RETURN OF THE AVATAR FEBRUARY 20 2009

Some ancient history that never got shared. All these images are borrowed, I no longer know where to find the pictures I took on this trip.  Just be patient, UK and Italy will appear soon.  

This will be our second attempt at reaching Key West, Florida.  For those of you followed our previous escapade you will remember we only made it as far as West Texas.  To avoid the same problem of having too much to see we decided to beat feet for Florida and take our time coming back.  The first day out was none to auspicious, they closed the pass over the Siskiyious due to snow.  Being ever so resourceful and somewhat impatient we decided it would be fun to take the route over to the coast and down highway 101 into San Francisco and on to Redwood City to see the kids.  Not so simple as you might think.  Somewhere outside of Grants Pass, in the snow and on a narrow two lane highway, traffic came to a

Grants Pass in the Snow

halt.  Played Quiddler and listened to tunes on th Ipod while waiting two hours for the road to re-open. All the same it was a beautiful drive.  By the time we got to Crescent City the snow had turned to rain and fog.  It was one of those drippy, foggy, forest primeval sort of drives . . . all very ethereal, evocative and all those other wonderful descriptors that I can't remember.   The surf was crashing on the coast, the tide was in making great big foaming spouts on the rock and the rain poured, no problem it's all part of our adventure.

Made a quick stop in Arcata to check out the facilities in the Co-op (Ashland should be jealous) and stretch our legs and then on down the highway.  Spent the night in Ukiah cuz we simply didn't feel like driving any further.  Should recommend the motel if I could remember the name, clean and neat and a pretty darn good continental breakfast in the morning.  Of course the price of $50 a night might have a lot to do with that.  Their claim to fame, a garden full of Redwood Burl sculptures and I mean those great big ones, bears and eagles and giant benches with all kinds of creatures carved into it.  Apparently even the spa had burl sculptures.  

Smith River Canyon

Birthday celebrations in the Bay Area meant we got decent Chinese . . . there is no such thing in all of the Rogue Valley!   And of course there was a trip to Trader Joes (another of those things you miss when you choose to live in Southern Oregon) to pick up some essential like Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup and Triple Ginger Cookies to stock up the tent trailer before we hit the road in earnest. 

As I write we are three days out of the Bay Area and in San Antonio, Texas. A humdinger of a storm chased us down I-5 and up and over the Grape Vine day 1 (the Grape Vine for you non Californians is the road out of the Central Valley in to the Los Angeles basin.) No putting up a tent trailer in all the wind, and fortunate we were too, since the next morning they closed the pass due to snow and it poured rain in L.A. We headed east again across the desert and in to Arizona.

Jedediah Smith Redwoods

The deal was make it for Florida, no stopping and sightseeing lest we not make it. It was kinda hard not pulling off to see places we had missed before or wanted to revisit but we held strong. Texas has helped a lot, the road goes on and on and on and there doesn't seem to be much to see. A quick stop at the Tourist Information Center in Demming N.M. demonstrated why we shouldn't stop, spent 20 minutes just gossiping with the volunteer who was raised there about how it had changed.  At least the bathrooms were clean and free. There's a business there that does nothing but process chili peppers . . . I'm going back for the tour someday!! Her guess as to why they stopped growing so much cotton in Demming . . . people prefer polyester because you don't have to iron it.  

Demming N.M.

El Paso Texas felt like something out of a dystopian movie about the end of the world. All smoke and grime, mesas and canyons, strip commercial and Mexican shanties. Mexico is just across the river and whatever that city is named it stretches on and on as far as you can see. Lots of heavy industry and the "urban decay" that goes along with it . . . all I really needed to do was take out my camera. It would have been a great photo shoot. It didn't help much that road out of Las Crusas and in to El Paso was lined with feed lots. Not exactly a pleasant smell but just possibly better that the smell around Tillamook Oregon. Do you suppose Beef cattle smell better that milk cows?

You know how they say that things are bigger in Texas, well not to be out done by the Wienermobile, in California, a giant tire was seen rolling down the highway. Well maybe not truly rolling but it was a very giant tire all the same. The roads are certainly bigger (for the giant tire perhaps). Highway 10 is two lanes each direction with a median probably three or four lanes wide in between the east and west bound lanes. A lot of the median could probably be driven on in a pinch and there are shoulders wide enough to carry traffic as well. As if this were not enough considering the volume of traffic (oh, at a stretch you might have twenty vehicles in an single linear mile on a busy piece.) on one and sometimes on both sides of the travel lanes were what amounted to frontage roads. In effect 6 lanes of traffic not counting shoulders or medians. Wonder in which administration this road was built, can you say pork.

Things I have learned(?)

• Palm Springs looks like someone watered and whole bunch of houses and shopping centers sprung up.
  
• The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile's license plate is "I wish I were" . . . it passed us on I-10 somewhere in the dessert
  
• You cross the Continental Divide somewhere in New Mexico and there are no mountains to be seen
  
• Before reaching Van Horn Texas you go through two time zones
  
• You can't get to Camping World by taking Exit #2 in Texas no matter what the billboards say.
• If you want fireworks just drive I-10 in New Mexico and Texas, you can buy them year round.
• Speed limits in Texas as 80 mph but you really don't want to do more that 70ish pulling the tent trailer
• Last but not least, according to my spouse the reason we stopped seeing some many wind farms once we got well in to Texas, they don't put beans in their chili.
•  

Sightseeing tomorrow in San Antonio . . . remember the Alamo! More coming your way soon

Oops, didn't get this sent in time .  Forget the Alamo but there are other things of interest in San Antonio.

RETURN OF THE AVATAR

Well I can't make excuses as to why I haven't published any new Avatars other than laziness.  Now their are even fewer excuses with the insanity that is going on around us.  So here it is.  I assume that the majority of you are on "house arrest", sounds better than "lock down" and wouldn't mind a little travel log to pass the time.  That said . . . 2019 UK and Italy.

You may or may not be aware we booked a language intensive trip through Road Scholar for 6 weeks in Florence Italy last year.  Much more about that later.  Given that we still have family and friends in the UK that is where our journeys will begin.  First disclaimer, I am tired of carrying a big camera and multiple lenses around with me.  In the airports its a pain because they generally consider it my piece of personal carry-on and then out in the field you find yourself loaded down with gear and no time to really stop and set up the images you really want to capture.  So instead of "images" you get  snapshots.  And while there is nothing wrong with snapshots, those are what memories are made of, it ain't exactly fine art.  Long story short, I upgrade my phone to a Pixel with what purported to be a really good camera.  So never fear, there will be pictures, but it let it be known using a phone is nothing like using an SLR and I never did become comfortable with it.

  For those of you who remember my past post(s) about English crisps, potato chips; here is a new one to add to the collection of I can't believe anybody would choose to eat this.  For those unfamiliar with the British breakfast delicacy, black pudding is a blood sausage and English mustard is sinus destroying mustard whose only redeeming feature is it is HOT.  They weren't as ghastly as they sound but I would not search them out.  

Since we are already on the topic of food, I need to share the overwhelming choice of fast food establishments that we found across the street from our hotel in Leicester.  Admitedly, it is a University town and the student housing was nearby but this was pretty overwhelming.  

Let's start here . . . Fireaway, Designer Pizza in 180 Seconds, that's not even enough time to think about what toppings you might want.  Next door Peri-Peri, a spicy chicken place.   This one is new to me, but it is just a variation on a theme that was develped by Nando's.  As far as I know they were the originators of Peri-Peri Chicken and to quote from there website :

IT'S A PEPPER

PERi-PERi, also known as the African Bird’s Eye Chilli, is the key to our legendary, flame-grilled PERi-PERi chicken. It’s grown in the African soil, so the magic starts from the ground up. It tastes amazing, but the benefits don’t stop there:

IT'S A SAUCE

We mix PERi-PERi with salt, garlic, lemon, onion, oil, and vinegar to make our signature sauce. Then we marinate our chicken in it for 24 hours and serve it at our restaurants across the globe. PERi-PERi sauce combines unmistakable flavor with a kick of heat that gently builds on the tongue and culminates in a full-body experience. It’s magic in a bottle.

And so here in the next block we have Nando's, (love there claims of a full-body experience) Oodles, Chinese, presumably noodles and WingShack.  Just to heap excess on top of excess I was standing in the doorway of a pub when I grabbed this shot. Carry on a little further and if my memory does not deceive, the other side of the street you get another typically British culinary delight Grand Kebabs.  If you have never experienced a Doner Kebab, it is meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, sliced thinly and served in pita.  I'm guessing it is pretty much the same thing as gyro, just a different nationality.

And, of course there is Five Spice, which seems to be the name of every third Indian restaurant in this island nation. 

 
We finish our two block excursion with Flames, chaiiwala and r/bar.  My guess is that chaiiwala is a play on words, chai (blend of black tea and spices) and wallah (a person concerned or involved with a specified thing or business).  Thus a person or business involved with chai.  All these options in a place where not all that many years ago the only place to get food outside you own home was a hotel restaurant. We did not opt for any of these culinary enticements, instead we went for good old Indian.  You know the drill chicken biriyani, sag aloo (my personal favorite) plenty of rice, a dish of raita and nan.  So if those all sound foreign to you take a flyer on Indian cuisine, all of the above are pretty typical without being so exotic as to be inedible.

Ostensibly we are here to visit family so it is the traditional lunch (dinner for the English among you) at a local carvery.  There was a lot of catching up and by the time we had finished we were the only folk left in the place.  Sometimes the English place names are better than the places themselves.  An Aunt lives in Broughton Astley, a cousin in Barwell, another in Sutton in the Elms (I think), the pub was in Peatling Parva, which is not far from Peatling Magna and on the way to Willoughby Waterleys.  

Peatling Parva Church

Having fulfilled our immediate obligations to visit we joined a cousin a local fete where she was doing a demonstration of dog handling with her little pooch Scoobie.  The fete or fun day was held in a enormous field on the edge of the village.  The Brits are experts at creating an outdoor experience where there is really no other reason to be there than to be outside.  There were quasi historical re-enactments of American historical events, a car show, a canal boat show, the normal forty thieves and rides we see at county fairs, and lawn mower racing. So for your entertainment and elucidation a selections of not so inspiring pictures of the shenanigans. 

Union Forces on Parade

Steam Roller

Cowboys & Indians - always a big seller

Canal Boat

And because an English countryside shot is relaxing . . .

ttfn 

translation:  ta ta for now

retranslation: good by until next time.