Frustration

Well, today was supposed to be our "go-live" date for internet at home. So I was hoping to post a few more pics, etc. once we were online at home. Well, for some reason we decided to go with the worst service provider in the UK and, of course, they failed to deliver. Our order was put in on September 7 and we were supposed to be all set for today. We even called 3 times in the last week to make sure all was going ahead. Well, today, they finally tell us there was a problem with the line and they couldn't do anything with it. OK, enough is enough so I asked to be put through to the cancellation department. When I spoke to them, there was no problem at all cancelling - because they had cancelled the order on their side when they started running into problems ... on September 11th, over 2 weeks ago!!! So, no one could bear to tell us the truth over the past 2 weeks when we called and absolutely nothing was happening and we still would have been waiting forever for nothing to happen. It was as if our order was never even placed. Simply ridiculous. So, we're back to square 1 in terms of getting home phone service and home internet service is probably still 2-3 weeks away. Grrrr....

Still more to come

Sorry about the sporadic updating since we've come back to London. We haven't totally abandoned our blog just yet - we still have lots more to post about and some great pics that still haven't been shown. We're currently waiting for our internet service to be turned on at home (probably about 2 weeks away, if we're lucky). So we've been parked down at the internet cafe since we've been back. But it's a pain to do the picture thing, so hence no good updates recently.

We do promise to have some new material on here, but it might be a few weeks. Probably best to check back towards the end of September to see what we've managed to do.

Thanks for your continued loyal readership!

We're Baaaaaack!

We arrived on the 6th of September, a gorgeously sunny English morning allowing us a clear view of the London Eye, the Thames, and Hyde and Regent's Park as we landed. Ahhhh, it's good to be home. Of course, our arrival home wasn't without a hitch. The night before our flight I tried to check-in online only to find that not only could I NOT check-in early, but that we were booked for a flight on September 25, not the 5th of September as we thought all along! Needless to say, we had a minor heart attack but luckily our round-the-world ticket which has been relatively trouble-free for all these months was easy to change with a quick phone call to British Airways. Also, because it was our LAST LEG of the flight, the check-in lady at Logan Aiport told us she was getting us "special" seats. I was psyched--she must mean we were getting upgraded! Sadly, this was not to be. What she meant was that on an almost full flight from Boston to London she gave us a row of 3 to ourselves while most of the other Economy class members were smooshed to the core. Kevin was thankful for any extra leg room at all. Overall, though, our ticket was wonderful...we were never charged extra to change dates, all the airlines on the OneWorld alliance we travelled with were safe and mostly efficient, and we NEVER lost a piece of luggage! Thank you for the memories BA and the rest of the OneWorld Alliance members!

Now that we are back and dealing with all the nitty gritty details of getting our London lives up and running (such as Internet, I sit in an Internet cafe as I write this and think back to those third world internet cafes we spent so much time in), I thought I should share a recent story about travelling on buses. I really enjoyed travelling by bus in South America. Kevin and I reckon we travelled around 3,000 miles throughout the South American continent and for the most part the buses were comfortable, on-time and smooth. Now, flashforward to the New York city Port Authority just one week ago. What a different story! I went to Greyhound bus with a ticket I pre-booked in order to attend a wedding in Providence, Rhode Island. Little did I know that my bus would also pay a visit to America's favourite pasttime...CASINOS. I was standing in line, waiting to board my bus when the ticket attendant said "Priority to all Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods ticket holders". A huge stampeded went PAST me and got to board the bus first, then she allowed people headed to Providence to board. Now, you have to picture the craziness which is the New York Port Authority. Not a pretty sight on any day, the place was a giant noisy, smelly and unfriendly place on Labor Day weekend. There was about 5 seats left after all the gambling people got on board meaning only the woman and her family who had been waiting 2 hrs for a bus got on board and all the rest of us were left behind! The only option would be to take a bus one hour later that would arrive 3 hrs late because it was a local bus that stopped everywhere. No sirree! I overheard from all the disgruntled passengers left behind that there was a bus by Bonanza leaving in 10 minute that was direct so I leapt on to it and got to Providence on time. But that whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth because a) I wasted $30 on Greyhound b) They won't give me a refund (and that argument with a screaming Greyhound employee is worth another story in itself) and c)Most American buses are tight and uncomfortable (if you can afford it, go by train!) and Greyhound has probably never heard of a semi-cama (a half bed)

Anyway, it was an eye-opening experience that proved, yet again, that the first world has some things to learn from the third world.

Get your kicks on Route 66

I'm not sure how familiar Route 66 is to our non-American readers, but in the American lexicon it has now achieved almost mythical status. Although it is no longer officially a US Route, it has now been revived as a National Scenic Byway and many parts of the old route have revived the Route 66 branding. Old Route 66 went from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California and was instrumental in the early part of the 20th century to opening up the West Coast to new settlers. Eventually it was mostly replaced by quicker, wider, better maintained interstate highways and fell into disuse and was decommissioned in 1985. A lot of the towns on the route became ghost towns, as they were no longer stopping points along people's itineraries. The recent Disney/Pixar movie "Cars", is based in one of these ghost towns that fell into decline when the interstate opened up a few miles away from the old route. The town in the movie is representative of many of the towns along the route that met the same fate.

When driving through New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, we covered a decent amount of Route 66, including some of it that runs with Interstate 40. Santa Fe and Albuquerque are both on Route 66, along with Amarillo, Texas, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and many other places we passed through. We did visit the eastern end of Route 66 in Chicago when we were there. Here are some pictures from the route.

A sign in Santa Fe.



We don't have pictures from around Albuquerque, but when you are driving out of that city, there is a vast store of old Route 66 hotels, shops, restaurants, etc. That was actually the best part of Albuquerque - 1) driving out of there and 2) seeing all the old hotels from the mid-20th century. Definitely felt like we were in a time warp.

Here are pictures from Tucumcari, New Mexico, on the old route and just off the interstate. Definitely has lost most of its former glory. Very close to being a ghost town.





Here you can see all the empty signposts from closed down businesses. We stopped in Tucumcari to get some ice cream in the 105 degree Fahrenheit heat.



And then we came to Amarillo, Texas. Our British readers will remember the Peter Kay remake of Tony Christie's song "Is this the way to Amarillo".



Here are some local cattle brands etched into the sidewalk.



If you can eat the 72 ounce (four and a half pounds) steak in less than an hour, it's yours for free. In Memphis, Tennessee, we ate at a restaurant called the Big Foot Lodge that had the same deal for a 72 ounce hamburger with bun and all the fixin's called The Sasquatch. In Memphis, over 700 people had tried it in 2 years and failed, until a professional competitive eater (yes, there is such a thing, just check out this website), came along and polished one off in less than 12 minutes. He didn't have the 18 scoop ice cream sundae for dessert. If you're looking for other similar deals across America (or want to be appalled by gluttony that's encouraged), check out this website.



Karen looks mighty small next to this heifer.



Oh yeah, Texans love everything about Texas, including replicating the shape of their state and/or putting their state flag on everything. Even better if you can mix the two.



This sign is true. Everything also includes the people.







Karen's new family. I think Karen might be able to put away 72 ounces of steak - in an entire month.





Some more Route 66 kitsch:





In Elk City, Oklahoma, we spent a night and had some "American Chinese" food (Karen asked a customer in the parking lot if there were real Chinese people working there. She was later impressed to see the Chinese cook driving a Harley motorcycle.). Next door to the restaurant was the National Route 66 Museum (here's the sign lit up by a brilliant sunset). There are actually quite a number of Route 66 museums spread out along the route, so I have no idea which ones are actually good. You can check out a list of the museums here: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/66-museums.html

Santa Fe, New Mexico

From Taos, we drove down south to the state capital, Santa Fe. Santa Fe is one of the oldest cities in the American West and has a lot of history to it.

Just south of Taos, in Rancho de Taos, we visited this church (San Francisco de Asis) that has some distinctive American Southwest architecture.





The church is home to a famous painting of Christ that you pay to see. The custodian lets you view it in the light first and then turns out the light. When the lights are turned out, a mysterious cross appears on Christ's shoulder that isn't there when the lights are on. This mystery has baffled thousands of people for over a century. They are very strict about photography around the painting. I managed to find this picture on the internet of the painting in light, but I couldn't find one of the painting in the dark.



If you're interested in more info, here are two interesting articles pertaining to the painting:

http://www.visionsofjesuschrist.com/weeping80.htm

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_1_29/ai_n8642070

Then it was onto Santa Fe. One of the best things to see in Santa Fe is the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum (we also recommend the cafe attached to the museum). It has one of the best collections of O'Keeffe's works, as she lived most of her adult life in and absolutely loved New Mexico. If you are unfamiliar with her work, this site has a great gallery displaying her stuff: http://www.artst.org/okeefe/.



One of the lasting images of the southwest is the ubiquitous chili pepper. Here you can see many strings of them hung on a restaurant balcony downtown. These strings of chili peppers are called "ristras" and are used for decoration. Some claim they bring good luck. You can see variations of the chili pepper decoration throughout many parts of Latin America (Mexico, Central and South America, etc.).



Although we've now seen this in a few other American cities, Santa Fe was the first place we saw a US Postal Service mailbox designed like R2D2 from the Star Wars films. The Postal Service launched these mailboxes this year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars films, first launched in 1977.



Here's the old Governor's mansion in downtown Santa Fe, now the site of a Native American market. Frankly, the market and the people working there reminded us both a lot of the markets we saw in South America.



One of the hotels downtown, showing typical Southwestern architecture.



Santa Fe is also a main stop on the Old Santa Fe Trail, recognized by the National Park Service as an historic trail. The old trail helped connect the Midwest with the new lands in the Southwest gained in the mid-1800s and was instrumental in opening up the new lands to new settlers.



Even the cathedral in town had ristras hanging from the church candles. I think that's the first time I've seen chili peppers in a church.



Ristras for sale! Get your red hot ristras!





I didn't actually go in this store (I wasn't in the market for a new hat), but I thought this store front was great. The historic center of Santa Fe had a great sense of its history and the urban planning was quite good. Very pedestrian friendly and had lots of independent stores that were quirky, but also paid attention to the city's heritage.



Ah yes, more food pictures. Although this one wasn't as gross as the one in South Dakota, I'm including this one to show the mega-buffet that we got in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We didn't particularly want to eat here as we knew it wasn't going to be good, but we got to our hotel late and it was the only thing close by. And, a mere $7.50 for all-you-can-eat buffet was very tempting, no matter how good it was. If you really want to know why so many Americans are so fat, stop looking at McDonald's and the like and start visiting the mega-buffets that are way too common in the US, particularly in the Midwest and the South.





That buffet was next to our hotel in Albuquerque, which is the largest city in New Mexico. We highly recommend taking the scenic drive between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as the scenery is beautiful. This means avoiding the interstate and driving through a few real ghost towns. But the drive is only an hour and a half so it's not a big detour. We did a quick drive by of Albuquerque and have to say that it's mighty disappointing, especially once you've seen beautiful Santa Fe. We were told it was a bit sad, but it wasn't too far out of the way, so we decided to do a quick tour, but it wasn't even worth a slight detour. So, here's the grand total of 3 pictures I took in Albuquerque.

Lampposts against the classic Southwestern stucco wall:





And a traditional Southwestern image - native blankets, a dried up animal head and, yup, more ristras.

New Mexico

We're now back from New York and back in New England. Hard to believe, but we are flying from Boston to London in less than 2 days!!! Our permanent summer is almost over. We somehow managed to be in the southern hemisphere almost perfectly for the 6 months of southern summer and autumn and then return to the northern hemisphere for northern summer. Now that Labor Day (the unofficial end to summer in the US) is over, it's time to start getting back to reality ... almost. A couple of days of freedom left to post some more blog entries.

It's been a while since we were in New Mexico in late July, but we have some beautiful pictures to post. We first visited Taos, which is a ski resort town in the northern part of the state. The modern town is missable (strip-mall city!), but it does feature historic Taos Pueblo, home to some local Native Americans. We couldn't take pictures in the pueblo. The pueblo is somewhat interesting but at the end of the day, it was basically us paying 10 bucks each to go shop at some Native American stores and not take pictures. Some of the craftsmanship was pretty good, so we did buy a few things there.

Outside of Taos, there is a beautiful gorge which is crossed by a nice looking steel bridge. You can park your car and walk across the bridge, which isn't recommended for those with a fear of heights.

For some reason, a lot of my pictures on the day had some weird exposure to them. So here's a picture of Karen in front of a psychedelic ice cream bus.



Karen on the bridge overlooking the gorge.



The gorge:



This following picture was not staged at all. This is simply a picture of teenagers up to no good, dropping things off the bridge. Young people these days!!!



And who knew that there were beauty contests for bridges too? This one was "most beautiful steel bridge" for 1966. Its parents must be so proud.



A view of the bridge from the side. Note the rain clouds rolling in on the right.



Bridge and rain clouds:



Seeing the rain clouds approach from across the plain was a very cool sight indeed.











Karen and I thought this bridge would be perfect for bungee jumping.