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Showing posts from March, 2015

Trek America Day 14 & 15: Betty & Rusty's Cowboy Camp and Monument Valley

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The last two days have been an experience that's for sure.  It began, as all good days should do, with a stop at In and Out Burger for lunch.  I have heard a lot about this burger chain and it has a sort of cult status, much like Five Guys and Shake Shack, but as far as I'm aware there's no In and Out in the UK.  The menu is very simple, either a hamburger, cheese burger or double burger, plus fries and drink.  I ordered a cheeseburger "animal style" which comes with onions on top, with fries and an iced tea.  Note: iced tea doesn't come out of the machine iced, you have to add ice and lemon and sugar yourself otherwise you'll end up with a cup of luke warm tea like I did. Numpty. The burger was very good, much jucier than McDonalds and more filling. I do prefer maccy d fries though. The burger was also much less plasticy than a maccy d.  Review over. We arrived at Betty and Rusty's in the early afternoon.  It was very hot so we didn't bother

Trek America Day 12 & 13: White Sands & Tombstone

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Another long drive to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.  A monument is a bit like a state park however for an area to be a state park, it must be passed through congress, whereas a monument can ve passed by a President.  We set up our tents in a lovely campground called Oliver Lee Memorial, then headed off to Walmart for a supermarket sweep for lunch and dinner ingredients.  Afterwards we drove to the White Sands which was SO MUCH FUN.  At the visitor centre you can buy shallow buckets that you can then use to slide down the sand dunes.  It's funny the ability that sand has to turn us into big kids!! There were miles and miles of bright white sand dunes, it was pretty spectacular.   We found a big hill and had some races, and generally messed about in the sand, taking silly photos and doing yoga and gymnastics.  Surprisingly the sand is very cool so luckily there's no hot footing it across the dunes like you get on the beach.  After a couple of hours the sun

Trek America Day 10 & 11: Big Bend National Park, Texas

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Day 9 was mainly spent in the van, driving from San Antonio to Big Bend National Park.  It was a 414 mile drive taking over 7 hours, with a few pit stops thrown in.  We also had to go through border control, where we were all made to get out of the van and show our passports and answer a few questions about where we landed etc.  Ben said this was quite unusual and usually they take a brief glimpse at the passports and let him on his merry way.  We must look like a motley crue! The park is beautiful, mainly long flat roads flanked either side by vibrant purple, white and yellow desert flowers, cacti and green shrubs, and in the distance rising up before you is a huge never ending horizon of rocky mountains.  As we neared the campsite we climbed elevation and my ears popped, the rocky mountains suddenly weren't in the horizon any longer and we were within the belly of them, reminding me of a much yellower and hotter and less jagged Llanberis Pass.  Big Bend is over 800,000 acr