Aloha

Aloha from Hawaii. We've been in Waikiki for a few days as our last experience before we fly home. It's been really humid here with a few days of great sun and one of heavy tropical rain all day. As it's the end of our trip we haven't felt like travelling far from the beach, there's not that much to do here it seems apart from beach activities, lots of Aussies here, it's like the Kuta of the Pacific, but has made a good stop-over for us. Tonight we had dinner at one of those 'just for tourists probably not very authentic' luau, but it was an easy way to spend the evening and Ruby thought the hula and the fire dancers were fantastic, she even got up and had a go at some hula herself.

We're setting off tomorrow, looking forward to getting home and to seeing you all soon. What an amazing trip we've had, great memories, great people and wonderful sights.

Yosemite

As it's nearly the end of our trip, the four hour drive to Yosmite was almost putting us off but we're glad we stuck to our plan to visit this amazing National Park. As those of you who have been there will know, it's spectacular and jaw dropping. We loved cycling and walking around the trails marvelling each time we came around a bend to face yet another huge granite cliff.

We saw squirrels, chickadee, raccoons, chipmunks, mule deer and even a coyote but thankfully not a bear or mountain lion. In fact this is as close Ruby got to a bear which was just fine by me.

 It's too late into summer for the waterfalls to flow which was a shame so we'll have to return one spring in the future, even a winter there would be great to see. On our second day plumes of smoke came up over the ridge from another fire just over the rim of the park which doubled in size overnight. The upper trails were closed but it was still ok for us to be on the valley floor, we watched the helicopters and water carrying planes circle for the next two days then drove back to San Jose to return the car and catch up again with Charlie and Erica.

Sacramento

As we head towards the last weeks of our holiday I've fallen behind on my posts. From Crater Lake we headed back to our second family, the Whalleys (Ashland branch of the family having sadly left the Portland branch behind). We spent a day with Ruby senior and Emmalisa in the beautiful hills just outside town. The drought is really effecting the landscape here, some lakes almost dry and businesses suffering as a result. Not the cafe where we stopped for lunch though which boasted the best fries, beef and pies in the world. I'm not sure if this claim would stand up to scrutiny but it seems customary here, the day before we drove past a car dealership in Medford which claimed to be world famous. Either way our food was indeed pretty tasty, trumped only by my first ever taste of pumpkin pie courtesy of Emmalisa. Back in town we spotted some more deer just trotting along the street as you would see a dog do, still can't get used to that sight.

From Ashland we stopped overnight in Sacramento and Ruby and I did a fun run in support of a local youth centre. Oscar even got in on the act when they called for a volunteer to run ahead of the kids to  keep them on track, literally, running around the baseball field. You'll be shocked I'm sure to hear that Oscar couldn't resist pacing the front runner, a pretty impressive girl of about 10 years, stepping off the track before the finish line to let her break the tape bringing back memories of pacing 800m runners, and of course he was a very proud dad when Ruby came third.

Crater Lake Oregon

Another lake, this time one inside a crater. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day on our visit which meant the water wasn't as strikingly blue as it appears most days apparently, but still beautiful. The rim is 8000 feet up so when we got out of the car in our shorts we were cold for the first time on this trip, really cold. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the States at almost 600 metres at the deepest point. The depth was first measured in 1886 as 608m using piano wire and a lead weight and when the measurement was taken again in 2000 using the latest scientific testing equipment it was 592m. Pretty impressive effort by the piano guys.

Here's our photo but I'll add one I found online so you can see the lake's normal appearance.

Odell Lake Oregon

Another day in Oregon and another beautiful lake, this time Odell Lake. We stayed in a lovely little log cabin beside this almost deserted lake as it seems most of the summer holiday crowd have headed back to work and school.

NYC

We've had a great week in New York visiting all the usual sites: Statue of Liberty, Hudson River, Broadway, Times Square, Wall St, Chelsea market, Greenwich Village, galleries, museums, parks and we each managed to tick off our individual wish lists. I spent a day at the MET, Ruby saw Grand Central Station ( Madagascar) and the Museum of Natural History (Night at the museum) and Oscar went on a tour of Seinfeld sites including to the soup Nazi's kitchen for lunch lead by the comedian who the character Kramer was based on.

We loved NYC especially once we got the hang of the subway, and found people really friendly and helpful, but at times it was pretty hard work, especially after the slow pace of the lakes and mountains we've spent time at recently. An early flight back to Portland to Deb and Dan's house again, almost feels like coming home!

New York, New York

We arrived in New York after flying through the night gaining three hours and landing bleary eyed and tired. It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time and hassle to get from the airport via airport train, then subway then PATH train, with turnstile troubles reminiscent of Gellert baths in Budapest, (remember Mum and Dad?) arriving at our apartment almost three hours after landing and heading straight to bed. 

Upon waking we didn't venture far from the apartment which is a typical New York apartment three floors up. We were enthusiastic about doing our laundry the local way, on the line running outside the kitchen windows. After all we've seen this for years on T.V but discovered that the effort of dangling out the window worrying about dropping your underwear on the people below is hardly worth it when you bring the dry washing in covered in a greasy layer of pollution.