100 Days on the Road

14,000 miles so far and 91 nights in the roof tent 5 in Motels and 4 in a house (with Sue and Franco).

Day 1 New York
,
Day 4 into Canada at Niagara - 500 miles

Day 25 enter Alaska at Tok - 5,300 miles

Day 43 back into Canada from Tok - 7,800 miles

Day 69 into the US at Glacier Park - 11,000 miles

Which means we have done a mere 2,900 miles in the last 31 days.

This area of the USA is quite amazing as there is something around almost every corner, with quite amazing changes of scenery.

All the people we have met so far have been very friendly, especially the little out of the way bars and camp sites on the way.They are all fascinated by the vehicle, roof tent and the general set-up we have.

We have recently had a few things done on the vehicle. We had the air conditioning fixed (which failed on the way to the docks in the UK), this also drives the little fridge between the front seats, imperative for keeping our water cool. We had the underbody protection plate re-fitted (3 of the bolts had broken and had to be drilled out). We also had a switch fitted to the fan on the gearbox oil cooler. The fan was fitted prior to leaving with a thermostatic switch, but was not cutting in and the auto box overheated 4 times on one long climb, so I can now switch it on manually.

The main issue now is the alternator, we had it tested as it did not appear to be fully charging the leisure batteries and it is starting to fail, but Cruiser Outfitters in Salt Lake City are flying one in from Japan for me and will ship it to meet us in LA or San Diego so I can get it fitted. This new one also has a greater output (100 amps  instead of 60).  Toyota have never sold diesel landcruisers in the US (or Canada) so cannot supply replacement parts.

Other than that things are going pretty much to plan and to budgets, so on we go (we may have to speed up a little though to make the bottom of Argentina by summer down there (Feb/March).

Currently we are in Moab and will be visiting Arches National Park today and Canyon lands tomorrow after spending a couple of days further north driving rough roads in Canyons and visiting ancient cliff paintings and petrified dinosaur bones.

First photo with new camara!

 Dinasaur bones

Ancient Indian Paintings

Run out of wild life, but this was crawling up my leg whilst cleaning my teeth!

End of an Era

After deciding not to replace my trusty old Sony camera in Canada cos it was still taking good pictures it is now no longer! the pin under the shutter button has broken and won't take pictures anymore! So I have had to fall back on my phone (which takes good photos but no zoom) and my old back-up Fuji

After a short circuit round Utah  we are now in Salt lake City in a thunderstorm, waiting for some minor repairs on the cruiser to be completed.

Our short Utah circuit included Escalante, where we intended to stay for a night and ended up spending 4. A superb area with lots of good 4x4 off-road, walking and slot Canyons (100's of yards long and mostly only wide enough to squeeze through sideways). Bryce Canyon with some amazing rock formations (called hoodoos) and Zion Canyon, with walls half a mile high ( we left the main Zion Canyon to another trip as you it is only possible to go in by shuttle bus and at 35 degrees we felt it was a bit warm for that.

Escalante was also my third encounter with a snake, but this time Chris saw it first and it was so petrified by her scream that I was able to take a photo!

We are now heading on a wider sweep of Utah through Arches and Canyon Land , Mesa Verde near Cortez in New Mexico (dwellings of an ancient civilization) and on to Winslow Arizona (we had to really) before the Grande Canyon and Las Vegas.

Apparently this is a dinosaur foot print

And this is a dinosaur

Slot Canyons

This Arch is interesting, not for the photo, but that I had been looking for it and walked over it twice before I realised that I was on top of it!

Petrified Snake

Petrified Wood from the Petrified Forest near Escalante

Bryce Canyon

Zion Canyon

We have had numerous people take pictures every day, but this guy spent well over an hour and photographed every inch, including underneath!

Nuff Said

Teton Special

I liked the Grand Tetons so much I bought a cap (I lost my old one so needed a new one) then I discovered that Teton means breast! So now I am walking around with hat that says 'big tit'! I am sure some would not argue!

The Tetons are spectacular and we actually waited a couple of days for the weather to improve, and it did. We did a fantastic walk and had lunch twice on the terrace of a Hotel with the whole of the Tetons across the lake. To the East of the Tetons is a wide valley (42 miles across) with Lakes spread along the the length of the range, so the sun is in the right place for amazing views/photos for most of the day.

I have finally seen the smallest tent in the world and the animal count is increasing. Another Moose. An Elk that ran through our camp site (the site was set in the woods with about 10 meters of forest between each pitch). About 50 metres beyond the site it stopped to eat and I managed to get right up to it, to my amazement it then lay down looking right at me! We didn't see Yogi in Yellowstone, but we did see a girl doing Yoga in the middle if the Lake and also saw Woody Woodpecker.

Went for a ride in the hills today and managed to run over a snake! About 2 cm wide and 400 cm long inches long. At first I thought it was a stick, then a dead snake then realised it was alive (this was in seconds as I was moving quite quickly, fortunately), sorry I didn't get a photo - or of the bloody dog that chased me past a house on the way back.

Finally a few photos of Buffalo Bill pass, between Cody and Yellowstone on the way to the Tetons, this of course was before the Tetons, but they had to come first!

Now to Utah, loads more parks and hopefully some better weather!