some updates...

May seems to have been a bad month for blogging.  A few technical hiccups, real work and lack of internet time were the main causes - skype has had more of my time than blogspot recently, and had a few camera issues at the Grand Canyon.  Who would have thought that a toothbrush would be the tool to save a broken digital camera?  Top tip should you ever drop yours in sand a long way from a camera shop... Anyway, there's some stuff from the USA, the first few weeks in Canada, and some extra photos etc from South America for you to browse over halfterm.
Enjoy the Jubilee celebrations, (not much in the way of jubilance here, can't even find a union jack at the moment!) and have a great extended holiday.
Miss Butler  

Road Tripping: America is very American

 
This is the third time I have crossed America over land.  In 2007 I went from New York to Los Angeles by many Greyhound buses to work as a soccer coach. When my job ended, I drove from LA to Savannah, Georgia (on the East Coast), and then travelled back up to New York to fly home.  On this trip, the plane landed in Miami, and I needed to get to Vancouver, Canada.  If you look on a map, there's a lot of USA in between!



 


Then and now the overwhelming impression I have of America is just how American it is.  Everything looks like it should, like it does in films.  Stuff is huge, from trains to soft drinks, there's signs about rattlesnakes, big deserts and bigger desserts.  Every puddle in Florida seemed to have an Alligator in it, people are really friendly and just lo-ove my  English accent.  The National Parks look like they have been CGI-ed to be absolutely perfect.  America is brilliant!










 Alligator - Florida Everglades.  Also lots of turtles, snakes and very big birds.

Above:  There are lots of flags (very patriotic), though I guess at the moment there are plenty of Union Jacks around the UK!  (Bet the jubilee has been fun - have been trying to keep up to date on the BBC news site - looks like a good party).

Below:  Very tall waterfall in Yosemite National Park.

Rodeo Time!

An example of this amazing American-ness is this.  One day after a long drive through an area of swamps we reached the town of Bowie, Texas.  It was about 8pm, and seeing some big floodlights on in this small town, decided to investigate what might be happening.  It turned out to be a high school rodeo.  The students on the gate told us that relatively this was a pretty low level one, but it looked very impressive to me.  



The horse riders were just fearless doing speed courses, and there were some not big young people wrestling some fairly sizeable calves to the ground.  Everybody was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and cowboy hats, and supporting all the competitors as they rode, lassoo-ed and wrestled in a variety of events.  Much better than Britain's Got Talent. 

(I have some video of the bull-riding, so when I can work out how to get video from my iPod to here you can see that - any help with that much appreciated!)