Busy days

Poppy didn't realise he needed help with his accordian, until Berry came along. And this little kitten didn't realise it needed an enthusiastic new friend... Surprises for everyone, in Breaux Bridge.

Welcome to Louisiana

Crawfish are big in Louisiana, but not this big.

This monster welcomes people at Lisa and Rocky Sonnier's famous cabins and restaurant in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana -- and it's just one of the place's many quirky charms.

Mike Rowe filmed an episode of Dirty Jobs here, about making "cracklins". Fabulous, I'm told, but a bit bad for you. That's the cracklins, not Mike Rowe. Although.....

More friends

Berry made a couple of furry friends at Northpark, the giant mall in Dallas. But they wouldn't share their bikes, and they wouldn't come out from behind that glass.

Really, Makai was much more fun.

Most delightful

With 2500 miles down and 500 miles to go, this was the fortune I got at a Chinese restaurant in Dallas:

"You are about to embark on a most delightful journey!"

Hmm.

Friends

We finally made it to Dallas, back to civilisation -- and even though it was just an extended pit-stop, Berry wasted no time finding her feet.

First order of business: make some new friends. Check. Meet Makai, Berry's new friend.

The entire friendship consisted of a half-hour chasing each other around the garden restaurant at Northpark, but they had a really fantastic time...

West Texas

Right about here, Paula let out a big sigh and said, "Oh, this is horrific."

And that's west Texas for you....

.

Somewhere in Colorado...

Six hundred and thirty miles. Thirteen hours. More than half a day. And did I mention 630 miles?

That's how far it is from Tremonton, Utah to Pueblo, Colorado, and we drove it all in one day. This time Berry regained her Toddler of the Day award (improving on her previous day's performance) and we had Bob The Builder playing all day, instead of The Wiggles.



Thirteen hours of anywhere gets very boring, and Utah and Wyoming are long on endless plains and short on Starbucks, which makes staying awake a bit tricky. But at least we had fabulous things waiting for us at the end of the road.



Joe and Christy, Nathan's godparents, are fabulous artists who live in this amazing place just outside Pueblo, Colorado. They have llamas living across the street and acres of wildlife all around. What artist wouldn't love to live here?




Joe took us for a trek around the back of their land and casually (too casually, I thought) mentioned the bears they see roaming around up there. BEARS! Bears, bears, bears. I've been quite preoccupied with the dangers of bears and cougars and mountain lions and other non-Australian wildlife threats, ever since I moved to the States. And particularly since I read about bear attacks in Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods. In his book about Australia (In A Sunburned Country), Bryson is hilariously liberal in detailing how Australia is crawling with the most dangerous animals on the planet -- and ok, you can argue that. But very few of Australia's- most-dangerous will take your limb off for choosing the wrong path on a hike. Kill you in seconds with poison, yes -- but they'll leave your limbs in place. And I'm quite fond of my limbs.


Anyway, that gave me some pause for the rest of the hike, especially when Joe pointed out where one of their neighbours had been leaving large roadkill out for the bears to eat. Like they needed encouragement or something... the bones were picked disturbingly bare.

Christy is a transplanted Southern belle, so after our scary/pretty walk, we had the most incredible southern fried chicken and potato salad and all kinds of other things you should never eat if you want to live a long time. It would've been a fantastic dinner on any day, but it was especially, heartbreakingly good after miles of Denny's dinners and McDonald's salads.

That night we slept upstairs in the fabulous house that Joe built. Usually when people say "I built this house" they don't mean with my own two hands -- but that's what Joe means. It's an incredible place. And in the morning, just to make sure our stay would be completely unforgettable, this was the sunrise.




I'm telling you, those llamas are living the good life...

Running around America

A towering formation over the playground where we stopped in Green River. Berry might remember it for the biggest slippery slide she's ever been on -- I'll remember it for the fantastic rocks.

(It's taken me so long to get an internet connection tough enough to upload all my roadtrip photos -- things are going to be kind of slow coming round on the travelling stuff. But I don't care if you don't.)

Nobody was hurt...

...but this semi lost its trailer and the whole load on one of the many, many bendy roads we drove along on the way to Bend, Oregon. What a mess.

Berry and a Lake

A few days ago we stopped in Oregon by a very, very windy lake. It was impressively beautiful, but Berry was nearly blown away.

Oh Oregon

Oh Oregon... you are so pretty. Don't let it go to your head.

Chikins

These were for sale in the crazy little middle-of-nowhere shop by the service station and the Artistic Taxidermy stand.

I think they're priceless.

Across America... and Artistic Taxidermy

To All The Fortunate People Who Are Not Travelling Across America With Berry:

Yesterday we drove 600 miles. That's like Brisbane to Sydney, and it felt like it too. We were all chirpy (or hungover, depending on the person) after a good night at the great McMenamin's in Bend, Oregon, and we set off at 6.30am so that we could take advantage of Berry's "sleeping hours" until about 9.30am. We were going to get some very peaceful and productive driving done.




Sadly, as we buckled her in the carseat she opened her eyes for an instant and caught sight of her big blue Wiggles backpack. Her eyes lit up, and that was the end of the sleep, the peace, the productiveness and all our plans. Basically she didn't sleep at all yesterday, and by hour two we had already:
1) revoked her Toddler of the Year Award
2) confiscated her previously-held Baby of the Year Award
and
3) awarded her the Bad Baby of the Day Award

Lots of yowling, lots of demands to eat (and eat), lots of demands for Wiggles and attention, and lots of endless plains. With some picturesque mountains in the background... but honestly they were powerless against Berry.

Thanks to faulty Twilight-Zonesque GPS directions we very, very nearly ran out of petrol in the middle of nowhere. We were saved when we magically stumbled upon a single petrol pump, a tiny store and an "artistic taxidermy" stand by the side of the road. Picture proof below:




Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt my endless whinge with some facts.

We're in Tramont, Utah now. Dad (Evans) was sorely disappointed to find that the Denny's (this town's best dining establishment) didn't serve beer, and Tomas was sorely disappointed to find the Denny's didn't serve margaritas. Paula says Utah doesn't have wine at all because (and I quote): "They hate women"*. Tramont, apart from being probably misspelled by me,** is the kind of place that plunges me into a tractor- and heavy-agricultural-machinery- inspired instant depression. I got that creeping Boonah kind of sadness coming over me as we drove down the main street (my family knows I mean....).

[*Paula said it, not me.]
[**I think it's actually something like Tremonton. Aw, shucks.]




We are trying to be even more ambitious today, with 600+ miles as the goal. We're trying to reach Pueblo, Colorado by nightfall. We're setting off early-early again (although I think 6.30 is a poor excuse for "early" and would prefer to leave at 4am... but I'm outnumbered here). Paula, who patiently sat next to Berry throughout a fair proportion of her shenanigans yesterday, has buried the blue Wiggles backpack deep beneath the rest of the luggage and forbidden anyone to mention them. Which is fair enough.