Rockin' New Years, Huay Xia Style

We had a plan that depended on local Thai buses, a Mekong river border crossing into Laos, and a Laos local bus to make it to our destination of Luang Nam Tha in northern Laos. Although we realized it was technically possible to do this trip in one day if everything was on schedule, we wisely predicted the possibility of staying in the tiny border town of Huay Xia on New Years' eve.

Enter factor 1: Our local Thai bus to the border wasn't one of the crammed tourist minibuses, but took a longer scenic route through northeastern Thailand, made even longer by the frequent stops by police and bus security to look for smugglers.

Factor 2: The boat crossing into Laos was easy enough but the gentleman who's job it was to stamp our passports happened to be napping at the time. Dennis decided the best approach was to hover and be slightly annoying, while the other immigration officials laughed at their sleeping co-worker, and I walked down the street (p.s. into Laos) to buy some drinks and snacks for what could be a long wait. Luckily for us, a line started forming and a few minutes later we were officially welcomed into Laos, but just a little too late to catch our bus.

Huay Xia is a one road town, so we set about looking for a party. A large tent was set up in the center of town and we hoped it was a wedding, which we've heard is easy to snag an invite to and really fun. After more hovering we realized it was a funeral and moved on. Most of the locals seemed to be in high spirits (they celebrate international New Year, Tet, and Pii Mai, the Laos New Year), but after we got back from eating a surprisingly good street roti, it seemed everyone had passed out already. Luckily we had met Josh and Sara, a couple from Mississippi, and ended up having dinner, drinks, and a good conversation with them, while listening to a horrendous karaoke party nearby. A rockin' New Years, it was not, but it definitely worked as an introduction to laid-back Laos.

When you get Stuck Between Chiang Mai and Chiang Khong City

So we had planned to spend five days enjoying the city and surrounding environs of Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, we failed to realize that Thai New Year coincides with the Western New Year. What that means for us is that every bus, in every direction was booked as people tried to take long holidays. The upstart is that 5 days became 7 days.

Not exactly a tragedy (Chiang Mai is a wonderfully relaxing and easy city to be in) but causes a bit of a knock-on effect on our Laos and Cambodia plans. While we figured out our itinerary in the evenings, our days were spent walking every spare inch of the city. Chang Mai is full of an amazing diversity of wat styles with a prediliction for the Lanna Style (which is quite ornate), and we visited about 15 different sites.

Apart from the Buddhist sites, we were immensley lucky to meet a woman from Ireland (whose name we forgot to get) who had spent a few months in the city and gave us a perfect day-long itinerary that brought us to a wonderful Thai market with nary a tourist in sight, a relaxing coffee shop on the river, the local prison crafts and massage shoppe and back for the immensely overwhelming night bizarre. A nearly perfect day; thanks Irish woman!

The following day we treated ourselves to a cooking class. Hey, we may be unemployed, but we are working on our resumes. The class was pretty good and Kristi and I now can make a mean green curry, phad thai, papaya salad, and for dessert, grenadine-soaked waterchestnuts in coconut milk (better than it sounds).

-d

A Very Chiang Mai Christmas

So we rolled into Chiang Mai late on Christmas eve and woke the next morning to find dozens of places offering traditional Christmas dinners. Turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and pie. What we didn't realize until Christmas is that most of the places seemed to require diners to don Santa chapeaus during their meal. Quite a festive sight!

We opted for pizza instead, which required no head gear, but did require a liberal interpretation of 'pizza.'

-d

Phi'Lok and Sukhothai Old City

The first thing we noticed when our train pulled in was the conspicuous lack of 'farang' (that's us--foreigners--tourists). Phitsonulok (or Phi'Lok as the locals say) is by far the least touristy place on our entire trip and our lack of Thai language skills mixed with the lack of English spoken in the city and on signs, mixed with our guide book's skimpy entry made navigation a true test. But despite some minor hiccups, we were able to orient ourselves, feed ourselves, and successfully use public transportation.

Now, why Phi'Lok? In and of itself, no good reason. It has a smallish wat complex and a few cool sites like the night bizarre, but is probably better known as a base for exploring Sukhothai Historical Park, about an hour away. Our second day, we set off for the park, which is in fact one of the early capitols of Thailand and contains lots of ruins of cultural and religious sites. The massive complex necessitated the rental of old-style cruiser bikes (and necessitated Dennis singing Smiths tunes in a rather loud voice.) We had a great time exploring the sites all day and had a nice surprise waiting for us back in Phi'Lok--clean laundry. In another run of what could be called good luck, the laundry guy left our bag of clean laundry on the street and asked an old man selling bananas to look after it in case we came by. A note to travelers--if they tell you to pick up your laundry at 5 pm, don't expect to wander in at 6:30 and just pick it up, but do expect to meet new and exciting friends/fruit vendors!

Now we're off to Chiang Mai, the big city and 'cultural capital' of Northern Thailand to spend Christmas, we can only imagine, like our Jewish friends in the US--eating Chinese food and watching movies! Best wishes and happy holidays to all our friends and family back home.

--K & D

Long Live the King

When you're in Thailand, it's impossible to forget they have a king. His image and 'Long Live the King' adorns highway billboards, bus stops, historical sites, and you can't watch an hour of TV without one of his 5 minute commercials coming on. What we've learned from those commercials is that the king is great--he's part adventurer, photographer, multi-instrumentalist, and diplomat, all rolled into one. Kind of a less-handsome Robert Redford. He's also the main symbol uniting the Thai people, especially during times of bloodless military coups, which happen fairly regularly (and recently) here. Anyway, not knowing anything about Thai politics other than their prime minister is in exile and there's a big national election around the corner, (and if you want to run a successful military state, dressing your police in tight sexy black uniforms doesn't hurt), we'll tell the world about the other king instead--Thai Elvis.

Now this isn't the same Thai Elvis that performs every Friday night in the restaurant behind Mark and Tracy's apartment in Hollywood--it's Bangkok's very own Thai Elvis, whose review show we were fortunate enough to catch on our one night stop over in Bangkok before heading up north. He's a younger and stouter Elvis--closer to your standard mid-1970s Elvis impersonator. He brought the house down, which consisted of an odd mix of young Thai and foreign couples, a Ford company outing (they brought their own Johnny Walker Black Label and had the bartender mix drinks at the table!), a pack of drunk Australians (go figure!), and the now all-too-familiar and disturbing combo of old white men with young Thai prostitutes. Did I mention we were on Soi Patpong, the touristy night market and red light district? We had to wade through lots of offers of ping-pong shows, which I was really disappointed to discover had little in common with real ping-pong matches, to get to Thai Elvis. But it was worth it for the king!

-K

Ko Pha Ngan: Trouble and Paradise

We heard that no trip to Thailand would be complete without a visit to the beautiful beaches of Southern Thailand, so after big city fun in Bangkok, we headed down on the overnight bus to the small and relaxed island of Pha Ngan in the Gulf of Thailand. As with all paradises, it comes with a price.

When is a ticket not a ticket? When you want to take the Raja Ferry to paradise. Despite a ticket to get on the ferry, we were informed 5 minutes before boarding that we had to trade in our ticket for another ferry boarding ticket. Oh, and the ticket office was about 2 km from the dock. In a moment of panic, Dennis pulled our bags off the bus while Kristi hopped on the back of a motorbike taxi and sped towards the ticket booth. We made it just in time--a very adreneline charged way to begin the 'relaxing' part of our trip.

After landing on the island, we had to wait two hours for enough passengers to fill our sawngthaew taxi ( a pickup truck with two opposite-facing benches in the flat bed). We made it up the mountainous and muddy road to one of the most secluded beaches on the island. As you can see from the picture, our bungalow life was great--the becah was steps from our door and we had our choice of about 10 good restaurants , putting tot ht etest our theory that we could happily eat thai food all day every day. We got lots of sun, wandering, and swimming in the big waves, as well as lots of sitting on the porch and reading good books.

The two caveats to our paradise: 1) Dennis made a poor sandwich decision earlier in Bangkok and had 5 days of stomach issues--the less said about that, the better. 2) While Dennis was laid up, Kristi spent a day mopeding around the island and trekking to different waterfalls. After an hour of torrential downpours in the morning, the roads were worse than ever, so after a couple of wipe outs, she dragged herself back to the bungalow to recover. We found that having a well bandaged arm gets you a lot of nods from people on the island asking simply, 'motorbike?' It was more embarassing than anything else, especially when you see entire Thai families piled onto a motorbike, driving one-handed, talking on a cell phone and weaving through traffic, while the kids do their homework while snacking on the back (no exhageration!). Yet despite the trouble, paradise is still paradise.

-K & D

3 Nights in Bangkok

OK, 80's aficionados will now have the Murry Head classic "One Night in Bangkok" stuck in their heads. Trust us, it's worse when you are here. You really do walk around with the song in your head. After getting into our first night's hostel by 1 am (5 pm Sydney Time, I think) sightseeing was out of the question. The next morning, we donned our backpacks and set out to find a cheaper place to stay that was more in the thick of things.

For the uninitiated, this is the point where the touts begin to offer you things. The tuk tuk drivers (3 wheeled motorcycles with bench seating in the back) want to drive you to your destination or to a gem dealer--they decide. People have the PERFECT place for you to stay, sight to see, breakfast to eat. It's never that pushy-just trying to make a living-but can become a bit much when you are drenched in sweat lugging 45 pounds of luggage on your back.

But once we settled into our new place, we were able to set out and explore in relative comfort. Despite the ubiquity of touts, the bulk of our walking in Bangkok has been through wonderful markets crowded with vendors, gawkers and shoppers. To give a sense of the experience (and to keep with the 80's pop culture theme) the experience of Bangkok is sorta like watching Bladerunner in smell-o-vision with the best food smells one second mixed with the worst smells of sewage the next. We especially enjoyed walking through Chinatown and Little India--just when you think there's no way you can get more narrow lanes and alleys with more vendors, you turn a corner and get to push yourself along an impossibly narrow market alley, dodging motorbikes every so often.

We also made it to Siam Square, which is in the more modern section of town (read giant shiny malls and with more teens break dancing, less street market action). Of course, the pace is just as frenetic, and the streets are still filled with people day and night.

What we quickly realized is that the further that you left the Khao San area (the cheap backpacker street) the more enjoyable. I think that the downside of guidebooks is that it drives everyone with the book to the same 10 hotels. The remedy is that we are quite capable of getting lost/ignoring the book. Stumbling onto beautiful Wats, Giant Stuppas and golden Buddhas is more fun when you don't entirely know that they are there. We especially enjoyed Wat Arun, a short water taxi across the Mae Nam Chao Phraya river. They allow you to walk the incredibly steep stairs towards the top of the towers, which gave a great view of the city and again gave Dennis the opportunity to conquer his fear of heights. So in summary, if "one night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble," three nights in Bangkok make two tourists exhasted and happy. So to wind down, we're off to a few days on the beach in Southern Thailand.

-K & D

Sydney on a Little More Sleep

With the last four days in Sydney we set about walking every square inch of the downtown. While some may think, 'impossible,' my sore feet beg to differ. We made sure to take care of the obvious things first: checking out the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and getting the requisite pictures. And while those where impressive, I think one of our favorite parts of the city were the extensive Botanical Gardens. Getting to wander in downtown and take a break in the shady comfort of the gardens was really nice.

Random Highlights:
1. Sitting in an internet cafe late at night listening to Chinese kids use a strange English/Chinese/gamer's-speak pigeon while playing some video game
2. Realizing we were not the target market at our hostel when they advertized an "all-you-can-drink-in-an-hour" socializing event. The idea of drinking mass quantities with a group of somewhat over-determined 19 year olds didn't suit us.
3. Exploring the funky neighborhoods of Newtown, Darlinghurst and Kings Cross and sampling the wonderful bookstores.
4. Trying "authentic" Mexican food in Newtown prepared by Spanish people. Closer than we thought..
5. When it is really hot outside and there is the offer of a free tour WITH air conditioning, you will tour almost anything. To wit: we toured the Governor's House, which is akin to a Samoan touring the Kansas Governor's house. Perhaps not the most relevant history to ours, but not a bad tour or way to cool off.

-d

Sydney on No Sleep

Our intro to Sydney was a little bumpy. After waiting for the free hostel shuttle at the airport for nearly 2 hours and checking into our room, we decided to walk around and orient ourselves to the city a bit. Sydney is a huge, bustling, international city--something we hadn't experienced for a while. We wandered off map and got pretty lost. Ironically, in our darkest hour, we came across Glebe Road. We knew we were doomed if Sydney operated any way like Northern Virginia. When I first moved to DC, our friend Tom gave me a driving tour of Northern Virginia, announcing at nearly every turn another Glebe Road, which still perplexed us to this day. Fortunately, Sydney only has one Glebe Road (or we couldn't find North, South, East, and West Glebe before we panicked and quickly asked for directions.) We're looking forward to some sleep and staying here a few days to do some more non-Glebe-related exploring.
-d

The Return to Wellington and Goodbye to New Zealand

We returned once again to our friend Dan's in Wellington to pick up where we left off, namely hanging out with him and his flat mates on the back porch drinking wine and talking about American politics, religion, kiwi culture, and classic rock. It was great to unwind and have real conversations after feeling like complete tourists for so long. Thanks again Dan, David, and Shannon!

We ran into our second bit of nasty weather as we made our longest drive yet--Wellington to Auckland in 10 hours. Since we needed to be at the airport the following morning at 4 am, we decided to sleep in the airport--a mixed bag that made us long for the austere comforts of 'Delicious V.' We hope we'll only need to repeat this experiment in insomnia a couple more times in the coming months.

--K & D

So Long, South Island

Our first time through the port town of Picton, we stopped for little more than email. But this time, we spent a little more time in its environs. Notably, we splurged on "pizza" and followed that mistake with a wonderful hike through the Queen Charlotte Sound. The hike took us up to some beautiful views of inlets and bays and gave us a chance to bid a fond farewell to the crazy plants of the South Island--we'll miss you, giant ferns!
-K & D

Two Nights in Nelson

One of the main advantages of staying in one place for more than a day is that you can start to develop little stories about the place and its people. To wit: On our first day in Nelson, we took care of some stuff in an internet cafe staffed by one slightly condescending tech guy who looked down his nose at a German tourist who didn't know how a certain type of software worked. OK, standard enough. It seems that this type of person has worked in each of the internet cafes I've been to. But, on day two of wandering the streets of Nelson, I happened to glance into an empty shop selling what looked to be standard teeny bopper clothing and who should be standing dejectedly behind the counter? That's right, our condescending computer guy. I couldn't help imagining that he treated the young clientèle with the same contempt, perhaps telling them that certain halter tops were certainly not in style anymore.

The second half of our Nelson stay was not completely filled with people watching, though. We decided to take a stab at one of the most popular treks in NZ--the Abel Tasman. Unlike the trails that had occupied most of our hiking time in NZ--the Abel Tasman is relatively easy hiking along the coast in a more tropical setting. Once we started what was going to be a 5 hour hike, we got pulled astray by the beach that wound next to the trail. So instead of the long walk, we decided to stroll through the rocky shallows along the beach. After getting marooned in an inlet due to our ignorance of the tides, and wading rather than walking back to the beach, we finished the hike by taking another ill-conceived walk through the muddy estuary. A few lost flip-flops later, we were off for a night in Picton, our last stop on the South Island.
-d

The People Have Spoken--And Shame on You

In a resounding (11 to 10) vote, the people have voted to let Mark Groner, mid-30s Hollywood, CA resident, buy a fannypack. Whether this vote indicates encouragement or malice, we may never know. But for those who voted yes, I want you to look into your souls and ask, "did I consider Mark's wife and young child for even a second before casting my vote?" I'll let your conscience be your guide...
-K

Pancake Rocks and Glowworm

The west coast of the South Island is one of the least populated parts of NZ. Initially, we weren't sure what we should do on the drive north from the glaciers, but we got a great recommendation from the folks in Christchurch to stop in at the megalopolis of Punakaiki. Although our map would indicate this was a samll town by the font size, it's really just a DOC visitor's center, two cafes, and some accomodations.

Though the town is tiny, it makes up for its size with all of the fantastic hiking and scenery nearby. Our first hike was to Fox Caves and it had to be one of our favorites. Although it didn't start out at all challenging (the 2 river crossings we were warned about were basically dry), it got progressively harder as we neared the cave. After sliding around on moss-covered rocks for 20 minutes, we came to a warning sign for slippery rocks. If you're Dennis, this would put you into a giggling/cursing/ hysterical state, but the sign bore out. The last ascent to the cave is over large, wet, moss covered boulders. Pretty treacherous, but exploring the huge cave was a great reward for the efforts.

We then checked out the pancake rocks along the shore of Punakaiki. The rocks are still one of nature's mysteries according to the signs, plus they're pretty.

Although we didn't wait till dark for our next caving experience as advised, we also explored Punakaiki Cavern, turned off our headlamps, waited in the pich black towards the back of the cave, and saw a glowworm. We'd seen dozens of glowworm caving tours since we've been in NZ, and this was the only cavern so far that was free. In retrospect, this was probably because it contains one dodgy glowworm, but we were still really excited to see him/her/it!

-K

Foxy and Franzy

In a country that so far seems to have every geoogical formation, it should be no shock that there are 2 glaciers about 25 km apart on the west coast. And of course both being glaciers, we had to make some comparisons.

Fox Glacier: We first visited Fox Glacier, the more southern of the two. We did a steep 2 hour climb through lovely native bush with sharp turns across steams, until we got our first drmatic glimpse of the glacier about half way up the mountain. The ultimate lookout point was great, with views of the entire valley left by the receding glacier ringed by sheer cliffs that looked how we imagined Yosemite may have looked 100,000 years ago. Pictures don't adequately capture how steep the ice wall is--its terminal face gives a sense of how the ice chews away the rock. The face is pretty grey--brown, kind of like dirty snow, which I guess it technically is, but above are cathedral-spire blue peaks. On the walk to the actual terminal face of the glacier, we were flanked by masive rock falls that fanned out along the edge of the valley.

Interlude: After our Fox hikes, we decide to squeeze in another hike to nearby Gillespie Beach to see an abandon gold mining operation and a not-abandoned seal colony. We learned a valuable lesson here--carefully study the trail map before setting out. If you don't, you'll end up on a deserted beach walking towards a point for over an hour before turning back convinced this can't actually be a trail, especially as it would be washed away at high tide. Having said that, the pounding surf and the desolation of the place made the walk worth it. Upon returning to the beginning of the trail, we learned that we just needed to walk around the point to reach the miners' tunnel and seal colony. Heavens to Mergatroid!

Franz Joseph Glacier: The first difference we noticed was that Franz was much more visible from the town and seemed larger, stretching back further into the mountains than Fox. We began our exploration by hiking to a viewpoint at the opposite end of the valley. The valley created by Franz is more narrow with less rock falls, but covered with cool red rocks. On our second hike, the approach walk, the glacier was in view the whole time. There's more consistent aquamarine ice, but it lacked Fox's impresive peaks.

So in the final glacial show-down, there is no clear winner--you just have to see them both.

-K & D

You Can Drive a Bus and Give a Commentary

Our very first organized tour was amazing, and probably set an example that will be hard to follow, in large part because of our bus driver Max. To understand the genius of Max, you may need to be familiar with ex-DC United Coach and now color commentator for the spanish soccer league, Ray Hudson.

To give a taste of the Hudson flair for the overdramatic, the following is an example from a Barcellona match we watched recently, where a player made a run for goal, but didn't score:

Ray: Put that boy in handcuffs and a set of shackles...put that boy in a safe...put that safe on a ship...sail that ship into the middle of the ocean...then sink that ship...and the boy would still get out!!!

Keep in mind that the match was still in progress and that the other commentator was trying to talk about what was happening on the field.

OK, now on to our bus driver, Max. To give some more context, Max is a middle-aged guy who grew up on the South Island and became interested in the environment as a young boy of eight, running through the bush at night with a knife and his trusty dog, hunting possums and pigs. As an introduction to an eco-tour focused on the birdlife and geology of Fiordland, we were already impressed.

At our first stop at the Te Anu Birdlife Sanctuary, I couldn't help but crib some notes, and so now present,

'Max's Guild to Birdlife in New Zealand':
Takahe: An endangered flightless bird with a distinctive red beak. When hand-raised, they use a special glove that looks like a takahe, otherwise they found the birds will fall in love with the human hand that feeds them. They can become quite mental.
Kea: NZ's naughtiest bird. World's only alpine parrot and the only bird that can store fat. Smart as dophins. They'll take apart a car in minutes, probably because they're interested in the mechanics. They probably like jazz, too. If you got mad at a kea and wanted to strangle it, you couldn't, they're protected by law...And they know it.
Kaka: Related to the kea, but less naughty. They can still be a bit cheeky.
Tui--NZ's cheekiest bird. They an imitate the call of all 3,000 bird species in NZ. You'll recognize them from the beer label (NZ's 'Milwaukee's Best' is called Tui).

Other interesting facts we learned from Max:
-Shania Twain just purchased one of the largest sheep operations on NZ. She also has a crush on Max.
-On multi-tasking: "Women always say men can't multi-task. Peter Jackson can direct 3 different films in 3 locations at the same time, you can drive a bus and give a commentary, you can iron the clothes and watch the baby."

So not only did we see some amazing sights and learn a bit, we got treated to the incredible storytelling of Max. Thanks!

The Ecstasy of Life in a Van

Just a quick note on our van, Delicious V. Delicious has brought us to the west coast of the South Island and found, with a little help from us, the best free night of camping ever. The picture above is from the back of the van.
-K & D

Te Anu to Queenstown, Wanaka, and Beyond

Queenstown is the place we thought we were going to go for a mid-morning to afternoon hike. As the picture above might indicate, we were underwhelmed by the town. The scenery was amazing but it's as if all of the tourism board's energy has been focused on this boomtown. For a rather coarse metaphor, the town is what Vail, CO might vomit up. Every storefront is filled with people wanting to relive you of you NZ dollars and in return show you where the Lord of the Rings was filmed, throw you off of a bridge with a bungie attactched to your ankles, send you skydiving, jet-boating, etc. It was all just a bit much after the relaxed beauty of Fiordland.

After a couple of hours, we decided to move on to Wanaka. The Rough Guide book on NZ described it as a sleepy version of Queenstown, which seemed more to our taste. The town was in fact a wonderful balance, having all of the beauthy without the frantic pace. We spent the afternoon by the lake and decided to try our hand at finding another free night of camping a bit further north.

The search brought us one of the most pleasant surprises of the trip. While not as lauded as much as the rest of the South Island, Mount Aspiring National Park was quite impressive. The area is one of the most remote in NZ, the small highway through its center was only completed in 1995. Though it was late in the day, we squeezed in a few hikes, including our first suspension bridge which led to the blue pools.

P.S. Though the highway was completed in 1995, it still has a ridiculous number of single-lane bridges, each its own adventure in trusting the right-of-way signs.

-K & D

Milford Sound? Milford Awesome

First off, since arriving in NZ, everyone has told us how quickly the weather can change, i.e. it can and probably will turn freezing cold and rain on you at any moment. We've been incredibly lucky so far with weather--almost no rain, sunny, and unseasonably warm so far. However, we ran out of luck on the haul from Dunedin to Te Anu across the southern part of the South Island. The intermittent downpours and unbelievable winds fortunately cleared up as soon as we pulled into the tiny tourist town of Te Anu, which would be our base for exploring Fiordland and the Milford Sound for a couple of days.

On our first night, we took a lovely walk around Lake Te Anu and decided to book a 'coach cruise coach' tour for Milford Sound the next day, partly to avoid driving the intimidatingly narrow and winding road without gas stations along the way. As many good things can be said about 'Delicious V,' fuel economy isn't one of them.

The tour experience had to be an entry in and of itself (see the next entry highlighting our bus driver, Max). Letting someone else do the driving was a nice change of pace and allowed us to view the scenery, like the mountains becoming more severe and beautiful as we approached the fiords. We took a two hour cruise through the Milford Sound, the skipper deftly navigating our small cruise ship close to the sides of the fiords for great views of the flora, the waterfalls, and sunbathing sea lions. We saw some bottle-nose dolphins swimming along with the boat as well. We even got a brief taste of the ocean waters past the sound, before carefully turning around in the choppy waters. The firodland area was the most unique landcape we've seen in NZ so far, and possibly our favorite.
--K & D

A Day in Dunedin

If Auckland is LA, Wellington is San Francisco, and Christchurch is Charleston, SC, then Dunedin has to be Chicago...or maybe Baltimore. When we pulling in and found parking on the edge of the warehouse district and the local cricket oval (?), a Bad News Bears-style cricket match (?) was already in progress, and we felt right at home (sort of).

The city is nestled around a bay--much like Wellington, but much less 'flash' or 'posh' (notice our attempts to blend with the natives and their peculiar dialect). Walking through the warehouse district reminded us of Chicago, and we mean that as a good thing. The town's Scottish heritage plays out in more than just the names of places; it's decidedly blue collar. We enjoyed walking around the central city octagon and finally, having some lunch, and stumbling on the bustling Saturday retail and entertainment district.

The day was capped by a walk to the beach and the chance to watch intrepid wet-suit-wearing surfers making the most of the 3 foot waves at the nearby beach.

-d

What Else Is Between Christchurch and Dunedin?

Thanks for asking! The quick answer is not much. Think sheep, grass, and rolling hills--but that's pretty much the default setting of NZ. The one exception to the least scenic drive we've been on were the Moeraki boulders.

It's hard to imagine that these boulders were made by nature, especially when you look into te hollowed out broken balls on the shore. But we were assured by the signs that they were naturlaly-occurring cyst-like depostis that were eroded and slowly exposed from the hillside.

Perhaps adding to the sci-fi-ness was the fact that we had slept in the parking lot mere steps from the beach and a herd of deer, neither of which we saw when pulling in the night before. Not a bad way to wake up!

-K & D

Little Blue or Big Yellow?

Our first stop after Christchurch was the small coastal town of Oamaru, reknowned for its penguin colonies, old victorian building, and possibley the best botanical gardens in NZ. What brought us to Oamaru were the penguins, but we were pleasantly surprised by our daytime stroll though town and the gardens--we definitely could have spent more time here--but we hurried through as the penguin viewing starts around 5:30 pm.

Yellow-Eyed Penguins: Our first penguin viewing wasn't a managed (read: expensive) experience. Essentially you walk along a nature path along the coastal cliffs above the yellow-eyed penguin colony and wait for the notoriously shy adult penguins to swim to shore to feed their babies nested along the cliffs. When we arried, there was a lone penguin standing about 2 feet tall on the beach, wings outstretched, occassionally flapping to cool down. As the small crowd of people watched the lone penguin for about 30 minutes wondering what s/he would do next (go back into the ocean, signal to his friends that it was safe to come ashore, flap his wings a bit more, etc?) we heard some rustling underneath the blind we were hiding behind. The blind was constructed to not disturb the endangered and skittish yellow-eyed penguins, so the crowd was completely hushed and hidden from view of the beach.

To our collective surprise, the rustling beneath the blind turned out to be a penguin feeding its young, but mostly preening for the cameras a few feet away. It was definitely a special experience to be so up close to this rare and beautiful bird, found only in NZ.

Blue Penguins: We moved on to view the blue penguin colony, which is a conservation projecte and was more of a manged experience (read: we had to pay). At dust, we were corrallled through the gift shop to a lighted stadium seating area nex to the beach where the blue penguins come ashore each night. The blue penguin is the world's smallest--only about 15 centimeters tall. They're known in Australia as fairy penguins and are rare in NZ and AUS, but not endangered. After a brief talk by the marine biologist, the rafts of penguins began to arrive in groups of about 20. We watched as they climbed the steep rocks ashore--running, stumbling, and goofy walking their way into our hearts. Awww.

Christchurch

One of the wonderful things about this trip so far is the kindness that we have been on the receiving end of for the past 2 months. Here in Christchurch, we are being hosted by our friends' Deb and Craig's friends' Richard and Michelle. To say that the stay has been a taste of home comforts would be an understatement. We have enjoyed amazing food and drink, tours of the various Christchurch neighborhoods, long walks through parks and the use of their bicycles for a spin around the city. All of that and we have only been here for 40 hours.

From our perspective, Christchurch has been both the most American and the most Brittish of cities in New Zealand. In the downtown core, there are streets that seem to scream Oxford, while the suburbs seem to knit together the standard American sprawl with quaint Cape Cod style hamlets. The highlight of Christchurch for me was the sunset tour of the Port area by Sumner Beach and Lyttleton, which are nestled in on the other side of a hill from Christchurch proper. The combuination of the blue blue coves, the clapboard houses and the unique port culture (read, Russian sailors who looked a little KGB-ish) was truly unique.

-d

To the South Island

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton, a beautiful 4 hour sail from New Zealand's North to South Island. The South Island is much less populated and is famous for its Lord of the Rings landscape. We pulled in too late for any of the wine tasting tours in the Marlborough Pennisula's wine region, so we drove down to the sleepy beach town of Kaikoura. The landscape here is beautiful--the southern alps are quite close to the shoreline, and there's a nearby seal colony. Though there aren't as many seals here after it warms up in November, we were able to see a good number of them, including the one above, who we've dubbed the Paris Hilton of seals.

-K & D

Wellington, Is it Better than El Paso?

After a chilly night of sleep up in the mountains, we drove down to Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, and home to my old friend from Chicago, Daniel. In addition to putting us up for a couple of nights, we got a great walking and driving tour of the city, which is beautiful and seems much bigger than it's population of just under 400,000. Wellington is kind of the boho university town of NZ, sort of the San Francisco to Auckland's Los Angeles. We can't wait to stop in again toward the end of our NZ grand tour to chill on the back porch, watch some kiwi TV and convince Dan to move to Tulsa next year.
-K

From Stinky to Sublime

With the new van we were able to visit two of New Zealand's more famous sites. First Rotarua... If you were a person, let's say me, and could eliminate one sense for a short period of time, truly rid yourself of it, you should destroy your sense of smell for a stay in Rotarua. The town is situated among a collection of hot springs that smell like the worst combination of sewage plant and rotton eggs. Yeah, that bad. But apart from the gagging, the place is truly amazing. Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland combined bubbling pools of mud with surreal bright yellow and green springs. Walking across a boardwalk that is suspended above a thin crust that itself is suspended over a bubbling cauldren was pretty thrilling.

From there we jetted on to Tongariro National Forest. In every ranking we have seen, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (a 2 day track) is ranked at the top. It is easy to see why. While we couldn't do the full track, we stitched together a few hikes that approximated the experience and were amazed by the waterfulls, thick bush, and subalpine desert conditions that existed side by side.

-d

The Tragedy of Life in a Van

Backstory: When I was 18 years old, I had a Honda Civic that caught on fire while on a road trip to Chicago. It caught on fire soon after the heat gauge went from C to H, so let's just say I have some experience with that particular gauge. Anyway, as we started up our first major pass, I glanced over at the aforementioned gauge and noticed that rather than resting comfortably on C, it was bouncing around midway towards H. At the same time, the van was barely able to keep 45 km/hour. Not wanting to be engulfed in a ball of flame (the diesel engine of the van was just below our seats), we immediately pulled over. The telltale sign of a radiator hissing and the smoke and the steam of water hitting the engine seemed to indicate we pulled over just in time.

When we looked at the engine, it seemed like we could just let it cool down, coast back down the hill to town and get a new hose. But no, suddenly the first crack of the hose occurred and steam started billowing into the van. In a flurry of motion, we quickly through all of our bags and food out of the van and onto the side of the road. Once complete we stood back thinking the worst was over, but of course it wasn't. Not 5 minutes of standing and staring later, there was a loud crack and a second geiser of steam as water and coolant poured out from below the van. Coasting the van downhill no longer seemed an option.

Maybe I'm romanticizing NZ, but I was amazed that the very first car that passed, turned around and came back down the hill to help us, without us even trying to flag anyone down. They let us use their cell phone, which miraculously had reception, and we called our rental van guy, who called a tow truck for us. The truck showed up within the hour. Thank you kind strangers!

Once back at the garage, the mechanic found that the problems with the van were pretty extensive (suspicion confirmed!), and included a busted water line and burned out turbo. The tragedy of the van indeed...

For those worried that we may be stuck in some town in the middle of NZ, fear not, our van guy did come through with a replacement that he drove down the next day. We have dubbed the new van 'Delicious V' in a spate of wild optimism. It is a little less dingged up and a lot more capable of keeping up with the flow of traffic. Not bad attributes in a Mystery Machine Mark II.

-d

The Triumph of Life in a Van

I think most people my age have wanted to own a van at some point in their lives. A big comfy van. Or maybe just drive around with their friends solving crimes in a van, a la the A-Team or Scooby Doo. My van dreams have been realized in New Zealand. Cruising the country on our own schedule, with a cooler (or 'chilly bin' as they say here) and sleeping under the stars has been good for the budget and great for me. Now if the van rental guy was cool with me airbrushing a pirate on the side, I'd be in heaven.

-K

Twelve Hours and Done: Auckland, New Zealand

So our first happy surprise of the trip was that our flight wasn't 18 hours long, it was only 12. And we got fed two full meals including free wine. Not bad, Air New Zealand! Our first bit of anxiety about landing in NZ was if our extreme budget camper van we rented was a complete scam, or would come through (more on this hypothethis later...)

We did indeed get picked up by the van rental guy, and while the van didn't look too spiffy, it looked serviceable (more on that later...) We made it into Auckland to our first hostel of the trip, the lovely Lantana Lodge, just outside downtown Auckland. We spent the first day slightly brain dead from lack of sleep---always a good opportunity to get some errands done. We made a stop at the grocery store and to the American Airlines office to purchase our Round the World tickets for the rest of our trip. Buying our tickets was really our second bit of anxiety,partly because of how complicated buying these tickets can be, and partly because we had left for our RTW trip without our proper tickets.

Luckily all went well with purchasing the tickets, we saved ourselves some cash by purchasing in New Zealand, and we got a couple of days to see the sights in Auckland. We walked through a lot of neighborhoods, including the 'K' road area and Parnell. Some noteworthy sights included the Auckland Museum, which has a nice collection of pacific island art and cultural artifacts on display.Maybe because it was the last place we visited in the U.S., Auckland seemed like a more walkable version of L.A.

After a couple of days and with tickets in hand, we drove out to the countryside toward the east coast, something all the locals kept encouraging us to do as soon as possible.
K & D

So Long USA and Thanks for everything

We just wanted to drop a quick note before we left for New Zealand tonight and thank everyone for opening their homes to us and sending us on our way so well fed and well rested and so well funned... Well, you know what we mean...

See you in 9 months!

-K & D

LA, CA, USA

What can I say, I love LA. The sprawl, the smog, the stars, the freaks--everything! Of course, you also get all the great food, shops, and bizarre attractions you can imagine. Our last stop in the U.S. was a great one. We spent it hanging out with our friends Tracy, Mark, and baby Veronica, and seeing the sites. Some new sites for me included the Observatory at the top of Griffith Park, the Getty Museum, and the Watts Towers--all great attractions. And no visit to LA would be complete without visiting the Hollywood farmers market and Amoeba Music, and a celebrity sighting or two. I find the grocery stores to be particularly fruitful for seeing celebrities. This trip we got Charisma Carpenter, Nichole Richie, and some kid from Good Charlotte--I'll let you all be the judge of how exciting these sightings are.

Now on to the important questions. Should Mark get a fanny pack? Can he "work" it? If I can figure out how to put a poll on the site, please vote so this question can finally be put to rest...

-K

P-Rock, The Calm Before the Storm

As the US leg came to a close it may be inevitable that we would catch the cold that ended all colds. The good news was that we were destined for Pilot Rock, OR and my parents' house. There is no better place to recuperate than that. Three days sleeping, blowing noses, napping, downing cold medicine, napping some more, and we felt much better. We eventually got to enjoy trips to the mountains, shooting pool in the rec room, chats with my folks, ATV rides, short hikes and feeding the horses in the pasture. Thanks Ma & Pa!

-d

PDX, Rose City…We Call it Portland

The drive from Eugene to Portland was, by far, the shortest leg of the entire 7,000 miles we’ve driven out west. After a two hour drive with the fabulous company of Dave and Lolo crammed into our backseat, and a nutritious Voodoo Doughnut breakfast, we parted company and drove to our friends Jen and John’s place in Southeast Portland. Look on a map. Find the neighborhood that doesn’t look like the rest of the city’s grid. Doesn’t it seem like an alien landing site? This can’t be confirmed, but it is a lovely neighborhood, none the less.

We were lucky enough to have hospitality warmly extended once again; we enjoyed hanging out and catching up, distracting Jen from her dissertation and John from teaching the finer points of the German language, as well as playing with their truly unique kitty, Ralphie (and pining for the shyest kitty in the world, Lizzie). Highlights of the visit have to include the offbeat trip research contained in the documentary “Cain Toads,” as well as a truly frightening local neighborhood performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Oh my! John and Jen also reintroduced us to the wonderful neighborhood bars of Portland: Cheap brews + smoking + pinball = what more could you ask for? Next time we’re in town, it’s ping pong for sure.

We also caught up with our friend Erica in Portland, who’s doing kind of a west to east reverse cross-country trip from ours, but luckily with some sweet west coast overlap. We spent a day in downtown Portland making the obligatory and always satisfying trip to Powell’s books, and we nearly saw Portland’s Japanese Tea Gardens but didn’t (NOT ONLY because we overslept we’ll have you know, but because we were too cheap!)

We met up on our last day for an amazing breakfast and then drove to Multnomah Falls for a short hike up to the top of the falls. One of the cool things about Portland is the close proximity to really cool nature like waterfalls, rainforests, mountains, and beaches. We bid Erica farewell and crossed our fingers that she wouldn’t be pulled over by Five-0 because her station wagon looks like it belongs to a serial killer, which of course, she’s not. So far, so good, we hear.
--K & D

Road Trip Socialites

First things first, we have to let you know that Dennis used to be a duck. In addition to being known for its large hippie contingent and as the setting for Animal House, University of Oregon was also the place where Dennis graduated college (pre-Phil Knight buy-up, thank you very much).

Our first destination was visiting our recently relocated friends from DC, Craig and Deb. Our trip "mentors" Dave and Lolo were also in Eugene, so we got to shake more knowledge from their road-weary brains in prep for the international legs of our trip. We had two wonderful days hanging out, watching soccer and eating delicious food. In addition to the wonderful homemade food (thanks Deb), we also partook of the delightful Pizza Research Institute--definitely a recommended stop for any student of the illustrious pizza eating arts. Think you can't put every vegetable known to man, and corn, and peaches, and sweet cream on one slice of pizza? Naive pizza lover--you should visit the PRI and learn a thing or two!

Craig also took us on a hike up Spencer's Butte, and while Dennis and Lolo had been on this hike before, none of us where prepared for the accidental freewheeling/ off-trailing experience that Craig (or perhaps Maggie the dog) led us into. In the end, it was a much more fun and adventurous route and still resulted in a great view of Eugene at the top. The flora reminded us slightly of Endor, but not as much as in Sequoia, where 'Return' was actually filmed (geek check!)

The second stop on our social calendar was to our lovely and talented friends, Eric and Stephanie. We also got some more doggy love time with Molly the dog. Dennis got to take a walk down memory lane (or a squirm, depending on which story Eric or Stephanie told) when we headed to campus for some Espresso Roma coffee and to the falafel cart outside the bookstore...surprisingly still delicious! Our only regret was not visiting when Eric's band, Station Wag, was playing a show. Long live bass guitar!

Our last night was spent at dinner with all of our Eugene friends around the table, including our friend Anna, who we wish we could have spent more time with. Ah, that's what you get for trying to stay on a schedule. See you all in about a year!
-K & D

It's San Frantastic!

We're here in San Francisco for a few days hanging out with our friends Leora, Matt, and Cat Fulvio and seeing the sites. San Francisco is a great town for just walking through different neighborhoods. After living in DC for a while, I was pretty amazed by all the independent, non-chain stores and restaurants, a definite bonus of living here. In what seemed to us like a miracle of navigational skill, Leora took us to these gigantic concrete slides tucked away on the windy back streets of a random neighborhood. After chatting it up with the local teenagers, we took a few turns. These slides were fast and definitely not regulation!

Partly to keep up with our "training," we walked up some ridiculous hills to Golden Gate Park with the intent of visiting the Japanese Tea Garden, but unfortunately we got there too late to see the koi and drink some tea. The next day, we bought some fortune cookies in Chinatown and went to the Mission District to eat some delicious burritos. We checked out the cool murals in an alley behind the burrito joint and met up later with friends Erica and Kirsten, who I hadn't seen in ages, for some sushi. Good friends, good food, good San Francisco!
-K

Sophisticated Alpaca, Defined...

Everyone by now should be aware that we're just skating off the coat tails of our friends Dave & LeeAnne, who are winding down their Round the World trip right now. As some may recall, they had some adventures in Mongolia. So when searching for non-camping option near Yosemite (40 degrees at night is as cold as we were prepared to sleep on the camping portion of our trip), we found an RV park with yurts. After reminding ourselves why you should never trust Mapquest in rural areas, we rolled into the Yosemite Pines RV Park late to find the most tricked-out yurt you could imagine. This thing had cable tv, a space heater, a microwave, refrigerator, coffee maker, and more electrical outlets per square foot than is sane and probably safe. In summary, it was nicer than the motels we've stayed on along the way, and we loved it. Mongolia, it was not.

And you don't get to be the 8th best RV Park in the U.S. (as rated by the Travel Channel, who knew!) by resting on the laurels of your yurts alone. There was also a petting zoo where we got our first confirmed alpaca sighting of the trip. Heaven. Although when we learned that the much advertised ping pong/ game room failed to exist (dam you rowdy kids from last season!), we had to adjust the Travel Channel rating from an 8 to about a 10 or 11.
-K & D

Yosemite National Park

First off, we realized that Fall might not be the ideal time to visit Yosemite. Sure the park isn't as crowded as in the Spring and Sumer, but the iconic waterfalls are no longer waterfalls by the end of summer. While we would have loved to see the waterfalls, Yosemite is much more than just these famous features. The park is a massive collection of jutting granite rock faces rising from the valley floor. And while the park has hundreds of thousands of acres, we focused on the most well-known central valley. If you've seen any Ansel Adams photos, they all seem to be taken in this valley.

We did a great hike up to Columbia Rock, which allows you to see much of the valley and surrounding mountains. We got a little nervous with all the swirling black clouds, and once it started to rain, we headed down the mountain for fear of lightning strikes. We definitely want to come back and hike the park more extensively because it's one of the most phenomenal places we've seen so far. So long for now, Yosemite!
-K & D

Sequoia National Park

We never thought we loved the humidity of Washington, DC, but after seven years, we grew accustomed to moisture sweet moisture. So for us, driving from Zion to Sequoia National Park after weeks in the desert felt delightful. Even fog felt like a relief.

Now onto the giant trees--we love giant trees. We were told by one of the rangers about a nice 3--4 hour rolling hike through the woods to a vista on top of Moro Rock. For the first hour, we began to wonder if the ranger's definition of rolling hills was different, as the hike was all uphill. Eventually we got to the rolling part among the giant sequoias and redwoods. Of course, we had to think of Ewoks along the walk.

The hike ended in a way that helped me redeem my fear of heights--the final ascent of 376 steps to the top of Moro Rock--often near exposed cliffs--was accomplished. While I was a bit spooked, the ultimate view on top was fantastic. Seeing the granite peaks of the Sierra Nevadas getting larger in the distance was truly breathtaking. Oh, did I mention there were giant trees? We love the giant trees.

We also did some smaller self-guided nature trails and learned about the superpowers of the giant sequoias, who are thousands of years old, have survived many forest fires and are completely resistant to insects, fungus, and other afflictions that typically affect the smaller trees. Once again, we had to think of Luke, who after losing his arm, came back even stronger with enhanced jedi powers. Did we mention that the giant trees reminded us of Return of the Jedi?
-D

Interlude: Zion to Visalia, CA

If you glance down at your speedometer and you are going ninety miles an hour and people in the right lane are passing you like you are standing still, you are on highway 15 on the stretch between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Good Hoodoo

I must confess I had no idea what a hoodoo was before visiting Bryce Canyon. We took a day trip into Bryce while staying in Zion, since the parks are fairly close together. It’s a great day (or two day) trip, with several hiking trails that cover various altitudes/ ecosystems and some really cool scenery, including more hoodoos than anyplace in the world. The hoodoos are actually huge towers of limestone formed millions of years ago (and continually) by ice and rainwater, and most importantly, they look really cool. ….
-K

Zion

So how do you top the experience of the Grand Canyon? The quick answer is that you don’t, but if you are going to try, Zion National Park isn’t a bad place to start. The park itself is like some desert on steroids. There are cliffs and, crazy sandstone formations, weeping rocks, hidden pools of water, trails that are barely chipped out of the walls of mountains, rattlesnakes and 50 degree shifts in daily temperatures.

While its beauty is undeniable, the park seems to be set up as a gauntlet of my fears. I do not love heights. I am fine with heights as long as I am encased in steel and glass, and have no access to outside air. Sadly, Zion does not make their trails to satisfy my needs. After a few tame hikes, we decided to try our boots at the Hidden Canyon trail. The Park’s hiking guide mentions that the trail should not be attempted by anyone with a fear of heights; and the symbol that they use to convey this? Why an abstracted hiker figure slipping and beginning his/her plummet off a cliff. Wonderful.

The first part of the trail was a standard collection of steep switchbacks. The cliff-side of the trail was an exposed drop, but frankly, that wasn’t too bad. Once we got to the first major trail break, the trail narrowed, became a less comfortable 3-4 feet wide, but still doable. Next, the trail narrowed to about 3 feet wide, was slanted about 20-30 degrees toward the 1500 foot drop and had chin link drilled into the side of the mountain. I scrambled across one such expanse and felt like I had conquered Everest. The second such trail section wasn’t so successful. On seeing that the chipped ledge appeared to run into thin air and not stick to the mountainside, I made some comment about how this was clearly not up to OSHA standards, turned around and began down the mountain.

Luckily there were other trails that were rigorous but not quite so terrifying. I made the decision that my hiking would be more about enjoying the hiking and the scenery and less about me grimly sizing up irrational fears and trying to overcome them. It makes the whole experience more fun and less like a Jack London Book in which the dog and the guy bravely soldier on through malnourishment and frostbite.
-D

Two Granola Bars and a Handful of Raisins Isn’t Enough

I’ve been to the Grand Canyon a few times. The last time when I was 20 with my friend Phil. Back then, we hiked down to the river and back in one day despite the many signs warning against it. Machismo or stupidity? At age 34, the answer is clearly stupidity. Kristi had never seen the Grand Canyon before and was blown away by how ‘grand’ it actually is. That evening we set up camp, we walked the south rim trail at sunset and caught a glimpse of two different groups of elk literally crossing our paths. After I snapped a picture, the big bull elk let it be known he was none too keen with us getting in his way, so we were happy to back off asap.

On day two, we decided to take the Bright Angel Trail as far as our legs would take us. We made it to the relatively lush Indian Gardens towards the bottom of the Canyon, but thought twice about hiking the extra 3 miles to the edge of the plateau, where there’s a clear overlook of the very bottom of the Canyon. While the statistics would say we hiked 9 miles and over a vertical mile, it doesn’t begin to capture the sheer agony of the hike. On the way down, we stopped regularly for pictures and to admire the breath-taking scenery. But once the slog back up began, the pictures sorta stopped. When we were a third of the way up, it became clear that our meager rations did not add up to the “twice as much as you would eat at home” requirements of the hike.

The last 3 miles are rough—it’s steep switchbacks the entire way, with the very last portion filled with flip flop wearing tourists who just wandered down to take a photo—and we really felt wrecked then. We also began reflecting on this trip of ours for the first time in a while, possibly because this was the first part of our trip where we ran into all kinds of tourists from around the world (sorry guy from Pittsburg at the Carlsbad Caverns!), and started to feel far from home for the first time.
--D

Like a Phoenix from the Ashes

If you happen to need to stay overnight in Globe, AZ, may I suggest you don’t stay at the Motel 6. Just don’t. From Globe, it’s a short drive to the second of our family stops, my sister Leslie in Phoenix, AZ. On the way there, we got in a couple of short hikes just outside of Phoenix in the Superstition Mountains. We hiked up a plateau in 60 mph winds with very little shade. Ugh-the dessert…I mean, ugh-we R tough!

When we arrived at Leslie and Steve’s house, it felt especially good to be welcomed and comfortable after several days of camping and bad motels. Unfortunately, Kristi came down with the flu and spent the next 24 hours sleeping. While she slept, Leslie and Steve took me to Mystery Mansion, an 18 room mansion built by an eccentric old man for his daughter. The daughter moved in in 1945 and has lived there ever since. We were lucky enough to have her show us around the house, which stands as a testament to old-school recycling. Depression-era glass was used as windows, old bottles were used as tile, and a wagon wheel was used as a bar. Check out photos to get a sense of the place. After that we went for a wonderful drive up the winding mountain roads of South Mountain Municipal Park, the largest municipal park in the U.S. of A. (with some wonderful views of Phoenix.) When we got back and Kristi awoke at around 7 pm, Steve cooked his (to us now) famous ‘deconstructed burger.’ Delicious and just what the doctor ordered.

The following day we relaxed and hung out, but also made a trip to the Casa Grande, old prehistoric ruins of a Hohokam Indian village. There are a ton of ruins throughout the AZ desert, just waiting to be discovered to help us understand more about the past (or pillage and vandalize it, depending on your perspective). We encountered a lots of names carved into the ruins from the 1800s—those punk kids! But at least it led to Casa Grande becoming the nation’s first archeological preserve in the late 1800s.
--D

New Mexico No More

We had a three-prong attack planned this morning. Prong 1: White Sands. As we rolled into Alamogordo, NM, we read that the road leading to/from White Sands is often closed so the military can safely bomb everything that surrounds this national monument. We were feeling lucky that we made it throughout without any road closures and saw the Sands, which exceeded expectations (thanks for the recommendation, Emily!) It was bizarre to be surrounded by huge white sand dunes after hours of driving through the mountains. Charging up the dunes, you realize just how quiet everything is—the sand muffles all sound. But what could improve this experience, you ask? Coming over a dune to find three Japanese body builders stripped down to Speedos photographing each other in the middle of the dessert. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this photo—we tried to capture how surreal and enjoyable a moment this was…

Prong 2: Gila Cliff Dwellings. We wanted to see some cliff dwellings at some point on this trip, and these cliffs near the New Mexico and Arizona border seemed to fit the bill. The map showed the ancient dwelling about 40 miles north of Silver City, NM, up in the Gila National Forest. It’s difficult to explain why the road to Gila made Dennis think that the characters in Deliverance might have just been well-adjusted but misunderstood. After about 5 miles up Deliverance Road, we saw a sign explaining it would take us an additional two hours to reach the cliff dwellings, which incidentally also closed at 4 pm. It was almost 3:00, so we decided to turn back and pursue Prong 3: Ghost Towns.

We saw on the atlas that there are two ghost towns near the border of NM and AZ. While the nearby towns looked like ghost towns we had the brochures to prove there were really old timey historical ghost towns nearby. The first town we visited closed at 2 pm. Ugh. We decided to call the second ghost town to make sure we could walk around the grounds before driving a bit out of the way to get there. Apparently, it’s only open on the weekends, and a nice family lives there the rest of the time. So we left NM with only one of our three sites seen. Having said that, we’ve talked too much trash about NM already. We really did enjoy what we were able to see there, and it’s definitely unlike any place we’ve ever been. Maybe one of these days, we’ll make it back and get to see more.
-K & D

Caves, UFOs, and Bats

We got a decent night’s sleep but for the a-rythmic and continual beating sound of a nearby oil drilling operation to wake us up. Who would locate a park in the middle of oil fields? Apparently, New Mexico would. And the though the park was blessed with bunnies, it had an unfortunate number of scorpions and tarantulas. I was reminded of all the small and deadly creatures that inhabit the desert when I was joined in the shower by a scorpion.

After a hike around the lake, we set out for Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns were amazing and huge. We took one of the mile long self-guided tours, but unfortunately weren’t able to get on a ranger-led tour of the unimproved caves because they only run those tours on the weekends. When we were done exploring the caves, we realized we had another 6 hours before the next Carlsbad Cavern attraction we wanted to see—the bat flight at sundown.

So what do you do when you’ve got hours to kill in Southeastern New Mexico? You drive to Roswell for the UFO museum, of course! We made the ridiculous drive to Roswell and back mostly so we could squeeze in some more attractions we had heard about for the following day.

You could probably spend hours at the UFO museum “finding the truth”—they even have a research library for you to peruse and check out books. My only critique of the UFO museum was the conspicuous absence of the WB’s Roswell teen drama. What gives? Being at the museum spurred a pretty interesting conversation about Dennis and my different personal beliefs where we forced each other to rank in order of liklihood the existence of seamonsters, chupacabra, yeti, the faked 1969 moon landing, and aliens. Forget about questions of religious and cultural differences, this is the stuff you need to know about the person you plan to spend the rest of your life with.

We made it back to Carlsberg for the bats with time to spare. I was hoping to make up for the lackluster bat video in Austin, but unfortunately no photos or video are allowed. I have to say that the bat flight was incredible and well worth the commute. At about 6:30 pm, millions of bats begin pouring out of the cave in a black cyclone swirl and fly towards their insect hunting grounds in giant cloud formations. A mesmerizing experience and one that makes you feel truly in awe of these tiny mammals.
-K

West Texas, We’ll Not See You for a While

Today was one of our long haul drive days. Having been thorough West Texas a few times, my memory had been that it goes on forever and looks vaguely the same. Contrary to my memory, at least half of I-10 is at least rolling hills, not the flat scrub I remembered. Not exactly my ideal scenery, but didn’t necessary make me wan to drive into a ditch.

Our goal was to make it to Carlsbad Caverns and stay at a park on the outskirts by sundown. But the first victory of leaving Texas and entering New Mexico was undercut by one of the central features of NM—it stinks. Our first indication was a stretch of 3 miles that smelled like an industrial revision of Lysol. Soon after, that odor was replaced by the smell of oil rigs. And just to clear that palette, we then piled on the smell of skunk and manure. Since smell isn’t on e of the 5 senses catered to by NM tourism board, we we were left in the recycled air of the car looking at the rugged beauty of the desert.

Thanks to NM’s Department of Transportation’s decision to make the speed limit 70 mph and above, we made it just in time to set up camp in Brantley State Park, though the last 30 minutes were spent desperately trying to remember the squinting-thumb-measurement-till-sundown trick from childhood to gauge how much daylight we had left. When we were down to 3 thumbs, we turned into the campsite. Our arrival was heralded by no fewer than twelve rabbits of various sizes, including super-fast giant hares. This immediately caused Kristi to regress to her 3 year old self, wildly clapping and squealing, BUNNIES! Not a bad way to end a long drive.
-D

Austin, TX

We’ve been in Austin, TX for a couple of days, hanging out with Dennis’ very fun sister Emily. She gets to play tourist by showing us the attractions. We went to an arts festival on 6th Street, and went to watch thousands of bats emerge from under Congress bridge at dusk (check out my feeble attempts to capture the bats on video).

We woke up the next morning and had breakfast at Las Manitas, a great Mexican diner serving cheap and delicious eats. If you’re in Austin, check it out, it probably won’t be there for long. Later, while kayaking on Ladybird Lake, we passed by who I can only assume was Matthew McConaughey (hard to tell because he was wearing a shirt). The McConaughey was floating by in a tiny sail boat smoking weed and made some small talk about the breeze. Ah, Austin!

So, we highly recommend going to Austin . Not only will you see several men who could be the McConaughey, but Emily could make you the most delicious homemade panini sandwiches and show you the sites.
-K

Hot Springs, AK, aka Bubbatown

Imagine a paper mill. Imagine you were a block down-wind from said paper mill. Now imagine you could capture that odor and cram it into the smallest space possible. Now sit in that room for 10 hours and you'll have a close aproximation of what its was like to drive to Arkansas from the Smokies. That kind of powerful odor has a nearly psychotropic effect at times. While I rationally knew all I needed to do was find a motel with a working shower somewhat near our destination, I had moments where I thought about driving the entire way to my sister Emily's in Austin, TX (for context that's about a 20 hour drive).

Stopping in Hot Springs, one of the two AR towns claiming to be the home of Bill Clinton, was worth it for more than just the shower. Hot Springs is a combination of an Ocean City, MD with a Berkeley Springs, WV, so picture a quaint historic town surrounded by natural beauty, combined with all the tie-dyed keychains and personalized airburshed unicorn shirts your heart could ever desire. We rolled in too late to do a full tour of the bath houses, but did get to walk around the hillside park behind the bath houses and see the "display" hot springs. Pretty hot!

One of the curious things we've noticed while touring the south is that the tourist attractions seem almost exclusively visited by the over-70 set and bikers. At least we're now feeling younger and cleaner than most! I guess we'll see how this theory plays itself out through TX...
-D

Older than Many, Cleaner than Some...

We saw this sign advertising a motel "on the strip" in Pigeon Forge, TN. Across the street was a sign reading "Welcome" Welcome Center. For non- country music history buffs, Pigeon Forge is the birthplace of Dolly Parton, and adjacent to her recently bankrupted Dollywood theme park. We were just a little too late to take in this attraction, but judging from the businesses that sprung up around it, we weren't missing much--lots of Appalachian and Jesus-themed supper club productions.

The drive out of the Smokies to Pigeon Forge was beautiful, as was the Pigeon River itself. In the early morning, it looks like steam pours off the river, giving it an overall smokey appearance--very cool.
But after two chilly nights in a national park with no showers, we were definitely feeling more like the commercial strip of Pigeon Forge, that is, "older than many, cleaner than some," and ready to drive on to what awaits in Arkansas.
--Kristi & Dennis

The First of Many National Parks

For those who had the great joy and honor of seeing our house put up for sale, you may have set eyes upon our realtor Mark Rutstein's photo of the Smokey Mountains (which much improved the look of our bathroom). What you'll notice here is a picture of the same location, which isn't as beautiful. While the Smokey Mountains are beautiful, they don't photograph well (much like the moon, I recently discovered).

Our first hike was to the highest pint in the Smokeys (though I guess when you drive most of the way up the mountain, it's cheating!) We climbed the steep, paved path up to a bizarre future-mod ramp with great views, even if a little foggy.
-D

Asheville, NC

Finally the car moves. In an attempt to get to New Zealand, the first thing we had to do was drive to Asheville, NC. And as a place to start our travels, it may be one of the better places. Nestled in the hills of the Smokey Mountains, Asheville is a wonderful combination of a mountain town, an eco village, and a sleepy southern 'burg. Even better than the city itself was being so warmly welcomed by our friends Jean and Boris, who we hadn't seen in years, as well as their great roommates and adorable son, Sava. With some world travelers in the bunch, we got some good tips, like exotic fruits to try in NZ and Jean's parting words, "remember, everything's temporary"! Pretty reassuring...