North Carolina, Washington, Philadelphia & Boston
[North Carolina, Washington, Philadelphia & Boston Photo Journal - 16 items]
After an awesome stay with
Tim & Jill in York, South Carolina, we shot over to the East Coast Beach at
Wilmington, North Carolina where we unfortunately ran into Hurricane Alberta.
On our way back inland, our car temporarily stopped before we visited the Chapel Hill campuses of
UNC &
Duke (these university's hate each other with a vengeance).
Jason's IBM buddy
Mike and his wife Alicia put us up for a night and gave us some great
southern hospitality giving Irene
professional photography tips & tricks and
cooking up a storm.
Washington was next for our
sight-seeing extravaganza (no - we didn't get to talk to George W. or pass any laws, but we did say hello to
Big Abe) before shooting up to Philly for a
cheese-steak.
We have just left
Boston on our way up to Canada.
Also,
Microsoft somehow got hold of my (Jason's) resume and are flying me to Silicon Valley in California for an interview sometime in the next week or two??? (Sorry to all you Java guys back home but it'd be sweet to work on Hotmail).
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Texas, New Orleans, Mississippi, Memphis & South Carolina
[
Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee & South Carolina - 36 items]
[
Jason's Memphis Basketball Blog]
Apparently everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas. Apart from the 80 mile (130km) speed limit, there wasn't much evidence to back that up (my 'super-sized' McDonalds was dissapointingly normal).
In Dallas, Irene learned that JFK was the most popular president ever, but he had loads of enemies (the soprano's, the Commies, F. Castro). In Austin we caught some live toons (it reminded us of brunswick street) & in Houston, we sampled some of Texas's famous steak.
On to New Orleans (which was under a lot of construction) where we visited Big Al on Bourban street - the home of inebriated tourists and jazz.
On our way through Mississipi we caught a blues festival (at Leland - the home of B.B King) & a rodeo. Some poor bloke who was trying to ride a bull was bucked, bounced and trampled. The rodeo was postponed for an hour while the ambo's came out. The bull was appropriately named 'The Undertaker' & some of our neighbouring spectators suggested the cowboy had probably 'only broken his back'.
Last week, we were in Memphis shaking our money-makers with Elvis fans from all over the globe at Graceland and experienced the Saturday Beale St street parties. Then hiked through the Smoky Mountains National Park where we were almost attacked by several animals walking in the dark.
Right now, we are staying with
Tim & Jill in South Carolina having a ball
fishing,
mowing, cooking &
kicking back.
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Southern Utah, Arizona and New Mexico
[
Bryce, Arches & Grand Canyon's Photo Journals (33 Items)]
[
Slide Rock, Sedona - Arizona Photo Journal of natural water slide & 8m cliff jump (20 Items)]
[
Arizona & New Mexico Photo Journal (3 Items)]
Somebody phone Mulder and Scully coz we've had a close encounter of the 3rd kind!
A week leading up to the incident, we had hiked through Southern Utah's National Parks - Zion NP,
Bryce Canyon NP &
Arches NP. At Bryce, Jason and Nigel attempted to break Utah's record for
most varied amount of alcohol ever consumed.
Then we drove south to the very hot and dry
Phoenix (Arizona), where we cheered on Nash and chanted 'defence' with the crowd at
our first ever NBA match (
Double Overtime Phoenix Suns vs LA Clippers, Game 5).
Slide Rock State Park in Sedona was our next stop on the way to the Grand Canyon. This naturally formed water slide was recommended to us by a friendly mechanic in Reno. When the air temperature reached 40 Celcius (110 Farenheit), the melted snow they called water
felt quite refreshing.
At
Grand Canyon NP, we obtained a Backcountry Permit and found some hiking buddies (
Leland & Sarah, Tim & Jill) for the
journey into the canyon. As instructed by the ranger, we started hiking down at 6am to finish by 10am (before temperatures reach unbearable). Down in the canyon we tried cooling off by dipping our sore toes into the
Colorado river before we passed out in our
scorpion-free tents. At 3:45am we woke to discover our legs had turned to concrete as we all fell out of our tents in a pack-up frenzy. While we munched on our salamis like they were carrot sticks, the promise of burritos on the top kept us going. Eight hours later, six
weary bodies stumbled onto the grand canyon south rim and threw down their backpacks to
capture their victory on film before beginning their next quest - the search for burritos.
Descending - South Kaibab Trail. 6.3mi/10.3km. 4,860ft/1,433m elevation change. Our hike time: 6am - 10:30am (4.5hrs).
Ascending - Bright Angel Trail. 9.3mi/14.9km. 4,460/1,359m elevation change. Our hike time: 5am - 12:30pm (7.5hrs).
Next we returned to Phoenix to stay with a couple we had met in Bryce Canyon -
Christian & Meghan - (Jason and Christian were wearing the same BRW triathlon t-shirt which is how we met). We had an awesome time there eating
Mexican take-out, being educated in all things geology, experiencing the
best bagles in the world and learning a bit about Native American culture at the
HEARD Museum.
We woke up one day and FREAKED OUT when we found a small metallic implant in our thumbs. When did this happen? Were we abducted by aliens? Are we apart of a government conspiracy? The truth was out there, and we knew it was in
Roswell (New Mexico), where UFOs and conspiracy theories had all began.
Upon arriving at the
International UFO Museum & Research Centre, the experts put our fears to rest informing us the metallic implants were metal bits from our toothbrush (they hold the bristles in place) - quite a common case. With our faith restored in the government,
we watched an alien autopsy on our way out. It's ok, folks. You can tell the FBI that there's nothing unusual in New Mexico - no
X-File here.
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