The Blog Awards

We're home again. Happily. We've reunited with family (see below) and started putting down roots (tentatively). Some pics of homecoming below, followed by The Blog Awards and some highlights.


Me with my mum, sister and her baby Abigail (7 months).

The Blog Awards (Thank you and Goodnight)

Most avid blog supporter: Jeff Brovet/ Delene Richards
Most avid blog commenter: Christine Terry
Most enthusiastic blog-writer-encourager: Nicci O'Keeffe
Most unexpected blog commenter: Duncan Smallbones/ Nickie Wallace
Most cheeky blog comments: Glen Tyler

Best meal: Salmon and moose in the Arctic (with Patrick and the Hickers)
Best view: North Slope, Alaskan Arctic (also Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica- 40 degrees 100% humidity and jungle to the horizon)
Most romantic place: Log cabin, Shenandoah (Virginia)
Scariest experience: Robyn- Bear Night, Arctic, Mark- Me, scared?
Most mileage travelled in one day: 800 miles
Worst experience: Hiking in dust storm, Grand Canyon (Robyn howling, Mark bewildered)
Best night out: New Orleans: Zydeco dancing and then dinner with Don and Jenny
Most fun experience: Riding tsunami from calving glacier in kayak on Prince William Sound, Alaska (again!)
Best musical moment: Preservation Hall, New Orleans (jazz maestros making music for your feet)
Worst campsite: Pecos, Texas (also Monument Valley and also......)
Best night's sleep: the next night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas
Worst injury: Robyn impaling herself on multiple tree spikes in bog in Costa Rica (followed by Mark chuckling while watching pulsation as spikes removed from artery)
Favourite supermarket: Trader Joe's ("I thought we were only going in for broccoli!")
Hottest night: La Leona, Corcovado National Park.
Coldest night: Robyn- Natchez Trace, Mississippi Mark- Me, cold?
Worst fight: New Jersey Turnpike (rush hour, Robyn driving, Mark thinking he should be driving)
Most confusing moment: Lost in New York City (part of above)
Friendliest stranger: Gene, Road Worker, Dalton Highway, Arctic
Most beautiful bird: Black throated trogon (also Scarlet Macaw and Long tailed Jaeger)

Stats
Distance covered: 24 000 km (15000 miles)
Budget daily: $70-80
Highest altitude: 12000 feet (Wheeler Peak walk, Taos, New Mexico)
Coldest temperature: -8 C, Vermont
Hottest temperature: Overcountable in Costa Rica

So, we're signing out. If you're interested in hearing about life in Cape Town, email us on: mark.richards111@gmail.com and robynltyler@gmail.com.

Byeeeeeee...

One last (icy) blast

It would be out of keeping with our record thus far to make a quiet exit from this road trip of a lifetime. Think selling our car 2 days before our departure, driving a car into a snowy ditch, twizzling gracefully across a frozen pond in Central Park and one last hell-bent careen down a ski slope.

Abandoning our lovemobile in Anneke and David's driveway, we hopped on the downtown train to the city on Thursday night. Courtesy of our fairygodmother and father in Seattle, we spent the night in an eclectic loft apartment BnB in lower Manhattan. Oh, the lights! The lights! The Rockefeller Christmas tree. The freezing wind funneling through the skyscrapers. Muffled up to our eyeballs we roamed the streets and sought refuge in the alluring shops and eateries around Union Square. A memorable meal was consumed at Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown before skeetering back to Pleasantville.

The Leffels had dangled a huge carrot of a chance to ski one last time with them at a resort in Vermont, but we had to sell our car. Phone calls flew back and forth and we were awoken on Saturday morning by a Nigerian paediatrician at the door. The deal was sealed then and there and before you could say 'off-piste', we were gunning it up the Taconic Parkway to join the Leffels for a morning of skiing on Sunday.

It was all going swimmingly until we lept into David's car to drive back to Pleasantville. The one piece of advice any experienced snow-and-ice driver tells you is: don't use the brakes. This works until you have to avoid an oncoming car in your lane. Mark cleverly chose the fluffiest snow drift to drive into, so no damage was done, but the wheels were firmly cemented into the ditch. A cold three hours passed before the last party was back on the road heading South in snow, sleet, rain and black ice to do our final pack and say goodbye to Uncle Sam.

We are currently in a jet-lagged fug, but happy to be with Nicci and Lyons to gird our loins for the final leg to Cape Town.

We are considering setting up a support group for our readers after our next and final blog. Some of you might be wondering: what will we do while sipping our morning coffee? how will we fulfil our need for escapism now? how will we get that psychological boost we're used to from comparing our settled, safe lives with the madness and risk of robynandmarksroadtrip? While of course others will be thinking...uh, where did you guys go again? No travel souvenirs for you lot. In any event, in our last blog, we'll be giving back to you loyal readers. Expect: The Blog Awards.

R

Cape Cod

Leaving Narnia we nudged our ever loyal Veedub towards the coast to see how the Pilgrim Fathers took to their new land. A sort of ending of the north-easternmost leg of our journey. This time, having had our vows put to the test on the New Jersey Turnpike, we were armed with that miracle of marital bliss- a satellite navigator run by the inimitable Carla, she of silky smooth voice with ne'er a flicker of emotional perturbation at a wanton right turn instead of straight (she only gets mildly excited when you arrive at your destination).

Through Boston and down into the Cape we ran, savouring these hours of freedom and our own company after the days of merry thronging with friends and family that have marked our last few weeks. We had hoped to camp somewhere, but it appears that not all of America shares our passion for stars and frozen noses. Thus it was that we wended our way to the Provincetown Inn, an old establishment, empty passages still echoing summer gaiety.

It was here in Provincetown that the first Pilgrims first made landfall opting to carry on sailing to Plymouth. The beaches are wind swept and wide. Eider ducks bob in the water and only the most solitary of walkers passes by. It was good to wander along the miles of seashore together, a happy mix of silence and easy conversation- remembering, looking ahead, dreaming.

It is altogether a piece of America that lives for summer's throng- children in the sand, men in boats and picnic baskets. Now it is cold with a watery sun and we tilted our way to New York, the beginning of the end.

Snow and sleigh bells

Being in New England at this time of year feels a little like Narnia. For us, in our memories, it will always be winter, but never Christmas. Everything is moving inexorably towards December 25th with mistletoe, tinsel and even snow in tow. But alas, we'll be missing the main event.

We've beaten a hasty path North from Raleigh via Virginia (a romantic stop in a woodsy cabin with a jacuzzi bath in the bedroom - Mark's birthday treat) to New Hampshire where we're visiting our friend John Cristando at Dartmouth College. A learning environment second to none with - my favourite - a glittering Christmas tree in the middle of the Green. We've rubbed shoulders with bright, handsome MBA students in John's class and gawked at the fluffy white stuff like we haven't since seeing it adorn the slopes of Meribel, France, in January.


It is chilly, though, and our chances of one more night camping on the coast are looking slim. Unless we want to risk having a sheriff shining his flashlight into our van window in the dead of night on the side of a highway. All shall be revealed in a few days. After Cape Cod, we'll be heading back to Pleasantville, New York until we fly to London on the 15th, with a short excursion into The City on the 10th.

We have our seatbelts securely fastened for the transition to South Africa. Hopefully the turbulence will be light. Come on Lovemobile, you can do it! (Or rather, come on Craigslist, work your magic!)

R

DC dreaming

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.” American Constitution

Lovemobile in general anaesthesia, warm home with the Brovets in Raleigh, Robyn and I headed up to Washington DC in a normal automobile. Landing deep in the travail of Thanksgiving highway gridlock we got to the Mall late in the afternoon as dusk on a wintry day fell. Our walking route took in the milestones of this great human experiment that is the USA. Washington, Jefferson, FDR and Lincoln, silent in their stone memorials. Men who saw clearly and with tenacity and the power of the word, written and spoken, laid down some of the yardposts of this thing we call democracy. As Jeff Brovet noted after we recounted our afternoon on the Mall, “It makes you want to go off and start your own country”.

Next to the memorials of these figures, stand those more solemn and disquieting. Vietnam, Korea, World War II. Less easy to place amid the triumphs earlier in our perambulation. A reminder of the discord between gilded words and human proclivity. But perhaps also a call to return again and again to the task of nation building.

A new day and to the other end of the Mall to realise the childhood dream of visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Apollo, Voyager, Hubble, Saturn V, Orville and Wilbur, Lindbergh, Yeager, X-15 among the pantheon. And even deeper into the psyche of closet petrol-head, boy-racer, eternal kid- an IMAX of an F-15 jet pilot zooming around with his buddies over Nevada. Brilliant. Left alone by my spouse, I became even more primal, finding my way to the Geology section of the Natural History Museum where for a happy two hours I crept amidst the prizes of asteroids, mantle and tectonic.

And then to the holy of holies. As icy winds whipped across the Capitol, we came as disciples from across the globe to that most sacrosanct. For we waited our cold two hours to enter into the chamber of the US Supreme Court. Negotiating our way through body searches and metal detectors we came to look through the heavy red curtains into the room where two people argued their cases before the nine assembled judges of the Court. It is here that all of us came to see the daily reminder of the task never finished, yet so eagerly embarked upon by Messrs Jefferson et al. No great potentate. Only men and women arguing the cases for freedom and obligation.


Outside, the wind was still icy, but we made our return to Raleigh inspired by this wonderful, perplexing country. Awaiting us, birthday tuna and a happy two year old.

M

A Turkey Tale

The warmth of the hearth, grandma's pie and an overwhelmingly large stuffed bird in the oven - no, we haven't time-warped 5 weeks ahead to Christmas, it's Thanksgiving: that most American of holidays.

We are hunkering down at our friends the Brovets in Raleigh, North Carolina. Our happily extended stay with them is due to the Lovemobile demanding some love (I mean, honestly!) in the form of a new cleavis. I know that sounds like a growth you might expect to find in a nasty place, but it's actually a part of a transmission. So we'll make a foray to DC to get our fix of Smithsonianism and then come back to Raleigh for a last soiree with the Brovets and pick up our spanking new cleavis and attendant Lovemobile.

Mark has refound his love of the kitchen and has baked scones and rusks and tonight is cooking the quail he shot in Beaufort. Yes, we entered the life of the landed gentry for a day. I even had a go at sporting clay shooting. I managed to hit a few flying clay frisbees, which was a miracle seeing as my eyes were closed for many shots as I was recovering from the kick of the shotgun.

Erin, Jeff, Bongi and Ava have been facilitating our relaxation and recuperation of body and mind (this is becoming a theme on the East Coast) in the form of lots of good eating and drinking, a brand new uber guest bed and daily walks around the neighbourhood or local Shelly Lake. We have loved sharing family and extended-family time with the Brovets. Today Erin treated me to a true shopping spree to make sure I'm ready to hit 5th Avenue and the Kings Road in an upcoming episode of 'The Road Trip goes Upscale'.



R

Y'all come back now!

'I am following the river, down the highway to the cradle of the Civil War' (Paul Simon)







































We're hunting down the elusive SOUTH. Everybody tells you, 'over in Alabama/South Carolina/Georgia - that's the real South. Now, you're not gonna taste grits like you'll have them in North Carolina/Mississippi.' Every town seems to have some claim to a conclusive battle in the Civil War. Certainly every state has a few claims on literary or musical greats. So we're still hunting.

Admittedly, our main concern these days is mileage and hence we've sacrificed dalliances into history. From New Orleans we raced up the Natchez Trace parkway through Mississippi and Alabama to Tennessee and now we've wound our way through Georgia to Beaufort, South Carolina. A key feature of our roadtrip at the moment is catching up with old friends. In Sewanee, Tennessee, we stayed the night with my friend Cari who was a camp counsellor with me when I was 18. In Beaufort we are hosted by the Burtons. Paul and Mark grew up barefoot and carefree in Ladysmith together in the '70s.

This part of the world is dead beautiful. It is the opening shots of 'Prince of Tides' - indeed Pat Conroy is a veritable neighbour of the Burtons. The abundant water teems with scaly, shelly, befeelered things, which are all good eatin' - all excepting the 'gators which stop you being lulled into a false sense of paradise.

Winter is extending its tentacles, even in the balmy South, and we feel like we've turned towards home. And what a good feeling that is, despite the delights that still await us.

R