Monuments & Aerospace

worldtour_5995.JPG, originally uploaded by mark benger.

As you can see from the above pic, I'm now in Washington DC, home of many fine monuments, a certain pale residence, and most importantly the Smithsonian Air & Space museum.
Two complaints though - it's bitterly cold, and the only food option at the Air & Space museum is Macdonald's. Still they did have Spaceship One and a spitfire, and unlike most US museums were prepared to note & credit when something wasn't invented in the good old USA.

Austin Texas

First off many thanks to Ray and Ryan, who I met up with in the Bay of Islads in New Zealand, for putting up with me for the past couple of days.

So what have I been up to since my last entry? From Seattle I headed down to Portland on the shortest US rail trip so far at only 4 hours, before hading back east to Chicago where I bounced back west to LA via the Grand Canyon (snowy but uncrowded). I then headed straight east to Texas and Austin. The train stopped overnight in San Antonio, so I wandered off to see the Alamo at midnight.

Next stop is back to Chicago (all rails lead to Chicago) and then onto Washington DC.

Home of Starbucks

worldtour_5840.JPG, originally uploaded by mark benger.

I'm in Seattle, home of Starbucks, Boeing and Microsoft for a flying visit - just one night before heading to Portland, then back to Chicago before heading south to the Grand Canyon and a bit of warmth (its cold here).

I seem to be loosing things on this trip, the latest count is:
1 Mobile phone (plus 1 broken)
1 Compact camera
4 or 5 hats
1 t shirt

Ps I will be arriving back home in early march

San Francisco to Denver

worldtour_5780.JPG, originally uploaded by mark benger.

I've survived the two day trip on Amtrak from San Francisco to Denver, not without a few delays. The train was over two hours late leaving, and was held up by snow in the mountains so was about six hours late into Denver, which meant arriving at 2am.

Denver itself is cold (had 2 inches+ of snow this afternoon) but I've managed to get some shopping done.

Napa Valley Wine train

worldtour_5773.JPG, originally uploaded by mark benger.

Trains & wine tasting in one day, a hard combination to beat, pity its still raing non stop though.

Cycling in the rain

worldtour_5766.JPG, originally uploaded by mark benger.

Its cold & wet here - so cold I've even had to buy a pair of gloves (and a lightsaber, but for different reasons) so obviously the thing to do was to rent a bike for a nice ride over a certain iconic bridge for a late lunch on the other side of the harbour?
I think I managed to pull off the drowned rat impersination quite well.

A video I found

Something to do if your bored, but have access to a lot of rubber bands, some wood and a couple of motors.