We came home on a friday, a sunny almost warm day in february, it felt like spring.
Perfect - we are looking forward to gardening and mucking outside.
Well, mucking we are. Since then, a minimum of 8 inches of snow has fallen. We are snowed in almost exactly like we were when we left on dec. 26!
It is strange being home. We are here physically but not mentally. Our mentality is now to slow down, enjoy the day, do things together as a family and not be pressured by schedules and "must do's".
We've ripped out a wall in our house. There's a lot more light in here now. The floor's next. We are also finishing the kitchen, slowly but surely. This house is incredibly big. Well, we've lived out of a van for a couple of months, of course the house is big!
Hindsight is 20/20 the saying goes, and in hindsight we shoulda, coulda, woulda stayed another month but having this big house and small farm comes with responsibilities that you just can't shove onto someone else's shoulders. That's something to think about for our next trip. And this snow of course is hard to get used to...I'm still wearing flipflops!
By the way, we are also not throwing toiletpaper down the potty but into the wastebasket, like in Mexico. Our septic field will thank us.
We are eating a lot of fresh fruits, fruity shakes with yoghurt, and fresh veggies and salsas. Our stomachs will thank us for that.
Our t.v. doesn't work anymore (everything's gone digital) so we are playing games, reading books, I've picked up weaving again and playing with clay (making beads). By the woodstove. It is all very peaceful and I hope we can keep this peace, love and happiness with us, and share it with our friends - when we can dig ourselves out of the snow of course!
Thanks for travelling with us, I hope you enjoyed our trip as much as we did.
Thank you for your comments and e-mails, and we'll see you on our next trip!
Live life and learn - happy lifelearning!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
last days on the road
Well then, the journey on the road has almost ended. We'll be home tomorrow.
But the journey in our hearts and minds will continue. We will continue to learn from what we've seen and experienced, and look forward to our next trip to Mexico.
Our last few days consist of driving, driving, driving. Here's a little plug for Comfort Inns and Holiday Inns, they are truly comfortable and clean places to stay. Not cheap but if you are doing lots of driving, a free drink at night with snacks and a large complimentary breakfast are very welcome.
I will update the pictures as soon as we're home, I can't seem to recharge the battery of the camera..
But the journey in our hearts and minds will continue. We will continue to learn from what we've seen and experienced, and look forward to our next trip to Mexico.
Our last few days consist of driving, driving, driving. Here's a little plug for Comfort Inns and Holiday Inns, they are truly comfortable and clean places to stay. Not cheap but if you are doing lots of driving, a free drink at night with snacks and a large complimentary breakfast are very welcome.
I will update the pictures as soon as we're home, I can't seem to recharge the battery of the camera..
Here is one of our analogies of our trip. This is what it feels like to be on this trip, to us.At home, imagine everyone is on a 5 lane freeway. Most everyone is driving fast, heads down, trying hard to keep up. Sometimes some lift their head up, eyes closed, to straighten their necks for a bit and loosen their stiff neck and shoulder muscles but then they quickly put their heads down again to go, go, go.We feel like we lifted our heads, slowed down, opened our eyes, SAT UP and actually veered off a side road. We slowed down even more (Mexico does that to you) and got off whatever vehicles we were on or in, and walked. Then, we slowed down even more and actually stood still and took in our environs, our space, our surroundings. Now our eyes were really opened. Our head cleared, and are still clearing even though this part of the trip we are heading back to that 'race' back home. We hope to hang on to this feeling of being off on the side road and off the road all together. We hope to keep our minds cleared and our eyes wide open, able to take in our surroundings and take deep breaths of the life we live.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Here are some scenes from Las Vegas. The statue of Liberty is by the New York, New York hotel and casino.
The pyramid is the Luxor and is where we stayed.
The Eiffel tower lights up at night, the whole hotel there is like being in Paris.
And the last picture is at the Venetian, where they have little gondolas ferry you around in canals going through the hotel area. We will not show other huge billboards and ads on taxis and trucks concerned with some of the nightlife and some shows. There were magic shows, a ventriloquist, comedians, and then girls, girls, girls....
This is the Hoover Dam. They are really building furiously here. There is a new visitor center and parking garage, and new viewpoints. They are also building a huge bridge right beside it and higher up. Picture on the right shows one of the sides of the arch that will support the bridgedeck. A new fourlane road is also connected to the bridge, so that traffic will not go directly over the hoover dam anymore.
Happy Birthday Ryan!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, we have to report on Las Vegas.Woooooooaaaaaah.The hotels are like huge shopping malls. I think we much prefer nature.We drove through on the Vegas Strip, from north to south, oooooh-ing and aaaaaaah-ing at all the hotels and casinos. One minute we drive by Rome, then Venice, then we visit New York (with a statue of Liberty!) and Paris (with an Eiffel tower!) and then we found it: our hotel for the night is a pyramid, the Luxor hotel. A huge black pyramid out of which at night shines a bright light straight up into space. This light and the Wall of China are visible manmade structure from the International Space Station!So our room is on the 11th floor, the elevator goes up diagonally and inside the pyramid are huge Egyptian statues, waterfalls and a small city with skyscrapers. I mean, this place is HUGE. And it is just one of the hotels here. The first floor is the casino.The room costs the same as the Comfort Inn in Surprise, last night, but no in-room coffee, no free waterbottles, no complimentary breakfast. And, WiFi internet is $15USD a day!We visited the hotel/casinos next door, the Mandalay (great shark/lizard/tropical aquarium) and the Excalibur with it's Medieval theme. All enormous and huge.And not cheap. But then people come here to play and spend money, right? Coming here on a budget is equal to not having that much fun. You are restricted in where to go, but it is possible to find certain buffets that are 2 for 1. There is A LOT of advertising. It is like living in an ad. You are bombarded with it. And some of it is pretty sleezy. This is after all known as sin-city. Also, it's kinda sad to see the people sitting at the slotmachines pressing a button (not even the excercise of pulling the handle on a one-arm-bandit) and wasting their money/time. Well, you never know, maybe this next one will be a winner......We figure it's all about addictions. Sex, liquor, gambling. And you can get it all and do it all here. Our addiction is Nature, we've discovered. Leaving Las Vegas behind we leave on tuesday and treck through Death Valley.Now there's something spectacular to write home about.
What an amazing scenic area this is! We go from elevation 3000 feet all the way down to -200 (below sea level), through amazing rock formations. All kinds of colors due to the mineral conditions. Pioneers came through here hungry and thirsty looking for water they could drink. They found places like "salty creek" and "devils" hills, death valley and funeral creek being the result.We find some dried up streams (there was a rainstorm here last night and so new snow on the mountains too) but not too dried up for us to check the clay situations. Back in Casa Grande, with the Native artists, we learned how to look for clay, what color, consistency and how to collect it so you can use it later. So out we go checking here and there where we see the tell-tale cracked dirt signs of a clay deposit. We got some nice samples! I have a strainer full of clay samples between the seats in the van, I don't have to tell you what that looks like...hope we don't have any kinds of inspections coming up...On the west side of the park, after passing through some funky little 'towns' or settlements with RV parks (which we figure we will come back to on our next trip...) the road climbs up, every 2 minutes a sign - 1000 ft, 2000 ft - and big snowy mountains loom ahead of us. According to the map the pass is only 4900 ft. so we may encounter some snow. Ears are popping!By the way, yes it IS hot at the bottom of the Valley. And this is winter time. We were trying to imagine this place in the summer. Better to avoid it then, we figured.The valley is beautiful and we definitely recommend coming here for a visit or drive through. It takes a minimum of 3 hours to go from one side of the park to the other, without stopping; but you'll want to make stops here and there. Also not for vehicles of 30 ft. or longer, and not for the faint of heart; steep dropoffs and narrow roads (scarier than driving in Mexico!) the van just fit...On the other side of the park you come through a couple more valleys, and then a historic village at Owen's Lake (Olancha).
From here we turn north. This was a bit of a gamble as we will have some passes to go through at about 8000 feet - there will definitely be snow there. The other way is south and through Bakersfield. But we've already been there on this trip on the way South. No use repeating ourselves!
We end up not having much snow at all through the passes. Smooth driving, careful at over 8000 feet because there was some blowing snow but nothing major. Not like in Canada! We had to laugh at the Californians we met with their parkas and rabbitfur hats, and here we are driving around (and stopping along the way) at 8000 feet in the snow with our hawaii print shirt and flip flops and tans...wimps! :o)
After more driving, we end up at 10 pm at Carson City.
Okay, we have to report on Las Vegas.Woooooooaaaaaah.The hotels are like huge shopping malls. I think we much prefer nature.We drove through on the Vegas Strip, from north to south, oooooh-ing and aaaaaaah-ing at all the hotels and casinos. One minute we drive by Rome, then Venice, then we visit New York (with a statue of Liberty!) and Paris (with an Eiffel tower!) and then we found it: our hotel for the night is a pyramid, the Luxor hotel. A huge black pyramid out of which at night shines a bright light straight up into space. This light and the Wall of China are visible manmade structure from the International Space Station!So our room is on the 11th floor, the elevator goes up diagonally and inside the pyramid are huge Egyptian statues, waterfalls and a small city with skyscrapers. I mean, this place is HUGE. And it is just one of the hotels here. The first floor is the casino.The room costs the same as the Comfort Inn in Surprise, last night, but no in-room coffee, no free waterbottles, no complimentary breakfast. And, WiFi internet is $15USD a day!We visited the hotel/casinos next door, the Mandalay (great shark/lizard/tropical aquarium) and the Excalibur with it's Medieval theme. All enormous and huge.And not cheap. But then people come here to play and spend money, right? Coming here on a budget is equal to not having that much fun. You are restricted in where to go, but it is possible to find certain buffets that are 2 for 1. There is A LOT of advertising. It is like living in an ad. You are bombarded with it. And some of it is pretty sleezy. This is after all known as sin-city. Also, it's kinda sad to see the people sitting at the slotmachines pressing a button (not even the excercise of pulling the handle on a one-arm-bandit) and wasting their money/time. Well, you never know, maybe this next one will be a winner......We figure it's all about addictions. Sex, liquor, gambling. And you can get it all and do it all here. Our addiction is Nature, we've discovered. Leaving Las Vegas behind we leave on tuesday and treck through Death Valley.Now there's something spectacular to write home about.
What an amazing scenic area this is! We go from elevation 3000 feet all the way down to -200 (below sea level), through amazing rock formations. All kinds of colors due to the mineral conditions. Pioneers came through here hungry and thirsty looking for water they could drink. They found places like "salty creek" and "devils" hills, death valley and funeral creek being the result.We find some dried up streams (there was a rainstorm here last night and so new snow on the mountains too) but not too dried up for us to check the clay situations. Back in Casa Grande, with the Native artists, we learned how to look for clay, what color, consistency and how to collect it so you can use it later. So out we go checking here and there where we see the tell-tale cracked dirt signs of a clay deposit. We got some nice samples! I have a strainer full of clay samples between the seats in the van, I don't have to tell you what that looks like...hope we don't have any kinds of inspections coming up...On the west side of the park, after passing through some funky little 'towns' or settlements with RV parks (which we figure we will come back to on our next trip...) the road climbs up, every 2 minutes a sign - 1000 ft, 2000 ft - and big snowy mountains loom ahead of us. According to the map the pass is only 4900 ft. so we may encounter some snow. Ears are popping!By the way, yes it IS hot at the bottom of the Valley. And this is winter time. We were trying to imagine this place in the summer. Better to avoid it then, we figured.The valley is beautiful and we definitely recommend coming here for a visit or drive through. It takes a minimum of 3 hours to go from one side of the park to the other, without stopping; but you'll want to make stops here and there. Also not for vehicles of 30 ft. or longer, and not for the faint of heart; steep dropoffs and narrow roads (scarier than driving in Mexico!) the van just fit...On the other side of the park you come through a couple more valleys, and then a historic village at Owen's Lake (Olancha).
From here we turn north. This was a bit of a gamble as we will have some passes to go through at about 8000 feet - there will definitely be snow there. The other way is south and through Bakersfield. But we've already been there on this trip on the way South. No use repeating ourselves!
We end up not having much snow at all through the passes. Smooth driving, careful at over 8000 feet because there was some blowing snow but nothing major. Not like in Canada! We had to laugh at the Californians we met with their parkas and rabbitfur hats, and here we are driving around (and stopping along the way) at 8000 feet in the snow with our hawaii print shirt and flip flops and tans...wimps! :o)
After more driving, we end up at 10 pm at Carson City.
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