On our way to Canyon de Chelly we stopped at a small store to do some shopping. We wanted some breakfast porridge but could not see any so asked the shop assistant who immediately looked blank before a glimmer of recognition and she asked, ‘do you mean Oatmeal’? - that is what they call it over here……. ‘Judith you will be quite impressed as Paul is now eating porridge with fresh fruit (blueberries) most days’,…………never thought that he would be converted, after all these years saying that he hated it…….. The shop assistant did locate the ‘oatmeal’ but it came complete with Maple Sugar and Brown Sugar, but we did select the low fat version and it was jolly nice! We continued on our journey stopping at the Hubbell Trading Post. HUBBELL TRADING POST The Trading ... read more

It was a short journey for us from Williams to Tusayan which is nestled into the Kaibab Forest just outside the national park's entrance. The town of Tusayan is the gateway from the South into the Grand Canyon but there are also entrances from the West and North. Tusayan is home to the Grand Canyon Airport, from which helicopter and airplane tours depart and we were hoping to book one of these later. The Visitor Centre is also situated here so we stopped on the way to our campsite and we were really glad that we did. We chatted to one of the guides called Jerry who told us that the fire was still raging in Sedona and had still not been contained by all the fire crews that had been drafted in to help - ... read more

It was indeed a very long journey from Yosemite to Death Valley and we really thought that we would never arrive. We passed through long stretches of urbanised areas but also isolated farmlands and on the side of the road we noticed a sign which said ‘Speed Enforced by Aircraft’ - not sure how they operated this but we stayed with in the relevant limits. We wanted to get as near as possible to the Valley and then camp up so that we could enter early in the morning before it started to get too hot. Most people we had met advised us to do this not just for ourselves but also vehicles heat up quickly in the valley and we did not want any breakdowns. Our camper van hire company had warned us that we ... read more

Well it really was a very long flight but we had some wonderful views on the way and the pilot ‘put his foot down’ so we gained an hour, so in total it was just over 15 hours flying time. We actually flew over the North Pole and it was just amazing seeing it from the air - massive ice fields, icebergs and crevices everywhere it was like looking at a giant wedding cake with all the icing cracking. We then had really good views of the Canadian Rockies covered in snow - awesome. Coming into San Francisco we flew over the Golden Gate Bridge and again the views were great we were very fortunate indeed. We were determined to stay awake to try and get into the local time zone so finally put our heads ... read more

Once again this is a very long blog so if you want to read it all please do so in small tranches with maybe a glass of wine or beer to keep you focused...... - it is our 100th blog since we started in September 2010 and will be the last one for a while though............... We left Lesotho and returned to South Africa travelling through the Great Karoo, a vast semi desert which covers most of central South Africa. The area is famous for sheep and ostrich farming industries and we passed many farms as we continued our journey. The Karoo's name is derived from the Khoisan word meaning ‘land of thirst’ and the original owners were the Khoisan as well as the San peoples. The Khoisan relied on sheep and cattle for their livelihood ... read more