Unplanned Escapades on The West Coast-Our Second Leg

I feel like ‘unplanned escapades’ really characterises pretty much all of the second leg of our mammoth West Coast road trip. Mammoth seems appropriate: as you can see in the photo below, we got in a lot in the second week: we calculated that we drove for about 100 hours total over a 2 week period. Newsflash: that is too much. Even after being home for about three days, late last week we were only just recovering from the trauma (emotionally: our bodies were still wrecked). In fact, our everything was out of kilter and I’ve been flogging myself to get uni done—hence the ridiculous lateness of this post. Over a week since we got home, I’m finally getting this completed and uploaded: what a weight off my mind!

Friday 27 April 

Luckily, this post starts off pretty well—with our one-day San Fran trip two weeks ago! There were some unplanned escapades on this part of the trip, but they pale in comparison to some of the later ones, so I can still look back on this day fondly. We got an early start on Friday morning. Too early, as it turned out. Not only could we not ‘beat the traffic’, but when we showed up at Ghirardelli Square, everything was closed. Literally everything. Except the toilets. Apparently nothing opens in San Fran until about 0830—somehow we’d managed to miss that. So, with a fresh breeze coming off the bay, and starting to get pretty hungry, we decided to walk down to Pier 39 and see what we could see.

Pier 39

What did we see? I’m glad you asked. Sea Lions. A whole colony of them (that’s the correct collective noun for when they’re on land, so I’m not sure if it applies to SF’s K-Dock), smelling and barking and starting little fights amongst themselves. Anyone who’s followed this blog for longer than five minutes won’t be surprised to hear that I was absolutely entranced. It’s always astonishing to me how easy it is to just watch animals do animal-things. Luckily, despite having forgotten his sunnies in the car and thus getting progressively more peeved about being blinded by the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, James demonstrated the patience of a saint and let me look my full… By which I mean that I could have spent all day there, but I eventually reined myself in, and once we confirmed we definitely couldn’t get any food nearby, we were off again. 

While writing this post, I had a moment where I couldn’t remember if we’d actually had breakfast, which seemed ridiculous knowing how much I love to eat. The reason why that was a struggle is because this, too, was part of an unplanned escapade which is that on our way to San Fran’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), we walked through the Financial District. Now, looking on Google Maps to try and figure out the name of our breakfast stop was a depressing process while writing this blog, because our breakfast was so average… And Google maps thought it was an appropriate time to show me all the incredible bakeries San Fran has to offer. It’s particularly painful because Lawton has no bakeries. None, at all. 

ROBOT DRINKS!

ANYWAY, moving on from that latent trauma—we ended up having some subpar pastries and a breakky sandwich from Peet’s Coffee, which is a chain ‘cafe’, and therefore couldn’t be expected to have anything decent. Which included not having any hot chocolate (for your resident coffee-averse individual). For this reason & others, I refuse to link them here. Please find better food/drink options when you’re in San Fran! Still, full but less than satisfied, we set out from Peet’s to continue our journey to MOMA, and this is where San Fran paid me back for our crummy breakfast (not sure James was similarly reimbursed, but you can’t have everything). 

I had a hot chocolate… Made by a robot. No, no, you didn’t misread, and I didn’t mistype. A robot made me a hot chocolate, courtesy of Cafe X, where you order on an iPad and watch as a mechanical arm whips up the beverage of your choice. Now, although my friend Jordan is morally-opposed to robot-made drinks, I have to lay it all out here: my hot chocolate was flipping delicious. And I can tell people for the rest of my life that I had a robot make me a drink, thereby establishing myself as a real trendsetter in the robot-drink-making department.

Some Cultural Experiences

Buoyed by this positive interlude, we finally reached MOMA (see what I mean about unplanned escapades?) and plunged headfirst into the giddy world of art and all good things. Of course, MOMA was amazing. It’s not very common for me to visit a gallery or museum of any kind and walk away with a different experience, mostly because I like galleries and museums. Also because this particular museum had a snowman. I mean, it had a lot of other great things too, but still… A snowman.     

Afterwards, because we’re simply incapable of not dropping into any and all galleries/museums in the area, we spent some time exploring the stunning and provocative artworks on display in the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD). For anyone interested in Civil Rights, racial equality, supporting the artwork of POC, or merely educating yourself about all the things you don’t know, it’s definitely a worthwhile stop while in San Fran. Somehow we managed to peel ourselves away without purchasing a whole slew of books (a trend we didn’t managed to maintain for the rest of the trip).

Food, Food, and More Food

By this time, we were hungry. Or maybe not so much hungry as really, really keen to eat some cupcakes. But probably also hungry. Regardless of our state of satiation, La Luna beckoned us: and we’re not really very good at resisting the siren call of cupcakes. Kudos to us though, we only got one each. Then, since we were already on a good run of delicious food, we decided to indulge in dumplings at Hakkasan. I really feel like there should have been some award given to us for the restraint we showed over lunch—Lawton doesn’t have dumplings, either—but the relatively small selection we had were absolutely incredible. Writing this made me desperate to go back! We also received some free chocolate truffles because they forgot to bring out our jasmine tea: and can you really complain if you got free truffles to round out your lunch? I think not.

Replete, we left Hakkasan without rolling out the door, an unusual occurrence for us. James was keen to check out Coit Tower, and despite the serious demands it made of our legs to reach the base, and the strange woman managing the line for the elevator, it’s worth a trip. The air is crisp, the height is a tad dizzying, and the views of San Fran are stunning. I’m looking forward to the chance to trawl through my DSLR photos this weekend and see exactly what I managed to capture. 

The afternoon was wearing on, and we knew we had a drive ahead of us, so we headed back down to Pier 39… I wasn’t hungry, but it seemed like as good a time as any to try out some cookie dough at Pier 39’s DOUGHP Cookie Dough. It was pretty good, all told, though I think I’d rather just make and eat cookie dough at home. Captivated by all the little shops—including a puzzle store, and a salt and sugar shop—we wandered around while munching on cookie dough (that, again, we probably didn’t need). That being said, we also probably didn’t need to go into the delicious-smelling halls of Laline, a Bath and Body store… But we’re suckers for smells. Not surprisingly, we walked out with a body scrub, a body cream, and a body ‘souffle’, and simultaneously realised that we were cutting our timings a little fine if we wanted to get back to Davis in time for dinner. That being said, I was determined we not leave San Fran without repeating my memorable 2011 experience of having a sundae at Ghirardelli’s. Thus, despite having spent most of the day eating, we settled ourselves in and (how responsible!) shared a gargantuan brownie sundae before paying the exorbitant parking fees and heading north again.   

Sadly, we’d seriously miscalculated our visit to SF and the drive back to Winters took us about 2 hours. Still, we were met with another of Uncle John’s incredible dinners… during which James was again viciously attacked by the bird. What it is about him, we’re not quite sure, but Sydney hates him. Poor taste is the current theory! The only consolation was that now we weren’t the only one who had seen Sydney absolutely lose her mind at the threat of James being in the house. It seems cruelly ironic that James is a Sydneysider. Thus, exhausted and (on James’s part) attacked, we hit the hay, ready for some more adventures on Saturday. 

Saturday 28 April

We had a slow and casual start to Saturday morning after Friday’s escapades, only to be greeted by a truly excellent frittata and extras that Sue had whipped up. Being a dutiful students we are, we did some study after breakfast before heading off for a midmorning hike in Stebbins Cold Canyon, where we had to take a somewhat circuitous route (and walk through some storm drains) to actually reach the trailhead. Not surprisingly, it was a rather different experience from the National Parks hikes we’d done recently, but there were quite a few people out getting some fresh air. We were rewarded with the gorgeous sight of Berryessa Lake from our chosen turn-around point (we weren’t quite feeling a 5-mile round trip), and a crisp breeze to boot.

Having foolishly decided to hike over the middle of the day, we were, of course, hungry afterwards. On a passing suggestion from Uncle John, we decided to check out Steady Eddy’s for a belated lunch/some snackery before heading back to the house again: for anyone in the area, we can recommend their sandwiches and their pastries! There was also a cute little store called ‘The Clayground’ next door… and anyone who knows me, knows that just that name was like a red rag to a bull: we had to check it out! Despite the bemusing experience of a woman who struck up a conversation with us and decided to tell us her life story while we were there, it was a gorgeous little collection of different knicks-and-knacks. Somehow, we left without purchasing anything! (A small pat on the back all-round).

Uncle John cooked us up another excellent dinner—lamb rack!—which fortunately was free of any unprovoked bird attacks, before we saddled up and headed out to UC Davis’s beautiful Mondavi Centre for a few hours of jazz. Gin and tonics in hand, I think we had our minds blown a little by the incredible percussion skills on display by the Pedrito Martinez Group: those men must have hands of steel!

And of course, we couldn’t resist the chance to take Uncle John and Sue for some of the delicious ice cream at Davis Creamery before heading back to do the packing that we really should have done earlier in the day, considering our planned departure time on Sunday. 

 

Sunday 29 April

It’s still astonishing to me that we did so much over just the first two days of this leg… So everyone will be relieved that our Sunday adventures can be (mostly) summed up by noting that we drove from Davis to Seattle. Of course, this also included our righteous fury at being forbidden from pumping our own fuel in Oregon—James was unimpressed to say the least—so we’re hoping our upcoming trip to Portland for our friends’ wedding will be leave a better taste in our mouths. When we finally got into Seattle, we went to check into our Airbnb. Now, I don’t know about everyone else, and I realise we may be the exception, but if I had my way, I would never have to talk to anyone when checking into an Airbnb. It always feels more intimate and awkward than checking into a hotel—which is somehow comfortably distant—and when you add in people who can’t find the key for your apartment, a small child jumping on your bed with dirty shoes, and a garden that smelt like a cat’s litterbox… Well, let’s just say that maybe we should have taken this as an omen of what was to come. 

The evening picked up remarkable, however, when we had a fantastic dinner with my cousin Kelley and our friend Jordan, as well as some friends of theirs, at Toronado, only a short walk from our AirBnb. We left with some suggestions for what to do during our stay, full bellies, and a final warning from Kel not to leave anything at all in our car. Unfortunately, despite her advice, we failed to do one last check before heading to bed.  

Monday 30 April

Understandably worn out from a big day of travel on Sunday, and with a mile-long list of Seattle sights to see (courtesy of Kelley and Jordan), we slept in the following morning and had a leisurely start to the day. Sadly, that didn’t last.

We piled into the car without noticing anything untoward, and got about 200m down the road before I looked back and realised our car window was broken. Seattle’s gift to us: we’d been robbed. The day—and indeed, our whole trip to Seattle—took a somewhat unpalatable turn at this point. A cursory glance seemed to indicate that both of our DSLR cameras had been stolen and, considering that all of our trip photos were on my camera, I was understandably a little heartbroken. While, upon closer inspection, we determined that mine had somehow escaped the thieves’ notice, the tally of the lost items (some of which it took us a while to figure out had been stolen: part of the challenge of having most of your life in your car!) eventually included James’s camera, his iPad, his iPod, his triathlon goggles and triathlon sunnies, and his raincoat. (To add insult to injury, it sprinkled a little later in the day). Somehow, nothing of mine had been stolen… but, needless to say, James was pretty pissed. 

After wasting most of the morning filing police reports, cleaning up broken glass both in and out of the car, and calling around all of Seattle to try and find someone to fix the car, we finally made an appointment to have the glass replaced that afternoon. By this stage, we weren’t very keen on Seattle anymore, nor overly enthused at the idea of touristing around the city for the day. Instead, in an effort to heal our furious and wounded souls—having never been robbed before, I can definitely say it’s a horrible, violating experience I’d be pretty happy not to have again—we went and got ourselves some pastries. SeaWolf came highly recommended to us as a gorgeous craft bakery (though its lack of hot chocolate was a tad perturbing) and we chomped our way through a few different varieties of pastry… with frequent glances back across the road at the gaping hole in our car. One part of us assuaged, we headed to the Elliott Bay Book Company for some more soul-soothing. Turned out they had a beautiful little cafe, so as well as a book (I managed to resist getting anything, but then again, nothing of mine got stolen), I got a delicious beverage. 

We were extremely lucky to find someone who was able to fix our car window on such short notice, and with laptops in hand, we dropped it off and headed up to Chocolati to study… and drink maybe one of the best hot chocolates I’ve ever had. On the subject of hot chocolates, why don’t they offer tasting boards in the same way that they do for beer? I’m pretty sure I’d rather have 6 different types of hot chocolate than 6 different types of beer, especially if they’re speciality/craft hot chocolates. The person who implements that will be a mastermind. Anyway, we managed to get some study done while waiting for the car, but by the time it was done we really weren’t enamoured with the idea of seeing any more of Seattle. Instead, we headed back to the Airbnb for some study and a short nap before dinner at Kelley and Jordan’s. 

Despite my complete inability to remember to take photos with my family, we had an awesome time together with some of Kelley’s friends… tasty home-made sandwiches, some fascinating discussions, and a hilarious game (Kel is the Game Queen), and our car didn’t get broken into. That will now always be a bonus every time it doesn’t happen. Everyone else had school and work the next day, but we were keen to check out the famous Molly Moon’s ice cream, so, of course… we did. James went a little wild with some of their more untraditional flavours (earl grey and honey lavender with lemon curd topping) while I stuck to the tried and true: salted caramel and chocolate, with some hot fudge over the top. Yes, if you hadn’t picked it up yet, we did eat our bodyweight in ice cream (and for me, drink it in hot chocolate) on this trip.

Tuesday 01 May

Tuesday 01 May 2018 will go down in the history books as a day to be remembered: it is the first (and possibly the only) time that James has EVER beaten me to saying ‘pinch and a punch for the first of the month’. Incredible. We packed up all our goods and chattels—well, everything that hadn’t been stolen the day prior—and bade farewell to our cat-urine-garden Airbnb… And no, we weren’t really sad to leave it all behind. 

We breakfasted well at the Oddfellows Cafe next to Elliott Bay Books (the same company runs the Little Oddfellows cafe instead the bookstore) before heading down to General Porpoise for a chai and some doughnuts for later. 

I think it’d be fair to say that we were a little lacklustre about Seattle generally at this stage. We weren’t overly keen to tourist after the car window debacle, but I’m glad we took the time to check out our next stop… because it was phenomenal. The Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum had been on my list since we first started planning this trip, and we decided that we’d while away a few hours there before heading to the airport.

As always, photos can’t really do them justice, but the artistry involved in the numerous large sculptures in the museum is mind-blowing. We also had the chance to watch a glassblowing demonstration afterwards, which was fascinating… I think I want to take up glassblowing now. James wants me to quit finding new hobbies I want to try. 

After a gargantuan pizza at Bambino’s—and no, we didn’t finish it—we headed out to the airport, which featured watching a stuffed toy get checked by overzealous security, our charging cables coming under some scrutiny, and then a whole lot of waiting for our flight. 

Then… it was off to Alaska! Despite a long-ass flight, the long daylight hours in May meant we were able to go out for a pretty tasty dinner at about 9-10 at night, and still get to see the gorgeous sunset while we ate. Also, the 49th State Brewing Company had poutine: and any night that has poutine is an alright night in my books

Wednesday 02 May

Probably one of my biggest regrets from this trip—other than getting our car broken into, of course—was that we didn’t have the chance to do and see more in Alaska. Part of that was the time of year, since most of the tourist activities, including cruises and hikes, don’t really start until later in May. Another aspect was just time: we weren’t there long enough for a long of things! It didn’t help that I had a horrific sleep on Tuesday night: despite the external temperature, our room was like an oven, which led to some strange circus-like contortions at 1am when I was trying to open windows and cool the place down. I mean, I survived… But it made me pretty mad. 

There’s actually not that much to do in Anchorage: it just so happened to provide one of the closest and most convenient spots for us to duck into Alaska and tick it off our list. We knew we wanted to check out the Anchorage Museum (see what I mean about us and museums?), so we headed that way on an empty stomach, sure that we’d be able to find somewhere along the way. Alack, much like our ill-fated adventures in San Fran, we’d managed to head in quite the wrong direction. Thus it was that, barely satiated by a substandard panini from some little dive in the Anchorage Mall, we arrived at the Anchorage Museum. We spent a pleasant few hours amidst artwork, exhibits and a whole array of fascinating native American cultural artefacts before my stomach demanded to be properly satisfied and we set off into the sunlight again.

Thankfully, the Snow City Cafe delivered everything that our breakfast spot had failed to, including an amazing chocolate milkshake and some incredible home-made meatloaf and mac’n’cheese (with bacon!). This was one of those times where we really did ‘roll’ out of the cafe afterwards, but I still can’t bring myself to regret it. I had my camera in hand, and we dawdled our way along the shoreline to get some photos, and then through parts of the city trying (and probably failing), to capture the distant mountains. Sadly, we were unable to get on a late-notice sightseeing flight, so we spent the afternoon watching the workmen fix our broken hotel window, and relaxing before getting an early dinner at Glacier Brewhouse. 

Alaska definitely remains high on my list of places to head back to. I’d love the chance to see some glaciers, the wildlife and do some hiking, but when you want to see all 50 states, you can’t spend very much time in each one!

Thursday 03 May

We had a ridiculously early flight to Seattle on Thursday morning, and getting up was a bit of a struggle. What was more perturbing, however, was finding that despite purchasing our tickets on the same booking, James and I weren’t sitting together. Honestly, what the hell? How on earth, can that be ok? It just seems like absolute schwarf to me, and we were seriously unimpressed. A shared airport Cinnabon didn’t quite ease our frustrations, but we both managed to sleep for much of the return trip and were relieved to touch down again at SeaTac to get the hell out of Seattle. It hasn’t endeared itself to us!

A few hours from the airport, we stopped into the Issaquah Cafe for a pretty decent and desperately overdue breakfast, complete with an M&Ms hot chocolate (I told you I had a hot chocolate problem). Kel had recommended Snoqualmie Falls to us, and it just so happened to fall conveniently along our drive out of Seattle, so we stopped over for a few quick photos—this has been a trip of waterfalls, and I saw no reason to break the trend. 

After the previous few days, we were relieved to finish the long drive to Spokane and check into our Airbnb (thankfully without having to speak to anyone!). We found out that afternoon that James had a social function on the following Tuesday night that he really didn’t want to miss, and after some umm’ing and ahh’ing, we decided we’d cut our trip short a bit and make it home by Tuesday afternoon. The plan was to do a 15 hour drive on Sunday to enable us to spend a day with friends in Colorado Springs before heading to Lawton on Tuesday: and though we were a little leery at the thought of the drive, the idea of being home again was pretty appealing. Decision made, we committed to a relaxed night on the couch with some delicious takeout (including some really cute mini spring rolls!) from Bangkok Thai and ice cream from Brain Freeze Creamery.  

We somehow managed to forget to take a photo, but this Airbnb boasted one of, if not the, world’s smallest bathrooms and, as you may have noticed, neither of us is a small person. It was an interesting challenge!

Friday 04 May

We cherished the opportunity to sleep in on Friday morning, knowing that the drive to Glacier was a relatively relaxed one, and determined to take the chance to relax before slogging it out on Sunday. A delicious quiche breakky (with some cookies and pastries to go) at Rockwood Bakery fuelled our morning… although we only realised later that we’d accidentally stolen an extra slice of quiche, mostly due to our poor mathematics skills in the moment. Oops. Perhaps as penance for our inadvertent crime (though one might argue that we’ve already paid for that with being robbed ourselves), we found ourselves completely incapable of location a Washington State sign. Witness our sad attempt below.

We spent the rest of the day driving East from Spokane towards Glacier National Park and arrived with enough time to check out a bit of East Glacier. Much of it was still closed due to the time of the year, which perhaps, again, should have been an omen for what was to come. You’ll note, we didn’t do a good job on this trip of observing the omens.  

Our choice of accommodation for the night—the Snow Slip Inn—was unfortunately not only devoid of any reception, but had no wifi, and no decent dinner options (disappointing when all I wanted was a nice steak). It wasn’t our first option, but with all of the campgrounds and lodges in Glacier closed, we were a little short on options. We went to bed with the heater off and our hopes high for a long and exciting walk in Glacier the following day. 

Saturday 05 May

Ahh… Unplanned escapades again. (You can see why I titled the post thus). For a start, we arose in the middle of the night, absolutely petrified with cold: turning off the heater, when there was still snow on the ground outside, was perhaps not our best choice. Once we’d warmed up a bit, we managed to get back to sleep and slept in a bit, readying ourselves for a day of hiking. Then we set off towards West Glacier. 

Oh! How complacent we were! Certain that we would find some supplies along the road, especially at the entrance to the park, and thus armed with only a few remaining rice cakes, we set out from the Snow Slip Inn. I was already hungry, breakfast being one of the most important meals of the day, but knuckled down, and we headed towards the park entrance at Many Glacier. What sorrows awaited us. 

The Many Glacier entrance to the park was closed. Though we walked around the gate and took some photos, there was little chance of us doing an 11km hike (without snacks!) if we had to add in hiking to and from the trailhead just to start. Disheartened—and a little unimpressed with the lack of clear information provided by the park newsletter—we decided to head down to St Mary’s, sure that something down there would be open. We were wrong. 

Entirely disheartened now, pretty hungry, and more than a little annoyed, we changed plans quite rapidly. Despite having already been in the car for 3-4 hours at this point, we decided to head onto Buffalo a night early, and remove the need for a 15 hour drive on Sunday. 

We reached Buffalo quite late, busting for the bathroom, and hungry to boot… Only to find ourselves trapped in an overly-familiar conversation with one of the Inn’s co-owners, and sadly this was not to be the last time in our brief stay. 

Some poor research on my part saw us show up for dinner at one of the only places left open in Buffalo: a brewery with ‘bar snacks’, but no dinner menu. Despite a few moments of consternation, we quite enjoyed the oven-cooked supermarket pizza on offer and, satisfied by the addition of a servo ice cream, we crashed out for the night. [If you’re still reading, that is truly impressive. Stay strong, you’re almost there!]

Sunday 06 May

We woke on Sunday morning and—despite another delay at the hands of the Inn’s co-owner, who wanted to stroke my hair—headed out for breakky. With everything else that had happened thus far, we shouldn’t have been overly surprised that nowhere in Buffalo was open for breakfast, but we were. A bit. With some dramatic eye rolls, we kicked on to Caspar and ate at a place called Eggington’s—and really, wasn’t the wait for breakfast worth it, just to eat at somewhere called Eggington’s?? (James was very excited about this).

Like much of the remainder of our roadtrip, the rest of the day was a bit of a blur. We stopped off at  an Irish-American pub somewhere along the road for some lunch, but otherwise we just cracked a lot of jokes, listened to some podcasts, and put some more miles on the car. 

We had some issues finding Lance & Tik’s place as we got closer to Colorado Springs… until we both ceded defeat and actually checked their address. Needless to say, we were relieved to finally arrive, and were treated to an excellent array of snacks and a delicious dinner by our hosts. 

Monday 07 May

Safely ensconced in Colorado Springs and with no driving to do for the day, we enjoyed a bit of a sleep in before feasting on a wonderful breakfast that Tik made us. Despite the fact that we’d done nothing even remotely physical for close to an eternity, my body felt absolutely wrecked, so I was a little less than enthused about James and Lance’s plans to do some hiking. How unenthused? I passed out on the way to the trail. That’s never a good sign. 

Of course, we had a great time hiking to Cheyenne Cañon Park’s Helen Hunt Falls, though I will openly confess that the start was punctuated with some less-than positive commentary from yours truly. Part of that might have been that we’d parked the car probably a mile from the trailhead itself, so there was already extra work before we even got there. And I also think we’d all underestimated it a bit. My legs were brutally unimpressed with the whole business. Still, tired and sweaty, a tad blistered and keen for a break, we made it to the falls and piked on taking a return trail to instead toddle on down the road, back to the car.

We couldn’t visit Colorado Springs, I felt, and not visit Amy’s Doughnuts (not least to take a photo of the sign and ask James’s sister when she’d opened a doughnut shop). They had one of the most incredible fried dough ranges I’ve ever seen: I’d say there had to be at least 30 different types of doughnuts there. Some people might argue 50—I’m not sure I want to stake my life on that. But 30? Definitely 30. And that’s a lot of different kinds of doughnuts. Somehow, James and I managed to leave with only three between us, which is pretty impressive (it’d be more impressive if we limited ourselves to one each, but I’m not sure we’ll ever reach that kind of higher evolutionary plane).

After our (somewhat) unexpected exertions of the morning, some pretty damn good doughnuts (as always, we should have gotten more), and a shower, free time saw me down for the count. I did, however, in case anyone was concerned, wake in time for dinner. This wouldn’t be surprising on any particular night, however it was especially important that night. Why? Because we went out for Indian! I think it’s one of the cruellest things in the world that Lawton is such a cultural and culinary black hole, and the chance to go to Little Nepal for dinner was one I jumped at. Somehow we managed not to stuff ourselves too full, maybe because we knew it meant we could have our leftovers for dinner on Tuesday. Regardless, we had an absolutely wonderful evening with Lance and Tik, and greatly enjoyed the chance to stay with them on our trip. 

Tuesday 08 May

At LONG last, we motored our way back to Lawton on Tuesday. Talk about a relief to get home, do a truckload of washing, shower, and then head out to a social function (that last bit wasn’t a relief, it was just an inescapable commitment). We’re back! And, consdering that it’s taken me

Well, if you’ve survived all of that, you probably deserve a medal! I don’t have one for you, but I will strongly recommend to anyone who listens that you deserve one. I think this is also the longest post I’ve ever written… Maybe. It’s certainly taken me a LONG time to get written and published!

Hopefully it’s not as long between posts next time… Theoretically, I’m planning to be back with something next week, but we’ll see how uni treats me. Have a wonderful week everyone!

Ana.