The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

Well, I am very sorry, dear readers,  for the huge time lapse since my last entry! Lots, both good & bad has happened in the last 2 1/2 months. It is mind boggling to think that a year ago we were only a couple of months into our big adventure, living large in Vietnam and completely enthralled with the freedom of traveling.

Back here in our newest reality, the good news is Jim got a job almost as soon as we started looking which was GREAT!  This economy is proving to be a very difficult one for us , as well as most other people. He’s working at Schwan’s doing sales and he really loves it. He loves being out and about, visiting with customers, and it’s an easy sell product.  The only issue is that it’s a lot of hours and bad hours, as in about 9am-10pm every day which makes it difficult to spend any time together. But right now we’re happy he has it.

I have had a much more difficult time of it. It seems I am either way under or over qualified and this, combined with the huge number of job seekers, has made it tough. In early November I did get hired on for a part time, seasonal job doing retail at Dosha NW Salon & Spa. Any of you that know me are probably laughing your asses off as you know that is not my type of gig at all. In fact our dear Ron, upon hearing the news, said “But, don’t you have to be pleasant to have a job like that?”.. ha ha Ron. Believe me I was extremely “pleasant” when I told him what I thought of that comment!

So, anyhow…. it pays almost nothing and I work with a lot of perky 20’somethings but it does have it’s perks. First of all, it’s $$ coming in which we need at this point. Also, it is a very nice group of employees and we have a  pretty good time there. It’s a bit of a commute downtown but all in all it’s fine. And, looks as though I may be asked to stay after the holidays which would be good..again, certainly not a dream job but at this point I’ll take it! I continue to job hunt on my days off and had a fairly promising interview last week so we’ll see how that goes. It is disconcerting that every job I apply for has hundreds of other applicants as well, certainly nothing I’ve ever encountered before.

Ken & Wendy’s new house is moving slower than planned ( what else is new) and so we are still living in the camper. That in itself is not so bad and earlier this week when I wasn’t feeling well I reminded myself that last time I didn’t feel well I was freezing in India with no heat in the car, hotels, cold showers,etc. and completely miserable so this is a huge improvement! After we completed the first floor they hired framers to finish it up and it’s always fascinating watching people who actually know what they’re doing! In 3 weeks they put up three floors and the roof is now on, windows and HVAC are going in and siding goes up this week. Very exciting..for them since it’s going to be such a great house, and for us because we can kick them out of their current house so WE can move in! Pretty interesting to think that we’ve now been living out of a bag for 16 months.

The bad part of the last couple of months is how incredibly much we’re missing being on the road. We’re still in contact with some of the friends we met along the way, some are home and dreaming about traveling and a few are still on the road and I’m so jealous I can taste it. Funny how we thought about coming home and the excitement of seeing everyone but find that since we’ve been back we mainly only think about being gone. I can admit that a part of that is because I we have still been living out of bags and not had our own furniture and so on, and part of it is because I haven’t had a consistent schedule with job hunting and working different hours each week, etc. But, we truly have the bug and I am already researching our South America trip. Originally we had thought we’d wait 5-6 years before the next extended adventure but I’ve got to tell you I can’t see us lasting that long! My main goal is to attempt to figure out how we can earn some money on the road so we don’t feel we need to come home to get jobs again. We had also originally thought we’d buy another acreage but not sell next time and instead save up the money for the trip and just rent it out or whatever while we were gone. Now we’re thinking we may just continue to rent Ken & Wendy’s house for a couple of years and then be able to take off without having to worry about property. It’s a toss up with interest rates so low and house prices dropping but then, until I get a decent full time job we can’t afford to buy anyway so that solves that for now:)

So, for now life goes on. While dreaming of far away places, checking out airfares, and reading other peoples RTW blogs, I am focusing mostly on being grateful. Grateful that we have such great family they were willing to not only take us in but to let us stay this long. Grateful that Jim got a full time job and I have a job, at least for now, when so many people do not. Grateful that my big decision as commune chef is whether  we can afford beef tenderloin or pork tenderloin and not whether or not we can afford to buy anything. Grateful that America was finally smart enough to make a good election decision which will hopefully  get the country moving back in the right direction. And, mostly grateful that we have such an amazing life.. we’re happily married, healthy, and have had many great adventures so far with still more to come. Most of the people who crossed our path and touched us so deeply in the last year will never have such opportunities and possibilities and we are truly blessed.

And so, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. We wish you all the best this world has to offer!

Lots of Love, Jim and Rhonda

Well, we are actually doing the job hunt thing and, basically, it sucks. It’s a new thing for me since I was at Grand European Tours for 10 years, and then took 1 year off , so it’s been over 11years since I actually looked for a job, interviewed, etc. And, when I started there I already had a job so there was no pressure.

Jim has had a bit more experience with the job hunting over the last few years, which doesn’t mean he’s liking it any better. We did attend a job fair and have each had several interviews so, fingers crossed, we’ll both get something soon. If not we may just need to take our remaining funds and buy a one way ticket to Puerto Vallarta and start working down there!!! There is a great little coffee shop called the Coffee Cup that is for sale…hmmmm, tempting!

We’re living in Ken & Wendy’s camper and helping with their new house. Thankfully the weather has been just fantastic and it makes it a lot easier to enjoy working outside. We are still hoping we can get their roof on by November but, we’ll see…Jim & I may be moving into an apartment for a while once we get jobs. Either way, we’re pretty used to being on the move so no big deal.

We did have a great camping trip last weekend to Deschutes State Park, which is right where the Deschutes enters the Columbia. A bit windy but otherwise pretty good weather. When they first made the reservation there were no electrical sites so we got a non-electrical one. Well, since it wasn’t great weather Wendy & I took it upon ourselves to see if there were any no-shows for a different site. Luckily, there were so on day 2 while the boys were fishing we moved the entire camp over…made quite a spectical of it for all the surrounding campers for sure.

We took our boat, Springbok, out on the Columbia on Sunday and did some fishing but alas, no catches…oh well, guess that’s why they call it fishing.

Now, back to the grind of  job hunting….wish us luck and we’ll keep you all informed on whether we get jobs or whether we get an airplane ticket…who can tell! Still living the dream, Jim & Rhonda

We had a great time in Canada. The first night we stayed at the Best Western Sunrise Inn in Osoyoos. We decided to splurge a bit for our last night in a hotel on the road and got the honeymoon suite..complete with canopy bed, fireplace and jacuzzi! Very nice. We ordered dinner in and had some great wine we’d purchased earlier in the day and enjoyed a lovely evening.

For breakfast the next morning we stopped at a little place advertising Indian & American food….they had exceptional eggs benedict and, even though it wasn’t on the menu, the lovely Indian owner made us true Chai tea like we’d had in India..sooooo good.

The Okanagan region of B.C. is just amazing. Gorgeous mountain scenery with dozens of lakes and rivers crisscrossing the landscape. It’s the wine region as well with over 100 wineries and tons of farmers markets and orchards. Too bad we only had the 1 night there but we’ll definitely try to go back someday. It was about a 5hr drive to Vancouver from Osoyoos, a beautiful drive all along the way.

We stayed with our friends Mike & Malisa for 4 nights, with friends Dana & Dallas driving up from Portland to join us. On Friday the boys all went golfing..unfortunately, in the pouring rain. Not a great golf day. Poor Malisa had to work so Dana & I lazed about and then drove downtown to join her for some great dim sum for lunch. The balance of the weekend was just a few nice walks and lots of eating and drinking. Luckily, the weather broke and was great for most of the time.

Monday we drove back down to Portland to once again take up residence in Ken & Wendy’s camper. It was wonderful to see how much progress they’ve made in building their new house and we’re all geared up to help take on that BIG project! For now, we are truly looking for jobs and have both sent out some resumes and we’ll be attending a job fair soon to get that part of our life back on track. In some ways we’re looking forward to it but then again, this year of freedom from schedules as been the most fantastic year ever and I’m already thinking of where we can head to on our next trip!

We ended up driving around 9200 miles on our road trip, and after the 8000 in Africa we are certainly not taking another driving trip anytime soon. But, the Coffee Cup restaurant in Puerto Vallarta is for sale and hmmmmm??? Possibilities, possibilites!!! Who knows where we’ll end up next. For now, we’re just hanging out and attempting to assimiliate into “normal” society….how long do you think it will last?? Cheers, Jim & Rhonda

Well, we’re heading back home and back in the West..home of good beer!

From Washington, DC we had a couple of long driving days heading to Mankato, Mn to visit my brother, Howard, and his family. The first night was spent in a little town in Ohio at the delightful (ha ha) La Siesta Hotel for the bargain price of $46/night! It was a very basic but clean with a very nice owner and really, for that price who can complain?! We also had a great dinner at the local Mexican restaurant with great margaritas and some good tex-mex.

Next night was in Chicago, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. We had talked about staying outside of town but Jim had never been there so we decided to stay downtown. We did have a great location at the Best Western North River (and we have learned a valuable lesson along the way. I called the hotel and was given a rate of $189. We walked in the door and were given the room for $139..big savings and not the first time it happened in the course of this trip). We did have a good walk down to the Sears tower but didn’t go to the top as they wanted $39 pp!! Outrageous. So, we wandered a bit but just headed back to the hotel for some Olympics and pizza delivery. It was quite disheartening to be in big city USA and have all those people rushing down the streets, no one smiling, no one making eye contact, no one looking happy or even pleasant. It has been very obvious throughout this trip how different we are in the US from everywhere else we’ve traveled in the world, where people are much more “involved” with the street scene and their community than here.. I’m not liking our way of doing it so much as we’re all so disconnected from everyone else around us. The only place we’ve been that has not been like that is in the South..basically from Memphis to South Carolina people are much more laid back and interested in actually relating to those around them.

Anyway, we got to Howard and his wife Kathy’s house (along with their kids Nathan, Eric & Chelsea, dog Sebastian and 15 cats (15 is NOT a mistype!). We haven’t see Kathy and the kids in 5 years and Howard in 3yrs and both of those times was due to our mom’s illness so it was really great to see them just because. We mainly hung out, enjoyed their great fire pit , and visited some of Mankato’s historical sites and the local brewery. All good fun but then back on the road again!

We drove a long , pretty boring day through southwest Minnesota and all of South Dakota to get to the Black Hills, near Mt Rushmore. On the way we did stop in Luverne, Mn…where I spent most of my childhood so Jim could see our old house and town. The house has changed a bit but, interestingly enough, in over 25years the downtown street looks almost exactly the same. Next stop was the Corn Palace in South Dakota…a stop everyone makes but not too exciting. Basically it’s a building that they do artwork made of corn on each year. Then, Wall drug..another cheesy stop that everyone makes…partially because you’ve seen billboards for it since Minnesota advertising $.05 coffee and ice water. We actually opted for a chocolate shake and skipped buying any of the souvenirs!

In the Black Hills we stayed at the KOA Mt Rushmore/ Hill City. We had reserved a tent site but upon arrival realized that all of their tent sites basically sucked…very few trees, on a hill with gravel and no grass. So, we opted for one of the cabins and had a late dinner. The next day was a very busy day touring the Motorcycle Museum in Sturgis, going through Deadwood (which has lost most historical value and is basically all cheesy shops and gambling halls), the amazing Crazy Horse Monument which was started in 1948 and is not even close to being done. It’s the largest monument in the world and the devotion of the original sculptur and how his family is amazing.

Next stop was the Custer State park where we saw quite a few bison and pronghorn sheep. We were going to explore one of the caves but were just too tired at that point so headed back to camp and ate dinner. At 8pm we headed up to Mt Rushmore for the lighting ceremony which proved to be very moving. There was a short film highlighting the 4 presidents and then they lit up the sight and had all the military people in the audience go on stage and help with the lowering of the flag. It was definately worthwhile.

From the Black Hills we drove to Cody, Wy…another pretty boring drive as anyone knows who’s ever been in Wyoming! Cody itself was good. We stayed at the Irma Hotel..built in 1909 by Buffalo Bill himself for his youngest daughter. We toured his museum which was well done, watched the “shootout” in front of the hotel, and had a good burger & beer at the historic Silver Dollar Saloon, which is now a biker bar. Overall, a very good afternoon.

It was a fairly short drive from Cody into Yellowstone park. We entered the park from the East entrance and stopped for some sightseeing, to get a fishing license for Jim, and to see Old Faithful blow before heading out through the West entrance on our way to our KOA.  It was another very nice KOA and they had really nice tent sites so we got all set up right near the camp kitchen and bathrooms..lovely! We had a great dinner of chicken pasta with peanut sauce, met some other travelers as we cooked and had a camp fire under a ceiling of stars. It doesn’t get much better than that.

We set the alarm for 5:30am the next morning because we were heading out for Jim to flyfish. However, it had been a VERY cold night (around 39 degrees) so we stayed snuggled in our sleeping bags until 6:30am! It was still pretty cold but we did get going and were in the park fishing on the Madison River by 7:30am. I hung out, read, and watched Jim fish and he had a great 3 hours or so of fly fishing. It was a beautiful site..lovely, meandering river through meadows with the mountains in the background. Right out of “A River Runs Through It”. We didn’t have any fishing luck but did then enjoy a great (albeit hot) hike to Mystic Falls and the overlook above it. We spent the rest of the day exploring a whole bunch of the other geysers in the park and watching for wildlife. We never did see a beer but we saw loads of elk, bison, pronghorn sheep, mule deer and one really cool moose.

Today, 26August, we celebrated our 1yr anniversary from the day we left on this incredible journey that has been our life for the last year. Time sure does fly by but we wouldn’t trade the last year for anything.

We had a gorgeous drive today, up through West Yellowstone, through Bozeman, Butte, and Missoula (a wonderful little college town) up to Kalispell with views of the Rocky Mountains all along the way..just beautiful.  Tomorrow we head up into Canada on the way to Mike & Malisa’s house for Labor Day weekend…keep tuned for our next adventures! Hope everyone is well and we’ll see you all at home soon. Love, J&R

Here we are in our capital, it took us a lot of years to get here! First of all, on our 2nd full day in Charleston we first headed out to Magnolia Plantation to tour the gardens and walk through the amazing swampland area. Luckily,it was a bit overcast so very muggy but not more than 93 degrees or so. After that we headed to Mount Pleasant to tour the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier used both in WWII and Vietnam (as well as a few movies) and was really fascinating. Neither of us had been on one before and it’s really amazing how large those ships are as well as how complicated they are to operate. We also took some time to go down into a submarine and that life is unimaginable to me, it takes someone very special to be willing to live in that close of quarters!

For dinner we headed to Jestines Kitchen which we’d read about in Lonely Planet as well as a few magazines. It’s a tiny place and we waited in line around 45minutes to get in but it was well worth it! Named after Jestine Matthews, who lived to be 112yrs old, and owned by the daughter of the family she worked for , it is low country cooking at it’s best! Jim had blackened pork chops topped by roasted tomatoes and horseradish cream sauce and I had the best fried chicken anywhere and we both had table wine (southern talk for sweet tea) and the steamed cabbage and butter beans. We practically rolled home but it was the perfect finale to our time in the south.

We had a long drive up to Williamsburg, Va and checked into a pretty nasty Super 8 motel. But, it was clean, the cheapest in town,  and only 1 night so what the heck! We went for dinner to Tequila Rose mexican kitchen for dinner. Jim had chorizo burritos that were ok but I had a fantastic carnitas (pork marinated in herbs and beer and slow cooked) w/ beans & rice. yummy! The next morning we headed out for sightseeing. We had planned on seeing all 3 towns (Williamsburg, Yorktown & Jamestown) but found ourselves spending hours just in Williamsburg. It’s a fascinating place with 312 acres of traditional houses & shops, locals dressed in traditional colonial garb, and re-enactments of historical events…basically, we had a ball so we never made it to Yorktown or Jameston…oh well, maybe next time because we had to get up to Washingon DC.

DC is known for being an expensive hotel town, however, about 2 weeks ago Jim found the Washington Court Hotel for us on Orbitz.com for only $99/night! The hotel is a 4* hotel, about 3 blocks from the Capital and pretty nice. Of course, we’re paying through the bum for parking & internet use but after walking past the Willard hotel today and seeing THEIR parking is $8 /hr or $65 /day I don’t feel so bad! That first night we didn’t get here until about 7pm so pretty much just checked in, ordered a pizza, had a couple of gin & tonics and watched the olympics in bed..overall not a bad evening! Plus, we are blessed with having great weather! DC has been in the upper 90’s for weeks and during our time here it’s been in the low-mid 80s..lovely.

Ok, first full day in DC…what to do??? One truly amazing thing about this town is that all of the Smithsonian musums are free, thats right FREE FREE FREE…I’ve got to say we haven’t seen much of that so far on this road trip in the good old USA. We started out by walking to the Capital which is completely surrounded by police and chose not to wait in the extremely long line for the free tour. Walking down the mall we first stopped at the Air & Space Musuem to spend a few hours, next up was the original Smithsonian – now known as the Castle- for lunch before continuing along to the Freer Gallery, a lovely small gallery with mostly Asian & Islamic art.

From there we went to the US Holocaust Museum…what an amazing place. Jim & I are fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have been to many Holocaust sites throughout the world and it was heartening to see how well it was documented and laid out in this museum. It was heart wrenching and informative and moving and we left there completely worn out.

We did walk down to the Washington & Lincoln Memorials, the reflecting pool, WWII memorial and Vietnam memorial and finally staggered back to our hotel 10 hours after our day began! We simply could not move so it was room service and bed.

Today, up and out again! We had to wait in a very long line at Starbucks for coffee, amazing to us until we realized we had seen very few Starbucks..it’s certainly not like home where there is one on every other block. After coffee we walked to the White House to get as close as possible (which is not very these days), then off to the Natural History Museum, one of the highlights of the trip. We spent almost 5 hours exploring this amazing place..it’s huge and really well done and I still can’t believe it’s free! Next up, the very interesting International Spy Museum….it was packed, which surprised me a bit, but very interesting and had a lot of hands on displays. By then it was 6pm and, exhausted once again, we drug ourselves across the street to Gordon Biersch brewery for a restorative beer & some dinner. Back at our hotel at 7:45pm after another really great day.

Tomorrow, we are going to Arlington Cemetery in the morning before starting our trip back West…So far it’s been a great trip and we’ve been having a ball! I will say, one thing that struck me here in Washington was how lucky we are to have traveled around the world to all of the many countries we’ve been too. With the exception of Japan, pretty much everything that we saw at the museums was from countries we’ve been to and seen the sights first hand. Pretty amazing.

That is it for now, we’ll update again soon and until then we hope you’re all living the dream as well! Love, J&R

Well, well..what do ya know. I FINALLY got the Africa pics ready to go. I apologize for the delay but there were over 1000 to choose from! Enjoy and we’ll have the first half of our US roadtrip ready shortly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimandrhondartw/sets/72157606565400749/detail/

Cheers, Jim & Rhonda

I know, I know, quoting another song! We left Shawnee, Ok (88 degrees at 7:30am thank you) and hit the road for Little Rock. In Little Rock it was also really warm but we didn’t care too much. We had a cabin w/ A/C at the KOA and just spent a couple of hours in the pool, had dinner and hit the sack.

The next day it was a short drive to Memphis where we had a cabin reserved at the Graceland RV Park, thats right folks, we slept right next door to Elvis! Woo hoo. Everyone is SO friendly. I’ve got to say, I have no desire to live there but they sure are friendlier than the average Portlander. After we got in our cabin we headed right to Graceland. It’s a spendy entrance fee at $36pp but included the mansion tour and grounds as well as the car museum, plane museum and an exhibit on his army days. The house was hysterical, totally 70’s style but very flamboyantly done (no big shock there, have you seen his outfits???), turquoise drapes with an 11ft white couch and stained glass windows with 6ft tall peacocks! The jungle room was outfitted in crazy furniture and dark green shag carpet on the floor AND the ceiling and the bar downstairs was all yellow vinyl…just great stuff. It’s all exactly as Elvis had it when he died in 1977 and I must say they’ve kept it in beautiful condition. The cars and plane and military exhibits were also interesting but I was actually a bit shocked by all the cheesy stuff you can buy. I expected memorabilia..but truly, who buys fudge called “Elvis fudge”???? The replica outfits were tempting but at $1200 just way over budget, ha ha, so I settled for an overpriced, albeit cute, black tank with Elvis in sequins on the front.

That night we went to a restaurant recommended by Billy, the manager at the RV Park called Marlowes. If you call they come and pick you up for free in their pink limo, so cheesy! We shared a rib platter with coleslaw and the best baked beans we’ve ever had served by Vee, perhaps the friendliest waitress in the world! It was a good day.

Next day we drove to downtown Memphis which could only be described as bizarre. At 9:30am there was just NO ONE on the streets…we realize not as many people are traveling this year but in Portland the streets are crammed at almost every hour with employees of the mall, people going to Starbucks, whatever..it was almost like a ghost town. We had breakfast at Denny’s across from the Peabody hotel and then headed inside for the “duck march”. It’s a tradition that has been going on for 75yrs where the ducks come down the elevator, walk across the red carpet and jump into the center fountain in the lobby to spend the day. At 5pm they go back up to the elevator to their duck park. Crazy. It started as a practical joke by some friends of the hotel owners at the time and guests loved it so much they made it a daily thing and now “train” the ducks to do the walk.

After the duck viewing we walked over to the Civil Rights Museum based at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr was killed. It’s nice that they kept the front of the hotel looking exactly as it did and built the fascinating museum off the back. We did the audiotour which was really fascinating but with that and the thousands of pictures and text it took about 2 1/2 hrs to go through the history of equal rights up until 1968 and by then were too wiped to go across the street to the 1968-present day stuff. Really well done though.

We stopped by the Gibson Guitar factory and tried to take a tour but they were all sold out so instead had a great BBQ pulled pork sandwich while listening to some blues on Beale St. Then, a highlight when we went out to Sun Studio. Some of you may know they discovered Elvis but they also discovered Howlin Wolf, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, BB King, etc etc. Really cool studio tour and we had a great time talking to “Mizz Lisa” while she made up our chocolate malts. I do love the people down here!

We headed to Nashville the next day and spent the afternoon at the Grand Ole Oprey, taking the backstage tour and meeting Bill Anderson who was there rehearsing. WE have no idea who he is (other than the slight info gleaned at the museum) but the tour guide and others in the group were way overcome that he was there and met with us…opps, guess we’re not up on our Nashville history! We would have been more excited to see Carrie Underwood who was performing the next night.

We then had a beautiful 7hr drive through Knoxville, Asheville NC and the Great Smoky mountains on our way to York SC to get to Vicki & Darin’s house. Their new neighborhood and house is gorgeous and they and they’re two adorable kids, Logan & Samantha are all settling in and doing great. I was thrilled to have a kitchen at my disposal and cooked breakfast and dinner all weekend for everyone and we saw some Civil war battlefields & museum and spent a day at Carowinds amusement/ water park. It was a wonderful, although too short, weekend and we’re certainly going to miss them again when we get back to Portland.

This morning we headed 3hrs southeast to Charleston. I have been wanting to visit this city as long as I can remember and it’s absolutely gorgeous! We first headed to the Notso Hostel listed in Lonely Planet in an attempt to keep costs down but found the place locked up with a note that said if you hadn’t booked ahead you needed to wait until 5pm until the staff arrived for the evening??? What? I think not! So, we headed down to the Holiday Inn Downtown. It’s a nice room, friendly staff and walking distance to everything so all good. We headed right out for lunch at Sticky Fingers…really great wings and a good salad and we were good for a long walk. We spent about 3 1/2 hrs wandering downtown, stopping at the Slave Market musuem (on the site of the slave market in Charleston) and took dozens of pictures. We stopped to buy a very cool handwoven grass-reed basket from a lovely woman named Ann along the way and found a wine/cheese bar I think we’ll head back to for dinner. All in all a lovely few days on the road.

Tomorrow we see the USS Yorktown and Ft Sumpter as well as going into a couple of plantation houses and then a long day driving to get to Williamsburg, Va on our way to Wash. DC. Hope everyone is well at home and enjoying the summer as much as we are! Living the Dream in SC – Jim & Rhonda

Oh, the joy that is a Willie Nelson song! Actually, after our 10hr drive today we most surely are NOT excited to get back on the road again tomorrow! We really enjoyed our time in Sedona, what a gorgeous spot. We drove south to Montezuma Castle, so named – incorrectly- that it was named so upon discovery because they assumed the Aztec chief Montezuma had built it. Later it was proven that the Aztecs never got that far north but the name stuck. It is an interesting multi-level housing structure built into the cliffside and believed to be built around 1300. The Indian tribe that occupied the space dispersed in around 1450 to incorporate into other tribes and simply abandoned the site..pretty interesting.

Next, on to Santa Fe. It was a pretty long day, around 9hrs driving, because we also stopped along the way to visit the Petrified Forest National Park.  Fascinating how trees became petrified and are now basically colored stone, other than that it was a very baren, windswept environment. It was an uneventful drive until we got closer to Santa Fe. We got a cabin at the KOA camp just outside of town which was very cute. Simple, just a bed, front porch with swing and BBQ but comfortable for two nights and the facilities were worlds better than the national park campgrounds!! Santa Fe is absolutely incredible! I loved Sedona but the heat was incredibly oppressive so I could never manage a summer living there (89 when we woke up Fri morning with the news warning people to stay inside to avoid the dangerous heat of midday!) but Santa Fe is equally gorgeous but averages daytime highs in summer in the low 90’s and because of the altitude at 7000 ft it cools off very nicely at night. We spent all day Saturday in town checking out the booths at Saturday market, exploring galleries and shops and visiting the Georgia O’Keefe museum. The St Francis of Assissi cathedral has the oldest Madonna statue in the US and there are some fantastic restaurants. We had a great lunch at Ore Cafe, right on the plaza…wonderful southwestern cuisine. A blackened chicken salad with mandarin oranges for Jim and Tacos de Yucatan with rice and pinto beans for me and a cadillac margarita for both of us. So good! And, we found our dream store! It’s called Seret & Sons and has thousands and thousands of old carved doors, tables, pillars, etc mostly from India. Rugs from Tibet, armours, etc. It was just amazing and we were in hog heaven. Of course, none of it is inexpensive and we don’t even have a house right now but it’s sure nice to dream!

Then there was today, a VERY VERY VERY long day of driving through some of the most boring, remote landscape we could imagine. We drove for 565 miles and never actually had to make a turn once (except from the KOA in Santa Fe and into the hotel we’re in now). Just endless miles of barely changing scenery and flat, straight roads. I will say, it made for easy driving (except for the bad wind gusts) but we are glad it’s over. Why anyone chooses to live in East New Mexico, Northern Texas or Western Oklahoma is beyond me! We stopped at a particularly cheesy place in Amarillo, Tx for lunch called the Big Texan Steak House. I heard about it in Lonely Planet and it was too fun to pass up! Their big promotion is that if you can eat a 72oz (that is not a typo) steak along with all the sides in under 60 minutes it’s free- otherwise it’s $50! No one was attempting it when we were there but they even have a stage with a big timer beyond it where people go to try and accomplish it..crazy! We had the teensy (ha ha) 8oz prime rib lunch which was very good. The place is total wild west kitchsy but a fun stop.

Now, we’re at the Holiday Inn Express in Shwanee,Ok. It was 105 today and still hot out. Yuk. We wanted to get east of Oklahoma City to make our drive to Little Rock a bit shorter tomorrow and not have to mess with any Monday rush hour traffic so we drove forever and treated ourselves to a nice hotel. Some delivery pizza and a couple of lemonades and we’re good! Tomorrow we are at the KOA near Little Rock and then on to Memphis for 2 nights at the Graceland RV park! Woo hoo, Elvis, here we come!!!

Hope all is well for you all and we’ll get pics up soon! The dream continues…..love, Jim & Rhonda

Well, anyone who knows us well is aware we’ve been having a tough time adjusting to being back in the reality of being home. So, we decided to combine job hunting with traveling! It’s our good friends Vicki & Darin’s fault, really. They just moved to South Carolina and suggested we come and visit. So, we are! Jim has never been throughout most of the US and I haven’t been on a road-trip since I was young when my family went. We are probably going to stay in the Portland area, however, we are also open to other things so are going to stop in Ogden, Utah , Ashville, NC, Santa Fe, NM, Colorado, etc. and have our resumes with us and check on relocating somewhere new potentially. Plus, we’ll continue to get on monster.com and other search engines to look for work here at home while we’re gone.

I had started this post last week so now time for an update! We left Portland on Tue., 22 July and headed to Ontario, Or. After a brief night there we headed into Utah. We had read so many great things about Ogden, Ut. we had to check it out for ourselves. I will say that the town and surrounding area is great, very small town feel but with everything you would want or need. However, damn…Utah is barren! I have driven through before, of course, but had forgotten how much of the state is just almost desolate! We spent 2 nights camping by Pineview Reservoir right outside of Ogden, which was gorgeous. Lovely people and a fun parade at the Pioneer Days celebration..although it lasted for HOURS (literally).

From Ogden we drove down to Bryce National Park where we camped for 2 nights. What an amazing place, the hoodoos (rock formations) are astonishing and we spent hours hiking down into the canyon and along the rim. It got quite chilly each night but was hot during the day. A norm in summer is afternoon thunderstorms and we did have that everyday. While there we did buy great tee shirts that say “All who wander are not lost”…boy, if that isn’t a perfect thought on how we’re feeling these days.

After Bryce we made the short drive to Zion National Park. Zion was equally stunning, although in a very different way. Whereas Bryce is all about the rock formations, Zion is huge cliffs of varying shades of yellow, white and red and it’s very easy to see all of the different levels of sediment and rock. In Bryce we camped at the top of the rim but in Zion everything happens in the valley floor meaning it was hot hot hot. We just spent 1 night in Zion but it was about 104 degrees, ugh. One very nice thing at both parks is the free shuttle service to the different viewpoints. At Bryce it is optional and a nice way to break up the long rim walk. In Zion, however, for the majority of the park cars are forbidden so the shuttle is mandatory. The drivers are all pretty informative and it’s a great way to get around and save the planet from all those cars driving about. In Zion we just did one fairly short walk as it was just too hot..then we stopped at Zion lodge for ice cream under a huge oak tree. Nice.

From Zion we headed south to Kanab where we stopped at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (bestfriends.org) We have previously donated money to this organization and it was really nice to stop by and see where the money really goes. They are the largest no kill animal sanctuary in the US and have hundreds of dogs, cats, & horses as well as a few bunnies, goats, pot-bellied pigs, etc. It’s a huge place..they own 3800 acres and lease the surrounding 30,000 of BLM land to create a barrier for the sanctuary. It’s a really great set up and they have so many great animals up for adoption.

Then, on to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. We had recently been to the 3rd largest canyon in the world at Fish River Canyon in Namibia and it was amazing to see the largest canyon at the Grand Canyon. For anyone who has never seen it .. it is absolutely enormous, 1 mile deep in some areas and averaging 10miles across (227 miles long) it’s awe inspiring. One of those places that truly does live up to it’s reputation. It was, of course, packed with day trippers. Bryce was lovely as there were view people there. Zion was more crowded, and Grand Canyon even more so. Luckily, the camp sites are really large so even though it was mostly full you didn’t feel crowded in. We hiked around 5-6 miles or so and actually decided to cut our time down to 2 nights there instead of 3. It’s much too hot this time of year to actually hike down to the bottom of the canyon and back up in 1 day so we felt we’d gotten enough time in during our 1 1/2 day, 2 night stay.

One BIG gripe we have about the national park campgrounds….we have now camped in New Zealand, Australia, & Africa and must say the facilities at the US national parks are the worst of the bunch!!! Truly, we had an occasional crappy camp or so in the other countries but for the most part they were all great with loads of bathrooms w/ showers attached, camp kitchens, etc. At Bryce we found a spot where we could hike to the showers in about 10minutes (they were by the general store instead of in each camp area), at Zion you had to drive 4 miles OUTSIDE the park and pay $5 pp for a shower and at Mather campground at the Grand canyon there were 300 camp sites and 8 showers for men/ 8 for women and were located near the camp entrance instead of at the bathroom facilities. We have been astonished how limited facilities here are..especially compared to African countries for goodness sake! No wonder more American families don’t camp!

Today, 30July, we drove from the Grand Canyon to Sedona, Arizona. What a gorgeous, gorgeous place! We had gotten all rave reviews from friends & family who’ve been here and we can see why! We are in a hotel for 2 nights. We plan to camp as much as possible in interest of saving money on this trip but we truly wanted a nice shower (that we didn’t have to drive to!), a good bed and air conditioning..it is hot hot hot. Tonight we’re just going to be bums, get a pizza and a good bottle of wine and rent a movie on pay preview. Tomorrow morning we’ll get up early enough to not roast and go explore all the amazing looking art galleries and shops around town. There are some nice hikes in the area but we’re fairly sore from all the miles we’ve hiked in the last week and in this heat I think we’ll stick to the galleries! And, of course, hit the local brewpub to do some sampling in the evening. From there..on to New Mexico!!!

I hope you all follow us along on as our dream continues. Today or tomorrow we will be getting those Africa pics on line and will update our US photos as we go along as well. Hope you are all having a great summer and we’ll see you again soon! Love, Jim & Rhonda

As promised , here are the pictures of Egypt…enjoy all the amazing art & architecture

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimandrhondartw/sets/72157606283091741/detail/