Mountains, Caverns and Bats

After leaving the busy world of Washington DC it was lovely to escape to the mountains of Virginia. Known as Shenandoah, the area is a National Park, and is well known for the Skyline Drive, a 105 mile drive across the mountain range.

Spotted on both sides of the mountains are many caverns, each owned and operated independantly, although many believe they are all connected as they are impossible to navigate in the furthest reaches of each cavern and highly likely there are many caverns that we have not yet found.

I stayed in the town of Luray, a quiet town on the western edge of Shenandoah. Fortunately they also had a large Ford dealership, and as much as I fell in love with a very special Roush tuned Ford Mustang designed for the race track, they did a stunning job fixing the damage caused back in Colorado Springs from the table incident, giving the car a full service and new fluids all round. The car drove like a new car afterwards and was definitely worth getting them to look it over.

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My next Mustang???!

While my car was being serviced they kindly drove me down the down to the local caves, Luray Caverns. This was the first of 3 caverns I visited, probably the most spectacular of them all and guided by an audio tour meant that you could take your own time while travelling through.

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These caverns are hundreds of thousands of years in the making - and strangely all 3 caverns I visited were discovered in the late 1800's, all by children around the ages of 11 to 14 who were playing on their parent's farmland.

Luray is also home to the world's largest instrument, all 3 and 1/2 acres of it and 5 miles of electrical wiring. The Luray Stalacpipe Organ - an electric organ which operates rubbr tipped hammers to the press of each individual key. These hammers in turn hit a stalactite somewhere in the cavern. It is quite incredible, stalactites naturally have a sound when hit, and they have wired up this organ so that it may play music, which we were given a demonstration of. I bought the CD as I was impressed with it, and here is one of the tracks from it, to give you an idea of how it sounds: (Tip, you may need to turn speakers up, it is a little muted thanks to there being no sound resonance in the caves)

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Luray images here

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From Luray I collected my car and headed out to the northern section of the Skyline Drive, a lovely evening drive.

The next day was horribly overcast so I went to visit another cavern, Endless Caverns. It was a personal guided tour, and they were very friendly there as I got there early before the tour started - not that it mattered as I was the only person on it!

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Endless has a very friendly atmosphere, and it has bats too! Only little fellas and they were just coming out of hibernation, so most of them were sleeping, although a few were flying around stretching their wings.

Caverns are caverns at the end of the day so I have posted a few more pictures here.

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The following day the weather had improved a bit and I hit the southern end of the Skyline drive. I love how as the snow melts and all the rain water washes down there are literally hundreds of mini waterfalls along the side of the road. There were lots of eagles and hawks, deer and plenty of animals minding their own business.

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Images of Skyline Drive here

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The final caverns I visited were the Shenandoah Caverns, another guided tour in a group of many people - by far the least spectacular and smallest of them all. This is why there is even less said!

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Pictures Here.

Washington DC

What can you say about Washington DC which isn't already known? At the end of the day, it is what it is, the decision making centre of USA.

I got to see all the places seen in all the movies! From the Lincoln Memorial which is exactly like it is on the TV, to the Washington Memorial, which when I was there the clouds were so low that looking from the Lincoln Memorial across the stretch of (brown) water to the Washington Memoral the top was obscured by the mist! You can see it in the photo's posted further down.

The statue inside the Lincoln Memorial Building:

From here I walked past Washington Memorial, and went to the WWII memorial where there was a band playing music - and I suddenly recognised the tune they were playing - the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean!!! Not what I was expecting!

From here I walked further along to reach the Smithsonian Castle, I did not go in but got a photo from the outside. A little further along I reached the National Air and Space Museum, which was really interesting, including some well known craft such as 'The Spirit Of St Louis' and the original Wright Brothers first flying plane. There were many other craft from air craft carriers, space programmes, WWII planes from all sides, and even a replica of the Hubble Space Telescope.

There was also an exhibition on the Cassini-Huygens space flight, a project to examine Saturn and its moons. some of the photography was simply stunning, and search as I might I cannot find anywhere to buy a copy of any of it, which is a real shame because I would have if I could.

This picture is not mine, but from the Nasa website to show what the project is about:

The Wright Brothers:

Pictures here from National Air and Space Museum

I then walked across to see the Natural History Museum which proved interesting, although rather crampt and busy. Espcially now that the sun had come out and it was getting quite hot, having dressed for a cold and rainy day, I was certainly feeling the heat!

I've included a random selection of photo's in my link. Overall it was much like any other natural history museum, it was very well presented and I would have enjoyed it much better if there were slightly fewer other people crowding it!

As always the dinosaur part was of interest to me, and they also had an ocean exhibit including a dead Giant Squid and an Angler Fish (from the deep sea, sharp teeth and lure above the head, scary looking thing!).

They also had a mix of current marine animals skeletons to historic ones, much like the display here, with the skeleton of a seal/sealion (the info listed both, so was hard to tell!):

Images from Natural History Museum here.


From here I then walked up to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independance and other things, however after waiting an hour nearly to get in, in that heat, and then another 2 hour wait once in to see them, I decided I could live without seeing it, so I went through the archives and saw some of the other bits there, but nothing spectacular there.

Next stop was the White House, which was cool to see but looks so small, probably because it was so far away! When back in the hotel I looked at the pictures and when seen in a full size you can spot lots of armed guards in various places on patrol!
Picture at the top of this update.

So this was my day in Washington DC, summarised slightly, i'm pleased i've seen it, but I don't think I have any huge desire to return in a hurry.

Rest of the photo's from Washington DC here

New York City

Somewhere I HAD to visit on my trip, and my friend who came with me to Boston, actually lives in the State of New York, about 3 hours north of the city, but his parents were kind enough to put us up for a couple of nights, making it an hour-and-a-half train ride into the city itself, which is noticeably easier than attempting to drive around in the city!

We pulled into Grand Central Station, and from there we walked down to see the UN building, since it was so close. From there we walked to the Empire State Building, which is quite tall (1,250 feet), we then queued for the best part of 2 hours to get to the top, a sight worth waiting for!



After the Empire State Building we grabbed some lunch - a real NYC "Brooklyn style" Pizza - something that had to be done! Tasted like any other pizza but still worth the experience. We then headed up towards Central Park, a sanctuary in the centre of New York, it is amazing how quickly you lose the hustle and bustle and constant noise of the city and you are in a park environment with people enjoying many recreational activities from frisbee to beach volleyball on a specially built sand pit!

The plan was to head north to the Natural History Museum, but when we looked at the map it was stil la long way to go and we had done quite a lot of walking by this time, so we headed to the west side of the city to USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier now stationed at the harbour there. Sadly we arrived 12 minutes too late to be allowed in to the museum ship, so I took a couple of photo's from the outside, including another SR-71 Blackbird plane and Concorde which I could see from a distance.

We then headed back towards Grand Central via Time Square, which was great to see! Like a huge Piccadilly Circus back in London!

All this seems rather like a short day, but it took us all day and although we did not make it to the Statue of Liberty, the city really does require 2 or 3 days to get a good look around, but I am happy with my 1 day in the city itself for now, we walked for many hours and several hours, both our legs feeling it by the end of the day, including most of the return train ride - but this is all part of the experience and it was all good fun!

More pictures from New York City here.

I end this post with a picture of Sean and then myself, taken from the top of the Empire State Building.

Boston - from West to East!

I made it trans-American!
I left the Pacific Coast line back on the 12th Feb this year, and a month and a half later, on the 23rd March I arrive at the Atlantic Ocean!

True that when you look at my route direction it looks about as straight as the Amazon River does as it winds its way through the jungle to the coast, but it was still a 'smile on my face' moment to have arrived at the opposite side of America to that which I started on!

I visited Boston with my friend, Sean, another from my car forum. We walked the 'Freedom Trail' which was long and perhaps may have been more interesting if I had studied colonial American history, but none-the-less it went past some of the oldest buildings in Boston and some other interesting places through the town.

I did not get too many photo's in Boston as I found little to photograph of any real interest.

We saw the USS Constitution, which, was unfortunately closed for renovation, and apparently is 1 of only 2 surviving war ships of its class in the world from that era - the other is found in London - HMS Victory (1765). Since hearing this I have been unable to find conclusive evidence online, but still could be one of those interesting things you hear which is true..! Launched into service in 1797 and is still in active service in the US Navy, making it the oldest active military ship in the world - whilst HMS Victory retains the title of oldest military ship still in service - albeit in a premanent position and therefore not 'active'.

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Next to USS Constitution wasUSS Cassin Young, a WWII Destroyer, which was open for a wander around... Pretty much as you would expect a WWII Destroyer to be really!

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A trip to the aquarium was also included in our stay in Boston, with some very interesting marine life and good sized tanks. One of which a huge circular tank with all manner of sharks and rays, sea fish of all types all in their own zones, from bottom feeders to surface feeders.

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I have included some pictures of Boston here, but like I said, not too many.

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I went to University!

Well, I arrived at the University campus in a town called Oxford in the state of Ohio on St Patricks day, so you can imagine the environment! Although many students had class early so it wasn't too crazy.

I came to visit a friend of mine who had offered me a place to spend a couple of nights if I wanted it. He very kindly put me in his room and he took up the spare bed in next door's apartment.

I really enjoyed meeting up with Phil and spending some time with him, when his timetable permitted it!

Previously, Adam from Chicago had suggested making the trip north to Dayton for a US Air Force museum, so I took the drive and I have to say, i'm really pleased I did the trip, because it was a fascinating place.

There were planes dating back from the first flight, to WWI, in between wars, WWII, the Cold War, modern era and space flight, including planes from the Soviet Nations, German Luftwaffe and Japanese armies, as well as the odd RAF plane hidden in there, and a couple of planes which were flown from rival countries by defecting pilots!!

Definitely worth a visit, I would recommend it, so many interesting planes there, and history of flight.

I also got to see one of the best known planes of all time, the SR-71 'Blackbird' which is an odd looking thing in real life, it is very long and thin, and looks ungainly, compared to the rather elegant or beautiful shape seen in most photo's...

Pictures here of the US Air Force Museum

After I returned I was going to look around the campus but the weather had other ideas so I stayed inside, with the exception of getting some food with Phil.

From here I made my way further east, through Ohio, West Virginia and into Pennsylvania, before driving into the State of New York, in a town called Albany. A stop over before a drive to Boston, with another friend who lives in Albany. So the next update will be Boston!

Picture of myself and my good friend Phil:

Indianapolis Raceway

One of the more famous race tracks in America, and one of those which is known internationally.

Home of the American F1 until 2007 (I think), although famous for numerous other events in America, such as the Indianapolis 500 - altough I couldn't tell you what type of cars race in that event, i've only heard the name before!!!

They also race Nascar here, but that's as interesting as that gets, so moving on.

They have a museum which houses nearly all the car which have won races at the Indianapolis track sine it was opened, right back to the very early 1900's.

Much like Brooklands race circuit back home in England, this circuit has a lot of history, and it's original conception was to create a place to test cars, followed by basic competition - run on a circuit make of bricks! At least Brooklands was concreted!

The major difference being that while Brooklands became a base in WWII for manufacturing planes etc and now most of the circuit is destroyed or laying in ruins, Indianapolis is a fully functioning race track still.

I went on a bus ride around the circuit - fully expecting it to be the interesting race track, but no, it was just the oval loop used in Nascar, so at least Ican say i've been on it, but there was little need for photo's since it was straight with 2 bends...!

I've posted some photo's up here, mostly of inside the museum

This was just an interesting stop to make on my drive, another place I can say i've been to and seen!

Chicago

With beautiful clear and starry nights, sunny days you would think this was sounding all rather lovely, all except that it was biting cold come night time!!

But that aside, I really enjoyed myself in Chicago. I met up with another friend who kindly let me stay in his house. Adam and his family live in a suburb not too far from Downtown Chicago, so although I had easy access to the city, it was a very scary drive to make - without a doubt some of the worst driving I have ever seen in my life, or dreamed was even possible I witnessed on those roads. I am not surprised I heard that there are many accidents on Chicago's roads.

After building robots and various other contraptions with Adam's youngest son, I headed out for a day to a car museum called Volo Cars, and here, much like the car place in Las Vegas, all the cars are for sale too.




The difference at Volo is, many of the cars are famous cars featured in blockbuster films. To name just a few of the films with cars on display you could buy included: The Terminator, Gone in 60 Seconds, Fast and the Furious 2, 3 and the latest film released in April, Fast and the Furious 4 (yes, the cars for sale before the film is out), xXx and xXx 2 action adventure films, the Blues Brothers, Pretty Women (Lotus Esprit), a Ferrari Daytona Convertible that featured in both the Cannonball run (in red) and later in Miami Vice (painted black), along with cars which did not have a price, but may have been for sale if asked! These included the Men in Black Ford, many of the cars from the recent movie 'Death Race', vehicles from the new Indiana Jones film amoung others.

So as you may imagine I thoroughly enjoyed myself there, spending quite some time looking around at the various cars on display, and in some cases, trying to work out how much I could trade the Mustang in for!!! Luckily it would never have covered the costs for any of the cars there, so I was saved from any temptations! And my parents will be pleased that I didn't even buy a model car from the shop either!!

Photo's from Volo Cars here


The next day Adam was at work again, and kindly let me put the Mustang inside his garage so I may be able to clean the car, after I found a local car wash station and I sprayed the car down, I proceeded to give the car, what seemed like the clean of it's life. I don't think it had ever been polished or waxed prior to the dealership doing it before I bought the car, as the paint feels quite rough and the polish sticks to the paint. Anyway, enough of the boring stuff, the car had a full clean both inside and out and was positively glowing - much helped by it having had a wash the week before at James' house which took all the mud and grime from the Rocky Mountains and Pikes Peak off the car!!!


The Mustang was then offered the chance to sleep in the garage next to Adam's pride and joy, a 1987 BMW L6 for the remainder of my stay, which was really very kind.



We then went out for an evening meal with another member from the car forum, who although is from the west coast, is at a Navy 'school' in Chicago, and that was a very fun evening had by all!!

Starting from the left is myself, followed by Randy and then Adam (who I stayed with).



On Saturday Adam had a free morning so we went down to Navy Pier which was good, there was a great view of the city from there, except it was quite misty so visibility was limited. The water of the lake was a very pale blue, and iced up around the pier, so it was still quite cold!!





On Sunday I had a lazy morning as we then went back into town for a joint birthday party on Adam's wife's family, who are from Peru, and that was a very interesting afternoon, unfortunately the Peruvian meal I chose did not agree with my tastes too well, but the company was excellent and it was great to meet everyone!

I had a great time in Chicago and felt part of the family, which was lovely!

I would like to return to Chicago again in the future some time, perhaps when the weather is a little warmer!!

St Louis

One of the towns i've wanted to visit for a while so it was nice to get out here to see it. It was the warmest weather of my trip so far, even warmer than in Los Angeles, so I broke out the shorts and t-shirt for a few days which was very pleasant!

I also met up with a friend who I know through my internet car forum, and it was really good to meet him and his family, who were really welcoming and really looked after me very well. James took some time out from his schedule to show me around his area and the St Louis region, I had a great time with him and it is great to be able to consider him a friend 'in the real world'!

Despite a tornado warning on 2 of the days I was in the area, I managed to visit the famous St Louis Arch, a site of an ancient civilization - Cahokia Mounds and the St Louis Zoo, to name a few places.

James also took me to his local Bentley, Lamborghini, Lotus and Maserati showroom, which was very interesting to see the size of the buildings compared to our exotic dealers back in the UK. They had a few Lotus and a very special Alfa Romeo - not officially sold in America, and very exclusive in Europe, so that was pretty special. I also found the Lamborghini I wanted to take home!!

I went to visit the famous Arch on my own one morning, it was really cool to see it - I could see no point to it other than "just because", but it was very interesting to read up about it. It is strange to look up and see a towering archway up above you, yet there is something inspiring about looking at it, it does not fit the area, it is like it should not be there at all, and yet there it is, and it does not look out of place!

Underground, under the arch there is a museum of sorts, the land is part of the National Parks Service, which surprised me slightly, but they had a lot of information about the early settlers in the area and the Native American's who lived here prior to modern America.

Few photo's of the Arch and the NPS Museum here.

We visited Cahokia Mounds, which involved a lot of walking and good views of St Louis in the distance. It was the site of an ancient town, larger than that of London in the year 1200, and is the largest ancient town in the North American continent.

This is the official website, it shows the site better than I can describe:

http://www.cahokiamounds.com/

St Louis Zoo was really good, they had a very rare Giant Salamander, found only in the rivers of China in the mountains, it is an endangered animal and the world's largest amphibian - growing up to 5 feet in length! This one looked big at about 2 and a half feet long!!

They also had a good variety of other animals, which, when not asleep seemed quite satisfied with their home.

Photo's from the St Louis Zoo here

From here I drove directly north through Illinois to Chicago, another place I have wanted to visit for a while...

Thanks to James and his family for what was a really pleasant few days, and for making me feel so at home!

Myself and James:

Miles of empty

Well i've finally managed to find somewhere with internet connection here in Chicago, so there is a little catching up to do!!

This post is just a "I have not forgotten" post, I will be back later in the day or tomorrow with full write-ups including a fantastic time with friends in St Louis, Missouri and updates from Chicago with another friend.

The last post was from Colorado, and since then I traveeled from one side of Kansas to the other over 2 days, and across the entire state of Missouri in 1 day to arrive in St Louis.

The drive across Kansas was quite simply miles upon miles of the same, nothing new, nothing interesting, a few oil derriks in the fields and that was it.

A few photo's here to show the miles of nothing I got to enjoy!

I did get stopped by a Sheriff of the Kansas Highway Patrol, which was a nice break to the miles of sameness all around me. He was concerned about my car wearing California plates with the dealer tag in the window, once he checked that he was even more confused as to why there was a Brit in his state, having clearly never spoken to someone from England before, he was quite interested in knowing about the country, and thought that my drive was 'quite something' and had never come across someone doing a drive like mine before. He then wished me a good day and I carried along my way.

I passed through Dodge City for my first overnight stay, nothing spectacular, the website said it is a town based on the 'old wild west' days, but to me it looked like there had been no maintenance to much of the town for the same period of time! I then stayed in a town called Independance which is right next to Kansas City, lets just say I was happy I only had to spend the 1 night there...!

So this is where I end this update, with more to follow when I have some more life in my laptop battery and all my photo's here ready to be uploaded!

Sand Dunes and a Volcano

After a slight disaster in Colorado Springs where a pine chair or small pine table was left in the middle of a dark road and I ended up hitting it, my car has suffered a bit from the encounter, and after extracting the remains from the front of my car, I left for Trinidad the next morning.

I visited the Great Sand Dunes which is in the south east of the state of Colorado, it is a most surreal experience as you drive towards them, you are in desert grasslands with the mountains in the distance, then all of a sudden, there is sand, loads of sand!

There is no trail and you can walk freely, it was a very windy day and I was constantly blasted by sand particles, and had to get rid of a lot of sand from my shoes when I returned to the car!

Within minutes of leaving footprints in the sand, the wind had covered them up, I tried to take some interesting photographs but sadly it is very hard to see the sheets of sand blowing cross the surface, which looks espeically cool when it is blowing over the top of the highest part of the dunes!

Although I did not see any wildlife out there, there are a variety of animals that call this place home, in some areas the sand was damp and would hold your footprint because it would not blow over, and in one of these damp patches I found a very distinct footprint which I have since linked to that of a bobcat or lynx, who probably walked that way in the early morning.

They are not sure on how long the dunes have existed, the estimate ranges from 12,000 years to a million years.

It was quite fun to experience, by walking further into the dunes you feel more and more as though you are in a sandy desert, leaving the rest of the area behind you as a memory!

Great Sand Dunes photos here

Yesterday I took a trip to the state of New Mexico, and like I have mentioned in the past, crossing over the state line is like venturing into another world. It is a very desolate state, with miles and miles of nothing but flat plains.

That is except for the Capulin Volcano, which has historically had 4 lava flows, creating many of the mountain-like features in the area, along with the Sierra Grande Volcano which is clearly visible. From the rim of the volcano, looking north you can see the base of the Rocky Mountains in the distance, and in other directions just miles of flat terrain.

You can walk a 2 mile trail around the rim of the volcano and a steep walk into the crater where the lava blasted out from all those years ago! From the Rim you can see for miles, especially into the haze of nothingness in the distance. Another experience I'm really pleased to have experienced.

In the crater you can even see deer grazing in the mornings, thanks to the naturally fertile volcanic soil, it is a real point for life.

Pictures of Capulin Volcano here