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Elvis Lives Tour
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May 2016 – Aug 2018

Elvis Lives Tour

May 2016 - April 2019 Read more
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    Rainy Days

    August 28, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    From the Cascades we cruised an hour or so and hit the coast, where we squeezed into a busy Saturday night at a state park right on the beach. It was nice to be back by the sea after a few months inlamd. The next morning we drove a few miles and explored Bellingham town before checking in to Deception Pass State Park.

    I think for the first time this trip we set an alarm, so we could make an early morning ferry over to the San Juan Islands. Rather than take Elvis we took the bikes, although the island was a little larger and more hilly than we expected! Nevertheless we eventually made it back to the port after visiting English Camp, a somewhat idyllic posting, and spending a few hours ocean scanning for Orcas. We didn't get back to the mainland until late so grabbed a quick pizza, but were surprised the camp site barriers were down so had to find alternate lodging.

    The following day we felt Elvis was missing out so we took him on a ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula, which is probably the wettest place in North America. We stopped off at Heart O' The Hills Campsite and, despite being in the middle of a rainforest, had a beautiful evening. The next morning we drove up to the visitors centre and had a fantastic talk by one of the old but massively enthusiastic rangers, and watched the rise and fall of clouds rising (Reggie Perrin anyone?) in the valleys below.

    After a quick cup of clam chowder we boarded yet another boat, this time a whale spotting vessel. Even before we got onboard there was a harbour seal watching us, and within a few minutes of being out on the water we'd found a humpback (FYI in this area their numbers are back to pre-whaling times). It was pretty inquisitive and played around with the boat for a while, at one point almost scraping the barnacles off his back on the bottom of the boat! Just off the Canadian shore we located a family of killer whales and we spent the next hour or so watching them hunt, with the adults tiring out their prey and then teaching the youngsters to finish off their kills. Although the boats have to stay a fair distance away they were also pretty interested in us and came fairly close so we had a great viewing experience. We wrapped off the day with an AMAZING Thai meal - easily the best we've had in the US.

    The following day we continued around the peninsula to Sol Doc Hot Springs. We had a varied day of weather (alternating between heavy drizzle and light rain!) but once in the 40C water it didn't make much difference.    Read more

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    Twilight

    September 5, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Next stop was Forks, the wettest town in the US, also famous for vampires & werewolves apparently. Despite a few tacky tourist shops there wasn't much going on so we went on exploring the rainforest. Ruby Beach was ultra rugged and windswept covered with tree trunks washed down the river. The campsites right on the wet coast wasn't that appealing so we ended up in a quiet little stop off a forest road.

    The next day was lovely so we went back to the coast & got a sweet spot in 'Ocean City' a beach state park - v lucky for the Saturday night of Labour Day weekend (we often get lucky like that even when campgrounds have 'full' signs up :). We spent the afternoon sheltering behind sand dunes reading & flying the kite on the windswept beach. We did our good Samaritan bit by helping push someone's car out of the soft sand (repeatedly).

    After a quick run in the morning we headed towards Mount Rainier National Park and we spent the night just outside, in an OTV campsite full of petrol heads, so we could get in early(ish) the next day. It was unsurprisingly a little cloudy so we didn't see much on the way in except for a few tantalizing glimpses of this impressive cone on the way up.    Read more

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    Para, para, paradise...

    September 6, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    Rain-ier is well named, this giant volcano cone rising up from the low coast to 14,000+ feet pushes damp air from the coast up with inevitable consequences. Fortunately we arrived to niceish weather and decided to make the most of it by hiking to Paradise! Unfortunately with the last of the flowers clinging on and damp, low, dense cloud Panorama Point didn't quite live up to its grand name.

    Having woken to the rain we had a cozy lie-in then made our way back to the visitors centre which we had saved for a rainy day. As the east side gets significantly less rainer we headed east to Sunrise (they definitely win the prize for best names in National Parks), taking in the impressive v deep, water carved Box Canyon and the Geove of the Patriarchs (trees which amazingly were 500 years old when Columbus first landed!). As we settled into camp we were rewarded with the summit clearing and the snow laden slopes glistening in the afternoon sun.

    We woke the next morning to glorious sunshine and rather than tackle the 2,220 ft in 2 miles, we drove to Sunrise which meant we could walk off the standard day hike map and up to the third borough (peaks on a ridge leading up to the main mountain). It was a spectacular walk with some we glorious views of the peak as the clouds cleared, and we reached the snowline with incredible views of the huge rugged glaciers that cover the top half of the mountain.    Read more

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    Ring of Fire

    September 8, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    From Rainier we drove south to Mt St Helens. For those of you with short memories this volcano blew catastrophically in 1980 and covered the area with ash and lahars (hot mud slides). Although from the side we were on you couldn't go up the remaining mountain, we got some great views of the missing chunk and the surface of the lake below is still covered in dead tree trunks.

    As I refused to pay the outrageous Washington petrol prices were running on fumes, having already put in the emergency tank, so we freewheeled down to Cougar and lucked out by finding the cheapest petrol for weeks. We then felt confident to tackle the small drive up to Ape Cave, which is actually a lava tube and has nothing to do with monkeys (other than it was the name of the boys club that found them). We've seen lava tunnels in several places around the world but nothing quite like this; 1.5 miles completely underground and in pitch blackness. There was no path or lighting and in several places the roof had caved in, but it was a fun scramble and quite a relief when you saw daylight at the other end. We camped up in a lovely camp site and watched a colourful sunset over the lake.

    The next day we drove over The Bridge Of The Gods and camped next to the river (and the brewery). We even tackled our massive pile of laundry, although technically we spent the afternoon in the pub next door. The lovely little camp site in the middle of town wasn't quite as enjoyable as we had hoped due to the huge freight trains that ran alongside all night.    Read more

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    Portlandia

    September 14, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Next stop was 'weird' Portland (they stole it from Austin), where some ex-pats ex-colleagues live. They were kind enough to offer us their sofa but as we brought our own bed we parked up in their driveway instead. The first day they drove us into town and we wondered through the hip street markets, then we met another old friend and hit a few swanky bars before heading to the Portland Timbers game. It was their 100 consecutive sell out game & the atmosphere was pretty amazing - starting with an incredible rendition of the Star Spangled Banner (almost made us feel patriotic!) & their mascot even had a chain saw slicing off big bits of tree during the game! They won an entertaining game 1-0, so everyone was happy (apart from RSL & Sounders fans of course!) We grabbed a v late dinner and pint after the game at funky joint called Radio Rooms.

    The next day we all went for a run to flush out the night before and we borrowed their cool electric car to go back into town. It was a pretty amazing silent vehicle with a lot more zip than Elvis's tired and overweight hips. We explored downtime some more and headed back to the cool area we visited the previous night and ate at Bombay Theatre for some super tasty Indian street food.

    It was so weird (and nice) to get back into what would have been a fairly normal weekend routine after so long on the road.    Read more

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    Thar Be Whales

    September 16, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    We continued driving down the Columbia River gorge and turned left back into Oregon before heading down the coast. After a fish & chip lunch at a British pub we'd been told about by a ranger hundreds of miles away, we stopped at Fort Stevens SP and biked the civil war and World War 2 base, with its cunning disappearing guns, before ending up soaking in some sun on the beach & examining the Peter Iridale wreck.

    Oregon has got the State Park (SP) system just right. The entirely public coast (no private beaches here) is littered with day use and camping areas, and the secluded sites set amongst beautiful ancient trees are bliss. The fact that they have great free hot showers is an added bonus.

    For lunch we pulled off the road and started building our sarnies when a grey whale spouted just off the headland. They were so close we didn't even need our binoculars so we watched as half a dozen fed themselves against the sea cliffs whilst we munched on our butties.

    We visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium which was only allowable (by Jo) as they no longer keep Orcas or dolphins. It is actually where the whale who inspired Free Willy was kept until they attempted to reintroduce him into the wild. They took him to Iceland & although he didn't completely integrate with the local pods, and still sought human company, he lived for 4 years in the wild before dying of natural causes. We also learnt that over 50% of the Puget Sound salmon-eating Orcas were captured to sell to parks around the world & although it is now illegal it's believed that their numbers are too low to recover. Anyway they now concentrate on education & conservation, they had very cute sea otters there which we were saddened to find out that they are officially extinct in Oregon.

    We stayed in a couple more gorgeous SPs but I've got a touch of the man-flu so I'm not feeling like springing into the bracing sea (I've also passed it onto Jo so we're not the happiest of campers at the moment...) On the 4th morning we woke to sea fog shrouding a few miles inland that didn't look like it was going clear so took our leave and headed inland. We ended up in a lovely spot off the scenic highway down by a river.    Read more

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    Wizard Island

    September 18, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    As I was still feeling a bit crappy and Jo was starting to come down with it (hopefully not as badly), we had a gentle day cruising up the scenic byway into the Oregon mountains, stopping off at some impressive little waterfalls on the way. The highlight was definitely the public hot springs with a series of small pools gradually cooling as you worked your way down the hill side to the freezing river below (we stayed fairly high!). Another nice small camp site in the forest by a little waterfalls of incredibly clear water (it is the Clearwater River after all).

    In the morning we drove the short distance to the stunning Crater Lake NP. I'm starting to feel a bit better but Jo is still a bit clammy & shivery so another lazy day involving cooking damper on the afternoon camp fire, although it ended up more like cake than bread! The following day we drove around the eastern rim road, checking out amazing views of Wizard Island and Phantom Ship.    Read more

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    Cali.forn.i.a

    September 21, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    We had a bit of dilemma about the next section of the route (I know, life is tough!) and we ended up heading back west as we feel that we missed out a bit on the incredible Oregon coast due to illness. After a decent drive (we tend to max out at around 3-4 hours, and that's pretty rare), we stopped in yet another nice forestry site in the Oregon hills with only 2 spots, and had the most random conversation with some locals.

    The next morning we drove into California, getting checked for illegal fruit and veg on the way! We drove down the coast but CA haven't got it as right as Oregon (where the road hugs the shoreline which is dotted with SPs) so it wasn't a spectacular drive. At one point the road was so bad we turned around and headed back onto the inland highway, and arrived at the Humboldt Redwood SP late so checked in to a commercial camp site (possibly only our 3rd in over 4 months). Despite it being a bit sterile we did make the most of the laundry and wifi, which resulted in a lazy morning catching up online. We then explored the gigantic trees, some of which they reckon are at least a thousand years old (and some people suggesting possibly double that). Despite quite a lot of Elk around unfortunately we weren't lucky enough to see any rutting.

    After lunch we headed east into the California hills. The road was pretty windy, and everything is incredibly dry. We had another forestry camp site to ourselves - the season definitely finishes very abruptly on Labour Day holiday - and headed further inland the following day.    Read more

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    High Sierra

    September 24, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    We headed south and inland to avoid the suddenly arrived cold (it was snowing two days ago, although that was at 9,000 ft). We even hit a new inside van low of 8.4C (FYI high is 46.4C) overnight but it's still high 20s and sunny in the day. We stopped over in two beautiful county parks as we wound our way through the dry Californian hills. Lake Tahoe was pretty nice, surrounded by lovely resort towns, but we had to get through the closed road as soon as it opened so we could set up camp a little further south.

    We hit the Yosemite NP at late lunch, but all the campsites were already full. Thankfully the road up to it was littered in scenic NF sites and we bagged a host spot, as we assume they have gone for the season already. We even drove back half way down the 4,000ft ascent to get phone signal but failed to get a camp spot in the main park (some campgrounds close on Monday) or permits to climb half dome - we'll have to hope we continue with our good luck on that front.    Read more

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    Yosemite

    September 26, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    The first day in Yosemite NP we tackled a trail recommended to us by a grumpy ranger so we should have known better and it ended up being pleasant but pretty uninspiring considering where we are.

    The next morning was another cold one (6C inside, but we are at 10,000 ft) but gloriously sunny so we headed back the few hundred metres into the park. We found a spot with enough signal to get a call out and we were pretty gobsmacked when we were told we'd won the daily lottery to get Half Dome permits for the following day.

    We hiked up to Cathedral Lakes but this time it was a glorious walk with majestic scenery. These huge scarred and also polished rocks jutting up out of the hillside and rising hundreds/thousands of feet. It was about 12 miles and fairly up and downy so we were feeling it when we eventually stopped for the night. The camping arrangements here are crazy - even at this time of the year the only available reservations are over a month away and there is pretty well sod all around! Rather than pay $25 to camp in front of a long-dead (vault toilet) in basically a layby, we found a much nicer and free pull out up the valley. Now we've dropped down to 2,000 ft the temperature has soared and its 33C at 6pm, which makes a very pleasant change to the past couple of cold nights.    Read more

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    Half Dome Cables!

    September 27, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    We ended up crashing pretty early the previous night, which is a good thing as we needed an early start, so we saw the sun come up over the towering Yosemite Valley walls as we drove the half an hour to the top of the park.

    We hit the Mist Trail which sneaks up on you gradually as the nice tarmac path gets steeper and steeper, then turns into rougher and rougher steps, which then get bigger and bigger! We passed the two impressive waterfalls, although there wasn't a much water at this time of the year. Fortunately the trail levels out a bit (relatively speaking), and you wind you way up through the forest before you hit the subdome, and the steps begin again!

    After climbing 4,400ft as you can imagine the view from the top of subdome was utterly spectacular, looking across miles of polished rock climbing into the distance in all directions except for the view down to the valley floor many thousands of feet below.

    The last 400ft of elevation was Half Dome itself, and this could only be tamed using the cables they attach during the summer months. When you see it from a distance it doesn't look possible to get up without serious rock climbing skills, and as you get to the bottom of the cables it still looks pretty hard core. It was a very strenuous hike up and Jo didn't feel confident about the final few hundred feet, and I have to admit I was a little apprehensive myself but I steeled myself and donned my gloves.

    It was as steep as it looks, possibly more so! Your feet just about gripped, but without the cables there was no way I would be up there. Despite the thinning air (just shy of 3k metres) I powered up it and felt a little unusual once I was standing at the top. I started taking a few snaps and only then I realised that I was a few feet from the edge on a big overhang looking down on the valley floor about 6,000 feet below.

    Fortunately going down was significantly easier (mainly due to not losing your breath every 10 steps due to the thin air). Despite being fairly quiet on the way up there was an old chap determined to make it to the top, but that meant it was rammed solid and hardly moving so I bravely/foolishly swing to the outside of the cables. It was reasonably smooth sailing until I got to people who were a bit freaked out and wouldn't move so I had to freestyle a few feet before I could get a good grip back on the cables. One mistake on this thing and you wouldn't only slip down the few hundred feet to subdome but also the other few thousand back to the valley floor, which soon focuses the mind and I carefully made my way down.

    We set off back down and soon made the top waterfall. Rather than try and tackle the massive steps we took the longer but marginally more gentle route down the John Muir Trail. It didn't take long before the views looked familiar, as we had hiked this on a spectacular walk to Glacier Point when we visited the east coast about 8 years before. The views from the far edge of the valley were way better than the direct route up, and several enjoyable hours later we were reunited with Elvis.

    A much needed shower and a hard earned pizza and pint rounded off an incredible day in an unbelievably beautiful and awe inspiring park, before we returned to our layby and collapsed into bed.    Read more

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    Wooly Mammoth

    October 1, 2016 in the United States ⋅ 🌬 34 °C

    The following morning we were surprised our legs didn't feel too stiff, and as we were out cold as soon as we hit the hay we woke early and headed back into the valley. We spent a nice relaxing morning exploring the valley floor, and were incredibly lucky to see an elusive bobcat padding his way across the road. On the way out of the park we stopped to get a good look at El Cap(itain), who's sheer walls rise vertically from the valley floor. The longer we looked the more climbers we could see, and our binocs made sure it definitely wasn't easier than it looks. We got chatting to a climbing ranger, who told us the group we were looking at were going to be up there for 2 weeks on a difficult route, and his super-dooper telescope let us see all the huge amount of gear they had hanging off them. I doubt I could walk around with all that kit, let alone climb.

    As there was no route east for hundreds of miles south, we headed back the way we came and up over the 10,000 ft pass. We got down to Mammoth Lakes, with a scenic detour to admire the golden fall aspens, and were super impressed with the NF campground bang in the middle of town. We hit the local bar for happy hour, and were well fed and watered before we chillaxed watching the remake of The Magnificent Seven in the local cinema, which made a nice change to our usual routine.

    The next day we drove up to the Devil's Postpile National Monument - a load of basalt hexagon columns, we had a nice easy hike along part of the PCT & finished the day with a quick pint at Mammoth brewery & back to our 'local' for happy hour $4 burgers & fries!

    Worryingly we caught the end of a local weather forecast that was talking about snow showers, which seemed bizarre to us as it as 25C+, but as we are now counting down time down in weeks (6!) we figured we needed to keep heading inland to the warmer climes.    Read more

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    Way Down We Go

    October 1, 2016 in the United States ⋅ 🌬 34 °C

    We headed down the 395 which follows a broad, flat valley flanked by two impressive ridges of high mountains. We stopped off at Manzanar, which was a Japanese concentration, sorry interment, camp for rounded up ethnic Japanese post Pearl Harbor. The fact that they were US citizens and it was completely against the Constitution was conveniently ignored, at least for a few years until they came to their senses. This was just 10,000 ethnic Japanese forced to abandon their homes & businesses and squashed into a square mile in the middle of a dusty desert for no reason. We stayed at a nice camp ground at a town just down the road which was towered over by the 14k ft Mt Whitney.

    The next day we drove a couple of hours into Death Valley, we were surprised to still be at 4000 ft or so when we entered the park but we're soon going down down down! We reached our campsite at 200ft below sea level oh & did we say we wanted it to get hotter... Well this is a classic case of being careful what you wish for! It hit 40 C in the day & didn't cool down at night more than a few degrees. We still managed a hike up amongst the water carved sandstone canyons & visited the lowest point in N America at 282ft below sea level.    Read more

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    Fear & Loathing...

    October 4, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    It was a few hours drive into Vegas, but rather than head straight in we stopped at Red Rocks Caynon, where layers of sand dunes have been compressed into stripy rocks. We did a bit of clambering around and then headed up Ice Box Canyon. There wasn't so much a trail as a dry creek bed but it was fun climbing up to where the waterfall would be if there was one. We stayed in a little BLM site just down the road, and wind storm swept in that night with gusts of 50/60 mph. It meant we got gently(ish) rocked to sleep, but some people had their flysheets in tatters & belongings scattered by the morning.

    Hotels are so cheap ($70 for a plush suite) we decided we had to splash out. We'd done LV before when we did our west coast road trip about 8 years before, and that time probably contributed to us moving out here.

    The strip hadn't changed much - just a few swanky new shopping malls - so we spent the first day exploring the casinos and tacky strip. Bellagio is still definitely the best draw, with its spectacular fountains, composed perfectly to a wide variety of music. We're not really gamblers but played a few cheap pokies to get some free drinks. We were pretty knackered from the fun and games last night that we didn't party too hard and were in bed my midnight. We feasted to the incredible buffet breakfast and were so full that we only made it as far as the pool where we lost most of the day.

    We picked up some cheap tickets for a Cirque Du Soleil for the evening. There were about 6 different CDS shows on and we plumped for Mystere, which is their original. It was pretty impressive modern circusy, but I left a little disappointed with the show as a whole. We then jumped in an Uber to downtown Freemont, which has the world's biggest screen arching over the shopping/partying street. It was a bit more down and dirty but a lot of fun. From their we headed to our hotel terrace bar and enjoyed an expensive cocktail overlooking the lights of the strip.    Read more

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    Iron, Like a Lion, In Zion

    October 7, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    We left Vegas feeling slightly worse for wear and unfortunately so did Elvis :( With all the mountains we'd worn out the front brake pads, and metal on metal hadn't done one of the rotors any favours. We lucked out and found a great garage on route who squeezed us in that day & we settled for the night at a beautiful spot called Quails Creek State Park.

    We were excited to be heading going to Zion National Park, although slightly disappointed we couldn't get into the park campsites so we ended up in a commercial campsite just outside, and spent the rest of the day lazing around the pool (again!). Even when we arrived by 7:50am on the 2nd morning we couldn't get into the public campsite so we decided to wing it.

    With the early start we were able to tackle the Angel's Landing - this is an infamous trail with 21 switchbacks followed by a ridge a couple of metres wide with 1000m drops both sides. I wasn't sure if I 'd be able to do it after not doing the Half Dome cables, but I did it & really enjoyed it - the views at the top were truly spectacular.

    In the afternoon we went up the Narrows trail & it immediately became apparent why most people had hired neoprene socks & sturdy boots - it was bloody freezing! I made it some way up before bailing but Phil waited for his feet to go numb and made it to the very narrow part of the canyon, where buckled walls rise a hundred metres to the surface.

    As we had no camp site we had to drive on through the park, and its incredible mile long tunnel through the sandstone but we found a great BLM spot as the sun settled down for the night.    Read more

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    Hoodoo That You Do

    October 8, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Only 50 miles or so down the road is Bryce National Park. There are so many brits (amongst other nationalities) its quite a change from most of our travels, but this is prime 2 week road trip territory as we know all too well.

    Bryce is where the sandstone mesa (flat mountain top) has been dramatically worn away leaving arches, windows and hoodoos (pinnacles). Although we've seen a few examples of this there is nothing that quite compares to the sheer impressiveness of Bryce. Last time we had to rush this a bit so today we spent several hours exploring on the amazing peekaboo trail.

    There's not much more to say other than the photos (as usual) don't do it justice.    Read more

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    U-U-U-Utah Saints!

    October 9, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Another hour or so on the stupendous Highway 12, after passing many amazing overlooks of sandstone canyons and undulating rock formations, we found ourselves at Lower Calf Creek Falls, where we planned a hike. As there was space in the gorgeous campsite at the beginning of the trail and it was the last day of the Columbus holiday weekend we set up camp right next to the gurgling brook. The trail wound its way lush and colourful along a wide sandy-bottomed canyon, and passed some life sized pictographs before culminating at the 130 ft falls pouring over the smooth sandstone walls.

    The road up out of the campsite gorge and over the mountains was incredible. It is called the Hogsback Highway and its somehow navigated its way over this crazy, almost Mars-like, landscape. We visited Anasazi SP which has some great ruins and reconstructions of ancient pueblos. We treated ourselves some fancy nosh (e.g. sage potato cakes) at the well known Devil's Backbone Grill.

    Next stunning stop was Capital Reef NP, the largest waterpocket fold in northern America. In other words a 100 mile long scrunching of land resulting in big cliffs and amazing canyons. The scenic drive was pleasant but not awe inspiring, that was until the road turned to gravel and it wound its way through a slot canyon with huge sheer walls. The road stopped and turned into a trail which continued on down. The graffiti on the walls from the 1880s was pretty amazing ($300 fine now!) and they used this as an early route west. At the end of a short walk we scrambled up the cliffs to some water tanks, where the water had eroded natural pools and small arches.

    A small Mormon community set up life here and planted large orchards that are still producing today. In fact they dominated life so much the town was renamed to Fruita, and we picked up an incredible berry pie for pudding, and cinnamon roll for breakfast :)

    We're amazed how busy everything is around here, but we are in 2 week roadtrip territory and the huge mass of nomadic retirees will have been pushed south by the weather. We drove on out of the park, taking in some pretty impressive petroglyphs (they sure do like their long horn sheep!), and camped at a BLM spot a few miles on with stunning vistas over the park and surrounds.    Read more

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    I Want To Ride Those Dead Horses

    October 12, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    Ticking off #4 of the 'Mighty 5' of Utah's National Parks, we hit up Canyonlands. All the parks are significantly different and you enter this one via a narrow neck with drop offs of several thousand feet on each side. We explored the mesa top, or more accurately the edges of the mesa, with the Colorado and Green Rivers gouging the surrounding earth in the most amazing ways. At times the loops of the river only leaves high walls a few feet thick whilst it loops around a mile or so, and eventually leaves long stagnant trenches behind.

    We camped just outside the park looking over miles and miles of dissected dirt, and in the morning rolled down the hill to Dead Horse State Park. It's got exactly the same views, albeit from the opposite vantage point, and in many ways was more impressive. The best thing was the miles of mountain bikes trails, which would never be allowed in a NP. Despite only having a crappy old hybrid I couldn't resist, and I battered the hell out of myself and my bike! Jo faired much better on her full suspension mountain bike, but despite the bruised and blistered hands/arse I couldn't resist going and hitting the hardest tracks in the afternoon. I managed to mangle my back wheel pretty badly and had to walk the last couple of miles back.

    In desperate need of a hot shower we headed into Moab and found it was only a few more bucks to park up at the hostel which was in walking distance to the local brewery, so it was a bit of a no brainer!

    The next day we took it very easy and enjoyed the rare wifi to catch up on long overdue admin and running errands around town. We headed to a free camp spot just out of town, which was fine except for the fact it was so sandy and dusty we couldn't even open the top vent of the van.    Read more

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    Millions Of Arches, Arches For Me

    October 14, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    The last of Utah's big 5 National Parks is Arches, and it didn't disappoint. Its amazing to think this whole area was once bottom of a massive internal sea reaching across to the Appalachian Mountains in the east. This area is special as it got cut off and the sea evaporated off 27 times leaving behind a salt deposit 500 ft thick. The Coloradan plateau then got pushed up and the salt was forced into cracks in the rock. Water penetrated and dissolved the salt and the area collapsed leaving behind these amazing thin fins of rock. Erosion did the rest to create over 2,000 windows, bridges and arches in the soft sandstone.

    Miraculously we had reserved a camp spot for the night in advance, so it meant we could take our time and we headed to Delicate Arch trailhead. It was a really nice walk through soft golden sand and over the slick rock before the massive and precarious arch suddenly appeared. Not content with hundreds of photos from the normal angles and went off-piste and navigated a high rocky ridge to get some really impressive views.

    We then set up camp in a gorgeous sight surrounded by globular rock fins and made some tasty soup from our leftover Thai before heading out on a trail from the camp site taking in 3 more impressive arches and scrambling up some narrow rocky slots. Sunset from the top of a rock fin rounded off a great day, although the moon rise amongst the growing clouds was actually more impressive.

    The next day we tackled the longer loop and saw at least a dozen more arches, including the highly fragile landscape arch - the longest in the park and exceedly thin so I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't last beyond a few years. After a quick lunch we stopped off at the places we missed on the way in. They are probably the most impressive in terms of grandeur but the fact you can drive up to them does diminish the overall enjoyment of them (chances of a person free photo are less than remote!). One of the most impressive sights is the balanced stone, but to be honest we pulled up, left the engine running, took our snaps and headed off so hopefully you can understand why a hard earned although less impressive view is more rewarding.    Read more

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    Needling

    October 17, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    We spent another languid morning at the Lazy Lizard Hostel and chatted to friends and family back home. We then drove the hour and a half to an area called The Needles in the southern end of the Canyonlands NP. We had a little stop at Newspaper Rock which has been used as a notepad for many different cultures over 1500 years. We set up camp nice and early just outside the park and cooked scones (aka biscuits in the native tongue) in our dutch oven. Around 8pm the campsite erupted with howling as the full moon rose over the surrounding ridge.

    In the morning we drove to the trailhead at the end of a bumpy, dusty road and immediately had to climb up through steps built into a narrow crack in the rocks. The scenery was incredible with mushroom rocks, stacks, spires, and narrow cracks through massive chunks of rock. After a couple of hours we came to the Joint Trail, which was thought meant shared, but in fact referred to a half mike long crack in the rock a few feet wide but just enough to squeeze the trail through. It was pretty amazing and way tighter than anything we had navigated before. We headed back to the hostel for a well needed shower (as its still drippingly hot in the day).

    Moab is a mecca for mountain bikers and I had little choice but to hire a full suspension bike (as my wheel was still tacoed). I've only ever ridden a front suspension before (mine must be pushing 20 years old too) so it was a bit of a revelation to be completely off balance and going to fast towards a scary looking obstacle, only to bump over it almost as if it wasn't there. It does take a lot of the skill out of technical riding but the hands/arse definitely appreciated the softer ride and boy was it fun to thrash around on the slick rock and single track. We returned to town utterly spent, but did manage to stagger down to the brewery and had a fascinating night talking to a guy called Richard who runs 34 miles FOR FUN!    Read more

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    Home Away From Home

    October 23, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    We finally left Moab and drove up past the La Sal Mountains (named as they look like piles of salt) and back into Colorado. We stayed at Ridgway SP in the San Juan mountains. Although we hadn't gone up a lot in altitude it was noticeably colder at night but as the site came with hookups included we finally got to use our mini space heater so we were super toasty. The next day we drove over several 11k ft passes and into the valleys the other side, where the aspen trees were still a glorious golden orange. We cruised down the hill and ran a few errands in Durango before heading quickly onto Pagosa Springs where an old school friend now lives.

    The last time we met was when she flyered me in a tiny Internet cafe in La Paz (Bolivia) over 10 years ago! It was great to spend a few days with Fi, her husband Ken and their lovely dog Goldie, they welcomed us in & we immediately felt at home. They still have the travel bug (they are off to spend 3 months cycling around New Zealand in a few weeks) and it was really nice and to get back to the 'real' world and spend some time with like minded people.

    We did some great hiking & biking, and a lot of chilling out which recharged the batteries nicely before our final few weeks in the states.    Read more

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    Green Table (aka Mesa Verde)

    October 26, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    After reluctantly tearing ourselves away from our friends home we spent the night dispersed camping on BLM lands just outside Mesa Verde.

    We were booked on the midday Balcony house tour which gave time view some of the other cliff top dwelling go from afar & visit the interesting visitors center & museum. The excellent Ranger Byron led us to the 32 ft ladder to climb into Balcony house, at the top were rooms, court yards & 2 kivas. It was an incredible place & you could imagine the Pueblo Indians who lived here roughly 800 years ago going about their daily lives. For some reason it was fairly abruptly abandoned & it is thought their descendants moved south, maybe because of drought, maybe because of threats from other people or maybe because the southern society was a more attractive proposition? No one really knows for sure although there was a 26 year drought around the end of their occupancy and their is evidence of fortifications so only one person at a time could enter via a tunnel - which might make sense if resources were scarce & they needed to protect what little they had.

    We traveled back into Utah to spend the night in Goosenecks SP which is a great example of an entrenched canyon (i.e. the meandering river cuts down into the rock so it still has huge u bends & it almost cuts back on itself but is 100's of ft deep!)

    The next morning we drove through Monument Valley, which was actually a little disappointing. Quite often the parks on Indian reservations are not well done, and there was little info and a truly shocking road you were supposed to drive down. Elvis did a few miles but turned away in disgust! I think they may do it on purpose so you have to take a tour, but they should sort it and they would get many more visitors. The one really interesting thing we found out there was the use of Navajo Indians as 'code talkers' in WWII. It's the only code that was never broken, and I bet they had fun thinking up native words for things like tank and bomb! After just reading a book on Bletchley Park its amazing how much could be achieved without any fancy equipment or resident geniuses.    Read more

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    What Goes Down Must Come Up

    October 28, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    We arrived in the Grand Canyon & were lucky enough (again!) to get the last backcountry permit for a campsite halfway down the canyon the following night. With that in place we spent the day cycling the rim road - very pleasant as the only permitted vehicles were the occasional bus and we stopped off at some amazing views of the canyon.

    After a free night in a very nice USFS campsite just 10 mins from the park we set off down the Bright Angel Trail, which somehow traverses the steep, multi-cliffed walls of the gorge, weighed down by our heavy packs. We arrived at our campsite early at Indian Garden promptly set up our tent before continuing the rest of way down, feeling quite smug with our now v light loads, to the raging Colorado River & Phantom Ranch, where we had a well deserved lunch. It was a beautiful trek down one of the side canyons with colorful layers of rock & plenty of yellow aspen. The return leg to our campsite was a little more strenuous, but much easier with just our day packs!

    We ate our ramen noodles dinner (no carrying exotic meals on this) and played cards until it was dark, and there wasn't much else to do except to turn in for r an early night. After packing up we did a quick 3 mile walk to a beautiful lookout point, then we donned our heavy packs to climb the 3000 ft over 5 miles back up to the rim. It was pretty tough but we made it in a very respectable time of just over 2 hours (not bad when they inform you that it should take 3-4 hours).

    We gorged on pulled pork, mac-n-cheese and other well earned goodies, showered, laundried, and drove back to our little camp spot.    Read more

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    Friendly Pines

    November 2, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Jo's family has this great story about a young English man who was sent to Arizona to learn to fly fighters during the war, and who jokingly promised to return and marry the daughter of the family he was billeted with. Unfortunately Jo's Uncle Jack has since passed but his wife (the daughter!) Bebe still runs the Friendly Pines camp out in the Arizona forest, and we went and stayed with Megan, Jo's second cousin, who is learning the ropes to continue the family business. She just picked up her new rescue dog, and little Sadie was the cutest thing going, although older Ginger was a bit confused by this new bundle of energy.

    As much as we love Elvis it was again so nice to spend some time in a real house, particularly cooking in a proper oven. We did some hiking up Spruce Mountain and even dusted off the running shoes to further explore the beautiful forests.

    We were there over Halloween so we went down to the posh Mount Vernon Street, along with the rest of the town, for an incredibly extravagant spooktacular evening.    Read more

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    Crash and Burn in Phoenix

    November 5, 2016 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    As we left Prescott we were delighted to finally find another Trader Joe's, our favourite grocery store which we haven't seen since we left the east coast, so we stocked up on good stuff. It wasn't a hard decision to avoid the Interstate and take the winding mountain road, as these will be our last for a while. We even found BBC World Service News on the radio at one point (presumably there was a British base around?). We spent the night at a little dispersed campsite up high and drove on down into Phoenix the next morning.

    We met up with Jo's family: Chris, Barb and their son Nick who was in town for his dad's poker night. We parked up overnight at their mums house in town and went for a delicious tasting menu at a fancy restaurant, which was a bit of a (v welcome) culture shock compared to campground cooking! (PS thanks again Chris - best meal we've had). We had a lazy morning watching the English footy, and then stupidly decided to go out for a run in the midday heat (we are now in the desert which is still v hot after several months in the hills where things are cooling down rapidly). We then headed up to the May house to help prep for their 'real men wear pink' breast cancer fundraiser poker night. Some 21 players, varying from an ex-Vegas dealer (unsurprisingly the eventual winner) to complete novices. Despite only playing once or twice with mates I threw my hat into the ring and amazingly made it through to the final table, and eventually holing out in 4th place, just outside the money :( It was a fun night but we made a rather dubious decision to get up in 4 hours time for the north London derby, as Chris & Nick are both ardent Spurs supporters. It was surprisingly busy for 5am and the game didn't disappoint, neither did the full Irish breakfast and pint of Guinness!

    It was really nice seeing so many family and friends over the past few weeks, but we had to tear ourselves away to get to Joshua Tree NP and on over the border.    Read more

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