Diet on the go ....

                                Today we arrived at Santa Fe , and that was something I had

                                looked forward to since the very beginning of the trip .

                                It's a very beautiful city , but more on that tomorrow , with 

                                photos and such ,today it's a look at what , and where, we eat;

Dinner in our trailer , after a long day of driving .
 This was actually at a Walmart parking lot , and the curtain is  closed for privacy .
There is not all that much space in our trailer , it's just 17 feet long. But there is still space
enough for cooking , although most of the time we try to  keep it simple.
Practical though to not have to stand up from the table to clear it after the meal ,
the kitchen counter is well within reach !

This Loki says doesn't look all that appealing , but it was my first
restaurant meal in Santa Fe , and it tasted GREAT, so here it is .
It's called  Chilles Rellenos (I'm not sure about the spelling), and according
 to the waitress it's a favourite with the locals.

Downtown Santa Fe , at the plaza.
A street vendor was selling Fajitas ,  I think he's visible behind my head.
They were great , but were falling apart in our hands , so quite messy .
And in the end of my meal I discovered a dead fly underneath it all ,
I guess I'm lucky I spotted him before he became a part of my meal ...

This photo is from our time in Las Vegas .
We bought a 24 hour pass for the buffets , and managed to fit in 3 meals
within that time period.
This is breakfast , and as you can see it's a bit of everything on the plates ...
They did crepes to order ,  they were delicious ,
 and my absolute favourite  for breakfast.

I don't think Loki finished off everything on his plates ,
 but I'm sure that he ended it all with  an ice-cream cone.

So , there you have it , lots of good food on this trip ! :) !

A day of driving,and sight-seeing

Here we are , Taavi closing up the trailer to get going in the morning .
Great to get some good help from your kids at this age , no ?
We stayed 2 nights  in Flagstaff , and saw volcanoes , ancient native dwellings ,
visited the very touristic town  of  Sedona , and swam  down a rocky slide
 at Slide Rock State Park ,which  was extremely  refreshing (yes,it's warm here)
 and a novelty for me!

Walnut Canyon , just outside  Flagstaff .
The native people lived in improved caves (or overhangs)
here many hundred years ago ,and it is now a state park.
The photo below shows what their mountain home looked like form a distance.

If you look really carefully you can see the openings of the cave-dwellings.
Far below there used to be a river for their fresh -water need , and otherwise
they managed some gardening on these steep hills .Impressive!

written by Lena and continued awesomely and epicly and uber cool-isly by Loki

Ok, stop lookin' at the Pueblos  (cliff dwellings, if you can even see them),and take a niiiiiiiice looooooook at the ROCK.
 Notice anything different? Look at the lines in the rock, well surprisingly those lines were actually formed by air currents! Weird right?
 Photo not taken by me, I would not use that one , it's not close enough, she should have used my photo instead, it was superb!!!!

On our way east today we passed through Petrified Forest National Park .
I didn't know what to expect , and was happy we did this detour .
From the side they look  like a rusty log , but as you can see below they have
all kinds of  colors depending on their mineral content , stunning!

Can you believe it's  even wood???

                              

And some desert wildflower in what was a patch of Badlands within
the Petrified Forest.

The rest of the day was a long day of driving which ended at Walmart in a town called Grant .
Tomorrow we'll be in Santa Fe , but for now we're camping next to some truckers
while hearing the distant sound of the highway.
It's really not too bad to spend the night at Walmart , we got some last
minute essentials for our dinner ,and no paper work needed before you tuck in for the night....
Good night !

Grand Canyon!!!

                                One of those places that is  hard to capture on camera. It's such an
                                immense landscape,beyond my imagination.
                                Colder than I thought it'd be too ,close to freezing during the night.
                                We spent 2 days and 1 night here , and did some shorter , but of
                                 course steep ,hikes.

                                                   A view from the rim . It's hard to get a view of the river ,
                                     but it's  somewhere down there , but much further away than
                                    we ever went , of course.  

A family photo , finally.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! squirrels!!! cute as they may seem, every day 20-30 hikers get bitten by squirrels by pretend- feeding them, and you can't blame the squirrels when the people are  like "come eat my fingers they taste like candy!".
The squirrels of the Grand Canyon are definitely the most common mammal you'll see there, some visitors might go to the Grand Canyon and the only wildlife they will see is squirrels so it would be nice to not get bitten by the only wildlife you see, am i right????
Luckily we got a nice glance of a condor  on our way out ,whom we named George Freddy JR.
And if you are really brave you might like a mule ride down the Grand Canyon ,which doesn't have any source of railing unless you're at the top. So going down on a mule might not be the most pleasant ride. Fascinatingly though ,no one has ever died in the Grand Canyon by the cause of mules, they are amazingly sure footed compared to the many humans who will fall of the trail every year.

POSTED AND EDITED AND MADE AWESOME BY LOKI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A view from one of our hikes .

On our way up , and looking slightly tired ,I think .

After this hike we took off in our trailer again .

We went just a little bit south , to Flagstaff , so called because someone
hung the American flag off  a de-branched tree a long time ago.

                                Las Vegas !!!  Sunny , busy and actually a lot of fun !

                               As it was on our way I had decided we should stop by for a day

                               or two , something my family thought was kind of unnecessary ,

                               but once we got here , and they realized  the potential of seeing 

                               Cirque the Soleil they were sold.We stayed two nights in a
                               campground just off Las Vegas Boulevard.

The strip.
We had ice cream in New York , and breakfast in Paris , where you see the Eiffel
Tower .

                                  This was the second Cirque the Soleil show we saw , and it was great ,
 but even better was' Ka',a show
 they have performed in Vegas for 18 years by now .

We were also luck to see the exposition of 'Bodies',which travels around North America ,
 but has a permanent  display here in Vegas.It's actual real bodies  preserved in
a way so that you can see organs,muscles ,
and  everything else .Completely fascinating , and just a little bit unsettling at times .

And that is all for now , no more pics as the computer is taking what seems to
be a lifetime to upload  them  today .
Next stop Grand Canyon!

More trees and sunny sweetness!

For someone growing up in a colder northern country I was very
 happy indeed to meet with these trees . I've never seen a living orange  ,
and that made my day , that day .

Another Great Tree.

We drove on long, windy roads to the Sequoia National Park ,
 and met with the second largest tree in the park,the' General Grant'.
The Sequoia are the largest living tree on earth and they can get as old as 3,200 years !
It was only 4 degrees up here , and plenty of snow.

The General Grant !

The next day we met with quite a change in nature .
Just before entering Nevada desert land took over .

That made us aware of the sad fact that  the air-conditioning
in the car was broken !
Long days driving in a heated car does not do good for
a sometimes  impatient traveler.....

But hopefully this is something that can be fixed in Las Vegas ,
 because that's our next stop .
That'll be my second time in Vegas within 6 months ,who would have thought?
 

West coast wanderings!

Another Big Tree.Big enough for a car to pass through it , but considering our
trailer we had to be satisfied with just walking through it .This took place almost
a week ago(I've actually lost  count on the days, it is likely to  happen while traveling ,
 at least that's my experience),as I've had some issues around transferring photos ,
 so at the moment I'm just catching up to reach the present day .

San Francisco did have some sun , but also rain as you can see...  
The Golden Gate Bridge it is though ,and we drove across it numerous times
 from our campground.

A view over the city from Telegraph Hill .We spent just a day in San Francisco.
It was  a beautiful city ,absolutely stunning architecture but  we were eager to see more .
Reading through our guide books , and looking at the maps ,it is easy to feel like being in
constant motion to have time see all of the Southwest in just a month.
An impossible feat indeed. 

Looking relaxed , no?
 Our driving took us to Santa Cruz, and yes Liz , it is wonderful here!


We didn't see much more than the boardwalk around the beach , and the
Amusement Park where the boys enjoyed themselves for hours , while us
parents earned our first sunburn for the year!

It is Spring Break down here ,and the park was packed with happy  people .

A beach with  an Amusement Park , that's what every town should have !

In Monterey , just south of Santa Cruz , they have the most wonderful aquarium.
Just look how content and fulfilled the children get....
They also had a great city campground in the hillside , so no Walmart camping
 for us there.

Jelly fishes !

Seahorses!

And with that we left the glorious coast , which had finally started to spoil
us with some sunshine and headed inland ,but more on that very soon .

Looooooooooook!!! You're not looking! you're looking at my typing!!!

now you're looking unless of course you're still looking at my typing 

of course it is possible that you are looking the fire hydrant in the eye

(the fire hydrant), but it's red not green not yellow or pink either

and do you know what that means????? cause i really have no idea

what it means.

Oh yeah and for you guys who like fire hydrants there's one in the picture 

in the centre it's hard to spot, you'll need the eye of a goose and the 

hearing of a pigeon to see it (ask Taavi why you need hearing),

Fascinating fact: george the fire hydrant is the first fire hydrant

of the flaming tree bear department of putting out potentially

hazardous annoying thing's that destroy the forest. he also lives in the red-ishly 

not actually red wood forest.

Posted by Loki.

Redwood Forest ,Washington State!

                                          The rain kept falling through Oregon , and followed
                                          us to the beautiful Redwood Forest.
                                          Never leave for a camping trip without rain boots!!!
                                          We were wet and soggy , but still enjoyed the
                                          magnificent trees of this forest.
                                          
                                          Swedish: I Oregon regnade det , och aven i
                                          Washington State , dar vi stannade 2 natter i en
                                          underbar park med nagra  av världens hogsta trad.
                                          En lardom var att aldrig lamna regnstovlarna hemma
                                          nar man ska ut och campa ,det blev mycket hoppande
                                          mellan polar och lera!
                            

                                          This is the view from our campsite .
                                          
                                          Utsikten fran varan husvagn .

                                          See the mist , and the rain.....,and the barking seals.

                                           Sjolejon i regn och dimma.

                                           This is the highest tree in the park ,over 100 meters.
                                            I don't know how to turn this image around , I'll try
                                           to figure it out till my next posting , but for now
                                           you'll have to turn your head.

Here we are , on the road to sunshine and warmth.

                                 We try to fit some schoolwork in to the longest driving days .
                                 Lite skol arbete kan man gora aven i bilen..... (swedish)

                                 Our first 'luxury' camping spot ,at Walmart in Pasco . We did
                                 some shopping , and ended up with these nice camping chairs!
                                 Har 'taltade vi forsta natten , valdigt lyxigt,eller hur?

                                 Day 2 ! Driving through the very beautiful Columbia Gorge we
                                 stopped to learn some of its natural history , and about raptors.
                                 Dag 2! Vi korde genom det valdigt vackra Columbia Gorge ,
                                 och stannade vid ett museum for att lara oss lite om dess historia.

                                 Mexican food in Hood River  ,and a game of Magic while
                                 waiting for food to arrive.
                                  Mexikansk mat i en sot ,liten  stad , och kortspel(Magic) medan
                                  vi vantade pa maten

A day before take-off!

trailertimeincactusland

This is my very first attempt at creating a blog , and this is my very first posting.
I started this blog to share my family's month-long travels through the American Southwest  ,
planned to start April 13 ,2011.