Cowboy country

After an all-too-short stay in the wonderfully laid back town of Flagstaff we moved north, skirting the eastern tip of the Grand Canyon through the Painted Desert. Life, incredibly, got even more sparse than yesterday as we passed by Indian reservations, sprawling ranches (one with a hand-painted "sheep for sale" sign), and more than a few churches.

Our goal was Monument Valley, a place immortalised in Westerns and various other films down the years. It's a Navajo Tribal Park where pillars of rock jut several hundred feet into the air, a sort-of Grand Canyon in reverse. The scale and sheer improbability of the place is mind boggling.

Rooms in the two hotels here are extortionate, so we opted to sleep under canvas. Unfortunately we're not equipped for desert camping, a discovery made as soon as we tried to push a tent peg into sand and gravel baked hard as concrete. Kicking around in the dust we found several twisted pegs from previous occupants. But some strategic placement of rocks, a bit of elbow grease, and our shelter was up and hopefully won't blow away.

The place we're staying is called Goulding, after Harry Goulding who set up the trading post here. He's something of a hero amongst the Navajo, having got Hollywood to bring several productions out here during the depression era (locals could earn $5 a day, or $8 if they brought their horse). Hannah and I wandered down to the local museum, which doubles as a shrine to John Wayne who shot numerous films (and bad guys) hereabouts. They also filmed Once Upon a Time in the West here - the best Western ever made (tied with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, of course).

Tomorrow we're going to hike as close as we can to the monoliths, and right now I'm off to try to photograph some stars. With no sizeable settlement within miles, the night sky is amazing.

The some colours of the Painted Desert.

Still only the one wife.

One of the first monuments you spot. It's a face!

And a few more.

Camping in very nice surroundings.

Me and The Duke (I've obviously already met The King...)

Lots of choice.

A few well-known names in the museum visitors' book.

The view from our bedroom.

Ignacito

There aren't enough Chilean supporters for the current World Cup, so Silvi and Ignacio decided to add one more to their number. Little Ignacio was welcomed into the world on Friday 11th June (so as not to miss a game), was 7.6lbs and 20.9 inches. Mother, father, and baby are all doing well.

¡Hola Ignacito!

Happy family.

The loneliness of the long distance blogger

See what lengths I go to to keep you informed?! I'm currently typing by gaslight, underneath the stars in a campsite in Utah. And it has free wi-fi! Except it is more than a little dodgy. To be precise, the wi-fi is excellent but their connection to the Internet feels as distant as the nearest McDonalds (1 hour away).

I'll keep trying!

If only the Internet was gas powered too...

We were somewhere around Barstow

It was time to put the road into road trip. We waved goodbye to the luxury of the Hollands' residence and climbed into the mountains east of LA, glad to see that most of the traffic was heading into the metropolis. An hour on the road and we'd moved from overpopulation to the emptiness of the high desert.

Here we decided to get even more authentic, and move from the flat, new I-40 onto the Mother Road - Route 66. It runs alongside the interstate for much of the way, but now and again loops off into the Mojave Desert and passes through towns for which the phrase "seen better days" was invented.

One of the more interesting places we passed through was Amboy, population: 2. The cafe here used to employ 90 servers, and now they're lucky to see that many tourists in a week. Yet with some co-ordination they're (both?) trying to rejuvenate the place, have just got their post office reopened, and are raising money to relight the sign of Roy's Motel. Honestly, middle of nowhere doesn't even begin to give you directions here.

A town further on, Oatman, has tried a different response to the hard times, theming itself up as a wild west outpost. For some reason I couldn't determine, donkeys are allowed to roam free within the city limits. The Oatman Outlaws put on what they describe as a show at high noon and 2.15pm every day. The place's best hope is probably the nearby goldmine that, due to current high prices for the metal, has recently reopened.

We finished the day at Grand Canyon Caverns, located slightly north-east of the middle of nowhere. There are some impressive caves here, but at $15 each entrance fee we took a picture of the dinosaur outside and headed on to Flagstaff.

It was a stunning day of doing American things along an American icon, but I can only imagine what it must have been like when this was the transcontinental route from Chicago to LA serving thousands of cars and trucks a day. In the words of Nat King Cole:

If you ever plan to motor west,

Travel my way, take the highway that is best.

Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

Not even a Starbucks nearby.

The desert, the empty tarmac, and a car. What more do you need?

The only life for miles around. But quite advanced life, I like to think.

Wish you were here. Surely the inspiration for the town in Cars.

Oatman, where the donkey roams free.

The outlaws.

Should be outlawed.

Watch this space...

One of these spectators is a local.

Back up into the desert mountains.

Found him!

Trains were the only thing to keep us company for most of the day. Just like in University Village!

The price of admission was even scarier.

Children of the organic corn

Gen always manages to find something fun and/or crazy for us to do whenever we visit, and she kept up her hit rate today with a visit to a farm. Not any farm, but a fully organic, ethical, hand-picked smallholding in one of the most expensive slices of real estate in California. That might explain the $13 entrance fee - I should suggest that to my Aunt and Uncle for their dairy farm in West Wales.

Anyway, it turned out to be money well spent. We piled into a tractor-drawn trailer in the scorching Orange County sun and were whisked off to the nearby fields. We toured about 30 acres of complementarily-planted and unsprayed lettuces, beans, broccolini, tomatoes, and many more. At each crop the tractor stopped (much to Frankie's annoyance - go non-gender-stereotyped girl!) and we were given samples straight from the soil.

Everything was delicious. Things had a sweetness that you just don't get after days of transport, and were sun-warmed rather than frozen to death in fridges. Perhaps it was psychosomatic, but eating something twenty seconds after it was picked tasted great. Our one-year-old quality tester was mightily impressed.

Finally it was on to the strawberries, where we stepped off the trailer with empty punnets in hand. You could pick enough berries to fill your box...and eat as many as you wanted as you went too! Gorging yourself on enough strawberries to get your full $13 value is no small task, let me tell you.

Ambitions of being a farm worker.

On the trailer.

Hannah has just asked Gen if she usually buys ethically.

Strawberry fields forever.

Trying to smoke a runner bean. These Californians!

Frankie, less than impressed with sugar snaps.

Crops lines.

Sadly they don't farm blue cheese dressing here.

James: suspicious.

Corny caption.

What's up doc?

What it's all about.

One for the box, three for me...

Hints of vanilla and...um...strawberry.

A Frankie-sized tower of pickings.

Holland family on holiday.

Biting off more than she can chew?

And now the results. No. 1: organic, ethical, hand-picked, completely delicious strawberry margaritas.

No. 2: strawberry cheesecake. Yum.

Then like my dreams they fade and die

No need for any kind of narrative here, I know why you're reading this blog. Here are some adorable photos of Frankie and Jim playing with bubbles.

Childcare made easy.

Bubbles!

More bubbles!

James is pushed to the limit of his multitasking capabilities.

Mickey Mouse impersonation.

Losing draw

The sun will rise, the seasons will change, England will beat the USA at football. Some things in this world are right and proper and can be taken for granted.

Unfortunately someone forgot to tell the England team this, specifically our keeper. After a dream start with a goal on four minutes, our first game of World Cup 2010 became exactly the sort of match that Americans criticise the sport for. Then came that goal.

I guess we had a good time in a nice bar with tasty beer and food, but after that happens and you realise you're the only England supporters there...it puts a damper on your day. No matter - all World Cup Champions start slowly, right? But did it have to be against this team?!

Ah, the youthful hope of the innocent. So quickly and cruelly dashed.

Patriots standing together for the national anthem.

The closest Gen will ever get to attending a football match.

Woo hoo! We scored!! Take that USA!

Later, in mourning.