Well, I am back in Australia, my month in USA with Scott over so quickly. It is going to be at least a year before I can go back over, there are various reasons, one being I am out of annual leave and my boss has threatened to chain me to my desk if I think of leaving again

We left Wendi's and had a change of pace from wildfires - we encountered hail storms instead. The hail may have been small, but it hurt! We got caught in two hail storms on the very first day of leaving Wendi's. We only made it a few hours away from Idaho before we gave up and took refuge in a cabin in just south of White Bird, Idaho. The price was a bit on the ridiculous side, but we wasted several hours trying to find a place as most hotels, motels etc were completely packed due to all the fire fighters that were stationed in these areas. We ran into some locals in Grangeville who knew the owners of Hoots Suites and let us use their phone (I had no reception) to call to see if they had anything. They had one cabin left, and we grabbed it. It was only an hour to White Bird, but it took us nearly 4 hours due to the storms. Not a great experience. However whilst we took refuge in a Texaco gas station, shivering and leaking puddles all over their floor, I became the 'proud' (?) owner of an Idaho Vandals hoodie - apparently they are a football team. Scotty was fortunate enough to be able to obtain something plain black, no logos etc.

Besides the inclement weather, there was nothing too much worthy of words to write about on the southbound trip. Well, having said that, lol, there was a couple of things. Alina would randomly pick a spot on the map, that was roughly 400 miles from wherever we were and that would be our goal for the day. This particular day we were aiming to make it to Jordan Valley in Oregon. When we got there, well, there wasn't anything to note except the 'showgrounds', a Shell gas station, a post office, and a local store. One of the locals pointed us to the RV park just down the road, told us to mention his name and Fred would give us a decent rate, apparently he accepted tent campers (most RV parks don't have tent sites). Fred gave us a very very reasonable rate and it might have had to do a little with the fact that in his day he rode motorcycles, combined with the fact that we stood and chatted for about 20 mins before we got to the pricing of stuff and we patiently listened to a tale about his late wife. We chatted again with Fred later that night and again the next morning. We didn't leave until midday the next day, late for our plans, but Fred need some ears and company, 84 and on his own, managing his RV Recreational Park, which though it had regular customers, they were not interested in Fred, but doing their own thing like hunting or fishing. Very sweet man who loved his wife dearly. We've seen the photos and heard the tales. Precious memories shared with us.

When we hit the Nevada border - the dinky little town, McDermitt, had a 'casino'. This is where we stopped and had a reasonable lunch for a reasonable price. We also put $5 in the pokie machine - where predictably we won nothing, lol.

Next stop ended up being Lovelock, Nevada. It was supposed to be another town an hour down the road, but we realised we had reached our limit for the day and wound up at the Lazy K Campground. Nothing to boast about here - reasonably priced, but obviously aging, no exciting facilities, but I don't need those, I am happy with modern toilets and showers. Tent sites were on sand which at first thought was weird, but then again, we were in the desert, grass is probably difficult to maintain/grow.

On the road again and we had to make a stop. The pair of us were amazed to see in the middle of the desert a massive lake. It was Humboldt lake and it shrinking every year. We drove down to it and we saw all the markers showing how high the lake was at each year. There were some locals down at the shore and they were telling us how the lake has changed from when they were kids and when their parents were kids. The tale was sad, as a lot of it had to do with human mismanagement. Apparently it has been fished out and it is filled with algae and seaweed. It looked far nicer from up on the Interstate than it did down close to it. The people we met had a couple of dogs with them, one of which was a timber wolf crossed with a golden retriever - it looked beautiful, but was wary of people, makes me wonder how much of the wolf was in the breed.

We stopped at Hawthorne for lunch, good old Maccas We filled up our water bottles with ice and a bit of water. We still had more desert to traverse before we would cross the border into California and head into the mountains, the back of Yosemite. We stopped not long after we crossed the border and found some dubious shade under a Manzanita tree to drink our water, as the ice was almost completely melted, it had only been an hour. We circled around Mono Lake, passing through Mono City, which, honestly, couldn't even been given the title of town. It was one of those blink and you miss it places; very grandiose thinking to name it a city.

Well, around another bend and going up a mountain towards Lee Vining, we saw a car pulled over on the side of the road, opposite direction, bonnet up and a woman standing behind the car crying. Scotty being Scotty, pulled over and we went to investigate. The woman, whose name was Darla, had Ankylosing Spondylitis which is a type of arthritis that attacks your spine first and then spreads out to the rest of your body. Hers had already spread to her shoulders and arms, one of which was in a permanent soft, removable cast. Anyways, the car's air con stopped working and then 30 seconds later the power steering went and she did her best to get the car off the road. But she was in the process of moving house and she had her little dog Mia with her as well as her two green & yellow budgies. Scott commenced investigating the issues whilst I got her animals out of the car and into some shade. I won't go into much more details except to say we did some work on the car, but the issue was something we couldn't fixed. For once I had reception and we used my phone to call AAA and to get a tow. Once she was all set, car on the tow truck, we took off and headed for Yosemite.

We entered Yosemite via the Tioga Pass. It was beautiful. The first night we camped at Porcupine Flats. With our stop to help Darla, we only just got our camp set up and fire going as the sun completely disappeared. We, well, Scott, ended up helping the helpless Italians with making a decent fire. We also helped them the next morning by letting them use our fire and our saucepan and our coffee and water to 'make café' - the poor loves had come very unprepared for camping in the mountains. They decided to not stay another night. We on the other hand wandered on down to the Valley, and then took off to the Bridalveil Creek Camp for our second night. Our third day was supposed to be at Mariposa grove, on our way out through the bottom of Yosemite via the 41. Unfortunately the fires were not all under control in California and there was a fire at Oakhurst that broke out whilst we were in the Valley, so we had to head back up to exit through El Portal, which also meant not being able to go to Mariposa Grove and see the massive Sequoia trees. Being in Yosemite was beautiful. There are no words for it. During the day you wander around and take in these natural monuments. At night it is quiet, no lights, just the moon and stars. It is beautiful.

Well, we exited the park and our stop that night was Fresno. Not the nicest place, but it had a Motel 6 with an available room and that was good enough for us Across the road was a Carl Jr's, which is kind of like a corner burger shop crossed with a Maccas. Anyways, they get a mention here because they have gluten free items on their menu :)
From Fresno we pushed through to Los Angeles. And here Scott and I spent a couple of quiet days doing nothing much. Not even much talking actually. We caught the shuttle out to the airport and just sat there, waiting for the time to tick by and for me to have to go through the security rigmarole etc and to fly far, far away. Good-byes came and I tried not to cry, but it doesn't matter how determined I am, having to leave him again and again makes my heart sad, regardless how practical and logical my mind may be.

So here I am, in Australia and there he is, in America. But it is not for forever. We have plans and goals and it just takes time to work through them.

Oh, I have had a few messages about where are all the photos?! They are coming. I took most of the photos on my actual camera, rather than my iphone. So I have to download them and sort them and then upload them. So I promise over the next couple of weeks photos will be forth coming.