Geo: 32.3067, -106.778Now that Dave B has reached the lofty heights of sixty five years well-lived, we expect that he will start to shrink, begin wearing fedoras, drive with his turn signal on all the time, and start forgetting all of those distant childhood memories (and things that happened yesterday). There's not much we can do about the first three but we thought we might help with some replacement childhood memories. We tried to track down a bouncy castle for him but we had to settle for a day of tobogganing- there was no snow in the neighbourhood but there was a huge national park filled with snow-white sand dunes. And just to add a little excitement to the mix, White Sands National Monument sometimes closes when the adjacent White Sands Missile Range is actively testing ... read more

Geo: 35.2072, -101.834Our time in Texas with the Killer B's is going to be brief but if you're in Texas you have to do the cowboy thing so our first stop was a horse ranch. The pace was decidedly methodical but these weren't trail horses so you could easily wander off on your own and channel your inner Clint Eastwood. We were also fortunate to be skirting the second-largest canyon in the United States, the Palo Duro Canyon. It is roughly 70 mi (110 km) long and reaches a width of 20 mi (32 km) at places. The owner of the ranch was part Comanche so she filled us in on the tragic history of the canyon. The land had remained under American Indian control until a military expedition was sent in 1874 to remove the ... read more

Geo: 35.6915, -105.937Within the span of one day of driving we went from the heat of El Paso to the cool temperatures of Albuquerque, New Mexico. On this road trip we've seen a large spectrum of weather types, so why does a bout of cold temperatures matter? Well Deb B (the female half of the Killer B's) surprised her hubbie on his birthday with a trip to New Mexico to join us on our road trip for a couple of weeks. So again, why are the cooler temps a potential problem? First of all we think that the Killer B's are expecting to escape a Canadian winter for at least a short period of time- but the temperatures in Toronto have actually been higher than those of Albuquerque so far this year. And secondly, since Dave ... read more

Geo: 29.4245, -98.4946We started this road trip through the U.S hoping to explore both the loud, boisterous, and somewhat biased pride that Americans have in their own country, and the eccentricities that seem to stir the whole drink. We haven't been disappointed. Even the term 'Americans' seems to have been hijacked (everyone living in North and South America are technically 'Americans') by a population that genuinely struggles to understand why everyone wouldn't want to be a U.S. American and generally views eccentricity as a needed flamboyant colouring in life (how else do you explain Las Vegas- an elaborate adult playground in the middle of the desert??). We've seen examples all through the country, but San Antonio has offered up a particular sampling of extremes. First up is the Alamo which is arguably the site of the ... read more

Geo: 32.7485, -97.3292Texas invokes a lot of rugged images and we did kind of expect that we would be part of a wagon train as we crossed the border. DH was already going somewhat weak in the knees at the thought of a black hat cowboy jingle-jangling by us as we tip back a Starbucks late on a sunny Texas patio. She was blaming the weak knees on her recent surgery but she keeps calling me "pilgrim" so I'm really working hard on my best Clint Eastwood squint. Texas isn't just cowboys and oil men and we did run into some of that varied history almost right away. We stopped to see Bonnie Parkers grave (of Bonnie & Clyde fame/shame) with a slightly twisted epitaph, Lee Harvey Oswald's grave (murderer of JFK) with absolutely no epitaph ... read more