Leigh's Excellent European Adventure

Month One Wrap-Up + Leigh’s Adventures in Trans-Global DIY!

2010-06-30T02:59:00.000+10:00

Yes you heard it first, it's LEIGH'S EXCELLENT DIY ADVENTURE PART 2 - fresh from the production company that brought you such enthralling episodes as "the poo valve" and "rebuilding a drive shaft in the snow" comes... GERMAN APARTMENT RENOVATION.

I can feel your excitement growing already.

But first, a few words and pictures about the first month.

Shortly after arriving we made a dash for Berlin. Amongst other things we attended a Zen seminar and visited the famous Panorama Bar and Watergate clubs.

There are no photos allows, so instead we present you pictures of our Berghain stamps:

That's pretty exciting right? Correct.

We also drank some beer, went on a little river cruise and were circled ominously by pigeons.

Right. That's Berlin. Next up we headed over to Essen to meet up with our art director Marc and sniff around the more local scene. Good times. Cept for the EUR80 cab ride home (*glares at Daniel*).

The weekend after that was Munich. Munich is a delightful city, with lots of beautiful women. That is all. I grow tired of this waffle about travel.. for now… it is .. on to the EXCITING STUFF!!!

First a little tour of my apartment.

The view that is presented to you when entering:

Kitchen. In this picture it’s full of Ikea boxes. Now it’s less full of boxes and more full of stuff.

The delightful looking box in the corner is the gas heating/water unit.

This will be the living room. It was empty, now it’s FULL of empty Ikea boxes and plastic packaging and the like…

Another shot, but backwards. Note carefully placed camera bag and excellent 1970’s lighting feature.

This will be the studio. It’s now less full of boxes.

This is the bedroom – you can see the skeleton of my bed being laid out on the floor. Obviously this was the first piece of furniture I completed…

Another view, looking back out.

Another view of the studio.

This is my 4th room. Haven’t quite figured out what to do with this yet. Think it will be the formal dining area (hah!) or will be a spare room for any longer term guests or housemates!

And finally the bathroom.

Just wanted to highlight a few of the special features of the house. I love the 70s lighting…

…and the toilet is a cracker!

That’s all for today. Tomorrow’s SCINTILLATING update will be more DIY focussed…

Flying high...

2010-05-28T06:26:00.005+10:00

Gold I tell you!

Things that have been interesting about this journey:

1. People's innate inability to cope with anything on planes. For example: row/seat numbers, tray tables, entertainment units, cutlery, toilets, manners and the list goes on.

2. That the 3 way split journey (MEL/KUL/DXB/DUS) was actually a relatively pleasant way to fly. 1-1.5 hours is just enough time to swan about the terminal doing whatever it is that fancies you and not long enough to get bored. Jolly good I say.

3. Watching the landscape pass by on the downwards facing camera!

Several things that have made this trip excellent:

1. Batman eye-mask - this little beauty was also the facilitator of my famous 17hr sleep from the other weekend. I can't recommend it enough.

2. Earplugs - combined with item above the cacophony that is an intercontinental flight fades into the background.

3. Sleepers - Thanks Mel.

So here I am, after day one - kind of jet-lagged and lacking blog inspiration. Big thanks of course go out to Christian, Dan, Steffen, Eva and Bruno for making the first 24 hours great!

Until the next enthralling post...

L.

Outta here...

2010-05-25T20:47:00.001+10:00

Nearly time.

Thanks to all who've contributed to my final days in Melbourne, it's been a blast. Love you all!

See you on the other side of the world!

L
xox

T-Minus 2 days and counting...

2010-05-23T17:54:00.000+10:00

For some reason I have very little to say. This is quite a rare occurrence as you might know.

I'm more or less ready for the shipping uplift tomorrow afternoon, after which I have a few bits and pieces to tidy up (and a suitcase to pack) and then.. well.. off we go!

To all that have attended the seemingly never-ending procession of farewell functions I can but only say "thanks". It's been a blast and I will miss all of you!

Tally ho!

Next Stop: Germany

2010-03-02T21:35:00.002+11:00

It begins on 26.05.

Looks like there's a reason to re-start this blog ;)

Lotsa love,
Me.

Nappy Hew Year

2010-01-01T22:56:00.001+11:00

Happy New Year everyone. 2009 has been... interesting.

Roll on 2010!

Since Easter....

2009-10-08T17:43:00.004+11:00

As my nearly-4-months of unemployment draws to a close, let us reflect on the serenity that is provided by not having to every day go to some annoying place filled with people you wouldn't cross the road to piss on if their heads were collectively on fire.

I am truly thankful for this interlude. I like to think of it as a prototype of my retirement.

I look forward to the events of the following months including:

1. A small trip to the Gold Coast.
2. Starting work (I may be lying about looking forward to this).
3. Record label launch.
4. Positive Cash Flow (I vaguely remember this from some time ago).
5. Moving Out of Hawthorn (I also may be lying about looking forward to this).

Until the next mindless, infrequent update. Au revoir!

What a fucking tool...

2009-06-24T22:04:00.000+10:00

Not only is this guy some fucked up god-botherer he's now decided the planet isn't worth saving.

Good thing he's putting his family first!

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/global-warming-isnt-real-says-senator-fielding-20090624-cwe9.html

Dickhead!

Stacey Pullen @ QBar

2009-05-11T21:36:00.001+10:00

So the Old Man and Poppsie Collins headed down to QBar last Friday to see Stacey Pullen.

All I can say is wow. And also wow at how young the kids. Or it's just that we're both dirty old men.

Woo!!

A Short Interlude in the Fatherland

2009-04-20T20:46:00.013+10:00

Well as you may or may not know over the easter weekend I decided to take a small jaunt to Germany. Correct, not your average weekend away, but thanks to the power of the Lords of Qantas we can make it so. 48 hours of traveling, 5 days of chilling. What more can the international man of leisure want??

Wednesday - Primed for Launch
A normal morning, aside from the fact I am sporting a suit bag and my camera backpack. Was going to walk to the station, however the sweating and immense load dictated otherwise.

A small taxi ride, a little working, another taxi ride, and the next thing you know I'm meeting Kat's dad to pick up the weird Staff Travel paper thingy they sent him. He looked very official in his overalls and shiny vest thingy. I was impressed.

Next stop the check in counter at which I was handed straight off the bat a shiny business class boarding pass. Yay for the Global Financial Crisis.

The next thing you know, I'm at Changi Airport in Singers. Smells the same, looks the same. It's a smell I will always associate with SE Asia. I stop past the transit counter (never had to do this before) and the kind bearded man after about 10 minutes gives me my second business class boarding pass.

A quick trip to the chemist for my favourite Singaporean product, melatonin and voila, here we are in Frankfurt!

Thursday AM - Frankfurt to Dortmund
Ahh Germany. Land of sausages, techno, the autobahn and fast trains. It's good to be back. For some perculiar reason it feels familiar, like home away from home. My bag flies out of the plane, my shiny EU passport lets me fly through immigration, and I totter down to the DB office which feels like it's heated to 35C.

I get myself a ticket to Dortmund, and head down to the station.

Interesting fact #1: In Germany they sometimes have two trains that are going to different destinations (in this example Brussels and Amsterdam) joined together.

I only discovered this because I got on the wrong end of the train. Thankfully the nice conductor lady told me that I could get off the train at Koln and go down the other end. Phew.

Interesting fact #2: The ICE travels at over 300km/h. That's kinda cool.

At Duisberg I changed to a strange overnight train for my final two stops to Dortmund.

Herr Marcial met me at Dortmund Hbf and we returned to the freshly decorated Schloss Marcial to be greeted by Eva and a very excited Bruno. Someone had told him that presents were coming from Australia. He was cheekily peeking out of the window and waving as we arrived.

Thursday PM - Chillin' in Dortmund

First things first. The presents must be delivered! Kat had kindly bought a kangaroo and a koala (which played a small excerpt from "Waltzing Matilda") for Bruno. At first he wasn't keen on the presents, but this would change later on as he got used to them...

Having a shower with fine German water was luxurious. We had some lunch, and then headed out to the shops for some groceries.

I suppose we were in the equivalent of David Jones, but the selection of charcuterie, cheese, organic and fine foods was amazing. I've never seen so much delightful fat in one place!! When ordering gruyere we were asked whether we wanted "normal" or "cave aged". What kind of a question is that.. pfft!!

For dinner we made schnitzel served with potato salad. In the potato salad was a vinagrette of white balsamic and a funny herb called bear's garlic. Oddly enough it tasted extraordinarily like garlic. I would like to try to grow some, as it was a great flavour combined with the fact it was leafy.

After dinner a little photo shoot. First up Mr. Koala, Mrs. Kangaroo, Bruno and Daniel:

Secondly, the happy family:

Surprisingly I was still feeling OK. We headed down to Dortmund airport to pick up our rental car, a grotesquely underpowered E-Class. A supercharged 1.8L is NOT big enough to power this car let me assure you!! Still it was a relaxing drive, although the tiredness and tight streets were a bit hair raising at first.

For our final stop for the evening, Big Dan and I wandered down to Domicil - some gay bar (kidding) that the crew hang out it. We were joined by the one and only Herr Borgmann of the famous Borgmann Industries. That was pretty much it for Thursday. As you can imagine, quite a long day!

Friday - Spring in Germany
Glad I packed my shorts ladies, as the weather was faaaaaaaaantastic. Trees were blossoming, the sky was blue. Ahh.. this is the life.

First stop here. Schloss Cappenberg. There was supposed to be a wildlife park. It was closed, despite the website saying otherwise. The old manor was pretty cool though. It's strange for us children of a young country to just wander around buildings that were put up before the white man even arrived in our country.

Second stop was Münster for some zoo action with Bruno.

Was a great day to be walking around, although the sun (and my poor selection of lense) deprives you of the animal pics I just KNOW you were hoping for...
After returning home I prepared the menu for Friday's Asian Feast:

1. Hainenese Chicken & Rice (with firey chilli sauce that will feature again later on!!)
2. Char Sui
3. Ants Climbing Trees

Amazingly even in Dortmund there is an asian grocery (with the silliest website in the world) so we took another stroll to grab some supplies (including some Tsingtao!).

The rest of the afternoon we drank our Tsingtao, some Franziskaner (awesome!), roasted pork...

...and prepared for dinner.

Served with only the finest of champagne and wines (I forget what they were, Dan can add in the comments).... Here we see Dan and Ene contemplating the meal ahead...

Rockin. After dinner whilst the grown-ups chatted, Bruno and I retired to his castle to play Duplo. The young fella kept talking his native tongue to me, so I smiled a lot and nodded. By this time he was loving Waltzing Matilda. Again... and again.. and again.. and... again.. and again..

After many drinks, it was bedtime. Ahh... bed...

Saturday - Shoppin', Drinkin', Chillin', Grillin' and Spinnin'
We got up relatively late and dropped Eva and Bruno at the hauptbahnhof as they were heading up to the North Sea for a little break. Bruno took Mrs. Kangaroo with him. Hope he didn't go swimming!!

Dan and I grabbed some breakfast and headed down to the market to grab some meat for the BBQ.

Second cool shopping experience - Dortmund market.

All the produce you can imagine, and plenty you can't. Lamb? You want lamb? I'll give you three kinds of lamb young man! "Normal", "milk-fed" and "salt bush" (I think). Rabbits, hare, more kinds of poulty than you can think of. Lots of shit I have never even seen before. Awesome. We grabbed some lamb (to be marinated in the leftover chili sauce) and pork.

For the rest of the afternoon we sat in the sun and drank beer. I squeezed in a quick nap, and then it was off to Uwe's place with two crates full of Detroit classics.

I met Uwe (second from left) back in the day when he used to work for Dan, so it was good to catch up after so many years. What transpired was an evening of drinking, grilling and techno. What more could you want? Good times... must get some of those records sampled to mp3..

A couple of spliffs later and we were heading down to see the famous DJ Dash. Steffen is first on the left in the above pic. Many more drinks (well a couple I think?) and it was time for bed.

Sunday - Dortmund to Eltville
To the soundtrack of Marc Romboy, TLBJr and the Wighnomy Brothers (all Germans by coincidence!!!) it was time to tackle the famous autobahn.

We took the A2 down to the A45, briefly hit 200km/h and did 275km in a couple of hours....

Strange autobahn fact: most are 2 lanes each way for most of their length. 2 lanes children, "unlimited" speed in the left lane. Germans know how to KEEP RIGHT.

Next stop: Eltville and our hotel - Schloss Reinhartshausen.

Well this was all pretty spiffy being next to the Rhine, and in amongst the vinyards.

So what else to do but some fine dining and a lot of drinking. By the time we went to bed we were both a little loose.

Monday - Seedy, Wandering, Departing
Needless to say the next morning we both had ferocious hangovers. I really felt mostly on the verge of puking for the whole day. We tried the brunch buffet at the hotel, sadly this was wasted on me I'm afraid.

Dan and I wandered for a bit:in the delightful olde town set by the Rhine River....

Special Teutonic Pigeon:

Ahh springtime in the Fatherland.

We showered, checked out, went to a couple more vineyards (here and here) drank a lot of apple and grape juice (gosh was I dehydrated) and ate some of this. A tasty non-Italian pizza analogue!

Sadly it was time for us to head back to the airport, which we did. Dropped the car off, checked in and had some dinner. Then it was time to say au revior... until next time.

So the week drew to a close. It was amazing how much we got crammed in, but the strange thing was that not once did we feel rushed or busy. Such is the magic of Dan and Leigh.

Thanks to Mark, Kat, Dan, Eva, Bruno, Ene, Uwe, Dash and of course the fabulous crew of Qantas.

And there you have it. Next thing I was at work, living the dream. Little did I know the weekend would have something a little more dramatic in store for me... but that's a story for another time!

(P.S. FUCK THIS BLOGGER INTERFACE IT SUCKS BALLS!!!! THANKYOU!!!!)

Short Leigh

2009-04-15T21:03:00.003+10:00

Just arrived back in Melbourne today. Will process images and post a Germany wrap-up shortly!

Germany 2009

2009-04-05T10:47:00.002+10:00

It is official, I will be heading up to Germany next week for a short interlude with Dan.

I hope to take a few photos and such, so there will probably be a flurry of activity here for a week or two. Await with bated breath...

The thing's hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it's full of stars!

2009-04-02T23:21:00.001+11:00

Something's in the air children. Stay tuned for a small reactivation....

Upgrade Workstation to 64bit

2009-01-26T11:11:00.003+11:00

If you're a Lightroom user and you're ever upgrading your image processing workstation, I urge you to think about where you've stored your catalog file and to back it up before you format your drives.

I am apparently not that bright, therefore forgot to do this. I have to go back and re-import everything again. Thankfully I'm not silly enough to have deleted the source catalogs from our trip, so all the metadata is still there, just somewhere else.

Other than that my upgrade went very smoothly.

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T15:11:00.003+11:00

We both hope 2009 is a great year for everyone.

Lots of love to all our friends out there.

Leigh & Kat

Some People Are Losers

2008-12-05T22:03:00.005+11:00

[removed]

Suffice to say, you know who you are and what you have done.

Do not be surprised if your balls are in your mouth one morning.

My favourite album title ever (so far):

2008-12-01T21:48:00.001+11:00

VA-Irritating_Music_for_Discerning_Snobs-(Soleilmoon)-2006-DPS

Well hello there...

2008-11-21T13:04:00.002+11:00

Obviously not that much musing going on here in Melbourne.

There are a few things I find that I'm not interested in now we're back at home.

1. Facebook - why on earth do I need to know what people are doing online when I can just ring them? I guess it's good to see what our O/S friends are doing, but they don't seem to be doing much either.

2. The blog. Nobody wants to hear me whinge about work do they? It's boring huh. Yes.

For those that are not with us here in Melbourne - we think of you each and every day and the good times we had.

So what's news here...

We have Gus the Dog staying with us at the moment who's actually been very well behaved. We may even keep him, but we'll see how he goes - poor guy must get a bit bored at home while we're at work during the day...

Work is still trundling along - Kat has started a new job which seems pretty good so far.

My hot Swedish Internet Date Kamil has been in town – nerds across the world unite!!

Until next time.

Lots of love...

r!

Things I love

2008-11-05T22:52:00.001+11:00

Abusive comments
Work
Hard drive failures

That is all.

Geez it's been a long time...

2008-10-31T08:51:00.001+11:00

It's all this working business - it leaves no time for the simple things in life - for example, blogging. Thankfully the new place of employment is silly enough to leave blogger.com unblocked! Perhaps a new series of thrilling tales from the workplace is coming. Perhaps not.

So a few things to tidy up - of which I do have photos, but obviously not at work.

Firstly: Congratulations to Nick and Erica who got married a few weeks ago. Whilst I've been slaving away at work they've been on their honeymoon. DIE!!

Secondly: We are nearly fully in our new place. We picked up couches last night, and have also been hitting up our favourite Swedish store, Ikea. I love Ikea. Almost as much as I love Sweden. Ahh Sweden.

Thirdly: I am back to living the dream at work. Let me tell you it absolutely rocks my world to work for a world-class organisation like AIG. Remember that 120 billion dollar bailout, I can tell you first hand why they need that...

Lastly: Thanks to the lazy bundi in my team whose gross incompetance and laziness is an inspiration to all around him...

Peace.

Net!

2008-10-17T21:49:00.000+11:00

Connected	true
Operational Mode	G.Dmt.BisPlus
Annex Type	ADSL2M
Upstream	1021200
Downstream	23312100
CO Vendor	BDCMa
Elapsed Time	0 day 2 hr 37 min 8 sec

There is much to report, but not tonight...

xooxoxox

No net!

2008-10-07T20:29:00.001+11:00

No net for a couple of weeks kids, so no me.

I started work today. Awesome.

Um.. WTF?!

2008-09-29T19:09:00.001+10:00

I've rarely been known to say that George W. Bush is smarter than anyone, but I think we have a winner!! Sarah Palin, the Governer of Alaska, and John McCain's running "mate".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxAO7cH-xrE

She's no mate of mine, mate!!!

Photography, Things I Want and Cannot Afford, Indian Food

2008-09-29T12:00:00.000+10:00

I had a weird dream last night about shooting with an off-camera flash. Then Adam mentioned a photo competition, which I cannot enter because it has closed. Welcome to the first of many boring and random things you will see here which hold no interest for you.

I want one of these and two of these. You may send donations via PayPal to lamaison at iinet.net.au. Any donations over $500 will receive a free mix-cd prepared exclusively by me, for you.

Last night we tried our hand at some Indian cuisine. The good: Palak Paneer. The good, but not hot enough: Beef Vindaloo. The good, but not the flavour I expected: Achari Gosht.

It was a fair bit of work actually. We now have about a kilo of spices, so I think we'll be ripping out some home style Indian a bit more once we move house.

Mother, Docklan, Giuseppe, Arnaldo & Sons

2008-09-27T10:10:00.009+10:00

Yesterday afternoon I had a coffee with Mother. It was very pleasant.

After this, a couple of cheeky brews with Ben & Campbell @ Docklan - which you'll be pleased to know is still as characterless and windy as ever.

Next up, courtesy of Goldman Sachs JBWere Nick and I attended Giuseppe, Arnaldo & Sons @ the Crown complex.

A restaurant with no bookings is an excellent marketing strategy - breeding exclusivity from the get go. Thankfully arriving at 6pm was the perfect time.

The space is truly fantastic, although the noise levels leave a thing or two to be desired. What was that you said?

We opened with a couple of selections from the Salumi menu - an excellent Enzo Salami and Prosciutto. Paired with a fabulous Gorgonzola and a litre flask of the chilled De Bortoli house red, this was a great start to the meal.

Next up we shared a 1kg T-Bone steak - served with anchovies and a salsa that was perhaps a little to heavy on parsely for my personal taste. The meat was right up there with the best meat I've had, and I could swear it was larger than 1kg, as we didn't even make it through the whole thing. We tried. Honestly. But my gut was really beginning to strain at the belt. Mmm.

Service was attentive, except for a small faux pas with our second caraffe of wine - it had to be asked for twice, and came in the wrong size when it did.

As Nick said - this is really just great, old style, wog food done perfectly. It's not breaking any new culnary ground, but for a rewarding meal it comes highly recommended.

This is what's wrong with the media...

2008-09-25T18:37:00.003+10:00

This story published by The Age has got to be the dumbest story in the universe. Based on nothing but some bullshit facebook group started by someone who only knew this girl for a week. COME ON!!

The Fat Man Rides

2008-09-25T16:34:00.003+10:00

So this week in addition to applying for jobs I thought I would start riding my bike.

I have but one word for you: U N F I T.

It looks better when you type it like that.

Rock on!

SF Fine Dining, Final Musings

2008-09-24T15:00:00.000+10:00

There's not much to say (or should I say there's not much I can be bothered saying) about the sale of the turd and the journey back to San Francisco.

Whilst there was still a bunch of screwing around, the fine team of Marcial/Clark achieved everything on time, and under budget. I realise that I've gotten pretty good at timing and sequencing events and journeys - I should move into logistics.

It was surreal to be out of the desert and back amongst civilisation - so we celebrated by stuffing our gullets full of fine food and wine.

2 Minute Food Updates
Spork - A curious name for a curious restaurant. Situated on the site of an old KFC outlet this was obviously a place for the young and hip to dine. Noisy, warm and small - the food was excellent, and the service atrocious. Cue waitress with bad attitude. Remind me why we tip again? Not bad enough to put me off though. Would definitely dine here again. Recommended.

Paul K Restaurant - "Only 14 blocks away" - we were glad we didn't try to walk (or should that be run) for our reservation. Once seated we were the only patrons. Perfect. Fine mediterranean influenced food. Excellent cocktails. Great gay service. Highly recommended.

Hang Ah Tea Room - Advertising themselves to be the oldest dim sum (or yum cha for us Australians) house in San Francisco and sporting fabulous flourescant decor. There are no trolleys, but the dum sum are excellent, and the prices will leave you wondering whether they left half your order off the bill. Of course you could find better yum cha in SF, but at this combination of price and quality why would you bother?

Boulette's Larder - There is something perculiar about food in the US - there appears to be no good food at the middle price level. For example, Dangerous Dan and I each had a terrible plate of Mexican food at a small restaurant - total cost of meal, over $40. Or you could attend Boulette's Larder and feast on the excellent lunchtime fare, for not much more. Housed in the SF Ferry Terminal (an excellent building for gourmet ingredients) the Larder should not be missed if you are in downtown SF.

Sushi Ran - A short ferry ride over to the opulence that is Sausalito will deliver you into the hustle and bustle of Sushi Ran. We opened with a sake champagne cocktail, which I think we all agree was terrible. There is no doubt that Sushi Ran delivers excellent Japanese food, although I felt that this was in fact the weakest of the restaurants we dined in - perhaps it was the preppy crowd, or the hurried service - I'm not sure. Still if Japanese is your thing, then you can't go wrong here. The lobster gyoza should not be missed.

Whilst it wasn't a dining place, I should mention the bar at the Phoenix Hotel. Excellent happy hour cocktails, albeit slowly and in a surly manner.

The End of SF
As they say, all good things come to an end. On Friday the 5th I farewelled Dan, Ene and Frank and headed down to Alameda to wrap up the trip. I can honestly say that the Burning Man/SF experience was overwhelmingly positive, and I find myself yearning for a bit of dust in my hair.

The next week or so passed pretty quickly. I finally sold the Jeep (for a pittance) packaged up all our remaining stuff and had it shipped, and ate up a storm at my Aunties place. Finally, it was time to say goodbye, and head out to the airport.

The flights went smoothly, and I arrived in Melbourne safely. It was pretty strange to be back.

Final Musings
It's so hard to sum up 15 months of travel and experience. By now you've seen lots of photos and put up with lots of words, so I hope this has given you some insight to the wonderful experience it's been. Some quick notes and thoughts:

The Awesome

Waking up every day and seeing something new. OK we woke up every day and saw the same brown decor, but you get the idea.
Snowboarding five times a week. It's unreal. Really. You should try it sometime. Unless you're Wilma and you break your wrist. Don't do that.
Crater Lake - 30 foot of snow and the sun shining on a polished blue mirror. Doesn't get much better than that.
Photographing a bear cub in the woods @ Yellowstone. More scary than sharks at night.
The Playa - endless heat, dust and irritation. Somehow though, the little dust particles change your brain and you find yourself yearning for dust. DUST I TELL YOU!!
All the great people we met. Tom, Barb, Bob, Robyn, The Swiss, Ian & all the gang at Riverside RV, Dan G, Prewitt, Jeff, Luke, Mason, Clayton, Paul, Tunnel & all the other boys at BSM, Booker, Claire, Rich, Alex, Zoe, Ene, Bill, Harry, Rich2, and last but not least, my fake relatives everywhere - being chinese world over. You can't buy these experiences....

The Excellent

The Turd and the Jeep - Despite the odds, our machinery came through when we needed it most. We miss you, but you will live on in our hearts.
Every single park we visited. There was something different at each one. As I drive through the concrete jungle I find myself missing the outdoors and being greasy all the time. Mmm.. grease.
Mechanical repairs in the bitter cold, or the searing heat. Having a workshop will seem like working in heaven.
The Weber. I hope the hippies who have you now get as much use out of you as we did. Blackened chicken aside, a reliable partner in our gastronomic adventures.
Free WiFi at RV parks - why can't hotels do the same?

The Average

Working for crappy pay. Really, it's not that good.
The price of booze in Canada. Also see above.
Breaking down and waiting 10 hours for a tow truck.
Changing an alternator in the ice. Replacing fuel-rail o-rings in the snow. Actually all mechanics in the cold and hot. It only makes it into the "excellent" because I am deluded.

The Shite

The entire Bohannan family. Enough said.
Losing money to churchies. See above.
Did I mention David?
Andrew - the dog who broke my lenses. Yes, you are a dog. A spineless dog.

So that's it I guess. Time to relabel and repurpose the blog. Until next time....

Back...

2008-09-14T16:18:00.002+10:00

Well here I am, for better or for worse, in Melbourne.

I flew Virgin America from SFO/LAX - very nice. Even though you have to pay for your food, you just order it on your touch screen, swipe your credit card, and minutes later it arrives via the cabin staff.

LAX was as fascinating as always. As I wasn't sure whether I was going to get into Business I made the mistake of eating a burger at a diner there. Apparently they "serve satisfaction, daily". Must have been their day off for satisfaction, because all I got as a shitty, tasteless burger.

To my disgust I also discovered that Kirin in the USA is brewed by Anheuser Busch (of Budweiser fame) and tastes perculiarly similar to their other beverage.

As I approached the gate with my stinky Economy boarding pass, the red light went on, and I was told to hang back to wait for my upgrade. After 30 minutes of nervously looking on, I was handed the magical black boarding pass, and jumped on the bus for the plane.

Very Short Plane Movie Reviews
Harold and Kumar - Escape from Guantanamo Bay - pretty funny, worth a look, even if it's only to watch Neil Patrick Harris eating shrooms and branding a whore with his initials.

Stop Loss - A pretty solid film about soldiers in Iraq. Not as good as Jarhead in my opinion, but still worth a look.

The Square - Nothing like celebrating a return to Australia by watching some Australian cinema. Not a truely great film, but a pretty good crime/thriller.

I had a little snooze, some breakfast, and next thing I was hanging around at Melbourne Airport waiting for my bags and standing in a line for customs.

And thus is is over. Still a couple of items left to wrap up blogging wise.

If you're bored head over to Ben and Rose's Blog.

Kim Jong-Il

2008-09-11T14:59:00.002+10:00

Geez I love Kim Jong-Il. If I'm ever gonna be a world leader I'm going to make sure I look just as much like a bum as he does.

Burning Man 2008

2008-09-11T08:09:00.000+10:00

Geez it feels like forever since we left for BM, and I guess it really is. Here comes the words (and courtesy of Bill, Rich and Ene, the pictures!)

Thursday - August 21st - Afternoon
Journeyed out to SFO to pick up Daniel, Ene and Frank.

Discovered the Jeep was too tall to go into the short term parking. Great. Had to drive out to the long term parking to find a berth.

While opening the door to get out a massive gust of wind nearly ripped the (already weakened) drivers side door off. Just what I needed after a pretty hectic day.

Finally made it to the terminal, and then had no freaking idea how to find arriving passengers. I wandered around the baggage carousel until I noticed some strange guy eyeing me off. Then I heard Daniel shout my name. Turns out the strange guy was Ene :-)

We grabbed the bags, and headed into downtown... and checked into our hotel, The Mosser.

After a couple of weeks on the road it was nice to have a room to call my own (well for Frank and I to call our own I guess).

Some people had been on a flight for a few hours, so they needed time to freshen up. I donned my now famous pale blue Lacoste polo shirt (the shame), caught a few minutes of Arnie in Predator, and then we headed out.

Thursday - August 21st - Night
A bottle of fizz later, we headed off to our secret Birthday dinner location - TWO.

This was an excellent restaurant, serving great food, and tasty cocktails - there was also a good wine list, which was extremely well priced.

I had some foie gras (which is no longer on their online menu) and the meat lovers pizza. Mmm. Meat. Beef cheeks may sound off-putting, but let me assure you they were great. Highly recommended.

Not surprisingly an early night was had by all.

Friday - August 22nd
I woke up with a massive headache due to my recurring sinus issues, which wasn't really all that much fun. Unbeknownst to me this would be my curse over the next few days. We spent a couple of hours buying equipment for Burning Man @ the Wok Shop.

A really friendly place if you're ever in SF and need a wok or any related paraphenalia. Anyway.

Dan and I unsuccessfully tried to pick up out Outside Lands Festival tickets. There was no signage anywhere at the Golden Gate Park, and it's a rather large place - instead of wandering around aimlessly for hours, we elected to head back to the hotel instead. Grr.

The Good: Not caring about Radiohead. Wine tasting with Daniel.
The Bad: Waiting in the "will-call" line for hours. Walking for miles to get out of the park.
The Funny: Sound going out on the main stage 4 times. Hillarious.
The Ugly: Drunken Indian food.

Saturday - August 23rd - SUPPLIES!!
After a bad start to the day (I left the Turd keys @ the Hotel) we shopped for supplies and booze. This went relatively smoothly, although it took longer than we expected. It was stinking fucking hot too which didn't help. I also had to give some of David's shit back to one of his friends (who was a pretty nice guy actually - amazing).

I vaguely remember a little tension about something or other, but don't know what.

We were kind of late getting to the Raiders/Cardinals game - but it was super exciting to see NFL in the flesh! We drank plenty of beer, and ate hotdogs. The Raiders got caned, don't forsee a particularly strong season ahead from them!!

It certainly wasn't what I expected - the view was good, and it wasn't boring at all without all the bells and whistles that you get during the telecast.

Sunday - August 24th - SF to Reno
We had to head back to the Jeep and Turd in Pleasanton - so we rocked it out on the BART.

We ended up fucking around at Home Depot and U-Haul for hours. Hours and hours and hours I tell you. Eventually the Turd was loaded up with enough food, water, lumber and crap to build a small city...

Late in the day we started off towards Reno.

We arrived somewhere just as the sun was setting to have a break. I discovered a whole bunch of water dripping out of the undercarriage. WTF? For a while I thought it was the grey water tank, until a little light went off inside my head. I checked inside, and sure enough the FUCKING WATER WAS LEAKING. Argh! So we unpacked the leaking water containers and kept on going...

Let me assure you that I was never keen on driving the Turd through the mountains at night. It wasn't as bad as I thought, although the headlights were dodgy as hell (thanks David). Frazzled and frayed, Dan and I arrived in Reno. First stop, we dropped Turdo off at the Shamrock RV Park

Phew. Next we all checked into Circus Circus (which was EXCELLENT value by the way) - went out and had an Awful Awful Burger, and went to sleep. Dont get too excited though, the burger was good, but not as big as the reviewer seems to think it was....

Monday - August 25th - Reno to Black Rock City via Wal-Mart
I can't remember why, but we let Frank and Ene to go Wal-Mart while Dan and I chilled at the Turd. Mind you we found that ALL the water was leaking, so we had to spend an hour or two repacking that, and preparing the (soggy) turd for flight.

Took us ages, but not as long as the Wal-Mart seemed to. WTF?! We were late getting outta there, but finally we were on the road. Oh, did I mention that while getting fuel I had a small incident with a barrier, damaging the rear-passenger side bumper. Man was I in a bad mood.

Anyway.

It was a pretty short drive to Gerlach, although the wind was ferocious - Dan and I had to stop because the driver-side awning was unfurling in the breeze. Scary stuff.

Finally we got to ... the back of the line. We waited for ages wondering what was going on, until the line got moving and we saw the blackened husk of a burnt out RV that had caught fire. Even more scary stuff.

We could see the dust storm in the distance, and finally we were all ushered into temporary parking (mind you, not before having to cut across 4 lanes of traffic in the turd in zero visitbility to get to the Will Call line - thanks, entrance guide). We cracked open some tinnies and waited.

...and waited.

...and had more beers...

...and grilled some snags.

Finally as darkness set we were allowed in.... to drive around for ages while Ene looked for the "perfect" spot. There was/nearly was a major meltdown and we just decided to take the next available. Let the strangeness begin!

Tuesday - August 26th - BRC Day 001 - Construction
I awoke. The heat. The dust. Where am I? I must be on the playa. Why does my head hurt? What is this sinus business?! Apparently Frank got lost and spent the whole night wandering around looking for the camp. Hmm.

You can see above the sophisticated table and bench constructions. Actually they were quite comfortable (especially for me to lie on during the heat of the day) and sturdy. Top marks all round.

We arose, and commenced construction operations. Ene had designed a shade frame, tables and a wok stand. After a few hours work in the beating sun it was finished, and looking very professional - I guess you'd expect that from a guy who sets up exhibitions for a living.

Here I am, ripping out some desert storm style chicken drumsticks.

Not sure what Dan and I are discussing, but something fascinating and intellectual I'm sure.
(D: You want a drink? L: Yeah sure. D: ORLY? L: YA RLY D: NO WAI!!)

In these photos you can see the camp setup - wok stand, BBQ area, shade construction, and giant turd looming over everything.

We hadn't intended to cook a full service dinner that night, but Richard came to our camp looking for fuel for his camp stove, so we invited them over. Soon Alex, Rich and Zoe arrived - sporting a bottle of Bacardi Mojito - a sure fire way into my heart. Alex also joined us, and later I vaguely remember heading off to bed at some point, beating a hasty retreat from the onslaught.

Wednesday - August 27th - BRC Day 002 - Hangover, Sinuses, Heat and Opulent Temple
The nights are strange and cool, filled with noises from around. Music echoes over the playa, and people roam until daybreak. The contrast in conditions makes the cool night air seem like an elixir of eternal life, and the lack of wind and dust brings new meaning to the word "comfort".

I awoke dry as a bone on Wednesday morning. Head pounding from the booze and my recurring sinus issues. It feels like someone has blown a balloon up inside my skull and is channelling a nasty sub-bass line into it. Yaya!!

Crap it was hot. The heat. The dust. Did I mention the heat? I sought solace under the shade of the .. err.. shade. How I regretted my earlier suspicion of it. Unnecessary? Negative. Much better than a fish's bicycle.

I spent the day hanging around feeling poorly. That's kind of boring though, so have some pictures of Black Rock City.

Yes, this is the man. Of Burning Man fame. He will be burnt later.

I think this is the beginning of a long night. You can maybe see we've acquired a small sound system, complete with some good minimal sounds. On ya Harry!!

After dinner, and many, many White Russians, we headed out on to the Playa to see what was to see... and ended up at the Opulent Temple. I can honestly say this installation was sporting one of the better (best?) sounding sound rigs I have ever heard... We caught Tom Real playing, and then left as the Scumfrog came on... not quite my style I'm afraid.

We wandered. Ended up having a cup of tea @ the Skinny Kitty Tea House, and finally made it back to bed. I think.

Thursday - D-Ray and Some Twisted Bluegrass Nastiness
Here is another shot of the Olde Desert Whale - complete with solar powered battery pack in the foreground. Did I mention the heat?

Some more shots from around the playa.

That night Ene had invited D-Ray and his friends over. They were a great bunch of people, although for some reason we ended up with some gatecrasher from Georgia whose sole mission was to irritate people. We were pretty much up to a full complement of guests at this point, with Rich2 and Bill also joining us.

After dinner we headed down to see the show. It all gets a little blurry for me after this. Apparently on our way back to the RV I did a runner from Daniel. No idea where I went, but I obviously got back OK because I woke up in bed the next morning.

Friday - Day o' Hell
Lets just say I made the critical error of drinking some water out of the internal tank in the RV.
I was super sick all day, missed dinner, and had a little spew. Everyone else headed out. I went to bed. I rule. I do not wish to discuss this day any further.

Saturday - The Storm Comes, The Man Burns
Gosh it was nice to feel healthy again. Due to some "issues" in the camp, Dan and I decided to vote for leaving one day early. The playa is not a place for those who are frail of heart.

...and then the storm came. Around 8 hours of wind and dust. We sat outside feeling its onslaught. After a few hours of feeling the dust beat against you, the experience becomes surreal. You can barely see more than a couple of meters in front of you. Talking and drinking become slightly harder.

It is from this time that the famous mask shot was taken.

Fine German dust masks. Despite the storm, we still cooked dinner. Some canned goodies made a pasta sauce, and there were grilled wings au-natural. Now that's radical self-reliance.

As night feel, the wind stopped, and the dust settled. We prepared for the burn.

What a bunch of street urchins!!! From left: me, Rich, Daniel, Zoe, Harry.

The burn was impressive. There were large fireballs, and plenty of fireworks. For me a little spoiled by a whole bunch of British people yelling out shite like they were at the cricket. You can take the boy out of england, but you can't take england out of the boy.

We had an early night, in anticipation of our early departure.

Sunday - Deconstruction & Return to Reno
I woke up to find that the Turd's batteries had nearly drained, so had to kick the generator on. Our annoying (late arriving) neighbours complained. I politely told them to go away. It was a great feeling to be leaving, although once gone I would find myself yearning to be back. Strange.

Three handsome blokes. I reckon Dan looks better with a beard.

A handsome Turd, and a great camp.

Um. Yes. Half and Half. No thankyou.

The playa was starting to empty out. Gosh darn it, everyone had the same idea as me!

Our trusty torches and lanterns. Note to self, ensure you use LAMP OIL in the lamps next time.

The trusty workhorse.

The deconstruction didn't take long, and Dan and I were on the road by 12. Annoyingly so was everyone else. It took us 3 hours to get out of BRC. Felt like forever.

Our first post-BRC meal? McDonalds. The irony. But it sure felt good to eat, after a week of near-starvation!

We headed back to Reno, and re-checked into the Shamrock. Dan and I had showers in the Turd. Cleanliness? What IS this business?

We then waited for Ene and Frank. When they finally arrived, we found out it took them 5 hours to get out. Ridiculous.

We got rooms at the Super 8 motel. Woohoo! After watching food channel for an hour, I needed something to eat, so Dan and I cruised downtown, and had an awful meal. For which we paid dearly the next day. Mmm..

And so it was over.

What an experience. We met some great people, and had some fantastic times. It was also pretty challenging at times. There are things I would do differently next year. I've also found myself saying next year a lot. Weird.

I think this update it long enough for now. Sorry it took so long. Next updates: Turd Sale, Lake Tahoe, SF and The End!

xox

PS: More pics from Bill here.
Some cool drawings by Bill here.

Jeep is Gone

2008-09-10T07:24:00.002+10:00

Wow. It's really over.

The Jeep just got sold moments ago, and the cargo was picked up an our or two ago.

So I'm officially vehicle-less!

The BM update is in progress. Really.

Christmas is coming...

2008-09-06T14:04:00.000+10:00

....so are my BM2k8 and SF updates. Honestly.

There was a small earthquake just then. Weird!!

Burning, Burning, Burnt

2008-09-02T12:20:00.002+10:00

I am alive, I am sane, I am back from Burning Man 2008.

I need time to meditate on the experience, and will update very shortly.

Until then, As-Salamu Alaykum y'all!

Chinese Tour of Quebec

2008-08-22T04:34:00.002+10:00

Saturday - Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal
Man there's something inhuman about arising at 0430. I think that from now on I will try to only organise afternoon/evening travel plans. Correct.

It's hard to convey how annoying it is to sit on a bus, full of Asians, listening to Cantonese and Mandarin, with snippets of English thrown in (e.g.. "University of Blah") over and over again.

Maybe annoying isn't the right word, but nevertheless, it's not that much fun. Nor was it that much fun to be with the parents. Sad, but true.

So what did we do? One of the highlights of the day was a cruise around the Thousand Islands region of South-eastern Ontario. I could see myself living here, although I get the feeling I might be a couple of million dollars short....

You may have heard of Thousand Island Dressing - allegedly it is named after this region - although like many foods or dishes, this isn't 100% confirmed.

Another interesting (but short) item was a visit to the Canadian Museum of Civilisation.

What was not interesting was random drive-by "sightseeing" of various other bits and pieces, and a weekend tour of the Royal Canadian Mint, which was of course closed, cause I imagine they don't mint coins on the weekend. Did I mention all narrative was in Cantonese/Mandarin? Hm.

We arrived late to Montreal. As nobody had asked me I had no plans for dinner, and neither did the tour, so we had one of the worst meals I've ever had in the hotel restaurant, and some of the worst (if not THE worst) service as well. By this time the parentals were starting to get to me, so I quickly snuck in a few drinks at the bar....

Sunday - Monreal to Quebec
Sunday morning was some church action. I love church, as you know. First up St. Joseph's Oratory. Yeehar. Nice building, but the fact that some guy's heart is stored in a little box is kind of weird. Next stop, Notre Dame. I didn't go inside, but wandered the streets instead - there were some very cool shops and such around. Pity we didn't get to see anything of "real" Montreal.

Lunch was at the Mandarin Buffet. This was more or less what you would imagine that an all-you-can-eat-white-man-Chinese Buffet would be like. Yuk.

I think after that we arrived in Quebec City. We were told we couldn't check into the hotel until 6pm which was really irritating. My parents were irritating. I had to leave them and sit in the hotel bar for a couple of hours. When I left, I was pretty sloshed.

Dinner that night was awful as well. Frozen vegetables from a packet, pasta and gravy from a packet, and a piece of steak that ... yes, well let's just say it was nasty.

After dinner I sat in another bar chatting to some people (whose names now elude me - SORRY!), and finally in a drunken haze wandered around the town before returning to the hotel (which was VERY nice).

Monday - Quebec to Toronto
I woke up with a RIPPING hangover. I was looking forward to lunch SO much until we pulled into another shopping centre parking lot and to my horror approached the Mandarin Buffet AGAIN!!

Oh dear.

It was even worse than the first one. I'd quickly scouted around for some other food, but didn't see the Subway just next door. So now filled with greasy food, and an even more unsettled stomach, we continued to Upper Canada Village - which despite me thinking it would be super-cheesy, it was ok. It was quite cool to walk around the village which is next to the St. Lawrence river, and see they actually still bake bread and make cheese and such in the old way.

We journeyed on towards Toronto, through a ripping storm, and some Big Apple place. LMAO. Some of the comments on that link are hillarious. Tour buses. Who'd go on one of them? Err...

Finally we made it back to Toronto, where we ACTUALLY HAD NICE FOOD for the first time in 3 days. I nearly fainted. It was great to be back, where there was some buffer between me and the crazy-show that is my parents. Oh well, lesson learnt.

Tuesday - Lunch & Waterdown
Dunno what was with the old man this morning, was already in a super-bad mood. Whatever, I ignored him as I wasn't joining their tour to Niagara Falls. I got a ride out to Wilma's place in Waterdown and we headed downtown to hook up with Cherie.

We had a ripping 3 course prix fixe on the patio at Urban. Very nice, and deceptively large. By the time lunch was over my rippling one-pack was straining at at the fabric of my t-shirt - how alluring!

Wilma and I headed back to her place, where we had a few more beers, some dinner, talked some shit with Kang and Kira. Finally it was time for my Toronto adventure to be over, and kindly I got a lift back to John's house.

Had some strange confrontation with John about taking a cab to the airport (despite him having some major tooth operation business the next morning) but oh well.

Wednesday - Toronto to Oakland
At 0540 I awoke, threw on some clothes, said goodbye to Mum, and jumped in a cab. Man was I tired. An uneventful flight to Denver, some tasty Egg McMuffins for breakfast, and another uneventful flight to Oakland. A short cab ride (in which the DIRTY BUNDI cab driver tried to rip me off) later I was back at my Aunty's house. Ro was at home so she let me in, and I headed down to the Turd to get it out of storage.

For some reason the Turd's brake warning light was on when I started it up, so I spent the next few hours looking at that (no brake fluid?!?!) and cleaning the water tank and such.

I headed back to Alameda for a lovely dinner, some innernet, and some freaking out about the laptop's power supply which was on the blink. Argh.

Thursday - Worst Buy
Today the thrills continue with a trip to Best Buy for a new power supply, and here I am waiting to go to the airport to start the German Invasion. Oh, and it's my birthday.

Tonight I believe there may be some partying, and then tomorrow we're going to the Outside Lands Festival. I don't even recognise most of the people who are playing. I think my friend Mr. Beer may accompany me though, so it doesn't matter.

I feel really disorganised at the moment. Not sure why. I guess there's a fair bit to do over the next few weeks to get back to AU. I'm also worried about Kat, who has turned to the bottle :-)

Oh wait, nothing wrong with the bottle....

Anyway, not sure whether I'll be online too much over the next few days, but will try to make a pre-Burning Man update before we leave.

xox

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-08-21T14:03:00.001+10:00

Yes it's that day of the year, the day that I am another year older, and the day that my parents wonder why on earth they ruined a perfectly good world by giving birth to me!

I have plenty to write about, but the power supply on this laptop is on the blink, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow... I will be reporting to you live from the German Invasion!

xox

Tronno

2008-08-16T12:29:00.002+10:00

Well here I am at "Uncle" John's. It's all been quite peaceful, and the parentals have arrived.

Yay.

Tomorrow morning I have the privilege of getting up at 0430 to go on some tour. Can't bloody wait!

Fingers crossed it's not too much of a disaster, although I can't say my hopes are high.

Back in Tronno on Monday evening. I'm tipping I might need to have... ooh... about 20 beers to recover....

The humanity!!!

NYC to Toronto

2008-08-14T02:39:00.002+10:00

Monday
For some reason my sleeping patterns are all fubar again, so I ended up hitting the sack quite late on Sunday night. After saying a goodbye to James and Luvena I jumped into my (early) taxi.

On the way to the airport I noticed some dark clouds and lightning in the distance, and hoped they weren't over the airport. Turns out they were. Awesome.

Must have been a pretty good storm because most of the flights due to head out of JFK that day were cancelled, and mine was delayed from 13:30 to 16:30. Still it didn't bother me that much I guess. I'd started reading the new William Gibson book, "Spook Country" which was keeping me amused pretty well.

Besides, it was easy to be all calm and shit when those around you were starting to behave like little spoiled children, although the girl who had been waiting for more than 24 hours for a flight to St. Louis was still pretty calm when she was told she'd be waiting for another 24 hours.... talk about being stuck in an airport!!

Anyway, I finally arrived in Toronto, to be grilled by the border patrol agent (I must look like a terrorist or something) and then to be looked at suspiciously by the exit guard. Argh!

Wilma had a nice "Leigh Clark" sign which was very cool, and I got a nice ride in the Turbo Bug out to the burbs of Toronto. I finally got to meet the famous Kang... and after a great steak dinner, and many beers, we finally hit the sack at 2am. What a late night! Or am I getting old?!

Tuesday
Not surprisingly, nobody rose particularly early... After a slow start - Wilma, Kira and I headed into downtown to have a little cruise around. Toronto is pretty cool, but like Vancouver, erring on the side of emo and/or the 80s in the fashion stakes. After a tasty roll that was nearly as big as my head, and a quick shop for a nice polo shirt, we headed back to Chez Lee to freshen up.

Thankfully my new Boss pants still fit me (that tailor must be a wizard) and I was looking quite sharp, if not a little preppy, in my new pale blue polo shirt.

We headed down to the waterfront of the lake, and met up with Cherie and Marion and had a delightful dinner... it was great to catch up with everyone again as it's been a few years!

For some reason I couldn't sleep last night, and I think I only got into a vaguely deep sleep around 6am...

Today
Today I hung around the house, checked my e-mail, took Coco for a walk with Wilma, and then Kang kindly dropped me off to my Uncles house here in Brampton.

I've had a spot of dinner, fired up the laptop, admired the fish, birds and turtles, and it's all rather good....

Toodles!

Windy Cities, Big Apples

2008-08-11T13:27:00.001+10:00

Thursday – SFO to Chicago
It was my privilege to drag my sorry, sick ass out of bed at 0430 to get a ride to the BART station (thanks Aunty). Man was I starting to feel like crap.

I didn’t get a chance to hit up the chemist, so I was stuck on the flight sans medication, wanting to die. A nice english bloke sitting next to me donated some pills, so at least I stopped coughing and sniffing for a while.

Al Auda, a buddy from GE, was kind enough to pick me up from the airport, and we headed to the South Loop to wait for his brother-in-law Mac and have a few brews.

Several beers (and a parking ticket) later, we met up with Mac, who is an all-round great guy, and one of Chicago’s finest firemen. There were more beers, and some steak, until I had to bail due to rising sickness.

The night was rough, Mac (who had kindly offered to let me stay at his place) had to deal with me coughing and spluttering my way through the rest of the evening….

Friday – Chicago, Baseball, Drinking
Mac and I woke up pretty late, and met his new girlfriend for breakfast. The rest of the day was spent just hanging around, as I was feeling a little under the weather.

Al attended an exclusive work baseball function, but neglected to get us an invite… however he arrived after a few beers and suggested we go see a ball game.

We got pretty good seats, quite cheaply from a scalper, and proceeded to drink our way through my first game of baseball – the Chicago White Sox vs. the Boston Red Sox. Hey it was pretty good, but I get the feeling it was more the company than the game itself…

Al headed off, and Mac and I roamed around a bit more. I got a tour of the firehouse, and my very own souvenir shirt.. You will be seeing me model it when I return to Melbourne.

Alas it was time for me to head off to the airport. I cannot thank Al and Mac (who only met me the day I arrived) for an awesome time…. I hope to be able to repay the hospitality some day!

Saturday – Chicago to NYC
Somehow between checking into my hotel, and arriving at the airport, I managed to lose my bloody Wizard card. Awesome. I was in a fine state on awakening as well…. Double Awesome.

Anyway. I arrived in NYC, and caught a cab to my friends place. I haven’t seen James and Luvina for … ooh… about 12 years when they moved to Sydney. Not really sure why, but hey.

We cruised around mid-town, had some dinner, and then wandered around. It was strange to see things like Times Square and the Empire State Building in the flesh.

Took a few photos. Ironically this first one is outside the International Center for Photography. Good thing they didn’t notice me taking it…

You can see the Empire State Building in the top-right of the frame (it’s the building that’s all lit up).

Next stop was Grand Central Station, which was very cool…

…both inside and out.

It was about time for bed after that… man was I tired.

Sunday – NYC
Today we cruised around the city a bit more. I got to see Wall Street, ate some food in Chinatown, sampled the various doughnuts and such that are to be had, and also checked out the Statue of Liberty. Woo!!

Not much to say really, but I got a really good cross section of the city (well as much as you can do in one day I suppose) and it was a lot of fun.

Well… it’s been a great 4 days. I’ve been shown fantastic hospitality and am really looking forward to Toronto!

Bye Bye!

Alive and Unwell

2008-08-10T14:19:00.001+10:00

ARGH!! Of course the day before leaving for Chicago I started to come down with a cold. Let's just say I wasn't at my fighting best on the first day/night of my time in the Windy City.

I'll present a thrilling wrap-up tomorrow... needless to say it was a blast.

xox

Merriment with the Folks

2008-08-06T11:29:00.004+10:00

Yes, well here I am with the parentals. Sadly the excitement I felt about seeing them has all but evaporated by now... ahh hell.

Friday - Day of Running Around
Friday was the day of much public transport, and the stress of piloting the Turd without my trusty co-pilot. Thankfully the (long) day went without a hitch, but took freaking forever. I left Pleasanton at 1100 (a couple of hours late) and finally made it to Alameda at around 1600.

Hmm.

I had discovered the hard way that buses generally only run once an hour. Fine if you make your connection, but of course I did not, and had about a 45 minute wait for each of my buses. Ahh ripper.

The parentals were already in residence, and seemed to be in good spirits. I also hadn't seen my Aunty and Uncle for many, many years (in fact so many years, I didn't remember when I last saw them). For those who are not asian, you should realise that they aren't technically my aunt or uncle, just everyone is an aunt or uncle.

I also saw their daughter, who I met when I was really little (and she was even more little). Sadly we're both grown up now, and she even has a younger sister (of whom I was not even aware).

Some dinner shenanigans:

Saturday - Muir Woods
Muir Woods are a small remnant of the forest that I imagine used to surround San Francisco. It's more or less pine and redwood (brothers and sisters of the Giant Sequoias we saw at Merced Grove). So I fiddled with some HDR.

Pretty pleased with this next one....

Sunday/Monday - Yosemite Take 2
Well it was really nice to back in Yosemite, and frankly I'm not going to go into all the other crap that went down. Let's just say relations got a bit strained. Woohoo!

This little guy was posing for me in front of our cabin:

The falls were nearly dry:

Amazing when you compare them to just a month or two ago.

The chipmunks had given birth to babies since we were there, so there were lots of little ones running around. The only other thing of note is that I hired a 'Stang to take us there. I'd forgotten what it was like to drive a car that wasn't a total piece of shite.

Today we went to Alcatraz, but I haven't had a chance to get the photos done. Until tomorrow.

xox

PS - If anyone knows how to get in touch with Bonne, please let me know, before I am forced to release the hounds....

Where did the last 9 days go??

2008-08-01T12:37:00.002+10:00

As I come to the end of my solitary sojourn here in Pleasanton, I find myself wondering where the time has gone. Obviously time hasn't actually "gone" anywhere, in fact some would argue that time doesn't even necessarily "flow" in one direction... but I digress.

Even with little to do, I've rarely been bored, and I feel like I've reacquainted myself with the current state of electronic music. I am looking forward though to human interaction again, and not just the kind you get at the grocery store.

Tomorrow will be the first time the Turd has ridden without a co-pilot, so I'm a bit nervous about that actually. Having someone on the other side is quite useful, since you can't really see what's going on.

It's also going to be the first time I've seen the old parental units for nearly 12 months, which I'm rather excited about. Hopefully that lasts for more than the first 10 minutes!

Well yes, these have not been the most exciting entries of the trip... but these have not been the most exciting times.. so pthht to you.

My schedule for the next few weeks (as if you care) is as follows...

01/08 to 06/08 - Parentals / San Francisco
07/08 to 9/08 - Chicago
09/08 - 11/08 - NYC
11/08 - 20/08 - Toronto
20/8 - 24/08 - San Francisco
24/0 - 25/08 - San Franciso / Reno / Burning Man
25/08 - 01/09 - Burning Man
01/08 - 02/09 - Reno / Lake Tahoe / Woodland / San Francisco

Once we're back in SF, I'll be boxing everything up, and shipping it back to AU, getting rid of the Jeep, and finally heading home! I'm sure I'll be online before then though :-)

Bye for now!

Tranquility

2008-07-30T14:47:00.000+10:00

It's quite peaceful here.

I get up, I walk, I eat, I chat, I potter, I find mad choons, and I go to bed.

Today I posted the Jeep on Craigslist, you can see the ad here.

Weirdly I'm a little stressed about the next few weeks, although I don't see why I should be.

Anyway.

Back to deepness.

Sold!

2008-07-27T11:19:00.002+10:00

In my sweaty palms are $500, being a deposit for the Turd!

Even better, is that I don't have to drive it back to SFO after Burning Man - the purchasers live in/near Sacramento!

Awesome. That's a big weight off my shoulders.

Off to the supermarchet for some celebratory drinks ;)

Jesús es el Señor

2008-07-27T08:21:00.003+10:00

I believe this means "Jesus Is Lord" in Spanish. It's painted on a church that you can see on the BART to and from downtown. I thought it was funny. Personally I'm convinced that TLB is "el Señor" but hey...

Never mind, I had to write it down before I forgot. Simple things amuse this simple mind.

Yesterday was a quiet day, more chatting on the innernet, and I put a whole bunch more of our stuff into storage. A lady rang enquiring about the turd and even mentioned the magic words - downpayment! Yee-HAR!

Apparently the lil' downturn in the US economy has kinda hurt builders and such (something about sub-prime mortgages I hear? :-)) so to save their business they're selling their house and hoping to move into an RV - that's right kids, the Turd is DEFINITELY the one for you!!

They're comin' down from Sacramento today at 5pm to take a look. Hopefully I'll have some good news later.

Today I headed into downtown to pick up my new suits. Even if I do say so myself, I look rather good in em. Must be the extra room at the front...

Annoyingly the power was out in the mall, so I didn't get a chance to check out any shirt (well I decided not too, kinda pointless shopping in the dark).

Man the turd is super clean again - I even got one of those plug-in air freshener doodads to make it smell nice. Dunno why we didn't think of that in Whistown. Ahh fresh scent, and chinese tea. Bliss.

So on the tiny turntables today a couple of bewdies for you...

Carl Craig - Sessions: Daniel's been bugging me for a while to listen to this, and I finally got around to is yesterday, and I'm glad I did. What can I really say... I mean it's Carl Craig, one of the Dee-troit masters at his finest. Listen to this one, you won't be sorry.

Aril Brikha - Ex Machina: Staying with the Detroit-y vibe.. I've been a fan of Mr. Brikha since I had one of his early releases on Transmat (Derrick May's label) many years ago (I'm never buying vinyl again by the way, every SINGLE record I have ever own has been lost or stolen....) and this laid back synthy record evokes memories of a chilled out Vegas Soul. Great tunes for sitting in the sun with friends, enjoying a lazy morning, or closin' out yer giant warehouse set...! Hands up kids!

Robert Dietz - Jaszu EP: Taking down several notches into the basement is a cool record by this guy I have never heard of. Doesn't seem like he's released much, but if this is the shape of things to come it might be worth keeping and eye on him. My faves, tracks 1 and 4. In general, this is a deep techy number with a great rolling feeling to it. Be warned... not for the shirts off brigade at all!

A few more bits and pieces coming down right now, so more annoying music bullshit to annoy you later!

Mel - buh - rne

2008-07-25T20:55:00.002+10:00

So I'm back. My flight was super nice and relaxing. Business class was pretty empty and I actually got a decent sleep. The in house movie selection was poor but I got home without an exploding fuselage which is good.

I noticed funny things like new roads, cleaner air and smaller looking stores at first. Then expensive groceries and my personal favourite 'peak hour' which was fun. My family have been busy planning things for me to do and there's always someone to see which is sweet, although I must admit I have found things somewhat overwhelming at times. After traveling with just Leigh it's strange to divide your attention amongst so many things and already feel anxious that there's not enough time in a day. I hope that feeling fades as I re-adjust to being back.

But for the time being, I feel neither here nor there. I sit here physically but my heart and head aren't co-operating. I think, I miss, I wait.

Terry Lee Brown Junior - Terry's Cafe 11

2008-07-25T14:26:00.002+10:00

It's rare that I post twice in one day (but let's face it I have plenty of time on my hands right now).

I've stumbled on a couple of websites which seem to have superb collections of new deep/tech/house tunes - an absolute BOON kiddies I tell you.

I was delighted to see that whilst I've been away, Mr Normal Feller (also known as the legendary Terry Lee Brown Junior) has been very busy.

If there was ever any doubt as to the master's ability, Terry's Cafe 11 is an absolute affirmation. Terry demonstrates that he is still a god of tech-house, whether on the decks or in the studio.

It's that freaking good, I'm listening to it for the second time and nearly jumping out of my skin.

Opening with a little techy burbler Terry sets the stage for a rumbling, chord-o-matic ride through everything I love about the his (and the Plastic City) sound.

I note that he has another album, "Softpack" that was released this year which surely must be on the download list shortly.

All I have to say about Terry's Cafe 10, is that I will be delighted to know how Sacred Cycles, by Pete Lazonby and a little Maurizio fit together.......

That is all for today. It's 22:30 and I'm thinking about bed!

Two Sides of a Coin

2008-07-25T08:55:00.002+10:00

People are funny.

Yesterday, in the spot next to us there were two old ladies. Somehow they'd managed to break their rooftop satellite dish off, and asked if I could get up on the roof and have a look at it.

They'd gone a great job of ripping the dish right out of the roof and it was hanging by the wires that went inside. A quick snip and some Glad Wrap over the holes, and she'll be right mate.
I got $10 for my troubles which was fine. The first money I have earned since leaving Whistler!

It's funny how people are willing to ask for help, despite getting someone to remove our hose from their outlet before asking. Hmm. Sure it's their right to use their own water outlet, but I'm reasonably sure an extra 30 seconds wouldn't have hurt.

This morning some fat old whities in their giant expensive RV were backing into the spot on the other side. Remembering that I'd left the grill very close to the edge of our space, I rushed out and offered to move it.

When I came inside I noticed I had a missed call on my phone. On ringing the voicemail I discovered it was the campground - ringing to tell me that the new neighbours had complained that I had left "items in their spot and they couldn't back in" and that "if I didn't remove them immediately I would be charged for using two spots".

Amazing. Also given they were NEARLY BACKED IN when I moved the grill.

As I said, people are funny. Mind you it hasn't stopped them moving the 44 gallon drum that serves as a bin in front of the Turd so they can park their car though...

This morning I started some cardio work. A few intervals and such. Whilst I'm definately unfit, it's not quite as bad as I thought. At least I'm writing this from my palatial studio in the Turd, and not the emergency room.

Tonight in the kitchens of the Turd I will be making Tandoori Chicken and Vindaloo. Mm.

A little boredom kicked off a search for "Terry Lee Brown Jnr" - whilst we've been away he's been hard at work bless him - Terry's Cafe 11 so far is a ripping listen.

/out.

Bison Extravaganza, Chungs, Messy Kat, Farewell

2008-07-24T14:57:00.002+10:00

Right then, here I am, flying solo in the Turd. Jolly good. It’s very quiet in here, but I’m pleased to report that it’s still brown.

First up, it’s BISON EXRAVAGANZA!!!

Well the first set are from the beginning of our tenure at Yosemite, and feature a showcase of grazing bison. Mmm those yellow flowers look SOOO tasty n’est pas??

It’s amazing to think that in the mid-19th century there were probably more than 60 million bison on the plains of the USA. Sadly they were hunted nearly to extinction for their skins, and to deprive the American Indians of a food source. Even though it’s more than a hundred years ago now, it’s scary to think that Americans were basically pursuing a policy of obliterating the indigenous people here. Still, I guess we can’t talk given our track record with our indigenous Australian brothers and sisters.

It’s also amazing that despite their vast size, bison are vegetarians. Who said you can’t grow up big and strong without eating meat. Apparently they’re rather dangerous – despite their size and apparent docility, more than 50 stupid tourists are injured each year at Yellowstone by bison. Good on them I say, we witnessed people behaving like absolute idiots around them.

Next up the bison from the morning of our departure from Yellowstone. They really decided to put on a bit of a show for us – there were small herds of them everywhere.

As you can see in this picture, bison can swim….

They can also walk down the road as well. I’m afraid these were shot from the drivers seat in the Turd, so no National Geographic candidates here!

I have no idea how you tell the males and the females apart, aside from the obvious…. but you go under there and check, I’ll wait here.

Chungs and Messy Kat
While we were at Yosemite we ran out of food, but were lucky enough to find a brand of egg rolls (commonly known as a “spring roll” in Australiaville) manufactured by the legend himself.

Surprisingly even though they’re made from “white meat chicken” (whatever the hell that is) they were quite tasty…. even “Chung’s Famous Sweet & Sour Sauce” was pretty nice.

Mmm… deep fried goodness. For some reason Kat was having a little difficulty putting the beer in her mouth… Shame!!

I think you’ll agree with me that this is a superb look.

Farewell
Well I haven’t been posting much, as we’ve been busy basking in our last week together – Pleasanton is LOVELY (although it’s so white… the only ethnics are the ones mowing the lawns….) and San Francisco is a great place. Super relaxing.

It was weird to think that after 12 months ~~trying to kill each other~~ living together in a small brown box, we suddenly would be apart. Even I, with my cold robot interior, shed a few tears. Several in fact. Although that was just from the air conditioning.

Kat had her last breakfast in the Turd…

…and bid a sad farewell to our trusty travelling companions.

I think the Jeep was a big distraught, as it refused to start a couple of times after Kat left.

Then it was off to SFO. Took me freaking ages to get home, and the BART had a few crazies on it – even though it was peak our – in contrast to Melbourne, where you only get crazies during non-peak hours.

The Turd was very empty when I got home. So I cracked open some vino. That helped.

That fool David sent me an e-mail today saying…

“Hi Leigh, Is there an update on what's going on with you and my things from the motorhome?”

I swear we must live on different planets, since when we last spoke I asked him to send me a list of what he wanted…. which I have not received.

Today I helped a little old lady from next door remove and retrieve her broken satellite dish from the top of her gigantic RV. I'm such a good bloke. She gave me $10 as well.

Tomorrow I will start a little cardio training to get myself buff for Burning Man. Last thing I want is to be walking around fat, and naked.

Oh, for those in Melbourne, Princess Katherine has arrived – you may book appointments with her on the usual number.

PS - Happy Birthday to Knox whose encouragement today spurred me on to actually make a post!

Counting Down.....

2008-07-23T05:36:00.003+10:00

Wow, I can't believe it's over... Well for me anyway. My bags are packed and in a few minutes we'll be heading to San Francisco Airport. After a quick flight to LA International, I have a not so quick stop over and then I'll be boarding Qantas Flight 94 Business Class to Melbourne.

I'm feeling pretty sad right now. Partly because I'm unsure about what it will be like being home but mostly because I'm leaving behind Leigh. It's just strange and I don't like it at all.

Babe, I miss you already and I'll be thinking of you until I see you back home. Be safe and have fun. Make sure nothing bad happens and come back. I love you, so much.

Daniel, look after him please :-)

Later, Kat

Tales from the Orient

2008-07-21T14:56:00.001+10:00

On our second day in the city we did something very civilized and went to check out the San Fran Asian Art Museum, allegedly one of the largest collections of Asian Art in the world. And it didn’t fail to impress.

The third floor showcased a huge collection of Buddhist and Hindu artifacts.

This is one of many incarnations of a Buddha, just chilling, happily.

This is a Deity, perhaps a dancing Parvati… The second wife of Shiva. At this point it had taken us an hour to go through only one of three floors so we had to take a break and head to the 'Tastes of Asia' Cafe for lunch before resuming our tour.

The artifacts, although mostly religious were exquisite. You instantly got a sense of someone’s life work going into creating these offerings.

This work of a bronze Deity is Thai.

I’m not sure where this piece is from… The collection covers art and history from South East Asia, China, India, The Himalayas, Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, Korea and Persia.

This is from China.

The Buddha Shakyamuni which dates back to 1900–1950. It’s also from China made of Nephrite.

These warriors are Japanese. They are each standing atop demons they have defeated.

I liked this piece, she reminds me a little of an Oompa Loompa. Scary little things. She is in fact a Japanese warrior, and probably a man.. Dating back to 500 AD.

Another seated Buddha.

I think this is a Korean Buddha.

This is unmistakably Japanese, however I forget what it ‘is’… The facial expression is awesome.

Lastly another Japanese piece, a painting on silk screen of Samurai Warriors glaring at oneanother. Very cool. The last exhibit in the Museum was a collection of artifacts from the Chinese Ming Dynasty. Lots of pieces from the famous ‘Forbidden City’. Tres Cool, but no photos allowed!!!!!!!!!

We got excited when we saw ‘Imported’ Asahi. Like it might actually be imported from Japan. Alas… it WAS imported, but cruelly, from Canada! Not quite the same, but better than Coors.

A typical San Francisco day, foggy and cold. And you thought Melbourne weather was shit. I should remind you that this is the middle of summer here… Oh, and that’s Alcatraz in the background.

More of Alcatraz, and a Pier. It’s not that far of a swim back to shore??

Another Pier near the Fort Mason area.

Some angsty traveller I encountered. He must be Italian from the headband he's wearing to hold back his flowing locks.

Lots of boats and yachts and people swimming even though I'm sure the water is freezing.

And finally, just in case anyone was concerned we had turned into complete bums, this is tonight's dinner that Leigh arranged. I can't believe we have actually found a US city with superb food and sumptuous cuisine.

Mmmm

And this is a Nanaimo. A delectable Canadian treat we happened upon whist in Whistler. It's pretty much just chocolate, sugar and custard heaped upon a chocolate- coconut base. We couldn't find any to buy here in the States, so these ones we made ourselves. Very tasty, but too sweet.

Anyways, that's all for today. Stay tune for more tomorrow.

KAT

The Dark Knight

2008-07-19T11:32:00.002+10:00

I was worried that all the hype surrounding Heath Ledger's performance in this film was directly related to his untimely death. Thankfully, this is NOT the case - Ledger's Joker is .. amazing.

The rest of the cast also deliver, although a minor gripe over the nearly death-metal Batman voice that Mr. Bale was doing. But hell, I'm a death metal guy, so bring it on.

Great storyline about (among other things) making the right choices, rather than the easy choices.

I look forward to the third instalment.....

San Francisco, Backwards.

2008-07-18T14:41:00.001+10:00

Today we headed into San Francisco to check out the downtown area, and more importantly (for me at least) to get some FREAKING CHINESE FOOD into me.

I've had an annoying headache for the last couple of days, which is seemingly connected to my sinuses, and refuses to leave. Perhaps some trepanation is on the cards.

I will (to mix this up a little) present this update in reverse order, beginning with today, and meandering backwards as I see fit, to where I see fit. Yes. I am Lord of this Blog you see.

BART, Hang Ah Tea Room, San Francisco
This morning I awoke with a ripping headache, and wanting very much to stay in bed. Still, I'm a massive trooper, so we trundled off to the local

BART station, and headed into downtown.

The sky was really smoky and dark, which made everything feel kind of weird, and today it was quite cold as well.

We popped out of the station amongst the crowds - it was kind of weird to be in a big city again, but our first impression of SF is that it's a pretty cool place.

We walked past the Apple store (and past the huge lines of idiots waiting to get in - don't get me started on queuing for appliances) and up to Chinatown.

In contrast to Vancouver’s sorry excuse, San Francisco’s Chinatown is a pretty cool place. There’s lots of typical kitschy Chinese things for the tourists, and it seems like there’s plenty of restaurants.

As promised on the Internet, a lady from the Hang Ah Tea Room handed us a menu and encouraged us to attend.

I’m not sure why we didn’t take any pictures (it could have been that I was busy stuffing my face) but it was everything I expected – strange fluorescent decor, and the slightly shabby aspect of many Chinese restaurants we know and love.

The food was great (even the stinky rice – yes stinky, not sticky), perhaps not the greatest yum cha (or dim sum as they call it here) in the world, but for less than USD25 for the two of us (and I ordered the expensive dish of Char Sui) it was well worth it.

Filled with treats we wandered the streets. It's a really nice city from what we saw - filled with restaurants and such, much like another city we know.

Lots of murals are painted around the place.

It's really good exercise - I didn't expect the crazy steep hills at all.

We walked up to the Coit Tower, got a view of Alcatraz, and looked at the worlds most crooked street.

Due to my over-mentioned headache, I was started to feel a little weary - so we headed home. Weirdly people have started to come and see the Turd in the campground (as we have for sale signs up) and some seem quite interested - and some guy saw the Jeep at the station and rang about it as well. Quite promising.

You can see our online ads here and here. Cool huh?

Oh, and if you want to see a genuinely sweet movie - then I can highly recommend the new Pixar offering - Wall-E. It's super-sweet without being too schmaltzy, and really enjoyable. I give it 4.5/5.

Sacramento, Pleasanton
Let me just say that the RV park we stayed at in Sacramento wasn't the highlight of our trip. I'd say it was comprised of around 90% permanent residents, and the "assistant manager" had absolutely no clue what was going on.

Kat spent the day cleaning the Turd. It surprisingly looks very nice. We didn't do much else as we were a bit pooped from the awful drive on I80.

The next day we headed into Pleasanton, which is a really nice place. It's a bit freaky due to the concentration of ye olde worlde houses, but seems quite affluent and quiet.

We spent the first couple of days cleaning, sorting, organising storage and all manner of exciting things. On Tuesday night we went crazy and and went out for dinner at the Agora Bistro in Pleasanton. Whilst I've never heard of a Greek AND Turkish restaurant, the food and wine was excellent (but I'm going to go with much more Greek than Turkish).

Wells, ID. Lovelock,NV. The Horror of I-80.
Wells was fine, nothing particularly special. Just a small town.

Same goes with Lovelock, although there seemed to be a high proportion of old dudes with portable oxygen tanks. Weird. While I was cooking ribs (or falling asleep on the couch) Kat nipped out and snapped a few pics of our palatial surrounds.

There’s nothing quite like a pool with no water in it.

Look at those fine vehicles!!

Just one thing to say about I-80 thought. It sucks. I’ve never seen a road with grooves in it where all the tires have worn away the surface. I don’t mean a small groove either, I mean your car sits in it like you’re a train on rails. Bumps? Forget bumps, it’s more like dodging craters. I’m surprised the poor Turd was even in one piece by the time we arrived. She’s made of stern stuff this one.

Leaving Yellowstone, Pocatello, ID
It was sad to leave Yellowstone, it’s a beautiful place, and it was strange to start the last flight of the Turd. We were treated though to many, many bison hanging around that morning, some were even swimming. When I get off my ass I will present the BISON SPECTACULAR.

Pocatello – City of Idaho State University, and funeral homes. Not sure what they do to the kids there, but….

Next Update: Bison, Asian Art Museum, Other Random Stuff

FFS

2008-07-17T11:29:00.000+10:00

Well a new update is coming, along with the Olympic Opening Ceremony on 8/8/8.

Seem to be having some difficulty with uploading pictures (!!!!!) so will draft this one offline.

Grr.

Californication

2008-07-15T02:00:00.002+10:00

Well well, here we are in Pleasanton, CA. Surprisingly, it's very pleasant. According to wikipedia it was rated the most wealthy mid-sized city in the USA in 2005.

We're staying at the Alameda County Fairgrounds RV park - which is quite sparse, but functional. Surprisingly it was WiFi. Even more surprising (and pleasant) is that there is STORAGE next door, so I think the Turd and Jeep have a new home for when I am out and about.

It's a little bittersweet - we've come to the end of our long road journey in one piece (amazingly) but now the fun starts to wind down, and it's back to reality - for some sooner than others!

Today we're going to organise a few bits and pieces around the turd, take pictures of it, and start the process of selling it.... I'll post a final wrap up from Yellowstone, and journey business later on.

Yellowstone

2008-07-13T14:04:00.000+10:00

Gosh, here we are - after nearly thirteen months the end of our scheduled USA leg has arrived.

Before we deal with this sad event, it's time for probably the biggest update of our trip.
I'd suggest a beer, or something stronger. Perhaps a tranquilliser.

I know it's late, but we've had a devil of a time with the 'net. It was working so I could upload the photos, but then it stopped so I couldn't add the text. The next campground didn't have it. So here we are.

Day 1 - Tetonia to Yellowstone
Man, I love animals as much as the next guy, but here's a tip - if you want to look at the buffalo/elk/cat/dog/fatty then PULL THE FUCK OVER and let everyone else get past you.

It is at this point that we encounter the most annoying American of all - the Weekend Nature Warrior. These people come to nature (I assume for the peace and quiet) but don't leave their big-city rudeness and selfishness behind.

It took us ages to get to the campground, by which time we were exhausted. So we rested, and didn't do anything. Oops.

Day 2 - West Thumb, Mud Volcano, Sulphur Cauldron
West Thumb is the smallest geyser basin at Yellowstone, but was our first taste of the smells, sounds and sights of Yellowstone.

The whole park is sitting on top of a giant magma chamber, and is the result of a series of gigantic explosions long ago, before God created the world in seven days.

Given it's nice and active, there's plenty of hot, stinky sulphur dioxide floating around. Nothing quite like a steamy hot cloud of rotten egg, honestly. Water gets heated up, and forces its way to the surface, forming pools and such all over the place, some heated to boiling point.

It's weird to see stuff that looks like a natural spa bath.

Sometimes mud gets forced out of the ground as well - over time building a volcano-like structure.

This pool looks kind of inviting right? Sadly if you were to take a dip in here you'd most likely end up in the burns unit of the nearest hospital. According to the brochures, only the hottest pools have no bacteria (or at least very few) living in them.

This particular pond is actually in Yellowstone Lake, and is famous for fishermen allegedly being able to catch a trout, and dip the unfortunate creature into the chimney and boil it for eatin'.

As the water cools a little, different types of bacteria grow. The next hottest pools have yellow or red bacteria mats growing in them. In this flow from the bubbling pond towards the lake, red bacteria have colonised it.

In this picture you can see the lovely searing hot blue water, the mineral deposits at the edge, and the red bacteria living in the cooler water.

It really was tempting to take a little dip, good thing there's warning signs everywhere telling me not to!

As you can see, the landscape is unusual, with pools of water rising seemingly out of nowhere.

It would all be very pleasant, except for the stink, and the crowds of people all desperate to see something.

The elk aren't forbidden to walk on the ground though. Ahh boardwalks, and tourists. Wait a minute though, I'm a tourist, and *I* am on the boardwalk. The shame.

It looks tranquil, but just out of the frame I'm probably elbowing someone out of the way.

Next up was the Sulphur Cauldron. It's one of the most acidic (and stinky) places in the park. Alas, you're not allowed to go very closed, so no pictures. Take it from me, it's bleak, stinky and ... well stinky. Nearly as stinky as Mr. and Mrs. Bundi.

The mud volcano used to be an .. err.. mud volcano, until the side blew out of it. There were lots of cool features in the area, including this particular pool bubbling and spurting away.

Ahh cracked earth as art.

Day 3 - Avalanche Peak
We signed up for a ranger-guided hike. Man am I glad we did, it really was one of the highlights of our trip (at least for me!). I apologise if the pictures (not if, that) might be out of order a bit. Logic is not welcome here.

We started super-early at 8am, at around 8000 feet. This is KIND of at the bottom. You will note please, that there is snow. Lots of it.

Did I mention snow?

These may look like giant turds, but they are not!! They are the tunnel diggings of a burrowing creature (I've forgotten which one, which is kind of lame) that digs for roots during the winter, under the snow. It has to put the dirt somewhere, so it digs another tunnel in the snow for it.

As the snow melts, its diggings become exposed. Well we thought it was interesting anyway....

It was just beautiful - the meadows were starting to bloom, and aside from the 11 of us, there wasn't another soul in sight!

The hills were alive, with the sound of music. Well not quite, but alive with all manner of flowers.

As we neared the summit, we could see into the backcountry - there were three still frozen lakes (ok this is only one, but we couldn't get pictures of the others).

On the rocks, grow four different kinds of lichen - green, black, grey and orange. They withstand the horrible conditions and somehow survive.

You can see "Pyramid Peak" on the right hand side. Not surprisingly, named because it looks very much like a pyramid.

Ooh, nearly at the top, which is over 10,000ft. Man was it windy.

A view nearly from the top.

People, this is what we should strive to be like when we're about 10,000 years old. Ranger Harlan was fit, funny... and by the looks of things quite famous. If you're bored, you should Google "Harlan Kredit" - he's won just a few awards....

Man did we have fun skating around on the snow banks. All in all, an awesome day.

Day 4 - Norris Geyser Basin
Ok this is a bit lame - I'm just going to let you look at the pictures. If you're interested in what any particular ones are, just ask.

Day 5 - Old Faithful Area
Ahh Old Faithful, possibly the park's most famous feature.

This is NOT Old Faithful though, and nor are the next few images.

But THIS is Old Faithful. The sky went from black to kind of white during the eruption, so the pics didn't turn out QUITE how we wanted them. Following on from these, some more out of order pics, and then another couple of the geyser. Still awake?

Day 6 - Beaver Ponds Loop
A delightful hike. I'll let the (bad) pictures of the bear cub we encountered speak for themselves. By the way my 70-300 is completely r00ted. Thanks, Andrew. You spineless english fuckwit!

Wait that's not a bear!

Day 7 - Pelican Valley
Our nearly last day. More very pleasant hiking. Hello Mr. Bison!

Hello Bear Paw Print!

Hello Kat!

Hello Cousin to Ben's Squirrel!

I apologise for the incredibly long and wordless post. Or perhaps it's better that way. Next update when we can, will be from San Francisco. Don't hold ones breath though!

It's coming...

2008-07-11T00:33:00.001+10:00

I know, so is Christmas. Took me a little longer to upload 28347 images than I thought (ok I was being lazy last night).

Tonight. I promise. Should be there for you in the afternoon tomorrow.

Fear it.

2008-07-10T11:00:00.002+10:00

Oh we're back from the wilds of Yellowstone, bitches.

Prepare yourself for another onslaught of boring words and pictures, appearing shortly after I have my dinner.

As an aside, congratulations to Hugh and Paula on the birth of their newest baby girl, Matilda Grace Hughes. Another metalhead of the future enters the world! Rock on!!

Slack

2008-07-04T00:00:00.002+10:00

I've been decidedly slack with blogging recently, and this morning isn't going to be any different.

We've finished our time here in Tetonia, and whilst it was marred by the annoyance of Operation Turd, I'm pleased to report that this matter is now closed. David has decided that he can't afford to purchase it back, so we will drive it to San Francisco. I will take it to Burning Man, and we'll have a jolly old send off I suppose!

Still have a few things to take care of, like re-registering both the vehicles in California and such, but hey. What else will I have to do once Kat leaves?

It's great to have closure though....

Speaking of that there are less than three weeks until her Ladyship returns to AU, and I am left to my own devices in San Franciso - America's Gay Capital. Awesome. Should make some new friends anyway.

Today we're off to Yellowstone, so will probably be offline for 4-5 days. If you feel a desperate need to speak to us you can reach us at plus one, four two five, three seven three, six six eight nine. Jolly good.

Take care.

Panorama, Drink'o'rama, Teton2, Turd

2008-07-03T01:30:00.000+10:00

For some peculiar reason, Picasa won't let me upload panoramas, even though they're under (as far as I can tell) the maximum file/pixel limits that they say they have.

So if you're interested in seeing them, I've uploaded them to the iiNet server. The first two are view into Bryce Canyon. I do warn you, that they're large files (6 and 9MB respectively).

Panorama One.
Panorama Two.

The third is of Chimney Rock at the Kodachrome Basin. This one is 13M.

Chimney Rock.

Sunday - Drink'o'rama.
We'd planned to do some stuff closer to the campground, but on investigation we discovered that pretty much everything is closed on Sundays here, including the supermarket.

We went to the local ranger station to see if we could find any hiking info for the national forest that is here, but there was nothing but a map with no detail on it. Well plenty of detail I guess, just nothing that told us what was there, or what to do.

Weirdly the organic market place was open, so we bought some organic beer, and had a lazy day in the sun (and aircon).

We had dinner at the only diner in town. Both of us had a version of chicken fried steak. Yum. I could feel my arteries getting harder by the second.

Monday - Teton2
We headed back over the mountain, and hit up the park again. Not quite as exciting as hitting up the terrain park, but hey.

We accidentally took the wrong road, and ended up about 30 miles further north than we thought we'd be, but that's ok. There was still stuff to do.

There are heaps of these little dragonflies everywhere, I guess it's mating season!

If only I could have gotten closer. The little buggars never sit still.

This is nowhere near as cool as Kat's bee shot :(

We hiked around one of the lakes. It was more meadows of flowers and such.

...and this freaky thing full of caterpillars.

It's not often you see a whole field of these things!

Well that is all for the time being. The turd saga continues, with Loser pretending to be "too busy" to talk to me. Now *I* have to ring him this afternoon. Time's running out my silly little god-loving friend!

Today is our last day in Tetonia, tomorrow we head north to Yellowstone, our last official stop on this trip!! From there, we will head back to SLC where we will either farewell the Turd, or it will then come with us to San Francisco!

I'll post yesterday and today's scintillating news later on....

Grand Teton National Park - 1

2008-06-29T13:36:00.003+10:00

After the irritation of yesterday, we arose relatively early and headed over Teton Pass, into Wyoming. You may have heard of Jackson Hole which is a fairly famous ski area near the town of Jackson. No? Never mind. Neither had I.

Teton Pass is kinda steep, with a series of 10% grades on both sides of the pass. There are big yellow warning signs that attest to this.... We are experienced mountain drivers now however, and a few miles of 10% poses no threat to us (and the Jeep didn't blow up either, so all good).

We stopped, bought some lunch, and headed a little further north to the Grand Teton National Park.

I hadn't been sure of what to expect, but ... we were greeted with lush green forests and meadows, peaks still capped with snow, and the sound of birds singing, and Americans hiking. Ahh. Nature on the weekend.

All jokes aside, it's really nice here.

We headed up to the Taggart Lake trail-head, and went for a gentle 5 mile stroll. It was very pleasant, although there are thousands of mosquitoes here, all lusting after my blood.

I'd been doing some reading last night about the little fuckers, and found out that only the females suck your blood. Verrrry interesting. Verrrry interesting indeed.

Moving along. Kat ripped out this awesome shot of a bumblebee on a flower.

...and this one of a strange looking elongated ladybug.

I had to be content with landscapes. The mountain meadows were alive with colour.
These yellow flowers were everywhere, and were super bright.

This is a not very interesting view back to the mountain range with Taggart Lake in the foreground.

There is a Leigh Lake here in the park, so we will be sure to visit that soon.

We had a spot of lunch and headed up to String Lake and wandered around (another casual 4-5 miles I think). It was here that we spotted our first Marmots. These guys are pretty cool. This one was running across the path to safety.

This one was just emerging from its burrow. You can see a couple of little sticks to the left side of the frame - when it was inside, it was moving the sticks like a little robot arm....

This is not an interesting picture. But if you read the Wikipedia article you will see that it says...

"Most marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed."

Let me tell you that they're not kidding. This one obviously got alarmed, and let out this freaking noise which nearly blew out my ear drum and literally made me step back. I felt a little woozy for a second too. Sorry about that old chap.

At this point it was nearly 6pm, time to go home. Man are we both stuffed, and going to bed.

Tomorrow I think we're going to do something a little closer to home (and I might get a second to replace the pressure hose on the power steering for the Jeep).

Whew.

Salt Lake City, Lava Hot Springs, Arrival @ Tetonia

2008-06-28T10:06:00.001+10:00

It just never fuckin’ ends. Today David offered us $1500 for the Turd. We told him that in the interest of good faith we would accept it ONLY if he would come and pick it up. We shall see what happens.

To top it all off, when I got the ribs out the other day they smelt a bit funny, and then when I got em’ out of the fridge to cook, they were smellin’ real stinky like they were off. So I chucked them out as well.

ARGH!!!!

Anyway. Just a quick wrap up (or rap up as I have seen it spelt before) of the last few days.

Mormonia
Ahh Salt Lake City. What can I say. The KOA was pretty nice, albeit expensive. We cruised into the famous Temple Square, home to all kinds of god-fearing activity.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints must have plenty of money, as they can afford to build some ripping buildings.

I must also admit that we departed quite quickly – I wasn’t comfortable with the evangelistic gleam that seemed present in the eyes of those Mormons who were hanging around, and there were plenty of ‘em.

It was oppressively hot in SLC. You’d have thought that someone could have asked God to turn the heat down a bit, but I guess not.

We went and saw the new Indiana Jones movie, which was rather good – ridiculous in parts, but I supposed that’s the point. George Lucas really needs to get over his love of animated cute creatures though. If you see the movie, you will understand what I mean.

More importantly was the fact that it was the first time we had been in an ALL DIGITAL theatre. I was blown away by the quality of the picture and sound. Apparently it was a DLP projector, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen a picture so clear and crisp.

Stinking Jeep
The next day the Jeep was making a (new) weird squeaking noise. I replaced the Idler Pulley (which had been squeaking before) but to no avail. I thought it might be the water pump. We decided to take it down to the mechanic. A few hours later they rang back, said it could be the pump or the alternator, but not to worry about it, and just come and pick the Jeep up for no charge.

To say I was surprised is an understatement. We bought them some beer. I dare you to find a mechanic in Melbourne who would do that for you.

Another day down the toilet. So at Wix’s behest we went to Carls Jr.

I had the famous guacamole burger – and it was ok. Perhaps it was just my mood, but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to have it again. If I was presented with the choice of BK/McD/Carls Jr. I would choose Carls I guess. Oh well. Fatty Fat Fat!

Hill AFB
The next day we woke up and decided not to drive. So we took a little trip out to the Hill AFB Museum.

As you may or may not know, as a kid I was rather into building models of planes, and in true nerd fashion I know quite a lot about them. There was lots of personal items from old pilots on display as well, aside from the vast collection of planes which made it quite interesting.

I’m rather hoping that GE are a little better at making ECM devices than they are at Consumer Finance….

It was fascinating to see household names like Texas Instruments(I thought they made calculators?!) on … well instruments of Death.

It was fascinating to see how old school the technology was. Forget computers kiddies, we got WIRES and GUAGES and WEIRD THINGS THAT I DON’T RECOGNISE.

I was most excited about seeing the famous SR-71 “Blackbird” up close and personal.

OK this isn’t a very good picture, but Kat blames her camera. Pthht. Only a poor workwoman blames her tools I say!

This is a much cooler picture.

If you’re not in the know (read: a nerd) here’s a few facts about the SR-71…..

From 24km up it could survey nearly 260,000 km^2 per hour.
From this altitude it could take a (readable) picture of a car's license plate.
It STILL holds both the sustained altitude (nearly 26km) and speed (just over 3600km/h) records.
To put it in perspective, in 1976 (when I was born) it flew from NY to London in 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds.

Truly a feat of engineering. Just think, it first flew in 1964..... makes a bit teary eyed really.

Moving along.

Lava Hot Springs
In between SLC and Tetonia we decided to stop at the Lava Hot Springs for a bit of relaxation. I can assure you the springs were hot, and relaxing, and I was glad we paused.

On the way though something was on fire. Dunno what it was, but I'm sure it was 'spensive.

Today we had a short drive to Tetonia. It was uneventful, which is good. The campground here is pretty nice, and we have a great view of the mountains, which are bloody huge.

Tomorrow we'll go to the Grant Teton National Park and check it out. Got 6 nights here, then onto Yellowstone, then.... well... dunno!

PHARQ!!!!

2008-06-24T13:12:00.004+10:00

Well I was going to write some crap about something, but I'm in a seriously bad mood now.

Basically the c*** who we bought the Turd off (who thought he was getting it back for free) has decided that he can't afford to buy it off us.

Making getting it in the first place completely pointless.

To top it all off the Jeep has decided to go all screwy again, and maybe has a busted water pump.

Awesome.

To be honest we're both seriously over this. I can't help but feel that we've been shafted (or at least people have been trying to shaft us).

You live and learn I suppose, but this is panning out to be an expensive lesson.

Hills, Page Wrap-up, Escalante, Bryce Canyon, Red Canyon, Kodachrome Basin

2008-06-23T10:03:00.002+10:00

Man are we both still pissed off today. To top it all off the “easy” drive from Escalante to Salina turned out to be a saga of many, many hills.

137 miles took us 4.5 hours – crazy stuff. Anyway we’re here now at “Butch Cassidy Campground” which is pretty nice actually. There are cool old arcade machines in the laundry, including Joust!

Page Day 2
As you may or may not remember I’d had several Mojitos (Smirnoff this time) the night before, so was feeling quite seedy. We’d decided to try and do some stuff that was close to the campground, due to the Jeep’s flaky power steering.

First up, we cruised down to the Glen Canyon Dam. It’s only 16 feet shorter than the Hoover dam, and I suppose is quite interesting.

Unfortunately you can’t go ON the dam without signing up for a tour, and we’d just missed one – time to head over the road to a little trailhead and head off to the Hanging Gardens, whatever they were.

Let me assure you, it was freaking hot. I’d decided to leave my 20kg of camera equipment at home, so was bounding through the rocky vista with ease (all right, I was sweating and puffing and cursing Senor Mojito if you must know).

Here I am looking very majestic.

It was quite a short walk to the hanging gardens. Oddly, they were plants hanging on the wall of a rocky outcrop. It was super cool and moist in there, and a refreshing change from the moisture sapping landscape.

You could see the river from the hanging gardens, and in a bold move we decided to hike off trail to the river to have lunch!

It didn’t take us too long to hike through the rocky landscape. You can see very distinctly all the layers in the rock…

…and the erosion leaves weird shapes to behold.

It was great to arrive, and take a seat by the cool river.

Kat freaked out when a wave from the wake of a boat washed over her legs, and made me move to higher ground. We had some lunch, and took in the sights.

Did I mention the heat already? The walk back was... hot, so we headed back to the dam visitor centre and signed up for a tour (and hung around in the air conditioning).

Typically, the elevators were being serviced, so we didn't get to go into the bowels of the dam and see the electricity generation, but we did get to walk on the top of the dam (accompanied by guide and eagle-eyed security dude).

To get there you had to go through this corridor with the WICKEDEST acoustics ever.

The dam itself was ok. One interesting thing of note is that there is a patch of grass at the bottom, instead of just dirt - allegedly because the first lady of the time suggested they plant flowers, and the dam operators settled for grass.

Random Image: Dinosaur Tracks. How cool is that.

That night we made jambalaya. Not as good as my first effort, I blame the American Bacon.

Page Day 3
We got up quite early and headed out to shoot Horseshoe Bend.

We waited around for AGES for the sun to climb higher. Should have waited more, but I was hungry for breakfast. A nature photographer I am not yet.

By the way, yes the above image is a composite, and yes it is a little orange. I haven't got it quite right yet. Go away.

The power steering pump was making ominous noises on the way back home, so I thought it was a good opportunity to change it out.

Let me tell you ladies and gentlemen, if you don't have the right tools (even though I thought I did) the job will take you longer than you imagine. To cut the long (and sweaty) story short, I had to jump on the bike (again) with my power steering pumps in hand to get a mechanic to remove the pulley from the old one - because the tool we bought BENT under the strain. Grr.

Thankfully it only cost $20, less than the tool I returned. Win.

I was pooped after all this, so we didn't go anywhere, cep't the supermarchet for another $15 bottle of Mojito. Oooh.

We spent the evening shooting the breeze with our neighbours Booker and Claire.

Hilariously, Kat got spastic, and on our return to the RV she had several very chunky spews. This is how she looked the next day.....

Man did I laugh. A lot. I'm still laughing to be honest. ROFL.

Page to Escalante
Aside from being bumpy as all hell, it was an uneventful journey. We arrived, checked out the visitor centre, and I queued the last remaining two Battlestar Galactica episodes. Yessss!!

Escalante – Dry Flat
There’s a whole bunch of shit around Escalante – within 100 miles there is Bryce Canyon, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Capitol Reef, Red Canyon, Kodachome Basin, Zion National Park, and the list goes on. Sadly there is no way known to see all of this in three days.

Given we’d been too tight to pay $50 to go see Antelope Canyon [insert link] we decided to check out the slot canyons that are near Escalante.

About 50 miles down the most rutted dirt road you can imagine, we arrived. I thought the Jeep was going to shake apart, but…. it did not.

At Dry Flats there are several canyons, I have no idea which ones we went inside, but hey, have some pictures of them.

As you can see, they are quite narrow, with amazing shapes and colours. I don’t know whether this shape was made by man or nature.

The light and colours are great.

There are surprisingly heaps of lizards and spiders and such living on the canyon walls.

While not as cool as Antelope Canyon we still had fun.

We had to do a bit of rock climbing to get into the last canyon. But I think it was worth it.

It was stinking hot again, so we headed back to the Turd. On the way back I managed to misplace the cap from the power steering pump so fluid went everywhere. Waah. I couldn’t find the stinking thing, so we rang NAPA in a nearby town (60 miles away) and ordered some parts.

Given we were heading out there, we thought we’d stay closer to Bryce/Red Canyons and Kodachrome Basin, so we booked a night in a cheap motel….

Bryce Canyon
We arose early, and headed out in the Jeep. All went well, and we arrived at the parts store within the hour, and were at Bryce Canyon by 1030.

Bryce Canyon was full of fat people.

We hiked down what must be the most boring trail in the whole park, so returned to the top a bit disillusioned.

We checked into our hotel, watched some teev, and headed out for dinner. All together a bit of a bleh day.

Bryce Canyon Take 2
Despite having grand plans to get up at 0530 and shoot Bryce Canyon Amphitheatre in the dawn light, we slept in until 0700. Oooh late morning. We checked out, headed down, and I banged out a couple of panoramas.

I'd love to upload them, but... I can't.

I was a bit over it, so we headed out to Red Canyon…..

Red Canyon
Red Canyon was really cool. We walked around for a couple of hours admiring the weird shapes that reminded us things.

For instance…. two people standing back to back, and another facing away from them.

A weird formation that kind of looks like some kind of skull baby.

The head of a Viking. Or Zeus.

A dragon.

A dog sitting on a cliff.

Finally, a bird sitting on a hippo who is sitting on a whale.

The landscape is cool.

Kodachrome Basin
Moving along, we started back towards the Turd. On the way was the worlds busiest Subway, and the Kodachrome Basin. So named by the 1949 National Geographic expedition that photographed it.

Continuing the strange rock formations, we saw what looked like an elephant….

…and quite an effective anti-fatty device.

This rock formation strongly reminds me of the Buddha in contemplation.

Gosh darn the infernal sun.

Apparently this kind of formation occurs nowhere else in the world. Kat can explain what they are in the comments, I am too stupid.

I have a 360 degree panorama of Chimney Rock, but..... again can't upload it. ARGH!!

That is all, I am finally caught up. Tomorrow we head further north to Salt Lake City.

P.S. Last two episodes of BSG R0XX0RED!!

Turd

2008-06-22T13:12:00.003+10:00

We've spent the last two days away from the Turd staying closer to Bryce Canyon (which is about 50 miles away).

I was going to make a nice post today wrapping up our time in Page, and wooing you all with the enthralling time we've had here in southern Utah.

Instead, I received this in an e-mail:

"i would suggest that you research what the cost of a rental would have been and then come up with a fair price."

This, from David's MOTHER. I think you'll all recall my slightly irritated outburst at the thought of giving the turd back for free. Sadly this has upset my balance also.

GRRRR!!

Tomorrow we head north towards Salt Lake City. I hope to post more interesting news then.

Toodle-pip!

Vegas, Grand Canyon, Page

2008-06-19T10:30:00.003+10:00

Willikers!! What a long time off the ‘net! Was beginning to get withdrawal symptoms trying to figure out how to organise my life with the complete lack of ~~Battlestar Galactica~~ instant information.

First some explanation – the previous post from Death Valley was in fact drafted a while back, but sat in Live Writer waiting for a proper connection – so I uploaded it today. Sorry, the pictures don’t get bigger if you click on them.

This post will also come from Live Writer, although I might add some pics manually after its done.

Sit back, relax, this is gonna be a long ride.

Vegas Day 1
We arose at around 0530 to ensure our journey out of Death Valley was trouble free, and we’re both glad we did. The heat and steep ascent out of the Valley might have been the death of the Jeep or the Turd had we left later…

Several hours later we arrived in Vegas.

After surveying the lie of the land at the ~~Broadmeadows RSL~~ Sam’s Town (and being served tinned corned beef) we decided that we would spend as little time as possible there.

Thankfully they have a free shuttle bus into the main strip, which is about 5 miles away, along what seems to be a strip of the Vegas Ghetto. We had entertained getting public transport back, but on seeing the other clientele we decided that the 21:30 return shuttle would be the go. Unless I wanted some crack, in which case we would be catching the bus.

It could just be me, but I don’t see what the fuss is all about. Yes it’s large, yes it’s gaudy and extravagant, but…. so what? It’s like a giant glittery Crown Casino, and there’s plenty of bogans to boot.

One thing that seems VERY cool is the fact that booze is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You are allowed to drink booze wherever you like (in the streets is fine) and it is LEGAL to be intoxicated – in fact, there are state laws that expressly forbid intoxication to be made illegal by local government.

P’raps it’s one of those places in which you need to spend a truckload of money to have fun. One thing we did spend money on was dinner.

I’d gotten pretty excited at the thought of a Vegas staple – the buffet. After a quick online browse (thanks to whoever had left their Sprint wireless card open to outside connections) there were a few places that were mentioned a fair bit – the Bellagio and Paris.

For our first night we headed to the Bellagio. The amount of food both available and consumed was frightening. I was a bit put off though by watching some of the other patrons. There’s something very wrong about the way some of these people eat – there doesn’t seem to be any pleasure, just the frenzy of trying to stuff as much in your face as quickly as possible.

We returned home, ridiculously full.

Vegas Day 2
The power steering in the Jeep has been playing up recently, and while in Death Valley I’d noticed a fair bit of fluid had been leaking out. A quick diagnostic indicated that the power steering fluid return line was the most likely culprit, so with this in hand I trundled off to Autozone to get a new hose. On the way the pump was making some nasty noises (thankfully just due to low fluid).

To cut a long story short, the hose I bought was about 5cm too short (of course) and I had to ride back to the store to get some more. Finally it was all done successfully, but there went the morning.

I cleaned up, and we headed into the strip again, hoping to win big on a random 20 million dollar jackpot. Unfortunately we didn’t, and soon grew tired of the machines relentlessly eating our money.

So we decided to eat relentlessly. This time at the buffet at Paris.

The food was French themed, and very nice – even better than the Bellagio. Again, we ate too much. By the time we arrived home I was worried I might have a cardiac arrest from too much food.

And thus our time in Vegas was over.

Vegas to Grand Canyon
Here’s a tip from the (now) wise – while Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon appear very close together on the map (they are) there’s nearly 300 miles of road that need to be covered to get there….

….and so we drove. Over the Hoover Dam, and into Arizona. Arizona is frickin’ hot, windy and dusty. It was not pleasant at all.

We pulled into a gas station in Kingman, where a friendly attendant seemed concerned by something under the Turd. Apparently broken shock absorbers are no good.

An hour or so and 800 dollars later we pulled we were on the road again. This time on I40 – surely the least maintained of any US Interstate.

As the sun began to set, we arrived at the Grand Canyon. The top of the canyon is over 7000ft. The undulations of the land in the USA will never cease to surprise me.

Sleep was welcome that night.

Grand Canyon Day 1 – The Rim
Learning from our experience at Yosemite, we decided to do something easy for the first day – so the Rim Trail, which involves barely any up or down, seemed to fit the bill.

Of course part of the trail is closed for roadwork, so we hiked from the Visitor Centre to Hopi Point, which was a pretty leisurely few miles.

We intended to catch the sunset, but…. missed the bus. Oops.

Grand Canyon Day 2 – Kaibab Trail
Kebab trail. Mmm. Kebabs. I was hoping that someone might serve me a kebab when we reached the bottom, but alas this wasn’t the case.

The Canyon is much more interesting when you are actually inside it. The layers of rock are very distinct.

Downhill was very easy. We stopped, had a bite to eat, took some photos, and headed back up.

Uphill was marginally harder, but nothing compared to the falls at Yosemite.

We caught our first glimpse of mules on the trail….

…and I managed to rip off a quick panorama (which I will add at the end of this post!).

This Condor is one of the rarest birds in the world….

….so of course it is in black and white to show this off.

That night we went out to Yaki Point to catch the sunset.

Despite all my fancy equipment, Kat best captured the essence of the sunset in the Canyon.

Grand Canyon Day 3 – Bright Angel Trail
With our appetites whetted by our success on the Kaibab Trail we set off towards the Indian Village, which is at the plateau floor of the canyon. In case you’re wondering, we didn’t get to the Colorado River, in fact we barely saw it – something I was pretty disappointed about, but hey, that’s what you get for not being prepared.

This outcrop is called “the battleship” for reasons that seem quite obvious.

The hike down was quite easy.

Three hours later we were having lunch at the Indian Garden – which is a lovely oasis in comparison with the heat of the canyon.

We decided not to hike on to the edge of the plateau, something we would regret later.

So we started the journey back up. By now it was getting close to 100F.

Boy it was hot. The trail is very steep, and the going was slow. We made full use of the rest houses at 3 miles and 1.5 miles. We met a guy from Phoenix who told us we should have hiked to the edge of the plateau, as it was flat, and the view was supposed to be excellent. Argh.

We learnt that on average 12 people need rescuing each day, of which 4 are by helicopter – and that 2 people a week die in the canyon….

Cheery thoughts on our ascent upwards in the heat.

Finally at nearly 5pm we arrived at the top, half dead. A quick ice-cream sure did hit the spot. We headed to the grocery store and picked up a few well earned beers.

Beer, dinner, bed. What a day.

Grand Canyon Day 4 – Nothing Much
We were pretty knackered after the previous day’s activities, so we took it very easy.

We unhooked the Jeep and went for a quick drive out to the East Rim.

There were HEAPS of tourists there, and it was very hazy in the Canyon – but we did get our first real glimpse of the Colorado River.

One day we’d like to return, as you can do 14 day raft trips down the river through the Canyon – that would be AWESOME.

The vista from the east is totally different to what you see at the South Rim. There’s so much canyon, and so little time. We’ve learned that to fully appreciate it, you’d want to be doing multi-day hikes into the canyon and staying at the bottom.

Grand Canyon to Page
Only around 130 miles to travel today, which seemed like a short drive down the road in comparison with our previous journey. The break from driving had been great and I was feeling refreshed.

The landscape (of course) changes, yet again.

We’re in Navajo land now, and there’s plenty of roadside stalls selling rugs, jewellery and jerky.

Everything is stunning, but hot… so hot…

We arrived in Page just before lunchtime, witnessing some of the worst overtaking manoeuvres I think I’ve ever seen. Double lines? Who cares! Can’t see what’s coming around the blind corner? Doesn’t matter!

The Turd wasn’t doing any overtaking, but was running super strong.

Did I mention it was hot? We checked in with the guy sporting “thug life” tattoos on his fingers, and got set up. A quick trip down to the local auto parts store yielded a brand new power steering pump, and a power steering pump pulley removal tool. Yes they really do have a tool specifically for removing the pulley from a power steering pump.

We did a bit of shopping, indulged in some Smirnoff Vodka Mojito, and met our next door neighbours who have an awesome RV. I trundled off to bed quite wasted.

If you’re reading this you made it to the bottom of this post!

Congratulations! As a bonus, you get to look at (and download if you like) these full resolution panoramas from Kaibab and Bright Angel.

First up Bright Angel. We hiked down to the trees at the very bottom. Phew.

Best to click on this one.... it's large... this is a view from the Kaibab Trail. Best to download the file from Picasaweb if you can.... for full panoramic goodness. Careful though, it's over 7MB.

That should be enough for today I think…. tomorrow I’ll finish up with our time at Page (including the thrilling saga of the power steering pump).

Death Valley Day 1

2008-06-19T08:27:00.001+10:00

We weren't sure what to tackle here in Death Valley. Stupidly I hadn't realised that winter was the peak season here - not surprisingly since the average June maximum temperature is around 46C.

We filled up our nice 20L Jug'o'Water (enough for about 2.5 days in the heat) headed up the road towards Stovepipe Wells.

A short (long) 2 mile trip up a heavily corrugated dirt road brought us to Mosaic Canyon. You will not be surprised to learn that this is a canyon.

I don't think I've ever been in a canyon before, but it was fascinating to see the hard rock (marble) where it has resisted the water, and the masses of little rocks caught up in silt which still form the canyon walls.

The marble is super-smooth - I'm not sure whether this is from the passing of the water, or the many people who touch it as they go past.

Even though it's desolate, the landscape is stunning.

There are no clouds in the sky here in Death Valley. The sun is relentless. There is very little shade, even in the canyon. It's stinking hot in the sun, but surprisingly in the shade it's relatively cool. There was a slight breeze too which was lovely.

We saw this little lizard running around. He has HUGE feet, and a tail that he holds up like a scorpion's stinger when he runs around.

There's some guy with a tripod in this photo.

I don't even know what this is a picture of, but I still think it looks cool.

To be honest most/all of my photos from yesterday really sucked ass. Oh well. All pictures today presented to you by Kat.

After we'd finished at the canyon we wandered down the the Stovepipe Wells General store to ponder the heat. Boy it was hot. Hot, hot, HOT.

Somewhat foolishly we set off up the road to Titus Canyon. The drive there was fine, but the 3 miles uphill at slow speed really heated the Jeep up. So much so that when we got to the top, the cap popped off the water reservoir and we had a nice coolant explosion.

Hmm.

We went for a short hike, but it was so hot we soon abandoned it.

Returning to the Jeep I added some more water, and we set off down the hill. Everything seemed fine, until we started up the hill back to the turd. The temperature kept spiking up so we had to stop a couple of times.

Good thing we had a couple of beers to keep us busy while we waited. I added some more water, we let it cool down, and finally set off back up the hill.

Seems like initially I hadn't been revving the engine enough, so the main fan wasn't spinning fast enough to offset the heat. Finally we made it to the top of the hill, and everything was good.

Even though none of these photos are mine, we still get to have some still life. I've never seen cacti in their native habitat before.

Let me tell you that Death Valley is not to be treated lightly. Whilst there are always cars passing, and there's a good chance that you'd be fine (as long as you were sensible and packed enough water) it's not the sort of place that you'd want to get stuck.

Sadly, in that frame of mind we didn't venture out today. Perhaps we're just overcautious, but sitting around in the desert waiting for help doesn't sound like a whole bunch of fun to me.

I'm disappointed that we didn't get an opportunity to see more, or photograph more, but I guess it'll always be here. Even with the changes in our environment the desert is something that's going to remain.

Yes We're Alive

2008-06-18T13:09:00.001+10:00

Alas here in Page, we've had no innernet.

Tomorrow I hope we return to online love, there are many stories and pictures to be told and shown.

Lots of love....

Death Valley to Las Vegas to No WiFi

2008-06-10T02:10:00.001+10:00

Well here we are in Vegas.

We got up at 0530 to leave the Valley, and let me tell you, I'm glad we did. Even though we went at the coolest time of the day the Jeep still had some issues with heat. If you ever get to read the Death Valley entry (I'm running on hijacked wifi here in Vegas) you'll understand what I mean.

Sam's Town sux. That is all.

I've spent all morning replacing the power steering fluid return line on the Jeep, so am a little short on enthusiasm for blog writing.

Tomorrow we leave for the Grand Canyon, and I'm not sure whether we will have access for the next week or so.....

......so it looks like there will be a big Death Vally/Vegas/Grand Canyon update when we can.

In the meantime, hope life is good....

Internal Server Error

2008-06-08T09:47:00.002+10:00

As you may know, I'm not the typical nerd, in that I don't have an overwhelming hatred of Microsoft and their products. Sure I'm not a lover of Vista, but doesn't seem like many other are either.

Today I've been trialling Microsoft Live Writer. I don't think it's going to be a regular thing for me.

With Daniel's help I got over the issue with not being able to centre images, but unfortunatly you can't see the fruits of my labour - as when I try to publish to Blogger it fails.

It could be the net connection here, so until I'm on a faster one we'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Early tomorrow morning (before the heat) we're leaving Death Valley and heading to Vegas - yes the real thing, not the Brisbane imitation. Wish us luck, and we'll present our full report on Death Valley from there. I hope.

Mojito Wednesday, Yosemite to Death Valley

2008-06-07T02:35:00.010+10:00

Wednesday - Mojito Day/Night
Neither of us felt a whole lot like driving a long way given the nightmare awaiting us on Thursday. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity for Mojito Wednesday.

Not sure what Mojito Wednesday is, but it involved (for us) a 1.75L bottle of Bacardi Mojito. Pre-mixed, and ready to serve ladies and gentlemen.

Let me tell you Mr. Bacardi didn't disappoint. Not quite the same as a Mojito with brown sugar and muddling and such, but from a bottle, not too bad.

The afternoon and evening progressed as one might imagine. Despite my idea of getting up early and not being hung over, this was not to be the case....

Thursday - Yosemite to Death Valley
It seems that when I planned some of the legs of this trip, I only paid attention to the relative distance of places on the map, and didn't check the actual distance using Google Maps.

This really caught up to us on Thursday - as we spent nearly 10 hours on the road.

But I'm pleased to note that the day passed without any incident from either Turd or Jeep, which is impressive since we ascended to nearly 10000ft, and then returned nearly to only about 2000ft in Death Valley.

Sadly we didn't spend any time at Yosemite on the route we took out, which turns out to be stupid, as it was even more stunning than the valley. The granite peaks are covered in snow and trees and look simply stunning. Of course I don't have any pictures, don't be silly.

This is the view from just past Tioga Pass, the highest point of our trip. The lake is still partly frozen as you can see.

This is the view from one of our (many) stops on the way down from the pass. You can see the steep grade of the road winding down on the left side of the picture. The Turd is like a giant brick in this circumstance, and picks up speed like you wouldn't believe. Happy to report that the overhauled brakes were functioning perfectly, and apart from the 8% grade, the trip down was fairly relaxing.

Once we were over the pass, we hooked the Jeep back up. It was great to have some company at the helm again.

The scenery changes dramatically once you leave the park - the Sierra Nevada mountains stretch up on your right hand side, and on the left, there are smaller hills. It's wide open and fairly desolate.

As you can see there's still plenty of snow on these mountains.
Probably not enough to ride on, but it still looks beautiful.

It seems that in California they still haven't realised that they shouldn't be growing crops in the middle of the desert. What country does that sound like to you??

About a billion hours later we turned off towards Death Valley, and the landscape changed again. It seemed to be getting hotter and hotter the whole time (even though it was now around 6pm).

The land is dry here, and looks more volcanic. The hours passed....

Finally a sign that we were nearing our destination.

But don't get too excited, still 12 miles of 6-8% grade to go down. That's just what we needed.

Finally we arrived at Panamint Springs Resort - and it was like a little oasis in the desert. The neon Land Shark sign in the bar/restaurant was like a beacon for thirsty travellers.

Abandoning our budget, we decided to have dinner - and a great dinner it was - one of the best burgers I've ever eaten in my life. I've rarely (if ever) been asked how I want my burger cooked, and medium-rare was a great choice. Mmmm... burger.

The atmosphere was great - eating dinner looking out onto the mountains. Mmm... Land Shark.

The sunset was spectacular, so I decided to fiddle with a long exposure. It turned out ok I suppose.

Even though it was dark it was still pretty hot - a contrast from Yosemite where it was getting quite chilly at night.

Bedtime.

Big Day at Yosemite National Park

2008-06-05T09:00:00.004+10:00

What a big day it was yesterday. I shot over 2GB of photos, which is the first time I've filled a card, ever. Good thing most of them were crap, otherwise we'd be nearly out of space on the laptop.

Today I made the mistake of uploading my images to Picasa first, thinking it would be a breeze to then link to them from within the blog. Not so friends, it's a FUCKING PAIN IN THE ASS.

Next time I will stick to the old skool method (which is also a pain in the ass to be honest).

Merced Grove - Giant Sequoias

First up yesterday was Merced Grove - one of several groves in Yosemite which are home to Giant Sequoias. Surprisingly, these giant creatures are quite used to humans now, and don't get surprised at all when you creep up on them.

This picture of some dumbass trying to take a picture should give you a sense of the size of them.

They are just huge, and words barely begin to describe how majestic they are.

If you look closely at the trunk of this one, you will see what appears to be a figure trapped in the tree. Perhaps this unlucky traveller really annoyed the gods of the forest one day.

Now they must spend all of eternity trapped in the trunk of the tree, gazing out at their fellow man.

As we hiked back up the trail, we saw a giant silver tree stretching upwards. I'd love to say it was raw talent that led to this shot, but alas, it's more a case of serendipity. Regardless, I still like the way it turned out.

Can't have to much of a good thing huh? There are some other ones with the camera shooting right up the trunk which are cool as well but I don't want you falling asleep in the middle of the post.

I really do LUURRRRVE my shiny new tripod, and it seems like the butterflies do as well. I'm starting to wonder how I ever lived without it. It opens up a whole new dimension of photography that wasn't even possible before!

Granite at Play

I've been banging on and on about crappy light (which is really an excuse for my poor skills as a photographer) so we decided to hang around Yosemite until late afternoon. Even though it was a long day, it was worth every second of it.

I continue to be impressed with the quality that comes out of Kat's A720IS. It's a bit annoying that she manages to take such good pictures. I'm almost at the point where I start taking lessons from her.....

This is Bridalveil Falls. Suppose it's named for a bride's veil. I only include this due to the difficulties in getting the shot - the spray is quite drenching, and the stupid people standing IN FRONT of the camera and tripod also make life difficult.

This, folks, is Yosemite Falls. We are standing at the valley bottom in this photo. We are also being absolutely consumed by mosquitoes as well - guess the pools of water in the meadow serve as an ideal breeding ground for the little c***s. We climbed to the top of the fall. Geez it's a long way when you look at it like that. Phew.

The late afternoon really did make the sky (nearly) that blue. I can't help myself but tweak the vibrance slider just a LITTLE bit.

So this is the famous Half Dome.
Nerds among us may draw some similarity to the Sierra Studios logo - this is no accident!

I really love how the granite looks. Over time, giant layers of the rock exfoliate away, forming the strange patterns. Look in the centre of the image - can you see the eye staring back at you?

All right, just to make it easier on you, a close up. You can see the layers that have sheared off much more clearly.

Looking away from Mirror Lake.

I've been thinking about combining multiple images into one for a while. Apparently it's called High Dynamic Range Imaging. Basically it means you can combine multiple exposure levels so that you can bring details out in both shadows and highlight (of which normally you would have to sacrifice one).

My first attempt didn't have enough images (it's only made from two) but you can see that the sky and the tree are now visible. The tree was super dark, and the sky super bright.....

The second is a shot of the North Dome using Mirror Lake as a .... mirror. This one's a bit better, but also suffers from a lack of images - being made only of three, with probably not enough range to do it justice. Still, looking pretty darn cool.

Finally this one, which I think is the best. North Dome, Half Dome and Mirror Lake all in glorious hyper-colour. I think this shall be my style, hyper-real colours and such.

Remind me not to upload my pics to Picasa first. Still it means there's a Yosemite gallery now.

Turd
The turd had its brakes fixed on Monday - the rear pads were fuxx0red. The difference is amazing. Thanks, David. How about telling me they were nearly ready to be changed!! Never mind the small issue with going up a driveway that was too steep. Oops.. good thing nothing's badly damaged....

Tomorrow the Turd crosses through Yosemite, via Tioga Pass. The Jeep will remain unhooked. Today I tried to find an always-on circuit on the fuse panel that we could use for the Brake Buddy but there appears to be nothing without the ignition being on. Perhaps I'll just remove the coil......

Rock on.

More Very Soon

2008-06-04T15:19:00.002+10:00

Yes it's been a couple of days, but I hope it will be worth the wait.

Stay tuned for:
- Twilight images from Yosemite
- Giant Sequoias
- Experiments with HDR

Sounds fascinating huh?

Hetch Hetchy

2008-06-02T03:45:00.004+10:00

Hetch Hetchy you say. Well perhaps you don't say, but it's a funny name nonetheless.

The reason for going there was the large queue at the entrance station to Yosemite.
Guess with several large cities pretty close by, the park gets pretty busy on the weekends.

I've gotten pretty sick of driving to be honest. We're about 20 miles from the entrance, and then it's like another 15 miles to the village - which makes it a Bloody Long Round Trip. Anyway.

We walked across the dam, through a tunnel, down a path, and to some waterfalls. It was pretty nice - and a piece of cake compared to our little jaunt up and down Yosemite Falls. Sadly though, being the middle of the day, the light was very harsh.

First some pictures from Kat. Looking away from the dam.

Don't remember her taking this one, but it's of the lower part of the falls I think, looking back towards the dam wall. Rather a nice shot.

Sadly this is better than my effort, a nice wasp on some flowers.

Who's this 10 year old bloke pretending to be a photographer?!
At least the tripod looks VERY cool.

View back to dam.

Waterfall.

View away from dam.

Another one. Boring.

Ribs.

Hang on a minute!! That has nothing to do with Hetch Hetchy. But it IS what we had for dinner last night. I recommend you go here and study the making of ribs.

We served the ribs with a kind of grits. In reality it was left over blue cheese polenta, but it was still hella good. Tonight, left-over JAMBALAYA and RIBS. It's like heaven.

11.6km, 823m, 5.5 hours

2008-05-31T07:28:00.007+10:00

Yes well here we are after the hellish drive from Lake Tahoe. If there's one thing that I am sure of, driving a large vehicle up and down steep grades (with sharp corners) is not something that I enjoy.

It's made all the more hair-raising when one is uncertain of the quality of the workmanship that went into servicing the brakes. I'm pretty sure the nasty squealing noise is the sound of brake pads that need to be replaced, so The Turd™ is booked in to have them looked at on Monday.

Normally, I would do it myself, but despite Euan's scorn, I shall entrust this job (and no doubt several hundred dollars of my hard earned cash) to the local mechanic. I have many excuses for this, some of which include:

Not having the time to do it (I'm a very busy man).
Not having done them before on this particular vehicle.
Not having an appropriate place to jack the vehicle up (e.g. level and not dirt or gravel).
Not having appropriate auxiliary jacking equipment (e.g.. jack stands).

If you want more excuses I can probably think of some, but that will do for the time being.

Moving backwards through time (because as well all know there is no good reason not to) let us cast our attention to yesterday, Thursday 29th of May.

A day I would like to call "The Day the Mountain Nearly Killed Me".

It started off much like any other day. Some tasty All-Bran and Granola, topped with what are the sweetest, nastiest blueberries I have ever had (on a side note, who adds high fructose corn syrup to dried fruit?!?! Don't even get me started on that stuff.....), some coffee and an hour long drive to Yosemite.

The hills are relentless here. Up, and down. Round and round. I guess that's what you get for being in the Sierra Nevada ranges, but it's difficult to get used to for someone who's from the land of flat.

The approach to the village is mainly downhill, and you pass through a couple of tunnels. The last seems to descend almost vertically to the floor of the valley and is a little disconcerting. Once you get there though it's amazing. The rock faces just seem to rise vertically from the floor, towering above you. Some photos of that later in the week....

Our chipmunk overlords seem to have continued their surveillance of our trip.

Kat selected the "Lower Yosemite Falls" trail for our first hike, which was rather short and crowded. Spurred on by our ruggedness, we decided to tackle the "Upper Yosemite Falls" trail.

This is where it all goes wrong.

823 vertical meters doesn't sound like much really.
But let me tell you that it's a FUCKING LONG WAY.

The first mile or two was pretty strenuous, although I thought it was going pretty well.
We got to the point where we could see the Upper Falls, and decided to press on to the top.

Bad idea.

The next two miles was hell. The trail gets steeper and steeper the further you go. It seems to stretch on forever. You can see the top, and it seems like it's getting further away.

I honestly felt like it might beat me. But somehow, I managed to haul my failing body to the top...

...and here I am. Surprisingly not looking as bad as I felt.

This is the view down.

I am not a huge fan of heights to be honest, and this vista was a little stomach-turning. Just for perspective, we climbed from the VERY BOTTOM where the pine trees are......

This is the dirty little path you have to climb down to get to the view:

Sadly I must admit I hung on for dear life and had to mutter to myself "don't look down, don't look down" the whole way down. Of course you do look down, and it makes you feel a little queasy.

Never mind.

This is the view from the top looking across the park. It was very hazy.

Just to prove we both made it....

The overlords sent their blackbird minions to keep watch over us.

On the way down I took the opportunity to take some photos. In fact these were more rest stops disguised as photo taking. I thought my legs were going to give way, they were shaking like jelly the whole time.

You can see the Half Dome in the background of this picture.

The falls in the afternoon light.

One of Kat's from the way up.

By the time we reached the bottom, I was absolutely shagged. My legs were shaking and I had a headache. It was very nice to catch the shuttle bus back to the village, and buy a drink and an ice cream. Holy crap.

It's safe to say that physically this was the most challenging thing I've ever done. Today I am a little rooted, and we have done nothing. Mainly because I am too tired to move my ass.....

Tomorrow, Yosemite beckons again.

Edit: My new tripod arrived today. Sadly I have emulated young CHUNG and gotten a Manfrotto 190XPROB Tripod and a 488RC4 ball head. I look forward to carrying another 2kg around with me.

:-)

From Poo to Pines

2008-05-29T13:34:00.005+10:00

I'm happy to report that we have left stinking Lake Tahoe and have arrived in sunny Yosemite Pines. Not without problems though....

We knew the HWY out of Tahoe was windy and steep so we unhooked the Jeep and drove the 2 vehicles separately until we cleared the mountains... which was all good until we hit stupid US 49 ... This road was windy, steep, narrow and just plain annoying and we had to stay on it the whole way to Yosemite. The turd's breaks were playing up, screeching like crazy, so there was no way we were going to risk towing the Jeep only to have it provide extra momentum in the event our breaks failed.

Speaking of accidents, we saw a nasty head on collision between an SUV and motorbike. The bike was crumpled beneath the front bumper of the SUV and the biker was on the road unconscious receiving much needed medical attention. It didn't look fatal though.

Anyways, the weather here is beautiful, the place we're staying is relaxing and quite fancy (they have a nice looking pool and volley ball courts) we had a lovely dinner of ribeye and blue cheese polenta, add in a few beers and wine, an early bedtime and that's all from us.

Until tomorrow,

Kat

Lake Tahoe - AKA TV Land

2008-05-28T03:56:00.003+10:00

Yes this is where it's at. Watching TV here in Lake Tahoe.

Yesterday we went for another quick hike, but like the day before, it was thoroughly uninspiring.

I have a feeling that if the weather was nicer, the scenery would be stunning. When it's grey, it's just a bit... how do you say, grey.

So we finished up with Season 1 of Life. Yes I know I keep going on about it, but it's a good show, really. Not as good as Battlestar Galactica of course, but hey.

We also watched The Warriors, a nice depressing example of Hong Kong cinema.

Everyone dies, just like in real life I suppose.

For more excitement I changed the oil and filter in the Jeep, and the ignition coil in the Turd.

I think we're both looking forward to leaving Lake Tahoe - I don't think we've seen it at its best, but that's life.

Toodle-pip.