DAY 194 SATURDAY 22nd MARCH 2008

Kealakekua Bay Hawaii, Hawaii (Big Island), Hawaii (Miles to Date: 19700)

Captain James Cook was the first westerner to visit the Hawaiian islands when in 1778 he landed there to replenish and repair his ships. He named this group of islands "The Sandwich Isles" after a friend and supporter, John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich. Searching for a safe harbor, Cook eventually moored in Kealakekua Bay on the Kona coast of the Big Island. Initially Cook was treated like a god, with natives lavishing him with gifts and holding ceremonies in his honour, but when he left and returned with his ship the Resolution a huge storm damaged the islands and the natives could not understand how a god could have allowed this to happen. Their respect for Cook waned, and relations between the Hawaiians and the foreigners grew tense. A misunderstanding led to a fierce battle, and Cook was killed by angry natives.

Following in the footsteps of this great British explorer the Hoblets visited Kealakekua Bay, hoping to meet some friendly natives. The monument to Captain Cook is on a secluded peninsular which is only accessible by boat (or by swimming). We opted for sea kayak. The kayak rental place was sited high up on the hills above the bay – so we carefully strapped two double kayaks and a single kayak to the roof of our hire car, which was no mean feat. We then had to negotiate our way down the steep, curving road to the dock area. This proved to be the easy bit – getting the kayaks off, into the water and the getting down the 3 feet from the dockside into the kayaks was the hard part! Somehow we managed to do this without disaster (or even falling in).

For the dockside it is a 30 minute paddle across the bay to the monument. Fortunately today the sea is relatively smooth so it is a fairly easy ride across. Emily is very nervous in sea kayaks since her accident last year in La Jolla where she and Mark we hit and capsized by another kayak and she landed upside down in the water with a kayak on her head. So we have a few episodes on the way across as the kayak rises and falls on the swell. Laura travelling with Karen in the other double does really well, once Karen gets her paddling in time. On the way across a group of about 10 spinner dolphins come into the bay and pass about 50 feet from our kayaks. These small dolphins are renowned for their acrobatic skills and we are treated to a display of them leaping out of the water and spinning through the air before falling back down into the waves. Even this was not enough of a distraction to get Emily’s mind off the kayaking.

After a half an hour we do finally reach the beach landing area just down from the Captain James Cook monument. We pull the kayaks up on the rocky cove so we don’t lose our mode of transport back. It is almost idyllic here and if it were not for all the other people here (this is Easter weekend and Spring Break on the West Coast of the US) it would be perfect. The other great thing about this area is the snorkelling, so we unpack our gear and take to the waters. Even just a few feet from shore there are dozens of tropical fish, and as we go out further there is the most amazing coral reefs and varieties of fish. We have been so lucky since December to have these opportunities for snorkelling in some amazing places. Just before we leave we take the short trail through the woods to the monument to Captain James Cook. This white obelisk has most definitely seen better days, it is closed off to the public, probably because it is a not safe now to go up on the plinth structure. Also the paint is now flaking off, so the whole edifice is now in need of some loving care and attention. We sadly have to leave this lovely little part of paradise and return across the bay to dock area. By now we are experts at getting in and out of the kayaks, well.... sort of … Mark does manage to capsize the kayak with Laura in it! The journey back is uneventful at least until we get to the dock, but with some help from the locals we manage to get ourselves and the kayaks back on dry land and on top of the car.

After dropping off the kayaks we have to make the 90 mile journey back to our holiday home. Fortunately the scenery makes the onerous journey bearable. We have a little stop at a bakery on the way back where Mark continues his nationwide survey of bread pudding. This actually proves to be the best yet. We make one more stop at a black sand beach on the east side of the island, which is a most unusual sight. None of us are quite sure that we like the look or feel of black sand; it is very coarse and very black!! We have seen a similar beach in Sicily, but Jack and Emily were too young to remember this.

DAY 193 FRIDAY 21st MARCH 2008

Volcano National Park, Hawaii (Big Island), Hawaii (Miles to Date: 19700)

Today we took a trip up to the Volcano National Park, a true geological hot spot containing two of the world’s most active volcanoes. Measured from the seafloor, broad Mauna Loa is the tallest mountain on Earth, and Kilauea continues to spew and spit, constantly reforming the landscape around it. Magma vents on the seafloor send lava shooting to the surface, erupting into molten streams that flow straight into the Pacific, forming new land as they cool.

Unfortunately the weather like most of the windward sides of the Hawaiian Islands is somewhat unpredictable, and today is no different. Low clouds have wrapped themselves around the park and intermittently deposit gentle droplets of rain upon us. We hide inside the visitor centre and watch a film about the volcanoes and the natural environment within the park. In between the showers we brave a walk out onto the crater rim of Kilauea, not that there is much to see in the mists. This is still very much an active volcano as can be seen by the gases being emitted from vents in the Kilauea crater. There are also scenic trails around the rim, but the views are not too good today, Even so we walked out to the steam vents that line the crater rim and then out to the sulphur banks. We smell the banks before we see the bright yellow mineral deposits - this is one of the few places on Kilauea where the vents give off the foul, rotten-egg smell of hydrogen sulphide.

There is an active vent on Kilauea that erupted back in 1983 and has wiped out numerous houses and road on its way to the sea. Today it still spews red hot lava down into the sea, resulting in super heated water and plumes of steam high into the sky. The area where the action is taking place is not on the National Park and is only about 15 miles from where we are staying. We learn the best time to do the viewing is at night. The National Park Service has set up car parking about ½ a mile from the lava flows, but to get from the car park you have to cross rough lava rock deposits in the dark. This does not deter people in the thousands making this trip – and of course we have to make the most of this once in a lifetime opportunity. By the time we arrive the car parks are more or less full so we park on the road, which makes our walk about 2 miles each way, but only the last ½ mile is across a rough surface. At the end of the car park we can look down the road at what used to be park of the coastal highway and is now being crossed by the lava flow, the road surface now a burning mass. Further up into the hills rivers of red lava are clearly visible, flowing relentlessly seaward. Armed with torches(flashlights!!) we carefully make our way across the rocks following the dozens of other people on the trail, to the sea cliffs. The dangerous walk across the rough cliffs is more than worth it, for when we get there the sight is stunning. Several rivers of lava trail down to the cliffs edge and tumble into the sea. The bright red of the lava lights up the sky and the clouds of steam thrown up by the lava hitting the sea. We marvel at this and get very excited by the occasional sputtering of globules of lava in the air as the lava pooled on the edge of cliff. This is truly a unique site – only Jack is disappointed as he hoped to get a close up view of rivers of lava and didn’t really want to hear how dangerous this would have been.

DAY 192 THURSDAY 20th MARCH 2008

Kapoho, Hawaii (Big Island), Hawaii (Miles to Date: 19600)

Our time in Honolulu is all too short but we had to transfer to our vacation home on the biggest of the Hawaiian Islands - Hawaii, the Big Island. Like all the other islands in the 50th State of the US it has been formed by volcanic activity, and is the youngest of all the islands. It sits over a hot spot in the Earth’s crust, resulting two of the world’s most active volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauwea being in the confines of this island. Kilauwea the most active of the volcanoes in Hawaii continues to pour molten lava into the sea, where it hardens and continues to extend the sea shore of this amazing island.

The flight brings us into the 2nd largest town on the Island Hilo, which is situated on the east coast of the Big Island. Here it is buffeted by the Trade Winds. Like Oahu’s windward side rain is more than plentiful here giving this area a lush covering of vegetation of grasses, ferns, palms and trees. Also like Oahu most people seem to prefer to live on the leeward side of the Island so we are relatively isolated here – if you can put up with the rain it is blissful. We are in a remote area called Kapaho about 30 miles south and east of Hilo. You can’t call Kapaho a town of village because there is nothing here except a few houses; the nearest village of any sorts is 10 miles away.

Our beach house is wonderful we are just a few feet from the ocean – although our view is blocked by the house opposite, but tantalisingly you can hear the waves crashing on the reef just beyond. The house itself is built on stilts with an open layout – it is decorated just like you would imagine a house in paradise should be. We have a small backyard which is completely enclosed by palms and other tropical foliage- it also has a hot tub. It is great to sit out in the hot tub at night and watch the moon through the palms and have uninterrupted views of the night sky. Heaven!!! There is no beach here but we are down on the Wai ‘Opae Tidepools which is a wonderful place for snorkelling. These tidal pools vary in size and depth from shallow to many feet deep, and range widely in area as well. A lava reef barrier protects the pools from the sea, so it's a safe place for all of us to snorkel. The main danger here are the very sharp rocks, but the risk is more than made up for by the wonderful corals and abundant fish; just like being in a fish tank of tropical fish.

On a trip into Hilo we decided to visit the Pacific Tsunami Museum. The position of Hawaii makes it prone to the effects of tsunamis. The islands sit in the centre of the “ring of fire”, an arc stretching from New Zealand, along the eastern edge of Asia, north across the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and south along the coast of North and South America. The Ring of Fire is composed over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes and is a source of many damaging earthquakes, which can result in the generation of major tsunamis. In fact Hilo, where we are standing, has suffered significantly from tsunamis; in particular the devastating impact of the tsunamis of 1947 and 1960 which killed around 250 people in the area. Obviously this raised some concerns, especially for Karen, as we were staying in a beach house feet from the sea. So off she went to speak to a member of staff to find out how much risk we were in if there should be an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami. As is turned out we were in about the highest risk area on the island – most disconcerting. So from here on in we’re taking safety precautions!!!!

DAY 190 TUESDAY 18th MARCH 2008

Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii (Miles to Date: 19400)

From San Diego we headed north to Los Angeles, where we picked up Laura for our trip to Hawaii. Unfortunately poor Laura’s flight is delayed by 3 hours so it is late when she gets in. The night before we flew we were all scrunched into a single hotel room, Jack sleeping on the floor on his bed roll – all these scout camp outs have been geared towards this moment. The next day it is an early rise for our 9:00 am flight out to Honolulu.

The 5 ½ flight to Honolulu is pleasantly uneventful and we are soon in our hire car travelling to drop our luggage at the Ilikai Hotel near to Waikiki. Once this is done we start to head east, our plan being to tour the island of Oahu. We take a quick drive into Diamond Head State Park, but having recently visited several craters created by volcanoes and meteor it was unfortunately a bit of a case of 'seen that ,done that 'once we had driven into the crater’s caldera. We journey further north along the rugged eastern shore of Oahu where the brisk Trade Winds are throwing up an impressive surf that crashes relentlessly into the black lave rock cliffs, white spray thrusting skywards before gravity takes hold , rudely dragging the escaping water droplets back into the boiling waves. Also along this stretch of the road is a blow hole, which gather the incoming waves and funnels them upwards in a fine spray somewhat reminiscent of Ol’ Faithful at Yellowstone. This is a wonderful introduction to the Hawaiian Islands. As we crest the northern eastern corner of Oahu we are clearly on the windward side, where rain clouds are created by moist air coming from the sea being forced toward the heavens by the steep faces of the interior mountains where the moisture condenses and falls incessantly. Annual rainfall on this side of the island can exceed 200 inches, but the effect is to create the type of lush rainforest that is associated with this island paradise.

The windward side of the island is sparsely populated in comparison to the Honolulu area, and although it rains here considerably more it feels more like the place we Hoblets like to spend our time. There are wonderful empty beaches populated only by the tents of life’s great unwashed (although these surf bums probably spend much of their time in the water). It is also very obvious that this is where many locals live, and life is quite tough in this part of paradise. Eventually we arrive at Waimea beach on the north shore where we decide to let Jack and Emily have a run out on the beach under the strict instruction to stay dry. Of course the huge waves crashing down on the beach was to hard too resist and of course they got soaked. By this time the day was slipping away so it was time to head back to our hotel.

DAY 188 SUNDAY 16th MARCH 2008

San Diego, CA (Miles to Date: 19150)

Our journey has taken us further south and west to the city of San Diego, one our favourite cities in the United States. We had come to San Diego only last February for a week and enjoyed ourselves greatly so we decided to come back and visit again. One of the main attractions here is the weather, which has arange between 65oF and 80 oF with no humidity – perfect.

We had decided not to cram too much into this week as many of the big attractions we had seen only last year. So this was a week to catch up on a few things. There are several things that are hard to keep up on the road, especially when you only are in one place for just a few days. An example of one thing is going to see the dentist. We had managed to squeeze in a trip to the dentist back in Santa Fe which revealed Jack needed an extraction to remove a stubborn baby tooth, and Mark had to get a crown fitted (not a surprise). It was relatively easy to find a dentist in San Diego but the treatment for Mark meant finding one that could measure, manufacture and fit a crown in a day. Fortunately there is a process that makes this possible but it was still a four hour procedure – oh the wonders of modern technology.

Back last May Mark had been bought some ballroom dance classes by our friend Doris – and we had enjoyed these so much we had taken more lessons. So we were hooked. This had been another thing that had been hard to keep up – not too much space in a motor home for the Tango. Fortunately we had managed to arrange some classes in Phoenix which really reminded us how much we enjoyed dancing so we arranged for more lessons in San Diego, at Champion Ballroom. This dance studio is owned by Mary Murphy who is a judge on Fox TVs “So you think you can dance” – Emily who is fascinated by celebrities wanted her autograph but was too shy to ask so Karen had to step in and act as intermediary. Our instructor was Vanessa from New Zealand who was delightful. Jack and Emily have been great, as they have had to endure sitting for many hour whilst their parents strutted their stuff on the dance floor.

One of the things we really enjoyed on our last visit to San Diego was the Wildlife Park (affiliated to the world famous San Diego Zoo), which is located about 30 miles north of the city. The thing we like about this zoo is that it has vast open exhibit areas where herds of animals run freely. Unfortunately they don’t let the predators in with their prey – the public would most likely be too squeamish to deal with this – even so is probably the nearest you can get to being on safari. There are various ways of getting through these enclosures – the cheapest solution is to take the safari tour which is a series of open air carriages towed by through the park by a truck. This was our choice. Jack and Emily’s favourite exhibit is the lorikeet enclosure where you get to feed these colourful birds in their aviary. You take in little pots of nectar and the birds come and land on you. Last time we went Emily was terrified – today she had overcome her terror and loved it! It takes a good day to walk around as all the exhibits are so spacious.

We have tried to keep up with Jack’s involvement in scouts as we have been travelling. He is a fully fledged Lone Scout. So far Karen has managed to get him on two campouts in Florida. Fortunately we managed to get him linked up with a Scout Troop 970 in San Diego. About 90% of this troop are the children of US Navy personnel and the scout masters are all in the Navy or are married to service person. As you might expect everything was organised with military precision. As luck would have it there was a Scout Camporee the weekend we are in San Diego – so we drop off Jack on Friday night. On Saturday, at 7 am, Karen gets dropped off at the scout campsite in Balboa Park, as she has volunteered to help with the judging the 'Scout Spirit' competition – which essentially means being shouted at by 300 scouts. Even this uplifting experience was not sufficient to beat back the cold wind on this day. Jack had a wonderful time, even though he had to sleep under canvas on his own through a thunder storm on the Saturday night.

It has not been so easy for Emily to carry on with her Girl Scouts. So whilst Jack was on his Camporee with Karen she and Mark went to San Diego Zoo. Also we were able to visit the Girl Scout council in San Diego and get her moved up to a Junior and registered as Juliet (the Girl Scout equivalent of a Lone Scout). We now just have to get her linked up with troops on our travels now.

DAY 179 SATURDAY 8th MARCH 2008

Joshua Tree National Park, CA (Miles to Date: 18850)

One of the main reasons we came to stay here in the high desert of California was to visit the Joshua Tree National. If you ask most people to picture a desert there description would probably include words such as barren, bare and arid. Most of the time these descriptions would be fitting but we are lucky enough to be visiting in Spring and shortly after some much needed winter rains had fallen and the desert is in bloom. Everyone had told us to come in through the south entrance of the park, and this turned out to be an excellent recommendation. At the very first pull-in we stopped at the desert was a carpet of yellow and blue hues with an occasional dash of red. Amazing!! Unfortunately this brash display of colour only lasts a few short weeks before the blazing summer suns dry and shrivel these delicate flowers. We are so lucky to be here for this.

This area is unusual in that it is a transition point of two desert ecosystems; the Colorado Desert (an extension of the Sonoran Desert) and the Mojave Desert. Our journey started in the Colorado Desert but as we climb in altitude the terrain slowly changes and the scrub like bushes of the lower altitudes are replaced by the more rugged yuccas and cactus. This is a vast wilderness area and it is some 80 miles from the south entrance to the north entrance. About half way through the park we come across the Cholla Cactus Gardens. The Jumping Cholla Cactus is notorious for very loose joint attachments which attach to hapless by-passers with the slightest brush. It is said to "jump" on you if you get close to it. The thorns swell in your skin and they become very difficult to remove. Not nice!! The thorns are said to resemble the fuzzy arms and legs of a Teddy Bear, thus the name Teddy Bear Cholla, but we wouldn’t recommend cuddling this plant!!

By this time we have reached the edge of the Mojave Desert, which offers wonderful smooth rock like formations carved into beautiful formations by weathering through the millennia. We stop for what we believed to be short trail through the rocks to find a sculpted rock named Skeleton Rock – unfortunately we chose to go “off trail” and had to do a bit of scrambling to get back on track. Up here in the Mojave Desert is where we see our first Joshua Tree, after which the National Park is named. These tall yucca- like plants, growing up to 30 feet tall are a member of the lily family, strangely enough. The Joshua Tree is a resilient plant and quite happily survives in the harsh environment of the Mojave Desert, where it provides shelter for a host of birds and insects. Its useful properties were also recognised by the local native Americans Years long ago as they utilised its tough leaves to make baskets and sandals, and flower buds and raw or roasted seeds made a healthy addition to the diet. This time of year the Joshua’s are in full bloom, they have spikes of tightly packed white flowers which remind us of horse chestnut tree flowers.

DAY 178 FRIDAY 7th MARCH 2008

Desert Hot Springs, CA (Miles to Date: 18750)

Leaving Arizona we have crossed the border into California where we are staying at Desert Hot Springs, which is near to the California high desert playground for Hollywood stars of the past, Palm Springs. Desert Hot Springs is nestled in the Coachella Valley;this small town is sheltered by the Little San Bernardino Mountains to the north, the Santa Rosa Mountains to the south, and the San Jacinto Mountains to the west. Once again we are in an RV Park called Sky Valley Parks, this time it is a bit more family oriented. There are 9 pools on the site, 4 main pools and 5 spas, with all the water being fed from hot natural springs. Apparently these water have great medicinal benefits to those partaking of them including easing arthritis and back pain, diabetes and heart disease, weight loss and insomnia – all of which sound good to us. We, of course, spend as much time as possible in these pools which are a great way to cool off at the end of the day. One funny moment happened to us when we were in the pools. There was another family in one of the spas and Emily being the sociable girl she is engaged them in conversation. A few minutes later she joined us and said quite innocently “mum you see that little girl over there -I think she is ‘authentic’”. We assured her she was and probably autistic too. Poor Emily - her heart is in the right place though!
A couple of days ago we decided to visit the Coachella Valley Preserve just a short distance from where we are staying. This is an amazing place of contrasts. You start off in the most amazing oasis of dense palms in what feels likes a tropical rain forest, the reason for the lush vegetation here is the spring water. We are fascinated by the sign post indicating that the San Andreas fault line runs through here – hopefully there will be no major earthquakes while we are here!!! Anyway we take a short trail on boardwalks across the bog like interior of the oasis and eventually come out into the open we are now by contrast in the desert, complete with sand dunes – feels a bit like being on the film set of Beau Geste. We have come to appreciate the beauty of deserts and there are not too many people out here on the trail – splendid peace and quiet (apart from having Jack and Emily here of course who don’t understand the meaning of silence!) We continue on for another mile or so in rising temperatures when we spot another oasis – or is it? Well ,we are not hallucinating -it actually is a second oasis and we happily hide in the shelter of its lofty palms a few minutes before heading back along the trail. We really enjoyed our walk through the tropical paradise in the middle of the desert.

You may be wondering how we entertain ourselves in the evenings whilst on the road. Well we have fortunately got out of the habit of watching banal television and often read. Our big treat nowadays is watching the original series of “Little House on the Prairie”. This all started after visiting the Laura Ingalls museum in Burr Oak, Iowa and we have been hooked ever since. Amazingly there were 9 seasons of the series with about 21 episodes in a season – we are still on season 1 so there is a lot still to go at.

DAY 170 TUESDAY 4th MARCH 2008

Phoenix, AZ (Miles to Date: 18400)

We have been staying in a RV park in Mesa, AZ one of the many towns that have been absorbed into the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Mesa Spirit RV park, like many in this area, is primarily a 55+ community but the rules here are a little less strict than others. It is huge ,with about 1200 sites, which means there are probably about 2500 people staying here. This is only one of many sites around Mesa – it has a large itinerant population, a large percentage of which seem to be Canadian snow birds. The facilities are fabulous – 2 large pools, 4 spas, shuffle board courts, tennis courts and several halls. There is also a fantastic range of activities every day; such as bingo, crafts etc. Both of the grown-up Hoblets see the attractions of this in later life, a community of similar spirited people. ( Did Mark mean me here? I'd rather wither than be caught playing Bingo!!K)

Our time in Phoenix has not had as many agendas as previous places we have visited. We did find a dancing school for Mark & Karen; since leaving New York there has been little chance to carry on our dance education. So a number of private and group lessons are squeezed into the week. Another thing we had not managed to fit in was to keep Emily up with her soccer (football to the non-Americans reading this), but we managed to get her in a practise session with the Sereno soccer club girls team. This is one of the top soccer clubs in the country so it was great to pitch Emily in with one of their girls' teams. They have a number of professional coaches, Emily’s coach for the session is an ex-Bosnian under-18 international and we getting talking to another coach who is Scotsman called David Robertson who played for Glasgow Rangers and Leeds United in the 1990s. As you do is these circumstances, we talk to the other parents watching and get talking to one of the mothers who has a British husband who used to be a sports psychologist for UEFA and now provides services to the club! This is a really professional set-up but being in this club comes with a pretty hefty price – but you get the feeling most parents are looking at this as an investment as Sereno has a good records of getting girls onto soccer scholarships with colleges.Now you know our stance....football is for fun!Too much pressure and expectations can only hurt kids!

One thing that we missed doing in Wisconsin was to visit the home of the famous architect Frank Lloyd-Wright, Taliesin. Lloyd-Wright shared his time between his summer home in his native Wisconsin and his winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona. He built himself another home down here – which is imaginatively called Taliesin West. Karen has always had a passion for Lloyd-Wright’s work and Jack loves architecture so we decided to they should do the tour of Taliesin (which is pricey at $32 for and adult and $20 for a child), whilst Mark and Emily went off for some bonding time in the shops.

The tour lasts around 90 minutes and Karen and Jack see some wonderful things, try out some original FLWfurniture and discover a whole host of fascinating facts about FLW. Did you know he 'invented' aisle lighting? ..and recessed lighting? ...and built a small home theatre that was so well designed in a hexagonal shape that he and his wife could hear people whisper in the front row when they were seated at the back! He loved to hear the latest and greatest news and no-one knew they were being indiscreet!

Jack loved the whole tour and at the end talked to our hostess to find out how he could apply to study at Taliesin. He would have to camp out for a year and undertake back breaking building schemes alongside his studies....but he thought all of this was a great idea! After Arcosanti and this trip...watch this space!

DAY 171 FRIDAY 29th FEBRUARY 2008

Sedona, AZ (Miles to Date: 18220)

We continue our progress south and west, this time our destination is the desert city of Phoenix, AZ. En route we decided to make a stop at a place called Arcosanti, an experimental town in the high desert of Arizona, 70 miles north of Phoenix. This place is the brain child of Italian architect and artist Paolo Soleri, who believes the current way we live is unsustainable, with urban sprawl resulting in high use of energy and creation of pollutants. His philosophy is to build high density living with efficient circulation of people and resources, multi-use buildings, and solar orientation for lighting, heating and cooling. Soleri calls his design concepts “arcology” (architecture + ecology).

His ideas have not been widely accepted so in 1970 he embarked on a privately funded project called Arcosanti. Its' aim is to house 5000 people on 25 acres of a 4060 acre land preserve.

The plan is grand and virtuous but when you visit Arcosanti you can see there is a long way to go to achieving the initial goals. For a start much of the planned buildings have not been constructed therefore it only supports a community of less than 100 people. In the near 40 years since work started on Arcosanti funds have been hard to come by which has meant very slow progress. The main source of funding comes from manufacturing and selling bells designed by Paolo Soleri, all of which are made on site. They also have a source of income from running workshops, events and offering overnight accommodation. But it is evident that things are not going to plan. Mind you it is a simple and self-contained way of living and perhaps if Mark does not manage to find a job we’ll come back here to stay!!

We take the tour of the Arcosanti site and it is evident the place is suffering some neglect. Luckily enough we are there in time to see them pouring the molten brass into the moulds for their bell manufacturing. This is small scale manufacture so it is all done manually and not without some risk. Our tour also takes in some of the communal areas which are well thought out. What strikes you is that this is a commune – the residents are mostly young but if you had to classify them by sight you would call them hippies. We are not sure this is what Paolo Soleri envisaged when setting up Arcosanti, but to his credit he still visits the community weekly even though he is the grand age of 89. You wonder what will happen after his death. After the tour we go into the cafeteria for a really good and healthy buffet lunch. Arcosanti is an interesting and idealistic concept and we laud its goals and it is a shame that is has not received the funding to complete the project – you never know what the future holds. Soleri is most likely right about the un-sustainability of modern urban development so his ideas might have their day yet.

DAY 170 THURSDAY 28th FEBRUARY 2008

Sedona, AZ (Miles to Date: 18150)

We rose early today as we planned to visit Montezuma’s castle and ancient cliff dwelling south of Sedona. The road takes us through a scenic drive amongst the red rock down to a dirt track (we seem to be finding a lot of those at the moment) where we come across another National Monument called Montezuma’s Well. This is a sinkhole, a collapsed underground limestone cavern filled with water. More than a million gallons of water a day flow continuously, providing a lush, verdant oasis in the midst of surrounding desert grassland. Montezuma's Well is 368 feet across and 55 feet deep. There is a short trail that takes you down to the well floor and we are amazed by the ancient dwellings on the sidewalls and along the edge of the well. Climbing back up to the top of the well rim we follow another trail to where the spring water from the well cuts through the limestone and form a stream. This stream was diverted by the ancient locals to act as irrigation to the fields where they grew their crops. Although this was not a planned trip we had a really enjoyable time here.

From Montezuma’s Well we go further south to the country’s first National Monument. Montezuma’s Castle. This 5 storey cliff dwelling was built by the Sinaquas, an Ancient Indian Tribe about 700 years ago, but was later abandoned in 1400. Interestingly, the name Montezuma Castle was a mistaken name. Early settlers who discovered the cliff dwelling ruins erroneously connected them to the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but in-fact the Sinaqua ruins had been abandoned a hundred years before Montezuma was even born. The dwellings weren’t a castle at all, but a multi-family “prehistoric high rise apartment complex”. It took ladders to climb to Montezuma Castle and as the Sinaqua reached each level, the ladders made their way to the cliff community making it difficult for enemy tribes to penetrate the natural defence of straight-vertical barriers. This is another chance for Jack and Emily to do a field trip, so we get them to do the Junior Ranger programme in the visitors centre. It is only a short walk to the ruins from the visitor’s centre and it is such a glorious day. There are a couple concerning signs on the trail – one warns of rattle snakes, the second somewhat more curious saying not to approach the squirrels as they may carry the bubonic plague infection. Black Death in the National Parks!

( Karen doesn't believe this could happen in such a litigeous society!We expect to hear of the mysterious disappearance of all the park's squirrels soon!)The trail follows the line of Beaver Creek, which was the life line to the Sinaqua Indians, but today it is just a glorious backdrop, sparkling in the early afternoon sun. We reach the ruins which are quite spectacular, particularly when we reflect that these people did not have metal tools to help in the construction of these dwellings.

Unfortunately we cannot hang around too long as we have to get back to Sedona to go on a Jeep tour in the back country. We decided to take a 4 pm tour as the late afternoon sun is probably the best time to see the red rocks. There are quite a few different Jeep tours operating out of Sedona but we chose the Pink Jeep tours. The name of the tour is evident when you see the colour of their Jeeps – bright pink. Before of our tour begins we return to the wonderful ice cream store, The Black Cow Café, which we had discovered the day before. The theory was we would need the rush of sugar before taking our tour. We had seen these Jeep Tours in the TV series ”Little People, Big World” a series about the Roloff Family – the mother, father and one of their sons have dwarfism. It looked great fun. Pink Jeep offer several tours, the one we selected was the called Broken Arrow and is the high adrenalin tour. We meet up with our driver David and three other people who would be sharing our Jeep. These men had driven up from Phoenix where they had been attending a trade show on the software gaming industry – Jack and Emily’s eyes lit up at this!!!

The tour starts on the paved streets of Sedona but we soon detour off towards the red cliffs that overlook the city. These Jeeps have been modified to deal with the rough terrain on the off road trails through these hills. We hit some amazing bumps in the road including some large rocks, which the Jeep handles with comparative ease. Karen looks a little nervous of the trail – and is concerned about the effect of the bumps and lumps on her back. The trail takes us high above the valley and we get the chance to have a few photo stops along the way. Our driver David is a professional photographer so for a change we get a chance to all be on the photographs. The final leg of the tour takes us down a set of rocks and at some point we are tilted to an angle of about 70 degrees, this is followed by going down a steep, stepped hill (reminiscent of the mini coopers going down the steps in the film “The Italian Job”). Whilst Karen is a bit freaked out by this Jack and Emily are having a whale of a time and in fact complain to David that this tour is not extreme enough. Fortunately he did not take up the challenge. 2 hours shoot past and all too soon we are back in Sedona.

The adrenalin rush had fuelled our appetite so we crossed main street in Sedona to a restaurant called the Cowboy Club, where we chose the appetizer sampler. This included buffalo brochette, fried cactus and rattlesnake brochette. Emily tried the cactus but was not keen on trying the rattlesnake or buffalo, but the rest of us gave it a go. In fact they all tasted great, the rattlesnake which we were most suspicious of actually tasted of chicken. To wash this down the grown-up Hoblets supped a large glass of the local micro-breweries dark ale.

Truly a great day!

DAY 169 WEDNESDAY 27th FEBRUARY 2008

Sedona, AZ (Miles to Date: 18000)

The campsite we are on is totally wonderful. It was dark the night we arrived so we had not seen the backdrop to our new temporary residence. As we look out we see the high red rock cliffs that Sedona is famed for, which are particularly spectacular in the early morning and late afternoon sun. We are down in a valley right next to the fast flowing Oak Creek, which is being swelled with melt water, and provides us with a wonderful bubbling background sound. A number of the rocks are much photographed and have grandiose names like Cathedral Rock – but our favourite is Snoopy Rock which amazingly does look like Snoopy lying on his back.

Our first day task is to explore the town of Sedona, which is stunningly set in amongst red sandstone cliffs hundreds of feet high and many thousands of acres of preserved wilderness. The main street is highly oriented around the tourist industry and of course we are drawn to these shops because after all you cannot have too many souvenirs which is paradoxical to our current mode of existence where space is a premium. At some stage something will have to give – perhaps we’ll just leave one of the children somewhere to make more room!!! Anyway as we happily flit from one store to another we are drawn into the lair of a lady who uses some discount tickets for one of the Jeep tours to entice us in. To get these we have to agree to sit through a 90 minute presentation selling us a timeshare in the Hyatt Resort across the road. Seemed a good offer to us so we signed up for the following morning! One of the noticeable things about Sedona is the huge number of mystic and new age shops – a very spiritual place. There are apparently several local “vortexes”, places where high levels of spiritual energy are emitted and visiting these vortexes apparently transfers some of this energy to you and makes you feel a whole lot better. We didn’t have any time to experience these but we did the next best thing and visited a mystic in her shop – she was kind but rather scary in a strange short of way. The scariest thing was her hair which did not seem of this world, but talking to her it was apparent she was no spring chicken but looked well so the vortex energy must do something for you. We found some inexpensive fossils in the bargain basket, paid and left.

The next day we dutifully turned up for the presentation. They had kindly offered the services of their onsite child care staff to entertain Jack and Emily so only the adults had to suffer. Fortunately we had been through this process several times so we listened politely and then said no thank you and walked away with our discount tickets. The children had had a wonderful time with Patricia who is in charge of the health and fitness club and also runs the childcare activities. They were the only children there so they had her full attention; they did crafts, making a rain maker stick, played pool and had some time on the computer. When we had agreed to come to the presentation we also asked if we could use the pool which they said was fine, so we spent what was left of the morning playing around by the pool

Tonight we travelled back up to Flagstaff – up the wiggly 89A route through Oak Creek Canyon. It did not seem half so scary in the Jeep. The reason for our trip back was to visit the Lowell Observatory which offers evening tours which include the chance to observe the stars and planets through the 24 inch refracting telescope. This is a privately funded observatory (so welcomes visitors), sitting at 7250 feet above sea level on Mars Hill overlooking Flagstaff. It was established in 1894 by the astronomer Percival Lowell. He studied Mars extensively and speculated that the canals observed on the planet were the creation of Martians to control the distribution of water. It was also his research that led to the discovery of the planet Pluto 14 years after his death.

When we arrive it is just starting to get dark so we decided to spend a while looking around the museum exhibits which are very interesting, and cover such diverse subjects at the formation of stars, planets of the solar system, the effects of light pollution on night sky observation and the history of astronomical telescopes. All of these exhibits are interactive and many have multimedia support. For us the real reason for being here was to observe the stars so we could not hold ourselves back for long from going out to the observatory. Fortunately it is a very clear night with almost no cloud cover, which more unfortunately means it is cold up here at 7250 feet above sea level in February. In the main observatory, with the 24 inch refracting telescope, they have set-up to view Mars which is extremely clear on this night. We have never actually had a chance to use such a powerful telescope before so it is so exciting to get a clear view of the red planet. Outside of the main observatory they have set up a smaller telescope – by now it is freezing cold out here but we patiently wait our turn and try to take our mind off the cold by chatting to those around us. The wait is worthwhile as we get to see Saturn and its rings clearly visible, and as a bonus we can see two of its nine moons. As we were at the end of the queue they change to position of the telescope to allow us to see one of the nebulas, an active area of cosmic dust and gas clouds where planets and stars are being born. Wonderful! To end our visit we decided to visit the main telescope again, and to our great delight they had moved it around to observe Saturn. So again we got to see this giant gas planet, but all the more clearer than with the smaller telescope. What a wonderful experience.

DAY 166 MONDAY 25th FEBRUARY 2008

Sedona, AZ (Miles to Date: 17900)

Fortunately the winds have died down and we can safely continue our journey. From our campsite we can see the snow capped peaks of the San Francisco Mountains at the base of which is the city of Flagstaff. The highest peak is Humphrey’s peak -at 12,633 feet the highest point in Arizona. These peaks were once a huge volcano towering above the plains at over 16,000 feet above sea level (higher than any mountain in the modern contiguous United States). This peak exploded in a massive eruption millions of years ago blowing away enormous amount of rock – similar to the last major eruption of Mount St Helens. The volcano field around this area is vast containing some 600 cinder cones – with the last eruption occurring 1000 years ago at Sunset Crater. This is still an active volcanic area so more eruptions are likely in the future.

Having explored a meteor crater we felt the need to visit some more craters. Also we had seen some pictures of an area called Grand Falls – so off we set. The route takes us past some very nice cinder craters and good examples of lava flows. Eventually we enter the Navajo Nation Reservation and take Indian Road 70, which is a dirt road. Unfortunately when it had rained these roads had evidently been driven on, having dried up they are heavily rutted. Despite being in Jeep the vibration is tremendous and after about 5 miles we give up and turnaround as Karen is concerned about the car falling apart (it is after all 10 years old). We return to the RV park, pick up the motor home and continue on to Flagstaff.

At Flagstaff we park the motor home and drive the Jeep up to Sunset Crater, the site of the most recent eruption in these parts some 900 years ago. This is now a National Monument so we go to the visitor centre to pick up some information on the area. Climbing is not allowed on the banks of the crater wall as the effect of visitors in the past had begun to damage the environment but you can drive around the very well preserved cinder cone. We also take a short ride to a trail which takes you to the lava flows, which we enjoy greatly.

Daylight is starting to fade when we pick up the motor home and continue our journey to Sedona where we will be staying for the next few days. The straightest route is the 89A which follows Oak Creek through Oak Creek Canyon. The word canyon should have been a clue to what was to follow -as should have been the signs saying “no vehicles over 55 feet” – but we had no idea. Over the next several miles the road descends about 1500 feet through a series of hair-pin (switch-back bends). Fortunately we had decided not to tow the Jeep on this leg of the journey so Karen and Jack were following behind the motor home. Not having much experience driving the coach made this a hair raising experience – and the elevated view from the drivers seat gave excellent views of the precipitous drop from the road edge some 12 inches away. 4 nerve wracked miles later the bottom of the canyon was reached and we could relax a bit before getting to our campsite in Sedona.

DAY 165 SUNDAY 24th FEBRUARY 2008

Meteor Crater, AZ (Miles to Date: 17800)

On Sunday morning we left Holbrook, which is not a place one should be sad to leave. Once a rough frontier town – it doesn’t have much more to offer in 2008. Fortunately only a short drive away is the Petrified Forest National Park. Jack and Emily love rocks, minerals and fossils, so to go and look at petrified wood is heaven to them. Our first stop is the visitor centre, where we get treated to a Ranger talk on the formation of the petrified forest in the late Triassic period, 225 million years ago.

This is great introduction and we follow this by taking the short trail outside we actually get to see the final great act of petrification. Here are the fallen trees of the primordial forest, most likely carried to these spots by a rampageous river. The minerals from the river would have been absorbed by the wood of the trees and overtime what was wood has been mineralised to leave a permanent record on the landscape. The effect of mineralisation has created a wonderful kaleidoscope of colours in the petrified wood. There are huge petrified trunks of trees lying all around the trail. Truly wonderful!

The National Park itself is vast – taking nearly an hour of solid driving from the south entrance to the north entrance. En route we make a couple of stops to look at some Pueblo ruins and petroglyphs painted on the rocks. At the North entrance of the park we take the Painted Desert loop, taking us past grand vistas of the colourful desert. Unfortunately the weather is not co-operating and it is also not the best time of day to see the colours ; early morning and late afternoon sun brings out the colours most effectively. We don’t have the time to wait so will have to rely on our imagination to picture this splendid scene – it is time to move on to our next stop.

Our plan is to reach Sedona, Arizona on this day. We set off across the flat and tedious high desert plains. One of the issues with flat plains is that they don’t provide any protection from the wind, which is particularly tiresome (and dangerous) in a relatively light weight, high sided vehicle – oh yes, like a motor home. Well, as chance would have it, a strong afternoon gusty wind kicks up across the desert – throwing up a bit of a dust storm. Of more concern is the impact of strong wind gusts side on to our vehicle as we drive down the road. Also ,because of the direction the wind is blowing it is causing the awning (which is furled up) to lift and bash against the side of the motor home – loudly. Not usually of weak disposition in terms of driving conditions, Mark is struggling to hold a steady course on the road. Well we decide to pull off at the signs for Meteor Crater National Monument where there are services – as we approach these we pass over a cattle grid which causes the remote brakes to go on in our tow-behind Jeep. The message we feel from God is to cut our losses and stop. As luck would have it there is RV park right next to the service station – so with little hesitation we pull in for the night and hook up.

It had been our intention to stop and look at the meteor crater anyway, so providence had a hand in bringing us to this point. Although it was getting late in the day we still had about an hour to explore the crater so we drove up the visitor centre. The approach to the crater passes through the flat desert, with the crater walls rising 150 feet above the plain it is easily seen from miles away. The crater was created about 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch when a nickel-iron meteor about 150 feet across collided with the earth at about 30,000 miles per hour. The impact was devastating, producing a massive explosion equivalent to at least 2.5 megatons of TNT comparable to a large thermonuclear explosion and about 150 times the yield of the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The explosion dug out 175 million tons of rock leaving a crater that is 4000 feet in diameter and 570 feet deep. The wind that caused us to stop here has also prevented walking tours along the rim but we are able to go out on to the viewing decks and admire this large dent in the earth’s surface. Difficult to imagine what it would have been like to been here during the collision – probably deadly. There is a good visitors centre here and we find out more about the crater’s history and the nature of the Earth at the time from watching a short video and listening to the staff talk around a large chunk of nickel-iron found in a wash some distance from the crater. Unfortunately it is late in the day and we don’t have time to look around the museum exhibits, choosing the gift shop (as always) instead.

DAY 164 SATURDAY 23rd FEBRUARY 2008

Canyon De Chelly, AZ (Miles to Date: 17450)

Our route now takes us further west. Passing through Albuquerque we stop to leave our motor home for a quick tweak at a service centre and head into town for a bit of lunch. We had chosen to eat, most unusually, at a pharmacy, called the Model Pharmacy. Despite the fact this does not sound a promising eating establishment – this is no ordinary pharmacy and the food is excellent. We chose to sit at the counter to eat as the restaurant was empty (it was about 2pm), which turned out to be an excellent decision as the staff who talk to us we eat are as as delicious as the food. Jack the pharmacist is a charming man and has lots of wonderful local information for us ...and more too for our future ports of call! He is impressedwith the children who keep him amused with tales of all we have seen and done...and he is a perfect host in this eatery!He has a wonderful selection of English medicines...and genuine Smarties and Strepsils are hard to find! He promises to order in and to try Marmite for himself and we are very happy!

All of us chose the special which was a beef & vegetable pie, with the most wonderful pastry. Even Emily who is the fussiest eater of all us tucked in. In general (with the exception of Emily) we are savoury rather than sweet people so we usually miss the desserts – but today they just looked too good not to eat. On offer was a peach cobbler which Jack ate with his mother’s help whist Mark succumbed to the bread pudding which others tried to share but were repelled with a short jab or two of the fork. Completely bloated we return to our motor home and continue on westwards.

Early evening we reach our base for the next few days, Holbrook, just over the border into Arizona. As is often the case with these campsites in the desert this is a little bleak, particularly this time of year when there is no one else there!

Arising the next day we are greeted by a horribly wet cold day – the sort where you just want to wrap up in a blanket and stay in bed. Deserts are inhospitable on a hot summer’s day, but are no more inviting when they are cold and wet. We chose to use this day to catch up on school work.

Today the rain has stopped but it is frigid here in the Arizona high desert. It might look flat but we are at about 6000 feet above sea level – it gets cold here in the winter. The previous day’s rain has turned our pitch into a place where pigs would quite happily wallow. Definitely a place to get out of for the day! So we head North towards the Canyon De Chelly (pronounced “Shay”) which had been recommended to us by a number of people including our great friend Sandi Lieb-Geiger. Coming off the I-10 we pass in to the Navajo Nation, and from this point the road climbs higher. As we reach the plateaus of the high desert what had fallen as rain in Holbrook had settled here as snow. It painted a very pretty picture, especially as the sun breaks through the clouds. Eventually we arrive at the Hubbell Trading Post, a National Historic Monument in Ganado on the Navajo Reservation. This trading post is the oldest continuously operated trading post on the Navajo Reservation and was purchased by John Lorenzo Hubbell in 1878, who established himself as one of the leading traders of his time. The trading post is still active, trading with members of the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and other tribes operating it. There are general items on sale plus some very expensive tapestries and weaving produced by local tribes people – we just window shop and buy ourselves a squeegee to clean our RV windscreen (the last of the big spenders).

Then onwards to the Canyon De Chelly! The Canyon de Chelly National Monument encompasses a long, three-armed canyon on the northwest slope of the Defiance Uplift. The canyons have been carved by erosion from running streams, the Tsaile and Whiskey creeks, producing spectacular cliffs measuring in place 800 feet from rim to the canyon floor. Unlike the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly is very accessible and has been the domicile for human beings for at least 1500 years; from the early pre-Columbians (such as the Anasazi and Pueblo) to the present day Navajo, who continue to use the canyon floor for farming. Evidence of this long history is captured in the park through ancient dwellings built in to the cliff walls and petroglyphs.

The accessibility of the canyon is one of the things that has drawn us here. There are Navajo guided tours of the canyon but today we are going to be our own guides. We begin by skirting the southern rim of the canyon, stopping every few miles each at the view points which provide stunning views of the canyon below. As well as places to admire the scenery there are numerous local Navajo traders selling their wares and it is too much for Karen and the children to resist so we pick up some jewellery and paintings on local stone – we actually have a long, and interesting chat with the artist himself about the symbology used in his artwork. At White House overlook you can take just about the only self-guided tour down into the canyon; a 3 mile or so round trip on a path that winds its weary way down the cliff sides from the rim. Of course we had to do this – and fortunately for us old ones this was not too arduous. As you descend you get splendid views of the undulating canyon walls that have been carved out through the millennia. It is also a chance to get close up views of the geological aspects of the canyons, the layers of sedimentary rock laid down when this area was part of huge inland sea. Being February today is quite cool but even so by the time we reach the bottom we have worked up quite the sweat( Glow!). Further down the path, and hidden from the rim above are the 1200 year old White House ruins – cleverly built into 500 foot high cliffs that provided shelter and defence for the inhabitants. Whilst the ruins were spectacular the toilets were not – and maintaining a level of decorum prevents us from giving further detail. But when a man / woman/ child has got to go then they have got to go – just hold your nose and close your eyes. Relieved we turn on our tails and beat a retreat back up the 600 foot climb – needless to say coming down was much easier!!

The final stop on our tour is the Spider Rock overlook. Here the canyon is at its deepest and is where an 800 foot high sandstone spire stands majestic – posing for all the passing tourists and professional photographers. We have risen again in altitude so there is snow on the ground again, but this only adds to drama of the spectacle. As we stand there admiring the formation, we get into conversation with two ladies from Vermont, who decided one day to pack up their jobs and go on a 12 month tour together. We obviously had a lot in common and stories to share, so we spent some time just recounting our experiences of life, the universe and motor homes. As we departed Emily astutely asked whether the ladies were “married” and we said they probably were.

Canyon de Chelly is a wonderful place and we recommend it highly to anyone visiting Arizona or the Four Corners. We took away some more fantastic memories.

DAY 162 WEDNESDAY 20th FEBRUARY 2008

Taos, NM (Miles to Date: 17450)

Another cold morning in Santa Fe, but today we decide to head further into the State to the town of Taos, some 75 miles north of Santa Fe , deep in the mountains. One of the things we read to our surprise is that the writer D.H Lawrence and his wife Frieda acquired this ranch near the New Mexico town of San Cristobel in exchange for the manuscript of “Sons & Lovers”. This was the place that they came to escape the world, particularly in the later years of Lawrence’s life when he was suffering from tuberculosis. After he died in 1930 his ashes we supposedly taken back from France to the New Mexico ranch where they were laid in a small chapel near the ranch; some say his ashes were mixed in the concrete block to form a memorial. Frieda continued to live at the ranch until her death in 1956.

The ranch itself was bequeathed to University of New Mexico and today it is used primarily as a retreat. Set in the mountainside the property has splendid views across a vast, wide valley through which the Rio Grande cuts , across to distant mountains. We take the sign to the Lawrence Ranch, which turns out to be a dirt track. As we climb the mountain we get to the snow line, and the road has not been cleared, so we start to snake across the road. We are not so easily discouraged so we put the Jeep into 4 wheel drive, of course this is the type of conditions these cars were designed for, and we continue on our way. Higher and higher we go, deeper and deeper the snow gets and the worse and worse the road gets – the children are loving this, like being on a theme park ride. Eventually we reach the ranch, but the adventure proves to be more exciting than the result. The younger Hoblets wonder why we are making this trip for they have yet to discover the author. The grown ups are making this pilgrimage! Karen gets out the car to check out the ranch but it is closed up and looking in through the window it looks like someone had ransacked the place and then squatted there for many years– but we guess this is how some people choose to live. Mind you we feel elated from just have made it to here. Coming back down does not seem half so bad.

On the way back from San Cristobel to Taos we take a short detour along Route 64 to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, a cantilever truss bridge which is the second highest in the United States, with a span of 1280 feet across the Rio Grande Gorge which runs 650 feet below. By the time we reach here it is bitterly cold, the wind howls unabated across the open plains having being chilled in its passage over the mountains. It is an impressive site but we don’t waste too much time before leaping back into our nice warm car and setting off for Taos.

Taos ,like Santa Fe, is a bit of a posh persons shopping paradise with lots of expensive shops selling local crafts and antiquities. We amble around for a bit looking in a few shops and decide to head back to Santa Fe. A nice day out.

DAY 161 TUESDAY 19th FEBRUARY 2008

Santa Fe, NM (Miles to Date: 17300)

Having grown accustomed to the warmer climates of Florida and Texas the first morning in Santa Fe resulted in thermal shock for the Hoblets. The overnight temperature had dropped down below freezing, being that Santa Fe is 7000 feet above sea level things do get chilly here in the winter. We had managed to keep reasonably cosy inside the comfort of our motor home but we had forgotten (or at least Mark forgot!) to unhook the water line. Consequently the whole pipe was frozen solid by morning – we are still learning about living life on the road.

Not deterred by the chill in the air we dressed up warmly and went into look around the historic old town of Santa Fe. This is an old western frontier town, famed for its rail road and in the past has been a tough place to live. Today it is a genteel town with a focus on antiques and arts and crafts. There are some very fancy shops here selling some gorgeous things – a great place to mooch around, unless you have an 8 year old girl and 10 year old boy in tow. Actually Emily is becoming a bit of a retail-o-holic, particularly when it comes to jewellery, clothes, fossils, minerals and moose. It does not bode well for the future. Jack on the other hand gets bored quickly of shopping and mopes around outside the store hoping that his tirades of winging will force his mother and youngest sister to withdraw. He has not learnt yet the futility of his actions. The architecture of Santa Fe is primarily adobe style buildings, with their attractive round edges and imperfect earth coloured stucco exterior walls. We just loved this style of building.

After perusing a shop or two we come across the Loretto Chapel, and what drew us in was the sign about it famous staircase. The chapel itself is very small and is now privately owned, but the staircase itself is a magnificent spiralling unsupported staircase. The stairway's carpenter, whoever he was, built a magnificent structure. The design was innovative for the time and some of the design considerations still perplex experts today.
The staircase has two 360 degree turns and has no visible means of support. Also, it is said that the staircase was built without nails—only wooden pegs. A true piece of master craftsmanship!

When the Loretto Chapel was completed in 1898, there was no way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above. Carpenters were called in to address the problem but they all concluded access to the loft would have to be via ladder as a staircase would interfere with the interior space of the small Chapel. Legend says that to find a solution to the seating problem, the Sisters of the Chapel prayed to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. After searching for the man (an ad even ran in the local newspaper) and finding no trace of him, some concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, who came in answer to the Sisters' prayers.

One of the things we particularly wanted to see was the great American artist Georgia O’Keeffe'sMuseum. Jack had studied the works of Georgia O’Keeffe in 3rd Grade so we felt it was important for Emily to make this “field trip”. Her works are primarily abstract but cover a wide range of subject matter although she is probably most famous for her close-up paintings of flowers. Through her early years she lived in New York with her husband Alfred Stieglitz, but when he died in 1946 she moved to her house at Ghost Ranch, north of Santa Fe. The mountains and deserts of New Mexico had been spiritual home for O’Keeffe since her first visit in 1929. She lived and worked from her Ghost Ranch home until her death in 1982 at the age of 98. The museum exhibited a large cross section of O’Keeffe's body of work, covering both her water colour and oil paintings. Our particular favourites were the landscapes she painted in the time she spent in New Mexico. The museum building itself was delight to be in - there was a guest artist, Marsden Hartley, a contemporary of O’Keeffe but his works did not appeal so much to us. We really just wanted more O’Keeffe.

Our day in Santa Fe was wonderful, a bit cold but just walking the streets amongst the adobe buildings was relaxing in itself. We need to have days like this where we just chill out!!

DAY 160 MONDAY 18th FEBRUARY 2008

Santa Fe, NM (Miles to Date: 17200)

Our journey has taken us north and west of Carlsbad. Along our route we stop in the sleepy town of Roswell, New Mexico. It is fair to say, although not sure the residents would agree, that Roswell is pretty non-descript and driving down the main street there is not a lot going on. The reason for our visit is Roswell’s most famous historic event - the discovery of a supposed alien crashed space craft in 1947. The story goes that a local farmer found the peculiar objects in a field on his property and reported this to the local authorities. Initial reports claimed this to be an alien craft but the government official later changed to story to say it was actually a crashed weather balloon. As time went by a number of the key people involved – including some ex-government officials- changed their stories through affidavits. This led to a great number of people calling “foul” and believing the whole thing was a government cover-up and there was actually an alien space craft.

We park up on the main street and the first thing you notice is that all the shops have an extraterrestrial feel – if not the name then the fixtures in the shops (including alien shop dummies). Even the lamp shades of the street lamps are shaped like alien heads. This is the quintessential exploitation!! And we love it! Our destination on this day is the International UFO Museum, which turns out not to be as grand as the name suggests. The museum is set in a building which resembles an old cinema, although they have broken ground on a brand new building in the town. If the outside strikes you as bizarre then the inside is all the more so, and resembles the interior of a large church. The first exhibits we find ,as one might suspect , are surrounding the 1947 incident in Roswell – presenting newspaper articles, government documents, letters and affidavits. It was actually fascinating reading. In the video display room they were showing several different films and we were lucky enough to see a video documentary, which was very tongue in cheek, about the International UFO conference held in Roswell a few years back. It was highly amusing but unfortunately they were not selling it in the store otherwise we would have had it. Other exhibits focused on photographic evidence of UFOs, various statements from US Presidents about their thoughts on extraterrestrial life and a particular favourite of ours was the reconstruction of a film set of one of the films made about Roswell with an alien repost on an operating table. We spent a good 90 minutes here and to our surprise we had a great time.

Unfortunately we still had some way to go to our final destination of the day, Santa Fe. We crossed the interior of New Mexico, which you could say is just another desert, but we have grown fond of deserts but this one was not too exiting. As we near Santa Fe the landscape takes a dramatic improvement as the Sangre de Cristo Mountains climb from the desert floor. Their 13,000 foot plus snow covered peaks cut a impressive swath in the New Mexico skyline. Eventually we reach the RV park (for our non-US readers RV stands for Recreational Vehicle and is generally what motor homes are called here), close to the down town area of Santa Fe, as usual we arrive just after the office has closed shop for the night so have to find our pitch ourselves. This RV site is very scabby with some very dilapidated looking motor homes on site with some equally dilapidated owners. We will try to do our “trailer trash” best to fit in here for a few days.

DAY 159 SUNDAY 17th FEBRUARY 2008

Carlsbad, NM (Miles to Date: 17000)

Yesterday morning we rose, and remembered we were parked in a truck stop, which explained the noise and activity outside our motor home. As always when it is cold there was not a great deal of enthusiasm amongst the troops to rise from our slumbers. After a hearty breakfast we pulled our big rig (we are quite long – a 35 foot motor home towing a Jeep laden with four bikes means we must be approaching 50 foot in length) out of the truck stop and hit the road North West to our next stop, Carlsbad, New Mexico.

The route across the plains of North Texas is not too interesting – flat and tedious to put it bluntly. The fields themselves are a rusty red colour and are barren this time of year. There are the remains of the cotton crops, little piles of uncollected cotton flax littering the side of the road looking like spillage from a passing beauticians van. The only other really noticeable feature is the many oil derricks dipping their heads up and down like bobbing chickens feeding on corn. All this unremarkable scenery is back-dropped by dark clouds. We are little worried as this is “Tornado Alley” and there are tornados forecast in the south of the state – hopefully the forecaster have got their predictions wrong!

We have a planned stop en route; the small town of Hobbs, New Mexico. To our delight our long trip is seemingly rewarded by the town having the most amazing sign, with 12 foot high freestanding letters spelling out the words “HOBBS NM”. Photo opportunity time!!!. We read the signs about not climbing on the sign so we simply sit on it – if we get arrested we can argue the pedantic issues of climbing versus sitting and a night in the police cell would only enhance our trip experience.

Buoyed by this “Hobbs” experience we continue onto our campsite north of the town of Carlsbad. The site is a real contrast to our last one in the middle of San Antonio, this site is in the middle of the Chihuahua desert and there is no sign of life around. The area is famous for the caves and the fact that Billy the Kid also hailed from these parts. Mark was also pleased to find out John Chisum, the famous cattle rancher came from here – the film Chisum was another John Wayne classic.

Today we set out to visit the famous Carlsbad Caverns, but we had some time to kill so we went to the local wildlife State Park. Our expectations we not high but we were pleasantly surprised by this park – our first site of a Road Runner crossing our path made it all the more exciting. In the park they have set-up the three different desert environments – for those who have not visited a desert and have preconceptions on their monotony should be advised they might be barren but they have their own particular beauty. As well as showing the plant life of the desert there are animal exhibits with wolves, mountain lions, bob cats and bears.

We spent more time than planned at the State Park so were now pushed for time. To try and make some time we called into a Sonic Drive In. Sonics are common down in the southern states and are drive ins rather than drive through, a subtle difference. The burgers and fries that are delivered to our car are soon consumed and we set off for the caverns. The fast food helped us make up some time so we arrive just in time for our tour. An elevator takes us down 850 feet through the limestone mountain to where we meet our ranger guide. For the next 90 minutes we are escorted through some amazing caverns with some of the most impressive formations we have ever seen – and we have been to many caves. The chambers are vast and awe inspiring, and we pass through the Kings Palace, the Papoose Room and Queens Chamber all magnificently decorated with limestone formations. After the guided tour we decided to take the mile and half walk around the Big Room the largest single cave chamber in the Northern Hemisphere. It is outstanding and Emily, who has a fantastic way of spotting objects in formations, amused herself and us by finding various formation resembling dwarfs cuddling, sitting on top of each other and other configurations. We enjoyed it greatly and were one of the last groups to rise back to the surface.