Seattle (still)

Just before the door closes on 2006, just a quick post to sum up the year travel-wise.

So far we've been able to stick to our guns (this is America after all!) and avoid the flying. I must say though that it's a whole lot more expensive to go overland and takes a lot longer, but it's been very enjoyable thus far - from meeting people over formal dinners on the cruise to sitting behind warring couples on the greyhound to sampling wine and cheese on the Amtrak. We haven't been overly daring in our travel arrangements given that we've only been to the USA and Canada, but then we've been kinda stuck in that we'd already made these plans. This means though that we need to get going with apres-USA planning. We've been planning to go down to Mexico and South America, but now we're not sure. It could be that we go through the Pacific to Australia instead...

Anyway, once we know what we're doing you'll be the first to know. :-)

Finally, my HT Christmas was completed with a comfortable 3-0 win and 150000 GBP in the bank!

Seattle (Xmas)

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Merry Christmas everyone.

A good time was had by all over here in Seattle. Usual Christmas fare of eating, reading and sleeping was enjoyed a-plenty.

Unfortunately being in the USA meant no mince pies or Christmas pudding. It is a credit to the cooking of Lauren that they were not missed.

Remaining in the same place meant that no extra miles have been accumulated - and seeing as it's not yet wednesday there has been no action on the HT front.

Yuletide greetings all round!

Vancouver - Seattle (140 miles)

OK here's my first attempt to capture video and share it online so please forgive what I believe is my own heavy breathing. It's a video of the rain falling on the roof of the courtroom atrium in Vancouver. Also the quality ain't great, but hey - my video camera is also my phone and digi camera so chill out!



I also have some photos for you - here's a picture of the world's largest post box.


There's also a picture of a (criminal?) cat who lives in a book shop in Seattle.


Finally a photo of vanDusen park which they deck out with thousand of Christmas lights.


So it's almost Christmas! Thanks in advance for all the people who donated gifts and funds to the C&T Xmas fund. Also, everyone with whom we negotiated a non-exchange pact (all you people in the UK), thanks and get yourself something nice from us! We'll do likewise ;-). Sorry to be missing Christmas in Aberdeen, but hopefully we'll be back there next year!

Finally HT news: a big fat thumping 5-1 win for the Hillbillies - only marred by a 4 week injury to last season's top scorer. Luckily it's the minnows for the next few weeks. Placed 1019 in Scotland.

Seattle - Vancouver (140 miles)

Greetings from Canadia.

We headed up here on a train from Seattle on Tuesday - so basically we showed up in Seattle spent a day in the company of Bart and decided to leave. ;-)

We're heading back tomorrow when hopefully the rest of the Thompson clan should have turned up.

Although there's a USB port on this PC (hooray!) I forgot to bring the USB cable (booo!) so I'll have to do another of those photo updates (or maybe come back and insert the pics in an appropriate place on the blog). We'll see.

What else? Oh yeah - we're staying in the Vancouver HI hostel which is kinda cool. I was feeling a bit old until I saw one guest who looks about 100. That makes me feel better.

MEXICO. Just thought I should post a quickie on the cancellation of our Mexico tour - just so Fidel Tamstro doesn't get back on my case... The tour company didn't have enough people booked on the trip (in fact it was just the two of us) so they cancelled it and gave us our money back. It looks like we may end up going to Mexico anyway - there's good whale watching to be had in Baja California apparently - but planning that will have to wait until after Xmas I think. Too much to be done in the meantime.

Anyway, Vancouver's a cool place. There's a good, vaguely hippie vibe about the place. Unfortunately it's been dampened somewhat by the incessant rain and strong wind we've had in the last few days - trees have fallen all over Stanley Park which has curtailed our exploration of that area somewhat. Still - it's always good to see a new country (especially when it takes you out of the USA - heh).

Hello to everyone and happy half birthday Leebster!

P.S. 4-0 HT win, but only a friendly.

Milage Update 2

Okie - I worked out that between leaving our flat in Edinburgh and leaving Southampton on the QM2 we did somewhere in the region of 2000 miles.

Now I just need to figure out how long the cruise was and we'll have a figure we can work with.

Milage Update

So far in the USA we have travelled 4056 miles - ish.

Houston - LA - Bakersfield - Stockton - Sacramento - Seattle

Our USA train experience went OK. We were in a sleeper car so we did get to sleep horizontally instead of sitting up Greyhound-style. They also gave us free food - or at least food included in the price - of which we were previously unaware - so that was a nice surprise. We did have a bit of an issue with our tickets though. They somehow got recycled at the Thompson's house (well they disappeared after the recycling was taken out anyway) and therefore didn't have any tickets when we turned up. The Amtrak guy was unsympathetic when we (white lie) told him that the tickets never showed up (we blamed the US postal service!) and expected us to buy a brand new set of tickets ($600+ eek!). Luckily we managed to convince him that the tickets had been lost so he (grudgingly) re-issued them - phew! Despite being on time right the way up to Sacramento, we were over 6 hours late into Seattle so we arrived at 3am. Bart and Lauren heroically picked us up so we didn't have to make our own way - luckily Lauren doesn't have to work today so it worked out alright.



So we have to get all all our Xmas shopping done in the next few days - may have to sharpen the elbows tonight. I'll report later on the state of shopping malls in Seattle a week before Christmas.

Hattrick news: 3-0 win this weekend. Currently rated 1284 in Scotland.

I was thinking of totalling up our total miles so far - Edinburgh - Seattle. I'll get to work on that for next post.

There have been some comments issues - hopefully these are now behind us. I believe it was a blogger issue but it should be OK now.

Houston

Just a quick final post from Houston. We're about to leave on the train for Seattle, but just about got enough time for this before we leave for dinner - still need to pack though...

Anyway, this visit to Houston has been good. We've had good weather (80 F today) and we've managed to get a whole heap of stuff organised. Our Mexico tour was cancelled (which is a blessing in a way as it frees us up to do other stuff instead) but more about that later.

Well more when we get to Seattle, time's running short.

Photo Update 2

Continuing the photo updates, these are some of the places we found manatees (in the wild - there are plenty of zoos and aquaria with them - mainly rescues):


TECO power plant exhaust water channel


Blue Springs National Park


Manatees:

For those not familiar with the West Indian Manatee, they are an aquatic mammal distantly related to the elephant who live in Central and South America mainly but can be found as far north as the Carolinas in the USA. They are large slow moving vegetarians who are sadly easily harmed by people in boats who go too fast through their habitat. Most manatees are scarred - some badly - by propellors. These are typically short parallel lines on their backs, but they can occaionally lose bits of their tails or even whole flippers from boat strikes. Luckily manatees and their habitats are protected by law.

Photo Update

So over the last few posts I've been promising some photos - well here they all are in a big chunk. Rather than go back and put them in the right places, I'll provide a little commentary with each one. I will try to keep them in a rough chronolgical order for ease of organisation more than anything else...

Here are some photos of the boat (the QM2) that we sailed over on:



Our cabin and the indoor pool.



Onboard entertainment (highbrow) and view over the bow.

Fort Myers - Tampa - Orlando - Blue Springs (Orange City) - Houston

Hey ho.

Since I last posted here we've travelled by bus, car, monorail, boat and on foot, we've been to 7 theme parks, we have stayed in two hotels and one cabin and we have also seen everything from rhinos, elephants, owls, manatees & bald eagles (in captivity) to bald eagles, manatees, cranes, vultures, racoons, aligators and ducks (wild). Oh and in the process have gained at least 5 blisters...

Photos will follow (I promise) but for now simply words will have to do.

From Fort Myers we dropped off the hire car in Tampa and bussed ourselves out to Busch Gardens and Lowry Park Zoo. We stayed in one of the few hostels to be found in Florida - Google "Gram's Place" if you want a look - which was quite an experience.
From there we got a bus to Orlando and then a taxi to Disney. We spent 3 days in the Mouse's Kingdom and ended up thoroughly sick of fast food - although it  has improved since we were last there I can assure you. We
also managed to take in Universal Studios and Seaworld.

Best rollercoaster: SHEIKRA at Busch Gardens.
This ride includes a VERTICAL drop - but before you hurtle face first towards the ground, it pauses - as if at the edge of a cliff - to give you a good view of what you have just let yourself in for before plummeting groundwards.

 

Anyway, can't stay much longer as my time on this PC is almost up, but so far all is going amazingly well. Almost TOO well ;-)

 

Almost time for our 24 hour bus to Houston. Can't wait...

 

I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE: We made it. This post didn't make it earlier so rather than waste it, I resurrected it and added this update. Chill out.