Ireland puts forward a turkey

I've always found the Eurovision Song Contest rather hard to swallow. Maybe Ireland have finally got the right idea with this crazy entry (which believe it or not, is actually dividing public opinion over here!)

Dustin the Turkey heads for Eurovision semis...
Dustin the Turkey will be representing Irish hopes at this year's Eurovision Song Contest semi-final after he won the public vote in the national Eurosong 2008 last night. Dustin saw off the challenge of the other finalists Donal Skehan, Mayo, Leona Daly, Liam Geddes and Marc Roberts, with his song 'Ireland Douze Pointe' at the University Concert Hall in Limerick. He will compete in the first Eurovision semi-final on May 20th in an bid to reach the finals on Saturday, May 24th.
© 2008 ireland.com

Almost March...

The Coachmans Tavern had seen better days...

Frosty morning, Annagassan...

Always remember to take your Peugeots out of the freezer

We've had another pretty quiet weekend, making the most of sleeping in before some upcoming travels. Except I've had a cold/flu all week, which seemed to intensify on Saturday morning, so I set up the laptop sideways and did some DVD watching in bed, whilst despatching Clare to Tesco & LIDL for our weekly supplies... The Movies: This Is England, Die Hard 4 & Zodiac (but I didn't get as far as Zodiac). These were all from the "3 for €30 collection" from HMV (the nice people at DHL got me a €30 voucher for the Pavilions Shopping Centre in Swords when I left there in December). Of course when men have a cold/flu, they're obviously dying, so must be taken care of. It was a lazy day, supported by Day & Night and Strepsils, but I felt better by Sunday so it must have worked.
It feels like winter is slowly easing away here - just the usual 4˚c at 5.30pm this afternoon and a little hail... We've had some good fog & frost this week too. Clare has been auditing & training in Ireland this week (no jetsetting), while I've been busy organising meetings and various upcoming projects in Dublin. I worked a little longer on 2 nights this week and came back on the "Belfast Enterprise", which is a very comfortable (luxury) 30 minute non-stop train journey from Dublin to Drogheda. I made the mistake of driving down on Friday. It's all fine until you hit the outskirts of Dublin, then you crawl, and crawl, and crawl... and remind yourself why the train is just so much better, regardless of how much it shakes around or the arts grant worthyness of the vandals who made an interesting creation the other day, centre carriage, from abandoned newspapers and some sort of red creaming soda... or maybe jam? The cleaners were in for a real job there.
Our travel plans for March/April/June could of course easily be thwarted by any number of strike plans over here, from cabin crew to mechanics, hell even the air traffic controllers who are demanding thousands of extra Euros, just for being on call for overtime. You gotta keep up, right? Yes, Aer Lingus staff are unhappy, British Airways staff are unhappy, Ryanair staff can get nicked if they're unhappy (thanks to Michael O'Leary), but nothing will function anyway if the air traffic controllers walk out, which they're threatening to do this Thursday, shutting down the entire country. Cool.
So if everything goes to plan, we'll be in Barcelona for 14-17 March, then Sue & Paul are here for Easter (we're heading for the Giants Causeway & Donegal), then Paris for 28-30 March, then Milan for 25-27 April, then BRISBANE for 13-28 June... Please don't ask about the carbon miles or whatever. We'll just have to act more responsibly in our next life.
Oh, we're also helping out on the Annagassan Viking Festival committee (9th & 10th August). Big things to happen right here in our little village!

Work Tales, Part II

Clare has been jetsetting, as usual... San Francisco one week, Limerick the next! Tonight she's called me from Gatwick Airport, where her Ryanair plane seems to be blocked from the runway by an Aer Lingus plane (the Ryanair pilot would take delight in telling you that, I'm sure!) Such is life in the world of seafood training, etc, etc. So here's a little trip report that Clare sent to me from San Francisco (and I found rather amusing)...
"Had some problems getting onto the net, user issues as you would say! The weather was pouring rain last night - I thought I was in Dublin. Both flights (to San Fran) were empty and I had 3 seats all the way. I did MBA work, read magazines and didn’t get toxins at Newark (this refers to Joe's little food poisoning incident at Newark Airport last October, please don't ask!) The conference oragnisers had sent emails warning about not to walk around here at night and I thought they were being paranoid Americans but they were right. I'm sure I saw 2 homeless people in the lobby at 9pm and a woman straight out of ‘Pretty Woman’ in the lobby and again later in the hall near my room. Hispanic, large, high heels, loads of makeup and very short skirt. Almost laughable really. The hotel is very ‘LA Confidential’. I thought its best days were probably around 1951 or so but I read the hotel blurb and its heyday was around the 1890’s. One of the few buildings to survive the earthquake intact and became the City Hall for a few years after 1906 or whenever the big earthquake was. Whilst eating ‘breakfast’ at Starbucks, in the hotel lobby, I watched the homeless go thru the bins at 10am this morning. The hotel blurb in the rooms has 2 pages on security, 1 page on fire safety and 2 pages on earthquake safety - during and after...
I caught the BART to Sunita’s place (ex flat mate from Brisbane). It was the train to ‘Dublin’, would you believe? Sunita lives in a ‘transition’ neighbourhood in Oakland - loads of Central American families going to Mass, artists taking over factories and making real loft apartments - not a developers version of loft apartments... mosaics where graffiti used to be. Her husband was the architect on the apartment block where they live, so they got it cheaper. But the mortage on one wage is still tough, so Sunita was back at work 3 weeks ago and her Aussie mother-in-law is here for 9 months looking after their baby son. But they'll make a fortune in a few years when the neighbourhood turns white and professional. That said, M-I-L, Chris, says the drug deals regularly go down at the train station. We had breakfast - all healthy and no eggs benedict. Chris says I have a hint of an Irish accent. Hmmm, I doubt it! Chris lived in Cork for a while 4 years ago. So we swapped Irish stories...
Sunita says that San Fran & Manhattan are the only 2 places in the USA that don’t expect a recession and house prices are not collapsing. But her husbands company (architects) sacked a bunch of people last Friday and he's working Sunday and regularly doing 90 hour weeks. The TV here has ads for 1000 houses being auctioned next week in Modesto/Fresno, etc. (well outside San Fran), and all those places behind LA that are repo houses...
Reading the papers - there is more support here for Obama than Hillary. No one cares about the Republicans, but this is San Fran! It's Tet today, the Vietnamese New Year. So I'm off to find some Pho in a few minutes. I could go to a Superbowl party with the fish types, but I can’t miss Tet when it's about 2 blocks from the hotel. Bugger the homeless. etc...

And later...

I found the Law & Order channel on TV. This area is definitely the homeless epicenter. They're everywhere - lying on all the streets, sitting everywhere and there is diversity there as well. Men, women, black, white & Asian. Can you believe homeless Asian women? I don’t think I've ever seen that before. And I can now see why people thought I was homeless in 1999 - the homeless here have backpacks and sleeping bags and when you see them from a distance they do look like a group of backpackers. Some are quite young...
Tet was very interesting - very few food stalls. Only those weird jelly things, a few red bean buns and one Hawaiian kebab stall. Mostly stalls selling: dodgy Viet DVDs, plastic & glass things from a plastics factory in the Mekong delta, Viet charities, Uni scholarship programs, newspapers, nail places and florists. There was a big concert of some Viet band that was fairly huge. But the weirdest thing was the audience was 99 % Viet. A few hispanics and a few white men with their Viet girlfriends/wives. Only saw 2 other white women. And around the corner was a big YHA hostel. But it would seem no one from the YHA went to Tet ????? Found the Pho shops. Little Saigon is about as big as Darra - that’s all. I popped into a couple of shops - one selling loads of weird jellies and other meat products - not in refrigeration! Gave them a miss. Then to the little supermarket on the corner. Found a rack of Kettle Chips. Loads of different flavours. Bought 3 types of chilli chips - Spicy Thai, Island Jerk & Buffalo Bleu. Found a farmers market on the way back...
On Monday night we saw the Deadheads For Obama - the Grateful Dead got back together for a concert for Obama and all their supporters were walking around with signs, etc. No stickers for sale though :( Bill was down at the seafront in a building doing a live telecast to Hillary - in another state - for supporters to have a chat. We went to a fish factory for drinks & crab, then off in a cable car to Chinatown with the conference organiser, who grew up there. Nice enough dinner of Cantonese & Szechuan cuisine. Most others thought it was exotic...
Tuesday arvo I escaped and did tourist stuff - seals, aquarium and Fisherman's Wharf. That night was the conference dinner - okay food, terrible speaker. A few of us went to the bar and told our own after dinner auditor stories. Up again at 4am to go to the ‘seafood markets’ that didn’t exist. I did see some trawlers, seals, giant seagulls & rats. Then did my talk and dashed for the airport...
(Sorry, no photos from San Fran, didn't take the camera)

Work Tales, Part I

I'm never quite sure how to start these blog entries. The concept of all this (back in 2006) was to be about our travel experiences, but then, of course, there is work (unless you're lucky enough that work is optional, or a mere afterthought)... So here I am again on the 6.59am to Dublin, where my Hewlett Packard office is located in a suburb called Clonskeagh, south of the city centre. The commuter trains, so far, have been pretty good (and very much on time), apart from the week a derailment happened between Drogheda & Dublin.
I absolutely love my new job. I loved my 11 years with DHL too, but this a brand new environment for me, where the team leaders self manage the workforce (of about 90 people) to a far greater extent than DHL. The building has rather good amenities with a cafeteria, coffee shop and gym, etc. I spend my days involved with: ensuring we meet our service levels, stats & performance management, learning the technical aspects of what we do (in our immediate area), organising & attending meetings, recruitment (from start to end of process), looking at morale & motivation, etc. There's always plenty to do, and of course HP is a huge global organisation in regards to future prospects. At 5pm, I literally run for the mini-bus, back to the station, where I get the 5.18pm back to Drogheda, then back home. So, that's a day for me right now.
I don't know if I'll ever get used to a 6am rise... but it happens, and as I drive down the lanes in the dark every morning (with my 4th new tyre on), there's nothing like knowing that train will leave the platform at 6.59am, whether you're on it or not...

.....f...o...g.....

Amazing fog this morning... freezing, thick and no flavour (like a Mr Whippy)... Check out the pic at the top... That's in the middle of Dublin City, and even the webcam is "fogged out"... Looks like something from Dickens London. Temp is currently 1°c.

Slice of Ireland, No. # 77

One of my tyres kept going flat. I think they call it a 'slow leaker'. Kind of inconvenient when I have to drive down to Drogheda Station at 6.30 every morning in the dark, be it raining, or frozen as it often is at the moment... Swerving along the country lanes, avoiding as many pot holes as possible, dashing through the middle of town avoiding the garbage trucks and milk deliveries, making it to the station in time for the 6.59am to Dublin, then rumbling along in the darkness listening to my Ipod, where conversations are kept low and most people try to get more shut eye. The same thing happens in reverse in the evening (dark again!) Everyone dashing for the exit at the station, trying to get home before their fellow commuters. And the same flat tyre is flatter still, so I creep the Peugeot the short distance from the train station to the service station to use the air machine, sometimes needing gloves, sometimes not (have you ever tried to get the screw cap off a tyre valve with gloves on?) So it was well and truly time to get a new tyre (or 2)...
Last Saturday afternoon whilst out shopping I discovered a place called First Stop Tyres... Very friendly, looked efficient, all good. I left the car with them and went off to look at some shops. They called me on my mobile. "You should consider 2 new ones on the front, and the one on the back..." Sure, I said yes to the 3, and thought nothing more of it. Back to collect the car a while later, and all was fine. Drove away thinking how good the service was. Roll forward a couple of mornings, raining again, slick roads, flat tyre... But the tyre shop had replaced 3 tyres on the car, right? Yes, 3 tyres out of 4, but not the 'slow leaker' which of course was the reason I went there in the first place. So much like many other unexplained mysteries here, I'll just have to go back and buy the 4th tyre too...
Clare went to San Francisco this morning on Continental. In fact, she's in the air right now as I write this, somewhere over Ohio, or Idaho, etc. You get the picture. I was hardly awake when she left this morning, much like she too is hardly awake when I leave for the station each morning in my car with the flat tyre. My morning commute is well worth it though, because I really love my new job at HP Dublin. Commuting to central Dublin by train is definitely the way to go when you hear the traffic reports on the radio every morning. Especially the days when the city grinds to a standstill (almost every day) thanks to some great motorway planning in the 1980's, when some of the pollies in Ireland were more concerned with collecting bags of money than ever believing that people would actually consider something like commuting (shock, horror), so the road (and rail) infrastructure in many parts is rather lacking. We're actually very lucky at Annagassan/Louth that we're in one one of the best served transport corridors around Dublin.
So Clare is back in Dubs on Thursday. I went up to Newry this evening to see the brilliant, if slightly baffling Coen Brothers "No Country For Old Men"... Thought about making it a double bill, but when confronted by the choice of "Cloverfield", "I Am Legend" and similar fodder, I decided to call it quits and head home. Now there would have been a time once when I might have happily sat through one of those movies, but perhaps my taste has matured and I couldn't stand the thought of another crap film. Tomorrow I'm off to Dubs for a Hash run. Bye for now.

Grey old January...

flickr photo link: <Louise Bourgeois, Tate Modern>
We went for a walk down the Annagassan 'Esplanade' yesterday afternoon as the grey mottled sky was settling into black (at 5pm'ish!) 2 of our local dogs followed us down the shore, waiting for us to pick up sticks and throw them. This was after the morning mist (not quite a fog) had finally risen (by mid-afternoon)... It's a funny time of year. You gotta find things to do or the rain and greyscale might just drive you mad! Temperature wise, it's been pretty mild since the snow we had recently. Our days have hovered around 8-9c (almost t-shirt weather :), but with loads & loads of rain - soft rain, hard rain, sideways rain, etc. The other day, looking out from the 5th floor at work towards the Dublin Mountains (which had disappeared from sight), it almost seemed like a movie special effects scene, with sheets of water powered across the landscape by a large turbine fan. But there are no turbines... just wind and rain blowing in from the Atlantic, wave after wave...
This was our first weekend in Annagassan for a while now. We've had trips to the UK for the last couple of weekends (more El Cheapo Ryanair specials), to visit Leisa & Paul in the East End of London (with an afternoon at the Tate Modern), and then to visit my friend Chris from DHL Brisbane who was on holiday. Clare stayed on after that weekend to do a BRC Course in London too. We're quite used to doing the 'Gatwick' run on Ryanair now - excellent train connections to Central London, far less sticky carpets than Heathrow, and they've been pretty much on-time every time. Yes, we've really learned the positives & negatives of Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton & Stansted since we came over here, and we reckon Gatwick comes out on top (if you're heading into Central London). Back to Ryanair, their pilots are highly skilled at landing in Dublin, where you often feel the strong winds swaying the plane on final approach (after you've broken through the cloud layer). Nothing at all like Brisbane of course!
We took a trip to the shops at Newry on Saturday (Debenhams, Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer for those of you with a yearning for UK shopping!) We discovered a funky coffee shop too - they even had iced coffees. The Sterling is dropping in value (the UK papers are quite obsessed with recession on the horizon), and that makes it better and better for our Euro. We used to get about 66p for a Euro, now it's up to 75p. So shopping in the north (for a serious supermarket shop, or some clothes) is a pretty good move. They say the Euro might even hit 90p in 2008, and perhaps eventually hit parity with the pound (if the UK really keels over). Not sure what the Irish economy is doing, but they're lucky they jumped on the Euro bandwagon many years ago.

Suddenly Snow

Photo Link: <Snow, 03 Jan 08>

We had some pretty significant snow this evening (03 Jan). I got off the train at Drogheda (now I'm commuting from my new job in Dublin), to be met by flurries of the white stuff - my car was completely covered. Made it home ok, then drove Clare back to Drogheda where blizzard-like conditions had set in, and our tyres soon lost traction, so we got out of there quick. Then the snow set in at Annagassan, but finished off before midnight. Certainly more snow then we've ever seen here before!

Some random photos from Drogheda...

Photo Link: <Drogheda, Oct 07> Just some (very) random photos taken in Drogheda, County Louth (just down the road from us) on a Sunday afternoon in October 2007.

Photos from Christmas in Edinburgh...

flickr photo link: <Christmas in Edinburgh, Dec 07> Some photos from our trip to Edinburgh!

A blogging Happy New Year!

Hi everyone. Long time no blogging, so it's time for a major update. Well, it's about 8c today, slightly cloudy. I've just been up to the N.I. border to buy some fireworks for NY Eve from a shop in a big shipping container - they take Euros or Pounds (anything really, as long as it's cash!) Gerald & Sandra are here from Germany at the moment - they're checking out the touristic sights of Dublin today. Clare is downloading her email on the kitchen table. Just another day in Ireland!
So today you get all our news in one go. The (loose) definition of a blog is... "a frequently updated journal or diary", and we know we've kind of broken this rule, and we hope to start updating again more frequently as we go into 2008! We haven't written a whole lot since our trip to the USA in October (and we're still trying to finish those stories too)... Somehow our time has been filled. Straight from the top of my head, what's happened recently...?
- Clare finally submitted her MBA thesis, which has come back pretty quickly with edit requirements, etc. so will still need quite a bit more editing. Life wasn't meant to be easy! We went to the Dundalk Greyhound Stadium for Clare's work Christmas Party. Lot's of fun betting on the 'droopy' dogs. We even scored some wins!
- Joe has taken a huge step and left DHL Express after 11 years. What the? I'm starting a new role with HP Dublin (Clonskeagh) in January 2008 as a Technical Support Team Leader. For those of you that may have changed jobs recently, or considered it, or started into the process, it takes time and is quite mentally demanding - especially so after being with DHL for so long. But I'm really looking forward to it. A new role, new location, new challenges, more exercise :) Roll on 2008.
- We spent Christmas in Edinburgh with my cousin (well, relative cousin) Katherine & Chris and their daughter Isla. We had 9 people for Christmas day (Kiwi & Aussie friends joined in) - much ripping open of various presents & tonnes of chocolate gifts from Chris's school kids, plenty of turkey, brussels sprouts (yum), roast potatoes, Christmas pud, a various assortment of brandy creams & butters, chocolates, Port, Baileys, cheese, etc, etc. followed by a long game of Edinburgh Monopoly which ended in a draw (too many competing tycoons to reach a decisive conclusion!) We even cracked open our last bottle of Bundy Rum from Australia (even though you can actually buy it here, from Sainsburys!) Tastes pretty smooth after the local dark rums in Ireland. So overall a great day of consuming and relaxing. Hope you all had a good one too!
The weather here has been pretty mild overall - we've had a few frosty mornings (scraping ice off the windscreen), and some major rain here and there, but nothing too extreme. Certainly no freezing fogs like last year, although we really notice the difference in winter air quality here in Annagassan as opposed to Dundalk, where the coal & peat burning adds a certain "Dicken's" quality to the air.
Life in Annagassan has been mainly quiet as usual, bar one recent night when we heard sirens for the first time (ever) here, and a fire engine eventually screamed into our carpark. Seems a lady tenant had poured vodka into her own car and set it alight! The rain was pouring down that night, but the fire'ies still had to get it under control. Then the Garda eventually turned up to check out all the commotion. The car, quite charred inside, was left in the same spot when everyone left, and was still there days later. No surprises there.
Haven't had much of a chance to do any photography recently, but will get back into this when things settle down a bit. We're off to London on 06 Jan to meet up with Leisa & Paul for the day, then I've got another friend from DHL Brisbane in London the following weekend. Clare has upcoming work trips to Brussels, London & San Francisco. I guess you could call it the "soft" season right now... Europeans don't travel so much in winter and airfares are remarkably low.
What else? Well, wherever you are, or whatever you're doing, have a great New Years Eve and a happy & healthy 2008, and we hope to see you all soon. I'll be setting off those fireworks, after making sure all cats & dogs are well away, and doing my best not to lose an eye, or an arm (or someone else's!) Thanks for all the great emails from everyone with news of your lives too!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Tin Sandwich

Check out our Friday night Irish Trad music buddies from the Glyde Inn Annagassan...
Presenting "Tin Sandwich", playing for Balcony TV Dublin...

The flaps on the plane go up and down...

Honestly, we really didn't intend to become carbon unfriendly vandals... It just sort of, well, turned out that way. Admittedly, it has a lot to do with Ryanair and their ludicrously cheap fares that have made us well known at Dublin Airport, along with the other hordes of travellers dashing to the "portacabin gates", where we queue to board with our rolling luggage and packets of sandwiches - no more than a glorified bus depot really. The customs guys glancing at passports on Sunday night looked decidedly bored. In fact, one might have been resting his sleepy bloodshot eyes as my photo flashed before him. So there you are. Will I get to the point? Yes, well, we seem to be flying somewhere almost every weekend at the moment. Not that strange when you consider that flying to/from Dublin is literally cheaper than any other way to move either around, or off this little island (Ireland!) - the place we call home right now. We flew back from New York at the end of October, have just spent the weekend in the English Midlands (East Midlands Airport), and we're off to London for a same day return this Saturday, for cheaper than a couple of rounds at The Glyde Inn (where the craic has been very good on recent Fridays). Yes, Ryanair to London costs 10 Euros each way right now (1 cent fare plus €9.99 taxes!) In fact, €10 to many places in UK/Europe, but you have to really snout around for those €10 bargains to Frankfurt or Venice, etc. - those places that might be a bit more interesting than Birmingham or Leeds (nothing against Leeds, honest). So we're proud Ryanair warriors, with more miles racked up on 737's than our own cars. At this rate, we'll need to plant several hectares of trees if we're ever gonna make up for all this!
We had a lovely weekend in the Midlands... Stayed with my Aunt & Uncle, Anne & Andy and visited my cousin Nicki & family in their brilliant thatched roof house in the heart of the English countryside ... Had a couple of quick walks in the Peak District on Saturday, but the low cloud and rain was quite persistent... Excellent pubs of course. Winter is upon us now, and ice had covered our cars at home on Monday morning when Clare left for Cork at an ungodly early hour (to give a training course). But haha, my new car, a Peugeot 206 has anti-freeze in the windscreen spray, so I wasn't forced to scrape mine with a credit card... (It was still under 1c around 8.30am, brrr). Yes, the joys of winter in Europe. The bus strikes in Northern Dublin didn't help Clare and the M50 traffic - the papers say we're entering a "winter of discontent" in Ireland as workers hold out for more cash. What with Bertie forgetting where he got his bags of money from and the condition of the hospitals here, they sure could do with some good news stories.
Lot's of things happening here (my new 206 - I heart Peugeot... oh, and 2 new supermarkets opened in Dundalk, and the new "sushi train" place is about to open in Swords, just the 2nd in Ireland)... When we get a chance to sit down; and finish our photos from the USA; and write the stories to go with the photos, etc, etc. We just need to sit still for 5 minutes and stop looking at the Ryanair website, mmm. Now please ensure you fit the oxygen mask to your own face before assisting other passengers...

Those Halloween flashbacks...

Photo Link: <USA photos, October 2007> (first edition, many more to be added!)
Hi all, we're back from the US (which was truly excellent) and back at work and all. After a pretty quick flight back from New York, a long good sleep on Sunday and the public holiday on Monday (for Halloween... yes, we get a holiday for Halloween here), things returned to normal. We'll update the blog (backdated) with all of our stories and photos from the USA soon - it just takes time of course.
Halloween night here was just amazing. This was the first time in recent years I haven't done a party or costumes or theme parks, etc, etc. We just wanted to soak up the Irish Halloween atmosphere, and we weren't disappointed! Thanks to the mass sale of fireworks to the public (from large shipping containers on the N.I. border - Euros or Sterling accepted!) there were rockets going off everywhere. Driving home along the M1 was like memory flashbacks to WWI or WWII, as things whizzed and banged over every tiny village and settlement in Ireland - white light and booms on the horizon and flashing in the sky. We've never seen anything quite like it. A sulphur fog had descended over Dunleer as the local youths spinned their car tyres and set off whiz bangers in the direction of the local supermarket. In Annagassan, the kids had constructed a massive bonfire of pallets on the wasteland next to the fishing wharf. It burned like an Iraqi oilwell. Not sure what the ignition substance was, but nitroglycerin comes to mind or maybe just good old petrol. After the July bonfires in the north and Halloween down here, we think CHEP pallets should come and investigate where all their pallets are disappearing to in Europe. Look no further. Sorry, no photos tonight!
Back to the pub tonight to see if the trad music is still on. Winter is slow coming this year.
Chills & Thrills for another year... :) Joe.

New York, New York...

flickr photo link: <USA, Oct 07>

Under construction...

New York, New York

Your friendly Wyoming law enforcement...

flickr photo link: <USA, Oct 07>
Under construction...
Lander, Wyoming Highway Cops, Vail & Denver

The world of Yellowstone...

flickr photo link: <USA, Oct 07>

Under construction...

Yellowstone National Park

Devils Tower Wyoming

flickr photo link: <USA, Oct 07>
Without gushing superlatives, this was a very special part of our trip. Ever since first watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" many, many years ago (then plenty of times since), I'd wanted to see the Devils Tower for myself. One of those all-time movie location holy grails. But Wyoming is one of those difficult places to get to. It's not like getting on a plane to Los Angeles or New York. You have to plan a journey, rent a car. You have to approach the tower, drive around it, see it from different angles, get the dawn & dusk views. It is wonderous, spectacular - different in it's physical aspect from how I'd imagined, and possibly somewhat smaller than imagined too, but sheer and mystical all the same. From outside the monument, I pictured every view of the tower from the perspective of the movie lens - putting every scene into place. We had a truly wonderful afternoon and morning here. You can't spend much more time than that really, as the activities are limited and you soon discover the location is quite remote really. There isn't a whole lot else around!
Devils Tower is a National Monument, entry US$10 for 7 days. You'll probably spend a few hours or a day, unless you want to study the prairie dogs and take every back country hike. On our first afternoon, we drove up to the visitor centre and took a quick walk up to the rock. Being off season, there was hardly anyone here. After checking things out, we parked beside a hill outside the monument, and I took loads & loads of sunset photos while I slowly froze. But it was all worth it. We ate some chips & dips and marvelled at the whole thing. Back into the car, and a short distance back to the Best Western Devils Tower Inn at Hulett. Looking like a log cabin on steroids, this was a very nice & very new motel with huge rooms and really comfortable beds. Highly recommended. If you blink, you'll miss Hulett (pop. 408). We had a burger at little tavern just down the street, then slept well while the aliens made their plans round the back of the tower, in the darkness...

After a waffle breakfast, we were back at the tower. We did the circuit walk around the base. Again, there were few people around. Some climbers sauntered past us on the path, then we watched as they scaled the east face. They looked like little ants in 'The North Face' jackets. Our experience was over, and we left the monument between 11 and 12, saying goodbye to the prairie dogs on the way out! We had a massive drive ahead of us.

South Dakota to Wyoming

flickr photo link: <USA, Oct 07>

We left the Black Hills today, but only after a fun morning at Bear Country USA, a drive through wildlife park where bears (and other animals) literally tussled in front of our car then plonked themselves down in the road, so it was careful going. The bears could smell food in our car too. I didn't want to explain that damage story to the rental car people! They also had a zoo section with cute baby animals, including red foxes. The park was almost deserted being so late in the season, but the website says they're open until the end of November.

Back on the I-90, we headed northwest towards Deadwood. This was a slightly weird frontier town in the hills, famous for the gold rush days - Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and a recent tv series (which didn't show in Australia as far as I know). Whilst quite historic and well detailed, nowadays Deadwood is famous for casinos and all-you-can-eat buffets, so we drove through quickly and kept driving as we could see snow further up the mountain. Just past the town of Lead, things had turned white all around and we pulled into a forest to throw some snowballs (the crazy Aussies seeking out snow wherever we go!) We came down the mountain via the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, a wonderful drive made all the more spectacular by the snow in the trees. We were quite lucky there.

We joined the I-90 again at the town of Spearfish and crossed the state border from South Dakota to Wyoming. We'd already decided to stop at the next town of Sundance. However, as we drove along the quiet main street, we soon discovered this was not the Sundance famous for the film festival. We really should have done our research! So, with Sundance devoid of food (bar the local service station) and the Devils Tower a little over an hour away across the Bear Lodge Mountains, we decided to backtrack to Spearfish for a food stop. Just off the I-90 we found another American family diner with good food, endless drink refills and impossibly low prices (especially compared to Ireland). After the refreshment stop we drove back into into Wyoming again, and approached the Devils Tower from the northeast side (Belle Fourche & Hulett). Looking back, we could never say we didn't cover these roads thoroughly!

It's raining in Rapid City

flickr photo link: <USA, Oct 07>

It's raining in Rapid City, South Dakota. We stopped for dinner this evening at Red Lobster on the I-90, where dinner comes in 3 sizes - big, bigger & biggest, much like the eager patrons. Clare ran across the wet carpark to Target (none in Ireland!) to buy some clothes, while I waited in the restaurant lobby with the buzzer that vibrates when your table is ready. About 25 minutes later it went off, and we chose our delicious seafood meals & cocktails, which came in the same gigantic sizes as the meals (my strawberry Lobsterita was exceptional!) We had a friendly table visit from the manager, Kent French, who wanted to talk to the only Australians in town that night and told us he was a world "clapping" champion, video here. Nice guy! I finished up my Lobsterita as the people on the next table were offered another plate of endless shrimp... We drove back across the hills to our lovely hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Keystone (about US $58/nt) and hit the sack.

We'd started the previous day collecting our Hertz Rental Car at Denver Airport. Flicked on the Sat Nav and headed north on the I-25 past Loveland & Fort Collins, Colorado - with huge RV sales yards and shopping malls on the highway. Traffic thinned out as we entered Wyoming. We stopped for food nr. Cheyenne - BIG food & huge trucks in the parking lot with gun racks & "hunter" bumper stickers. This was the real American homeland - wide open spaces and about as far away from Washington DC or Seattle as you can get! It was getting dark as we kept going north, eventually climbing in elevation as we left Wyoming and entered the far southwest corner of South Dakota (our forth state for the day!) We got to Keystone late that night.

When it comes to blurbs about tourist towns, sometimes the local tourist authorities put it best, so here you go: Keystone... The “Home of Mount Rushmore” and truly a “City of Gold”. Rich in gold mining history the quaint town of Keystone is just two miles from Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Once a gold mining boomtown and later the location of the monumental carving of Mount Rushmore, Keystone was also the adult home of Carrie Ingalls of “Little House on the Prairie” fame. With all this to offer who needs more? But there is a lot more. There are historic and Presidential museums where you can learn about the history of Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum – Sculptor of Mount Rushmore, United States Presidents, Keystone and Carrie Ingalls. An alpine slide and Tramway with great views of Mount Rushmore and the surrounding area; an actual gold mine that you can tour and then learn to pan for gold; a Historic 1880 Train ride that takes you through some of the most beautiful Black Hills scenery around; beautiful caves that boast some of the largest formations around, and a Historic Walking tour that takes you on a trip back in time!

It was well & truly off season in Keystone and things were really quiet. We waited a while for service in the local diner to get some breakfast. Then straight up to Mount Rushmore (annual parking pass US $8). An attractive family of rocky mountain goats were munching on the plants in the multi-storey carpark (this place was really built for summer crowds). We took lots of photos of course. Mount Rushmore is suitably impressive like all the pictures you see, but we were told the nearby Crazy Horse Monument was better, although it has decades of blasting and chiselling to go before any sign of completion. Anyway, we did the little walking circuit under the Presidents' faces and admired this patriotic salute to all things American. Time to move on.

We headed down from the Black Hills towards Badlands National Park and made stops on the way, firstly to talk to a rancher, Ken Wilson, who had 5,000 head of cattle on 40,000 acres. We'd stopped at the end of his driveway to take some pics of the fall foliage. Like so many other friendly people we came across, I guess they were happy to chat with anyone that stopped, especially Australians! At the next settlement (ghost town!) of Scenic, Clare was given a little history by a first nation guy sitting outside the local store. The glory days of Scenic had long since passed, and this was literally a tumbleweed town where we expected to see Wylie Coyote chasing the roadrunner down the street with some Acme TNT. We gave the guy a few bucks and carried on.

The weather was doing weird things as we drive across the amazingly flat South Dakota landscape towards Badlands. The towns out here along the I-90 started to resemble what you might imagine of the American "outback" - dusty, trailer park homes, quite rundown, etc. We established pretty quickly we definitely wouldn't want to live out here. This is the area where America once kept it's "Minuteman" longrange nuclear missiles, but the vistor centre was closed so we moved on. The open air Prairie Homestead along the road was also closed for the season (it looked abandoned), so we scaled the fences to take a look around. Lots of cute prairie dogs popping their heads out of their burrows. We tore off into Badlands and made a few scenic stops along the way. Thick cloud had moved across now, and any hint of the fabulous colours that this area is famous for were well and truly washed out. But the views were still amazing and it was worth the drive. Rain & darkness were falling as we took the I-90 back into Rapid City, past Ellsworth Air Force Base, more trailer park homes and finally to our table at the Red Lobster... God Bless America!