Back in Sydney

I do enjoy travelling. I had another great flight across the USA (from Washington to LA) and then over the Pacific to Sydney. I got upgraded again on the trans-Pacific flight and so spent most of that journey asleep (after watching, and enjoying, Slumdog Millionaire). I spent most of the first flight over the USA looking out of the window. After the clouds cleared we were over the prairies - which are amazing from above. You see heaps of perfectly circular fields. We then started to get closer to the mountains. We (well at least I - I don't think that anyone else on the flight was looking out of the windows) spotted an incredible chasm/gorge. On the photo attached it looks like a river, but it was a spectacular crack in the landscape! We then started flying over the snow-covered mountains. Then it got dark.

I decided to pass the rest of the flight reading the in-flight shopping guide. This was an eye-opening experience. First, the guide was actually thicker than the inflight magazine (and much more interesting). I was close to buying my parents a "garden yeti" which apparently would have their "guests doing a double-take as they admired their creative home or garden style". I could also have bought a "dog bed' which would keep my pet "cool, comfortable and off the hard, dirty ground", or a "rain gauge" which allowed me to determine how much rain had fallen without leaving the house - I could simply point my TV remote at the gauge (from 25' away) and it would tell me if it was raining - even at night! Well, that's useful! But not as useful as a "plastic rock" which was replicated from "rocks found in nature". Apparently they would "enhance my garden".

I've found a few more photos of Virginia Beach and Washington that I thought that I'd attach. The first, of the "17th street", is of the main shopping street in Virginia Beach. The second was taken by hanging out the car window on our way to the Sugarloaf mountain near Washington. The panorama (click for a larger image) is of the beautiful woods on the mountain. I then have a photo of a butterfly we spotted at the Potomac river (mum has now recognised is as a zebra swallowtail). The next photo (sorry about this medly of photos) is of the boat on the canal next to the river. And finally ... another view of the rapids!

I'm off to Parkes tomorrow. It should be an interesting trip! I have to drive in a Prius hybrid car which has lots of buttons that I can press. I'm in Parkes for a week and then get back to Sydney for one day before flying off the Beijing (via Shanghai).

I'm excited ... I've booked a trip to see the mountains in New Zealand with Anna! We're still "arguing" about exactly where we want to go, but I'm pushing for us to drive to the Fox Glacier.