I have some further updates to do and will do so as soon as possible. Watch this space!
Jim
I have received some comments from friends (thanks Bill and Derek) so something is working correctly. Keep on trying people and send an email if it doesn't seem to come through.
jimduncan779@btinternet.com
Here goes, Jim and Moira on a 2 month vacation in the United States of America.
The long planned for holiday almost got off to a bad start. Two days before we were due to leave we went out for tea with friends (hi Dave and Liz). A very nice meal it was too, burgers and chips, a good test for what we were expecting a bit of in America. The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful and then the pain started. After several phone calls to NHS 24 they finally agreed to send an ambulance for me, it was just as well as Moira tells me I was rolling about on the floor, clutching my stomach, white as a sheet, breathing very heavily (rest of details are censored to protect the squeamish). The paramedic who I think was called Andy soon sorted me out and eliminated a heart attack from a list of possibilities. That took some of the pressure and worry away and I dare say the morphine helped a bit too!
Here's me about 6 am after being poked and prodded all night.
So, come Friday lunchtime after 3 ECG's, half a dozen blood tests but only one X-Ray, a consultant and a batch of interns decided that I did not have a further heart problem, a further lung problem, diabetes, a blood disorder, an inflamed pancreas or gall stones. Fine I said, as the morphine had worn off by then and I was no longer in pain I declared that I was discharging myself anyway since I was off to America in the small hours of Saturday morning. They gave me masses of additional prescription drugs and a letter to tell my GP the story so far.
Fortunately I was able to check with my friends that they were OK and that food poisoning was not an issue.
Then we had to pack and get away to the airport after a second sleepless night, we'll sleep on the plane hopefully we thought. We managed the drive through OK despite the Sat Nav not being able to find the long stay car park. Don't think I'll use that one again!! And no, we didn't sleep much on the plane.
Florida received us gracefully and then bombarded us with heat, heat and heat. 94 and 95 (34 and 35 in British weather money) are not temperatures we are accustomed to having, even on holiday.
This year we stayed at Florida Vacation Villas which is at the top (north) end of 192. This was our first time there although we've stayed nearby before. The staff in the office were fantastic and couldn't have been more helpful. Amy and Danielle were very good to us as well as Scott and Jason and a few others behind the scenes.
http://myfvv.com/
We spent week one of May lazing about getting acclimatised to the heat. Most days were in the mid 90's and sun block was the name of the game.
Here's me floating about at the pool.
Moira enjoys the pool too!
Some of you may know that I have a passion for military history so we did a little trip down Interstate 4 to one of the best air museums in the world, certainly in Florida. Fantasy of Flight is certainly worth repeat visits as the owner Kermit Weeks is filthy rich, younger than me, so is still interested in increasing his collection. I told one of his employees to tell him to speak to David Cameron back home as he seems to be off loading quite a few aeroplanes at the moment.
I didn't take too many photographs of the aircraft there as I have been there twice before but I couldn't resist this one.
Here's another pic, this time a Mustang. Let's see if anyone can spot a thread here.
One night later that week we visited Kissimmee Old Town where they do lots of things to extract dollars from tourists but the main reason that we went was to see the parade of classic cars, and there were some beauties. I have dozens of photographs of many of the cars there if anyone would like to see them just let me know.
Here's just one:
Anyone got the thread yet?
Here's another one:
This one is accompanied by Minnie and Mickey !!
For those of you interested in cars we had hired a Ford Edge Limited as a run-about, 3.5 litres of V6 and the all important Air Conditioning although I think it is called Climate Control now. Great to drive and was quite speedy when using the automatic kickdown. Fortunately it was digitally limited to a maximum of 80 mph. Here's a pic:
We had an early morning visit (approximately 4 am) from the chaps below. Their sirens were pretty loud as I heard them clear as a bell with both my hearing aids off. It seems that some of our neighbours had turned off their air conditioning and put their heating on instead. It was never below 70 at night any of the times we could tell so why they wanted heating I do not know.
We did a trip to the beach as we were getting slightly tired of the villa pool. An hour or so in the car took us to Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic Coast where we hired an umbrella and a couple of deck chairs. We could see Kennedy Space Centre in the distance as I went for a swim and Moira had a paddle.
As well as lots of folk enjoying themselves doing beach and surf things there were loads of pelicans flapping about as well as diving for fish further out. Now and again you could see larger fish in the shallows, no sharks, rays usually and we did see a couple of dolphins (mother and child) swim by. Last year at much the same spot we saw a pair of manatees following the rising tide up the coast.
Next day it was back to the pool as I had a lot of reading to catch up on.
After a week of relatively peaceful tourism we had to go back to the airport to collect our youngest daughter Susan and her boyfriend Craig. I feel another theme coming on and I think it is Theme Parks. Walt Disney, don't you just love him and who are these Universal people anyway :) Susan and Craig were staying with us for weeks two and three.
The first thing we did once Susan and Craig were settled in the villa was to abandon them in the middle of the night and head off to Americas Space Coast. We left sometime around 4 am and watched the sun come up as we drove to Cocoa Beach Pier from where we hoped to watch the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. We had been advised to get there 6 hours before launch as somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 people were expected to be in the area for the launch around 9am.
When we got to the car park at the pier there weren't many people about so we got what we hoped would be a prime viewing location some 15 miles south of the launchpad. When the time came for launch we could certainly hear and feel the roar of the rocket engines. The problem was we were looking at the wrong launchpad (so was everyone else) and it took a few seconds to spot the rocket plume soaring through the clouds and then it was gone. One quick look for a man, one giant leap....oh b****r! At least we were there.
First place on Susan and Craigs visit list was Gatorland.
There were certainly a lot of snapping jaws and teeth galore and that was just some of the visitors. There were a few Gators too.
I spotted this collection of proto-handbags:
Here's Susan and Craig for those of you who have not met.
This could have been dangerous but I told Susan not to hurt the poor animal !
Week two and week three of the holiday seemed to be a blur of theme park after theme park. I'm sure it wasn't actually like that but it felt like that.
This is one place that Susan was determined to visit, followed by another and another:
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/parks/
http://www.universalorlando.com/
http://buschgardens.com/bgt/
http://www.seaworld.com/orlando/
We saw the biggest plastic tree in the world:
Winnie the Pooh and a character made from a bush:
Susan and Craig got very wet, very very wet:
And there were some wierd creatures about:
Here's me after having had too much theme for my liking:
One thing I did enjoy greatly was going to a baseball game (thanks Craig). Since we were based in Florida Craig decided that we would go and see a local baseball team which turned out to be the Tampa Bay Rays who had a home game against the New York Yankies.
http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=tb
On game day we just happened (by design) to be in Tampa Bay anyway but were slightly disconcerted to discover that their home ground was actually in St Petersburg which was an hour away by car plus delays for traffic. There was an awful lot of traffic (think rush hour times ten) but we made it just a few minutes late.
The game itself was very interesting and was very well supported by a large home crowd as well as a lot of New Yorkers. Good natured bantering was all around us urged on by a stadium commentator, player statistics on a big screen and instant replays of every point of note. The basic rules are fairly simple, when you bat you try to hit the ball over the fence at the back of the field, when you are not batting you catch the ball if it comes near you and throw it to a buddy near a base if the opposing batter is still running. Other than that there were a lot of timewasting incidents which I didn't appreciate and certainly didn't understand. I'm all for the big hit, catch the ball and throw it.
The Yankies went on to win the game which was a wee surprise as Craig told me that the Tampa Bay Rays are a very good team, won their division last year as well as the American League. I did follow them on TV for a few more games and they lost all of them them too. Even some Canadians beat them. I think they want to concentrate on the 'big hit, catch and throw' premise I detailed above.
Sadly we had to say goodbye to Susan and Craig. Since they are young people and still have to work for a living so they had to go home and back to work. Shame!
We spent most of week four lazing about and resting as we were ourselves soon to be on the road for the next part of our vacation.
Week five started with a relatively short flight up to Chicago, the Windy City. Windy it must have been as the plane arrived almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule which is some going on a flight expecting to be just under 3 hours.
We now had four days to swiftly tour the city hitting a few high spots (literally) before picking up a hired car and driving off to California. The hotel was pretty central and most places were walking distance apart.
http://www.monaco-chicago.com/
The most noticable thing about Chicago as you drive in from O'Hare Airport is the skyline. The centre of town is very built up, and I mean up. Here's a pic from the shore of Lake Michigan:
The next most obvious feature to me was the close association of the city centre with the Chicago River. Our hotel is immediately behind the building on the left hand edge of the picture. The next building with the little corner towers is where Al Capone used to have his speakeasy.
The third thing I noticed about Chicago is the traffic. The centre of town was awash with car parking lots, big and small so it was little wonder that traffic jams built up at key times of the day.
Here's a little puzzle for you. What is the structure next to the dome in the following picture. Dave and Liz are banned from this quiz as they have been to Chicago.
I like dinosaurs. Not just any dinosaurs. The bigger the better, especially with teeth, lots of teeth. Here's one called Sue:
http://fieldmuseum.org/
Here's me with another Sue, a bit younger!! No, she's not in Chicago, I did check!
Today was the warmest we had encountered yet:
The high point of our city tour was very high indeed. The Willis Tower used to be the biggest building in the world, now it's only third but it's still big. Here's Moira being much braver than me, 103 floors up:
http://www.the-skydeck.com/
Tomorrow (Wednesday 8th June) we pick up the hired car and start driving towards California. Now where did I put the Sat Nav?
Here's the little lady who will keep me right when that Sat Nav gets us lost. Well sometimes she does :)
The first thing we had to do to get the roadtrip up and running was to collect the car. I had hoped to pick up a Mustang (see my earlier theme) but Hertz disappointed me. The best they could do was this brand new Chrysler 200 convertible with 233 miles on the clock. I suppose it'll have to do.
The next thing on the schedule was breakfast and since it was day one of our Route 66 Tour it just had to be at Lou Mitchells on West Jackson Boulevard near the start of the traditional road.
http://www.loumitchellsrestaurant.com/
Moira had a huge omelette whereas I restricted myself to eggs and bacon. Delicious!
Look at the time, we had better get a move on:
Once on the road we got a few miles under our belt before stopping off in a place called Pontiac. There we found a Route 66 Museum alongside a War Museum and parking was free.
http://www.il66assoc.org/attraction/route-66-association-hall-fame-museum
http://www.warmuseum.blogspot.com/
We parked near a vehicle which we found difficult to describe so here it is:
Our first overnight stop after driving 232 miles was in Springfield Illinois at Courtyard by Marriott.
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/spicy-courtyard-springfield/
We arrived here fairly exhausted and hungry so we managed to avoid going for a swim in the hotel pool and plumped instead for an evening meal at the local Applebees. We were very un-american in that we walked to the restaurant even though it was as far away as the end of the street. It must have taken us at least seven or eight minutes to get there. The meal was delicious, I had the Orange Spicy Chicken and Moira had the Turkey.
http://www.applebees.com/
The following day gave us a long drive south west through Illinois to get to our hotel in St Louis. The Sat Nav made it even longer by first of all taking us to a nice little town across the river which had a street of the same name as the St Louis hotel street. I'll have to have a word with those people at Garmin. Another twenty miles or so later we crossed the mighty Mississippi and checked into our next hotel.
http://www.stlouisarch.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp
This is one smart hotel with smart prices. It cost twenty dollars a day just to keep the car in the underground garage and don't even ask what the internet connection would have cost had I given up on the fantastic food in their own restaurant never mind the extensive range of Belgian bottled beers in the bar. The food and especially the beer won.
Here's the view from our room:
I would have liked to have shown you photographs of the river traffic on the Mississippi but the river was literally bursting its banks. Traffic was at a standstill except on the many bridges from Illinois to Missouri:
We spent some time driving up the west bank to an old bridge associated with the original Route 66. This bridge has a crazy bend in the middle:
http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66Illinois/chain.htm
The final task we set ourselves before leaving St Louis was to have some frozen custard or ice cream as we call it back home. This turned out to be a bit of a task as we had slept in that morning (the Belgian beer and the cocktail the night before may have helped) so we skipped breakfast in order to make up for lost time. I didn't have a very complete address to hand for the icy destination except for a street name. The Sat Nav found the street OK but we found out that it must be the longest street in St Louis and we drove along it for about twenty minutes. We almost gave up but some more jiggery pokey with the Sat Nav gave us a better clue and we found it even further along the street we were on the verge of giving up on. Then we found that the establishment didn't open until 11 am and it was just after 10. We could have made breakfast after all. A nice young lady took pity on us and served us anyway so it was ice cream for breakfast.
http://www.teddrewes.com/home/default.aspx
Our next drive was quite a long one through a varied terrain to Springfield Missouri. We made one little detour to the Meramec Caverns where we had about 90 minutes of 60 degree coolness which was a welcome relief to 90 plus encountered as we drove.
http://www.americascave.com/
We finally got to our hotel
http://www.bwrailhaven.com/
One thing we did in Springfield was absolutely nothing. We were getting quite worn out so we had an early night and a leisurely breakfast the following morning. Here we are getting back on the road again:
Intermittant access to the internet, too expensive access to the internet, or non-existant access to the internet has greatly interferred with editing this blog.
Since Springfield Missouri we have been to Oklahoma City in Oklahoma, Amarillo in Texas, Tucumcari, Santa Fe and Albuquerque in New Mexico, Chinle and the Grand Canyon in Arizona and are now in Las Vegas in Nevada.
Temperatures have mostly been in the high 90's (Fahrenheit) but for the last two or three days they have been in the 100's with a peak of 112 at several spots near the Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas. On top of that we have been at altitudes typically above 6000 feet (Ben Nevis is only 4400 or so feet) with an evening dinner above 10000 feet (thanks for suggesting Sandia Peak Dave C, the view was marvellous). The end result for me has been extreme breathlessness on occasion as well as incessant nosebleeds. Being an asthmatic in the first place and also taking aspirin to make my blood less sticky has produced a physical challenge I wasn't quite expecting.
Weather-wise we have had a couple of really heavy thunderstorms but nothing to worry about. We have seen smoke from wildfires in the distance, burnt areas of scrub alongside the interstate and broken trees passing through Joplin. The bad weather which is ravaging America at the moment has always seemed to be far in front of us or far behind us.
Despite these trivial handicaps we have been to some fantastic places as this blog will tell in due course.
Tomorrow we hope to descend into cooler climes in California and hopefully the smog will be less of problem than the heat and altitude encountered so far.
Tomorrow has turned into today and here we are in California, Santa Monica in fact, and it is absolutely freezing. Well it feels like freezing as it is only 81 degrees and no blue sky to be seen anywhere.
Here's a selection of pictures which I will annotate as time permits:
The Colchord Hotel in Oklahoma City was a bit difficult to get to as the surrounding city area was a mass of roadworks. The Sat Nav had a bit of a nightmare.
http://www.colcordhotel.com/
Yet another Route 66 Museum in the middle of somewhere!
http://www.elkcity.com/Pages.asp?s=mus&id=7
And another one somewhere else:
Here's Moira chatting to James Dean. He didn't say much!!
By this time we were in Tucumcari (Yes, I've never heard of it before either) which was a one horse town out west but it had a lot of murals.
We stayed in the Motel Safari which was full of Route 66 charm.
The next place we visited was a bare field just outside Amarillo in Texas. There was a row of grafitti covered junk cars buried nosedown in the dirt. Some think it is art!
I left our initials sprayed in orange paint on the third from the right hand side. I bet it has been covered over already!
Lunch was in a charming original Route 66 cafe/restauant:
Then we hit an old cowboy trail:
