The weather here really is putting the "Washing" into "Washington"; it's absolutely drilling down outside as I type. There's been about 9 inches of rain in the past 48 hours apparently; it's not hard to believe. The rain isn't even constant though; it's just when it does come down, it *really* comes down ( Read more... )

Catching up on much needed sleep and going out at nights might be somewhat mutually exclusive, but it's been really, really enjoyable ( Read more... )

Ok, we're now rested and mostly recharged for tonight; we're meeting Matt and Shannon (aka Oletheros and Pizza_Tram shortly, heading out for some food (both Ali and I are planning to gorge ourselves on salad, as everything that's passed our mouths in the past 3 days has come out of a microwave), and then on for drinks and what have you ( Read more... )

The train trip hasn't gone quite as we'd hoped; in fact, it's been a fairly surprising introduction to the US rail system. Having booked ourselves a sleeper cabin for each night of the trip, we'd envisaged an American take on the Orient Express; a relaxing couple of days wending our way up and across the country, looking up from our books ( Read more... )

We've taken care of all the admin today that we needed to; shopped for the train jounrney, sent home a *huge* box of stuff we no longer need, and dropped the car back into the airport rental place ( Read more... )

No updates for the last couple of days, because we've done very little. Mostly because it's been bakingly hot; 36-38C in the shade means that doing anything that involves leaving the airconditioned motel room is a struggle ( Read more... )

Last night didn't quite go according to plan, but we had fun nonetheless. We ended up in a bar in a nearby hotel, in which they were showing the NBA final. They'd laid on free food and cheap beer, as well as a raffle, so rather than just having some food and heading home, we stopped in there for quite some time. The local team lost the game, but we ( Read more... )

We're now in Texas, and therefore only a couple of hours shy of our final driving destination; Austin. Originally we'd planned to continue the 'Tin-Foil Hat' leg of the trip by going to see the book depository/grassy knoll etc in Dallas itself, but after getting stuck in a huge traffic jam on the interstate for a long time (curious how you never ( Read more... )

Another roasting day; we've driven to Wichita Falls, Texas. This obviously means that I can't get '7 Nation Army' out of my head, even though I know that was a different Wichita. Before leaving Lubbock this morning, we stopped in at a real "locals" pancake house for breakfast. Not only was the entire parking lot full of trucks, trucks and more ( Read more... )

We're in Texas! It's also bakingly hot.

The journey down here was fine; we stopped in en route in Roswell, scene of the famous Roswell UFO crash. The whole town (much bigger than we thought) is pretty much alien-bonkers; even the streetlights have the slanted almond "grey" eyes painted onto them ( Read more... )