Travurple

Monday (13 October) Back to the flat to continue the flat pack assembly, and to prepare for bedroom carpet fitting on Wednesday.

Tuesday ….. more of the same, Wardrobes completed

Wednesday – carpet fitted in the bedroom

Thursday, Nic headed off to source a piece of skirting board, 112 cm to be precise! Where we have removed a fireplace. It turns out the design we need is not readily available, so executive decision made to use a plain design and learn to live with it. Rog waited in for delivery of new radiator for the Lounge. We also received Flowers from the Estate agent ! Pic

Friday, continued with the DIY, then Nic headed off to a town a few miles away to give blood, always interesting to see which aspects of our travels need to be examined to make sure Nic is safe to donate! It’s a yes! Such a great thing to do, and there are always snacks after!! Today there were even new buttock clenching exercises to do while donating to improve the blood flow ! The mind boggles!

Rog once again waiting in for a delivery, this time a bed… which never arrived due to confusion about which Friday it was supposed to arrive …. Now scheduled for Monday !

Saturday, Had a day off! We got the bus to York, then a train “ up north” to watch our Nephew play rugby, enjoyed some local hospitality and a train ride and bus back! Still in bed by 10pm (Nic’s Mum and Dad’s sofa bed, so no drive back to the Airbnb!).

Sunday, Bit more decorating, Easy ish day after the excesses of the Saturday 😜

Monday (20 October) Full steam ahead to start decorating the Lounge, again with a carpet fitting deadline on Friday.

Amazing now many coats of white paint it takes to cover already white walls and ceilings!! Lots of aching decorating muscles.

Hooray bed arrived, Ottoman design to give lots of storage underneath…. Relief that it fits in the room, and that the wardrobe doors will open fully with it in place!

Tuesday, More painting

Wednesday, yet more painting, then Nic met up with a friend for tea.

Thursday, Rog on DIY duty, electrician came to change sockets, fit radiator and install hob. Nic supported parents on a hospital visit.

Friday, carpet fitted in Lounge, Rog built sofa and chair ….. and we moved in!

Spent the evening relaxing and ordering more IKEA furniture!

Saturday, started to empty parental loft and garage of the boxes we had left back in 2021. Amazing the stuff you keep…. Even when you think you have been ruthless!

Sunday, waited in for IKEA deliveries… 2 deliveries for one order again, more box emptying, and associated tip runs! Rog built shelf unit, table and chairs.

Monday (27 October) Had our lounge window measured for replacement, hopefully soon, as the contractor felt it needed doing urgently. We were aware of the need to get it done, so no surprise there.

Tuesday, more box collection and emptying.

Wednesday, a pottering day and met friends for drinks and dinner in the evening.

Thursday, Early start for a service of our hot water system.

Friday, more box emptying !

Saturday(1 November) Pub lunch out to celebrate a family birthday.

Sunday, Sunday lunch at Nic’s parents, with Rog’s parents too.

Monday (3 November) – Thursday, A busy few days with family, attending hospital appointments and meeting up with friends. Nic managed a Pop choir rehearsal …. Doing Christmas tunes already for December Gigs!, A fireworks!

Friday, finishing packing for a two week cruise, leaving tomorrow to visit friends before flying out to meet the ship on Sunday.

Saturday, decided to drive to visit friends on our way to Manchester airport, as the train line between York & Leeds was closed due to engineering works, guess what?.. the M62 was also closed due to an accident, so you just can’t win !

We finally got to our friends and went out for dinner at a great Chinese Restaurant, and had a couple of drinks.

Sunday, we drove to Manchester airport, used the ‘Meet & Greet’ car park as the price was OK and we are due to fly back in at 3:50am !

As we post this we are sitting in Manchester airport, having a coffee before our flight to Malaga, where we join our cruise ship bound for the Caribbean.

Monday (6 October) – more working on decorating the flat, changing our addresses on everything, who knew we had so many to do!

Tuesday, Northern Trains were doing a sale, £2 per journey, so after a bit of planning, Rog managed to book the following for £21 each.

Pocklington – York (Bus)

York – Leeds

Leeds – Settle

Settle – Carlisle (‘the most scenic rail journey in England’)

Carlisle – Newcastle

Newcastle – York

York – Pocklington (Bus)

We managed a walk around the city square in Leeds, and a fabulous lunch in Settle at ‘The Nettle’ a wine bar with small plates and organic wines.

It was a long but interesting day, because of the sights from the train, but also the sights on the trains, especially on the Settle to Carlisle route, with the coach load from Blackpool all of a certain age. One particular lady, spent equal time for the first three quarters of the journey admiring to view, and whinging about the fact that the catering trolley was not coming fast enough, then the final quarter of the journey asking her friend why they were on the train, rather than on the bus which was going to pick them up in Carlisle anyway!!

Thankfully all the trains were on time, and we got seats on all trains.

Wednesday, another day working on the flat, we were struggling to get hot water from an economy 7 system (over night electric), thankfully our new neighbour was having their electricity meter dealt with. Rog asked the Electrician, who had his head in the neighbours’s meter cupboard, if he had any ideas about ours, he explained that our meter was obsolete and needed replacing, so we rang our provider at 2:30pm, who agreed to send an engineer. We then went to the local arts centre in Pocklington to see ‘The Roses’ film with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, a good film with loads of choice language.

Thursday, the Ikea delivery driver arrived with 46 packages, the electric engineer turned up at 9:15am, now that’s service. In the afternoon we had another trip to the shops, Curry’s for a fridge, a freezer, a cooker hob, whilst there, also bought a new speaker and a coffee machine, then to B&Q for more paint and a toilet seat.

Friday, we moved accommodation again, still staying in AirBnB’s until the flat is ready, then more DIY at the flat, and the second Ikea delivery arrived, not sure why they couldn’t send it all in go?

In the afternoon, we headed in to York for dinner at ‘The Pairings’ another wine bar, then to see Alan Davies at the Grand Opera House. It was a good show, with at least part of the entertainment provided by our fellow audience members!

Saturday, started to build the Ikea packages, the wardrobes first (4 individual ones to do!)

Sunday, yes, you’ve guessed it, more DIY!

Monday (8th September), Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly taken up with visiting the Champagne houses on the Avenue of Champagne in Epernay, drinking champagne and/or eating:

We visited:

Moet & Chandon

Mercier – including an electric train ride through their 12 Kms of Cellars

Perrier Jouet

Leclerc Briant

Collard-Picard

Le 17 Lounge bar

Restaurant Chez Françoise

Restaurant Le Sardaigne

Thursday, was time to start the trip back ‘home’, we left Epernay, truly champagned out, so much so that on our way north, we called at Veuve Clicquot Champagne in Reims and didn’t even try any!

We had an easy drive up the French motorways back to Le Shuttle, we arrived at check in early, but unfortunately there were some delays on the trains so we couldn’t get an earlier train. Eventually we got back to the UK, then headed to our overnight hotel, a Premier Inn in High Wycombe. The M25 was a pain!!

The Premier Inn was a sprawling hotel over three different buildings! Managed to get dinner in the restaurant.

Friday, drove our friends back to Widnes, we were all still talking to each other after our three week European adventures, so that was a bonus. We overnighted in Widnes with them, then drove back to Pocklington on the Saturday.

Monday (15th September) to Thursday was filled with the usual washing, unpacking and repacking, a few medical appointments for us, and family, and getting the car serviced and MOT’d. All interesting stuff!

Unfortunately the car had to be left at the Garage as it needed some work. So we set off from Malton, about a half hour drive usually, to get the bus back. Our first bus to York was half an hour late, the second bus to Pocklington took twice as long as usual due to traffic in York… we then had to borrow a car to get to our accommodation. We saw lots of interesting sights on the journey, including deer in the fields, but we were glad to make it back in the end !

Friday, we drove south back to Kent to celebrate a family 80th Birthday for the weekend, more lovely eating and drinking, including a very nice Sunday lunch at The Kentish Hare in Bidborough.

Monday (22 September) headed into Hampshire to stay at a holiday cottage at Gilbert White’s house in Selbourne. Spent the next few days seeing family locally and visiting family in hospital.

Friday, we drove back up to Pocklington, not a bad journey until we got stuck on M18/M62 junction for 1hr 20 mins following a nasty accident involving a motorbike.

Friday also saw us complete on buying a flat ! Yes, you read that correctly, we are once again property owners! It is a tiny flat in an ‘Over 55’ complex in Pocklington that we can lock up and leave, but have a base when we are back.

Saturday, picked the car up following it’s service and MOT, as it needed a little (expensive) work, but all sorted now.

We’ll be doing a some work on the flat and getting some furniture, (as we do not have any) so for the next few weeks, we have some AirBnB’s in and around Pock.

Our first one is near Brandsburton, a tiny old chapel on a working farm in the middle of nowhere. Well equipped, with lovely rural views, and lots of birds visiting the trees and bird feeders on the property.

Sunday, we started the furniture buying process, we have ordered a bed and some carpet!

Monday (29 September) as our accommodation is closer to the coast than Pock, and it was a nice day we decided to head to Hornsea for a walk along the coast. Also ended up at Hornsea Free Port for some non house related retail therapy, Rog finally managed to replace a light weight waterproof that he has been looking for for awhile.

Tuesday, a day at the accommodation doing more furniture research online and had a bit of a walk.

Wednesday, headed to ‘our’ flat, Rog started the decorating process with a little TLC on the bedroom window. Nic attended a funeral thanksgiving service of one of her secondary school teacher’s, who was also a teaching colleague of Nic’s dad.

Thursday, went to Beverley for a wander and coffee, also called at Wickes to buy paint, so do we get a prize if we manage to visit all DIY shops?

Friday, we moved accommodation again, back into Pock, to an AirBnB we have used in the past, as we want to get more of our flat sorted before moving in, and we currently don’t own any furniture.

Saturday, attended a Bedroom design appointment at IKEA in Leeds, we had a good idea what we wanted but it was good to get it designed, and obviously they then just give you a shopping list of all the bits you need, or it can be delivered! So we opted for home delivery, the 46 separate items are being delivered over two days next week! We also got a sofa and a chair.

Went out for a few beers, catching up with family.

Sunday, back to the flat for some more painting! We know how to live!

Monday (1 September), We drove to the Lalique Museum about an hour away, so took the longer cross country route. We intended to have lunch at the bistro, however they were fully booked, so we ended up in the local cafe in the village, which did the job.

The Lalique Museum is there because Rene Lalique opened his first glass making works in the area as it had many of the necessary minerals, plus wood for the furnaces.

It was also an interesting drive through the Vosges National park.

Tuesday, following recommendations we headed south to Rosheim, via Molsheim Avolsheim (yes a lot of places are called …heim). We had a wander around Rosheim then the obligatory stop for coffee and cake.

We were heading to Ottrott, but decided to go via Mount Saint Odile, Nic had looked it up online, Rog just liked the really windy road on the map !

Impressive views!

Once in Ottrott (not everything is …heim), we headed to a couple of wine houses, to try the ‘Ottrott Red’ which is a notable local red wine, several hundred years ago, the vines were brought from Burgundy by monks, who recognised that the local conditions suited the grape variety.

Wednesday, we headed into Strasbourg, it was recommended that we do ‘Park & Ride’ on the tram, so we set off to ‘Poteries’ tram stop, however nobody had told Google Maps that they were extending the tram tracks, and there were road works/closures everywhere. So we drove around in circles for a little while seeing the car park, but being unable to get there! Finally we managed to be on the right road for the car park! The car parking was €4.20 (£3.65) which included up to 5 people on the tram! What a Bargain!

We started at Strasbourg Cathedral, then wandered around the old town, finishing with lunch at ‘Masion Kammerzell’ a restaurant which opened in 1427. A really nice local meal and the odd glass of wine. (obviously not for the driver!).

Getting out of the car park was a lot easier than getting in.

Thursday, another lunch out, Le Basilic in Avolsheim, a Italian restaurant. Lovely pizza and veal.

Called at the farm shop on the way back ‘home’. Then we walked out to the local wine producer. In previous visits, we have done a tasting, and know the wine well, so we were just trying to buy wine this time, however the ‘vondage’ (grape harvest) was well underway, so we didn’t want to disturb anyone. But ‘madam’ insisted on calling ‘monsieur’ back from the vineyards. We made it worth their while by buying plenty of wine. We were also not allowed to leave without having a glass of fizz whilst he sorted out the order and the bill.

Friday, it’s a hard life but we had to go out for lunch again, we are on holiday with friends😂. This time ‘Le Marronnier’ (The Chestnut tree) in Stutzheim-Offenheim, which specialises in the local Tarte Flambée (like a pizza, but really thin with a crème fraiche base rather than tomato). We all agreed it was one of our favourite meals.

Saturday, we left the Strasbourg area and drove to Epernay, the capital of Champagne. Another easy drive on the French motorways.

Obviously when in Champagne we have to drink Champagne. So we headed out to a local bar had a couple of different champagnes, followed by dinner at restaurant Chez Francoise, where we had really good steaks.

Sunday, had a relaxing day, a little stroll up the Avenue d’ Champagne, followed by coffee and cake. Lunch back at the AirBnB flat, which is a short walk into town near a local school.

In the evening we went out for a walk looking for the Blood Moon and the lunar eclipse, but we were a little early and Epernay is surrounded by hills. So we gave up before the Moon crossed the visible horizon. We did however get to see the impressive Wineries of the Avenue De Champagne all lit up.

Again, credit for some of the photos must go to our friends.

Monday (25 August) we drove in to Cologne, a visit to the cathedral, followed by lovely cakes and coffee. Then a walk around the old town and a river cruise, interspersed with a couple of beers!

On leaving the car park, we heard a slightly strange noise, it sounded like a plastic bag trapped somewhere on the car.

Tuesday, we headed out to the local town for a walk, but quickly changed our minds and headed to the local Volvo garage as the noise had got worse. Thankfully our friend is an engineer, (not a motor engineer but more of an engineer than either of us) who diagnosed the problem! Spoke to the Volvo dealer who had some spare time to have a look later in the afternoon. We went back at the allotted time, and within 1/2 hr they had removed the offending part which was causing the noise, (the air conditioner compressor clutch housing lid!) this means that the air conditioning no longer works, but the car is drivable. They would not provide us with an invoice, and asked for €10 in the staff tips jar!! Now that is service! We decided it was probably not a Volvo approved/Sanctioned repair, but we were very happy.

Due to the issues with the car and the time it took to sort the issues out, we cancelled our plans for the day and headed back to our AirBnB and had a glass of wine/beer or two….

Wednesday, we headed to Castle Drachenburg, on the outskirts of Bonn. A ‘recently’ restored Castle, with lovely views over the River Rhine.

We then drove into Bonn to the University Botanical Gardens, Bonn was a nightmare to park in, lots of the land was owned by the University and you could only park with a University pass. In the gardens, we have never seen quite so many plant labels, everything had one!

Thursday, we headed to the local town of Nuenkirchen for a walk, coffee and cake. However it didn’t happen in that order as we parked near Cafe Stommel, so had coffee and cake first. There were lots of families with children walking about, and the children were all carrying brightly coloured large cardboard cones, full of treats. We finally worked out, with the help of Google that it was their first day of school, and the cardboard cones are a local tradition.

Friday, after starting the packing process, we went back to the Pancake restaurant for lunch!

Saturday, packed up and left our AirBnB, a 4 hr drive, to a village near Strasbourg in France, an uneventful drive, a few bits of road works but no real delays. Pretty warm due to the lack of air con, so with memories of 1970’s holidays, we just drove with the windows down ! We are staying at a family members house, whilst they are away on holiday.

Sunday, as we drank most of the wine last night, we ventured out to a recommended ‘cave de vin’ , Mosbach to taste and buy more wine in Marlenheim. We met friendly locals who told us a little of the local history while we tasted the wine. Purchases made we then had a stroll around the village, it is nice to see that most shops are closed because it is Sunday.

That evening English friends of the family who live in the village, came around for drinks, so we could get more local recommendations.

Credit for some of the photos must go to our friends.

Monday (18 August), continued with the house sitting in Kent, this afternoon we went to Chartwell House, Winston Churchill’s house. A national trust property, well volunteered, never seen so many volunteers at a National Trust property. For a Monday it was really busy, glad we booked tickets for the house, as not sure we would have got in if we had just turned up. We continue to cause interest at the National trust with our Manx National Heritage membership cards, as they have a reciprocal agreement so we get in free, but no-one has ever seen the Manx Cards, at Chartwell they even looked them up in the NT manual, to check.

Chartwell House itself was an interesting house, showing the more personal side of Churchill (less Prime Ministerial) also showing his artwork. It also had well cared for gardens and substantial grounds. Plus good flapjack at the cafe !

Tuesday, time for packing again. We did take some time out to visit a local church which had a number of stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall.

Wednesday, we drove up to Widnes to collect friends for a European road trip. (We’d originally agreed to pick them up en route from Pock when heading South, before our plans changed). Today there was a lorry accident on the M6 motorway, so the drive was a little longer than expected. We still arrived in enough time to have a nice meal at a local pub.

Thursday, we drove back down to Kent, had a better drive down, had another nice meal in a local pub.

Friday, we headed to the Channel Tunnel for the Shuttle, it’s the Friday before the bank holiday weekend, so the check in was busy, our train was showing at least a half hour delay, but then staff were walking around the car park telling us just to head to passport control when we were ready, so we headed straight through, and after a bit of a wait, managed to get a train at our departure time, but not sure it was actually our allotted train.

A 3 hour drive to Namur in Belgium, for one night in the Chateau de Namur hotel, a lovely hotel which is also a catering school, so in the restaurant we had a wonderful dinner.

Saturday, after a good breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and went for a walk around the citadel of Namur, watched a wedding party around the grounds.

Then we drove on into Germany, to our AirBnB near Cologne. Did some supermarket shopping on the way, which is always fun in a foreign country/Language.

The AirBnB is in a very quiet location, it’s the most well equipped, spacious and value for money AirBnB we have stayed in. It works out at £18 per person per night.

Sunday, after all the recent driving, we had a day off, so we walked to the next village to a Pancake restaurant, which was so good we have booked again for Friday lunch.

A 4 week blog, we have no excuses for the delay, we have been crap! Must do better!

Monday (21 July) We had another lazy day in Seattle, a walk around the local area including the local community farm, followed by lunch at the Stonehouse Cafe restaurant.

Tuesday morning. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the Seattle Amtrak train station, to catch the 35 hour train to Los Angeles.

Another interesting train journey, with changing scenery, as the Conductor put it “we don’t have WiFi, but we do have windows live…” look outside.

The train was delayed arriving into Los Angeles, so we stepped off the train crossed the platform and got on our next 45 hour train to New Orleans, instead of having 40mins in LA.

The ‘Cafe Guy’ on this train was a bit of a comedian, so there were a few funny announcements about the Cafe! This made up slightly for the fairly minimal menu, we did try most things in the course of our Amtrak journeys. It was the same menu on each train, but from different suppliers! Interesting how different a Greek salad or a Turkey sandwich can be from different places!

Lots more interesting scenery, and interesting fellow travellers (enough said!)

The train travelled through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana.

You can see the ‘Trump wall’ from the train, at one point near El Paso, Texas the rail tracks run alongside the wall/fence. At the El Paso station stop, our cheery cafe guy announced that Burrito Sally would be on the platform selling her famous ….. you guessed it Burritos…. If we wanted to get off we would have time. After watching a fairly steady queue for a few minutes, including train staff, Nic weakened and headed off the train to chat to Sally and get a couple of Brisket Burritos. Well worth it!!

Overall Texas was not as barren and desert filled as expected, in fact we were surprised by its greenery.

We had left Seattle at 9am Tuesday morning and finally got to New Orleans at 8pm on Friday, a long train journey.

New Orleans was hot and humid, we managed a walk around the Garden Quarter, to see all the old colonial houses.

Our hotel was in the French Quarter, all a bit touristy, especially Bourbon Street, full of bars with music so loud you can’t hear yourself think, and that is from the outside!! We didn’t go in to any of them, fearing a burst eardrum! We are officially getting old!

We did find a nice cocktail bar in a hotel, and a really nice restaurant. Nic was delighted to get some vegetables on her plate!

Monday (28 July) back to the train station for another Amtrak train, 32 hours back to New York this time.

Not the best of trains this time, a cafe, but no ‘sightseer’ car. But still OK.

On arriving in New York, we walked a few blocks to our hotel, the Millenium Time Square Hotel, a bit of a line at the check in desk, but worth the wait as they upgraded us to a suite on the 51 floor, result!

Whilst Rog was queuing to check in, Nic booked a table for dinner at an Italian restaurant just over the road, we had a nice meal, then had a stroll around Time Square, it was still really busy.

Wednesday, we had a disappointing breakfast just down the block from our hotel. It was only 9am but getting hot already, we decided to head to the airport reasonable early. We upgraded our flight to premium economy again for a really good price, and it was definitely worth it!

Thursday, we landed early morning in London Gatwick Airport, got off the plane among to first passengers, there was no queue at passport control, and as we were travelling with hand luggage only, had no bags to wait for, we were through really quickly. We then had to kill some time before our booked train, so we sat in a Cafe Nero and had a couple of coffees/teas.

The trains up to London and on to York were uneventful.

We stayed in the cottage in Bielby again, spent the week seeing Family, including a couple of days out to the coast, with each set of parents.

We also covered the mundane, laundry, visits to dentists, hair cuts, unpacking and repacking.

Friday (8 August), we left Pock and headed to Norfolk to visit Rog’s old school friend. So obviously spent a couple of days catching up, including a lovely country walk, via a cafe!

Sunday, we drove down to Kent to see Nic’s Brother, via other friends near Ely.

Monday (11 August), spent a couple of days settling in, as we are house and pet sitting whilst they are away on holiday.

Also got the car air conditioning repaired.

Wednesday, Rog did the airport run to Heathrow, a round trip drive which should have taken 2 1/2 to 3 hrs, however due to heavy traffic and an accident on the M25, it took 6 hrs!

Friday, we got the train up to London, visiting the Bank of England Museum, an interesting museum. We had a lovely lunch in Padella, in Borough market. We then headed to the Globe Theatre to see William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. A hot day, so we needed to find some shade to stand in, great value for money as the standing tickets are a very reasonable price.(£6 each) They also have one of the most ornate water refill fountains I have ever seen!

Went for a beer at The George, the last galleried inn in London, owned by the National Trust, before getting the train ‘home’.

Saturday morning we visited Downe House, the home of Charles Darwin. An English heritage owned property, we got free entry with our Manx National Heritage passes, but had to pay £12.50 for the Greater London Ultra Low Emissions charge as the Volvo is old and a diesel.

Sunday, we had a lazy day.

Friday 11 July, we had tickets for the Calgary Stampede, billed as “the greatest outdoor show on earth”. It’s predominantly a rodeo including bull riding, bucking horses, chuck wagon races, bareback relay racing. But also includes a fun fair, agricultural animal show, craft stalls, lots and lots of food stalls and finished off with a stage show and fireworks.

Everything we saw about the Stampede said that the parking was crazy, and we had to drive in from our AirBnB, so we went early into the city, to a carpark a couple of stops away on the ‘Calgary Transit’ which worked out really well.

We had a long day, but a good day! The rodeo and events were crazy, the professionals trying to stay on a bucking bull for 8 seconds, and not get killed when they fall off is utterly crazy. They even start the children young, with a team competition, which seemed to involve them trying to catch a small pony by the bridle, only to be dragged around the arena !!!

Even the evening show was mad, there was so much going on on the stage at the same time it was really hard to keep up.

Saturday, we left Calgary for a 4 1/2 hour drive to Revelstoke in the Canadian Rockies, it is a stunning drive, via Banff.

In Revelstoke, we visited a couple of pubs/breweries, firstly ‘The Village Idiot’ which was a little too like a restaurant for just drinking, so we moved on to “Rumpus Beer Company” which was definitely more pub like, so we enjoyed a couple of drinks, and then some food from a truck parked outside.

Sunday, After only one night in Revelstoke we moved on to Kamloops, our AirBnB had a pool, so as soon as we checked in we hit the pool.

Monday (14 July) we had a vineyard and brewery tour, so nobody had to drive, we visited 2 Vineyards, Monte Creek and Sagewood and 2 Breweries Iron Road and Bright Eye, tasting plenty of wine and beer along the way. We ended up at ‘The Noble Pig’ pub with a couple of our fellow drinkers from Canada. We had a great day, and it was also a good choice to do as it rained most of the day.

Tuesday, We had a long drive back into The USA, there were warnings about a forest fire near the main highway, so we set off on our planned route, and monitored the situation, thankfully as the day went on the warnings were removed.

We crossed back into America at Nighthawk border crossing, we were expecting a small quiet crossing, and we were the only ones there, so we got straight through.

We drove to Winthrop, recommended by friends in the UK who had visited, we stayed at the AbbyCreek Inn, a nice motel by the river, and with a pool.

We had two nights in Winthrop, which is an old “western” town with covered wooden walkways. No surprise, we found another local brew pub, and spent both evenings having good beer and food!

Thursday, our drive was through the North Cascade National Park, back to Seattle. The views were amazing.

Once we got into downtown Seattle the traffic was awful, however we drove to our hotel, dropped off our bags, and friends, then took the car back to the airport. We had driven a total of 2,913 miles in three weeks !! More than doubling the original miles on the hire car when we picked it up.

After getting back downtown, via the Light rail system we went to ‘The Old Stove Brewing Company’ for drinks and dinner, it was crazy busy, and our friends had kindly queued up to get a table.

Friday, we headed to a glass exhibition by Chihuly, a famous local glass artist, we had seen some of his work in Kew Gardens a few years ago. We’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

We then had a few drinks at a couple of different bars, followed by dinner at Noi Thai restaurant.

Saturday, headed out to ‘Virginia Inn’ for brunch, then checked out of the hotel, thankfully we could all leave our luggage at the hotel. Our friends were flying back to the UK, but not until 8pm, so we wandered along the waterfront. Mid afternoon we said our goodbyes, and headed off to stay for a few nights with another friend, from our Central American trip last year, who also lives in Seattle.

Sunday, a lazy day, including brunch with friends of friends after they had competed in a Duathlon (Run & Bicycle ride). A great brunch with the “ best French toast in Seattle” !

Points for those of you who noticed in last week’s blog that we stated Chicago to Seattle was XX miles, obviously missed by the editor and proof reading department, obviously it should have read 2,063 miles!

Sunday 29 June, we had our first American diner breakfast experience, the portion sizes were huge, one of us managed to add vanilla flavour cream to coffee without noticing, and very nearly spat it out all over the table.

We drove to Spokane Valley to met friends of friends, who had, despite never having met us, very kindly agreed to put us up for a couple of nights. They were so hospitable, and for us a lovely experience to be made to feel so at home.

Monday, we had a short wander around Spokane, it was blisteringly hot again, so didn’t get too far. Had lunch overlooking the water falls in Spokane.

In the evening we went out for dinner at a casino, obviously we all had a little flutter with results ranging from surprisingly profitable to down right terrible.

There had been a shooting incident, over the weekend, where two firefighters were killed in Coeur d’Alene, not very far from Spokane Valley.

Tuesday, we left our hosts and headed to a place called ‘Big Arm’ on the banks of Flathead Lake, in the Flathead Reservation. As soon as we joined the interstate highway we noticed lots of people including, firefighters on every flyover and on the side of the road, they were all waiting for the motorcade returning the bodies of the fallen firefighters back to Coeur d’Alene. It was a very emotional sight.

Our 1 night accommodation in Big Arm was great, with lots of handmade wooden details, and views over the lake.

Wednesday, On leaving Big Arm we visited the Miracle of America museum, which had an extensive range of America memorabilia, cars, military, motorbikes, medicine, boats, it even had an alien section!! A thing to be seen!

We drove the 3 hrs to Butte, still in Montana. We stayed in the Rocker Inn just outside Butte. Butte is a old mining town which once had 82 mines, and still had an impressive open caste mine right in the edge of town, where they appear to be dismantling a very large hill. We had two nights in Butte, so managed to visit ‘The Butte Beer & Pizza Company’ which was true to its name. So we enjoyed a selection of beer and pizza.

Thursday, we wandered around Butte, tried to book a trolley bus tour, but they were sold out, but that is when we found out that the largest firework display in Montana was scheduled for that night in Butte, which is slightly odd because it was the 3rd of July, not the 4th, but they always do fireworks on the 3rd! Fortunately, we could see the fireworks from our hotel. Before the fireworks we had a few drinks and dinner at ‘Sparky’s Garage’ a sports bar.

Friday 4th July, we drove to West Yellowstone, a town just outside the Yellowstone National Park, on the way we were delayed by a road closure in Ennis for their 4th of July parade, I think we nearly managed to join the end of the parade, because everyone was still sitting by the side of the route.

In West Yellowstone we found ‘Big Gun Fun’ so, when in Rome and all that, we decided to go and shoot a hand gun each. Our friends shot a handgun each and semi automatic rifles. I think we all did OK and didn’t embarrass ourselves.

Later that afternoon there was the 4th of July parade, which consisted of various floats…. from a group of kids on their bikes, to the local airport fire engine soaking everyone! Lots of flag waving! A truly American experience.

Saturday 5 July, we drove into Yellowstone National Park for 3 nights, we are not going to try to describe Yellowstone here, we would quickly run of superlatives. So as they say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here are some photos.

Yellowstone is also our excuse for not posting our weekly blog, there was no mobile phone signal and our accommodation had what it called WiFi in the lobby, but it appeared as elusive as the bears! We did manage to see Bison, Elk, Deer, Chipmunks and Eagles.

Tuesday 8 July, we left Yellowstone via the North entrance and headed to Bozeman, which we’d heard of, from a passing reference in the ‘Big Bang Theory’ TV programme, so it was a good enough reason to stop, it also made sense in terms of direction and length of drive.

We did a little clothes shopping courtesy of Walmart, found a couple of breweries.

Wednesday, we had another long drive up to Shelby, Montana, which we had passed through on the train 11 days earlier. There is not a lot in Shelby, but we did find a Chinese restaurant, as we were craving a vegetable or two, and you can rely on a Chinese restaurant to do some good vegetables.

Thursday, we drove into Canada to Calgary, a 4 hour drive, the border was fine, we have to say we didn’t see any American presence, we expected them to check us out, but we now assume they are more concerned with checking us in. The Canadian official was very pleasant, however they obviously don’t get very many non US visitors as he had to go and find the stamp for our passports.

The Motorhome (RV) from Florida in front of us in the queue very nearly drove through the border without stopping!! Luckily for them they did stop, but had to reverse back up the the window, and take a considerable amount of time to find their passports, obviously they were not expecting to find a different country!!

Monday 23 June – we left York by train heading to London Kings Cross, on arrival we stored our luggage nearby (we are only traveling with hand luggage of 10kgs + a small ‘personal item’ Rucksack for under an airline seat). We then met a mate at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, had a quick wander around the Gallery, punctuated by a coffee stop.

We were joined by our friend’s wife, and all had dinner at Maison Francois, before heading to the Royal Institution for a lecture on ‘The Poisons of Agatha Christie” by the author Katherine Harkup. An fun, interesting lecture on how scientifically, and medically, accurate Agatha Christie was in the use of positions in her books, we didn’t know she trained as a pharmacist in World War I and retrained again in World War II

A night in a Premier Inn at Gatwick airport, not the closest one to the airport, but with really friendly staff and probably the best Premier Inn breakfast we have ever had!

Tuesday, checked in for our FlyNorse flight to JFK in New York, we asked for a price to upgrade to Premium, the price was good, so we splashed out, glad we did. It meant we were off the plane first and early in the queue for passport control, after a 30 mins delay sitting on the tarmac awaiting a gate. From our expected arrival time, to getting through passport control, two trains and a short walk to our hotel in central manhattan took us about 2 hours 30 mins – we were stunned, we expected to be hours in the airport, but no.

We then met a friend for dinner, for our long term readers, it’s one of the Americans we shared interesting bus and train rides with, in the Balkans, on our Interrail adventures back in early 2023, who has since moved to New York.

We had dinner at a Korean restaurant, lovely food, and we decided to try a Korean drink. when they delivered a bottle and 4 small shot glasses, we were worried that it was going to be potent stuff, thankfully it was only 13% proof.

Wednesday morning, we headed to the train station for a 6:40am train to Chicago, a 26 hour train, 30 stops including Baltimore, Washington DC, Charlottesville (Virginia), and various stops in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and finally Chicago in Illinois. The train was delayed at times for up to an 1hr 30mins because of the high temperature of the track, but made up most of that time overnight, so we only arrived in Chicago 30 mins late.

We had a good three hours for a very quick wander around Chicago, in 35 degree heat, to grab some lunch and fresh supplies for the next leg of our train journey, the 46 hr trip to Seattle on the ‘Empire Builder’ Amtrak train.

Chicago has a lot of impressive and iconic architecture, plus a nice river walk, even so it was damn hot !

The ‘Empire Builder’ is a double decker train, with half the train going to Portland and half going all the way to Seattle, XX miles as the crow flies. We spent a lot of time going through North Dakota, where there was a lot of nothing, wide open farm land with few towns. Into Montana, where the time changes again (our third USA time zone so far).

On the US railways freight trains have right of way, we saw many freight trains of 100 carriages, one of our fellow passengers was talking about freight trains up to 4 miles long.

Spotted a Coyote the side of the railway, but didn’t manage to get a photo. Also plenty of deer in the fields too. Not to mention a lot of abandoned vehicles, of all kinds.

The ticketing and seating is a very manual process on the trains, you can’t book a seat, once you have found one in the correct part of the train, (all the train is not going to the same destination) the conductor then sticks a piece of paper on the luggage rack above your head showing your destination, so he can let you know (or even wake you up) when approaching the station.

Slightly oddly the onboard cafe closes for it’s lunch break at lunch time, however there are no published opening times, you do get 15min notice announcement on the tannoy before it closes, that is if you can hear the tannoy, which is a little intermittent.

All in all, some of you may think 72 hrs on a couple of trains across America from New York to Seattle is crazy, but we enjoyed it. Seeing all the different scenery and landscapes, talking to some of our fellow passengers, just watching the world go by and plenty of time to write a more fuller blog than usual.

Saturday (after a short discussion, we agreed it must be Saturday) we have crossed another 2 time zones. After arriving in central Seattle by train, we got the tram out to the airport to meet our good friends from the Isle of Man, hire a car and start our road trip.

The airport was crazy busy as was the car hire depot, after having to run the gauntlet for do you want to buy extra insurance, a WiFi package, a tank of fuel – obviously the answer to all is No (we already have a separate car hire insurance policy, which includes ‘Supplementary Liability Insurance’. We then headed to the car park, the chap looked at the four of us and our luggage (not a load) and proclaimed that the proposed car was not big enough (we booked a Toyota Rav 4 or equivalent) and would we prefer a Jeep Grand Cherokee and obviously Yes pleaser this time.

We had about 1hr 30 mins to drive to our first stop in Cle Elum, we stayed in the Cle Elum Travellers Inn a classic American motel. Had few drinks and pizza in the local Brewery ‘Dru Bru’, a really good selection of tasty beers!