon – it was awesome as the Americans would say.  The views from above were truly spectacular and we really got to appreciate how massive the canyon is.  I’d not been in a helicopter before so that was exciting too.  After the helicopter ride we drove along the south rim and stopped for a picnic by Duck Rock – a great view while we ate our sandwiches and drank our cuppa soups to warm up!  We even saw a coyote in the forest.  A few too many tour buses of Japanese tourists were hogging all the photo spots though!  Having taken about a million photos between us, none of which really do it justice, we headed off to Cameron for the night, with a view to visiting the north rim the next day.  Our plans were thwarted though as the only motel in Cameron was far too expensive for our budget and the north rim was closed for winter!  Instead, we headed off to Tuba City on the Indian Reservation where we’d located a cheaper motel for the night.  After a long day of sightseeing we could have done with a beer, but apparently there’s no alcohol on the reservation so we had to be content with the biggest sodas ever!

The next morning we headed off to Bryce Canyon National Park via Route 89A, a scenic alternative to Route 89, which took us from Arizona into Utah. We pulled into Buffalo Bills in a little town en route for a late lunch, as we’d read about rattlesnake and rabbit sausages which we were keen to try.  However, the restaurant was only open for dinner so we drove away hungry and disappointed!

All of the drive was pretty, but the best part was the last few miles through Red Canyon which contains amazing red rock formations called hoodoos.  This was just the beginning though as Bryce Canyon itself was a huge amphitheatre filled with hoodoos – so impressive and very pretty sprinkled with snow.  In some ways we liked it more than the Grand Canyon.  We’d been told sunrise was at 7am so we got up early and headed into the park to the key viewpoint over the amphitheatre but the sun was already up so we’d braved the cold for no particular reason!  We decided to warm up at the Lodge while having some coffee and porridge.  Luckily we’d been served before the power failed as some diners were turned away hungry!  It was also disappointing that so much of the park was closed either due to snow or the risk of falling rocks, but we enjoyed the short hike we did under sunny clear blue skies.  We hiked down into the canyon on one of the few trails that was open and the hoodoos were even more impressive from below.  There was one called “Queen Victoria” as it looked a bit like the statue of her in London. 

As the weather forecast predicted a low of -10C that night I refused to camp!  We ended up in a lovely motel which was famous for its pies.  We were expected a nice meat pie, but actually it served up fruit and cream pies in various flavours.  We tried the boysenberry pie and the blueberry banana cream pie – both delicious but very bad for my waistline!  Breakfast wasn’t included so we decided to toast bagels on our little gas stoves, but as it was actually snowing outside we decided to do it in our room, however, it wasn’t long before we’d set off the smoke alarm and had to brave the cold to finish the toasting!

TO BE CONTINUED...