We're Home

Just a quick post to let you know that we've made it back safely.

From The Hotel Room at Seattle Airport

This will be the last post from the US.


We have returned the RV today (Friday), got a ride to a hotel right by the airport and we will be taking our return flight tomorrow lunchtime.


The hotel we're staying at is the Radisson and we love it. The shower has 2 flat showerheads, giving you a "surround-sound" drenching! We have free wi-fi (I love wi-fi and I love free!). The king size bed has a remote that adjusts the firmness/softness of your side of the bed! To be honest, I was playing around with it and couldn't feel much of a difference. Then Margreet laid down on her side and I played around with the right hand side controls and she complained that she didn't feel much anything either. But I was! So apart from the "L" controling the right side of the bed and the "R" controlling the left side, it's lovely!


We spent the night in Victoria, Canada with our friends John and Shauna. We had to take the ferry there and back, and Noa loved walking around the ferry, being showered with adoration by little old ladies which she completely ignored. John is the man responsible for Margreet and I meeting and has been setting up his life in Victoria after leaving Holland over a year ago. We miss his donations to our weekly poker evenings and my weekly thrashing on the squash court, but life moves on and friends move away. It was nice to catch up, John showed us his new practice and then around town, then they made us a nice spicy dinner. Hopefully we'll be able to see them again soon.


I took very few pictures in Canada. Just a few from the ferry.

Wild and Wacky Washington Adventures

Well, it's hard to believe that we've already accomplished 23 days of driving across America and that we're only a few days from returning home. Although we both enjoy being on vacation, we're both ready to no longer be on the road. These last few days have had us go through some very pretty Northwestern countryside, as well as a hair-raising adventure (for those with hair, of course).

After reaching Portland, we turned east again and drove up the Columbia river, for what turned out to be a very scenic drive. The Columbia river is a very wide and fast moving river flanked on both sides by hills covered with many trees (pine, I think). A railway runs alongside as well offering some postcard-looking views. Unfortunately and true to form for this part of the country, it was raining off and on for the last few days, so good pictures were hard to come by. But here are a few:

Then we veered North again and headed to Yakima, where my friend Tamara lives with husband Tim and adorable kids Jacqueline (5) and Nathaniel (2). Tamara was one of my first friends when I moved back to Ventura in the early 90's and it's great that we've been able to remain friends for so long through our countless moves. Now Tamara can run a clinic on hospitality. Every effort was made to make us feel right at home, including little pictures of us all over the guest bedroom to remind us who we were when we woke up. Seriously, nice touch :) Good cooking, good company, good times! If they didn't live so far, we'd be there every month!!! Unfortuntely, Tim was already at work when we got the cameras out and Noa wasn't cooperating:

After setting us off with a hearty breakfast, we drove toward the Seattle area over a few very high mountain ranges. Going up one very long hill, I was keeping an eye on the temperature gauge. Already going through the California desert a week earlier, we noticed the temperature going up and had to refill the car with coolant and water. This time, somewhere in the isolated hills between Yakima and Ellensburg, the needle was creeping up again as we were going uphill. I slowed down so that the engine didn't have to work so hard and the needle steadied, but was still close to high. Then it started climbing again and I wanted to pull over on this 2 lane highway, but there was only a narrow shoulder, just wide enough for the RV to park, but way too close to the right hand lane and trucks were coming by quick. So stopping here would be my last option.

Unfortunately, I ran out of options. The needle suddenly shot to the maximum and steam started pouring out from under the hood. If I didn't pull over onto the narrow shoulder, I would be stopping soon on the highway itself. I managed to pull the RV onto the shoulder, so that there was about a foot between the painted line denoting the edge of the right hand lane with the edge of the RV. Trucks and cars were going by very quickly and pretty close. I really didn't want to stay there too long. I opened the hood and opened the coolant reservoir (carefully) and since I had no more coolant, dumped some of our drinking water into the empty reservoir. We waited a little bit, then started the engine. Carefully continuing up the hill at low speed, the temperature was holding pretty steady, and so we continued slowly for the next 20 odd miles until we reached Ellensburg and bought some more coolant and filled up the reservoir properly. So far after another 200 miles (including uphill climbs) we haven't had a repeat, so fingers crossed!!!

Driving along the Interstate 90 between Ellensburg and Seattle goes quite high. We were basically driving right by ski slopes and snow was piled high by the sides of the road. Funnily enough, the ski slopes were closed despite there being tons of snow on them. Maybe season is over... Who knows!!! Unfortunately, the weather was rainy with low clouds, so we could not see Mt. Rainier and other tall mountains in the area. Would have been nice.

We didn't go into Seattle, rather around it and up the Olympic Peninsula. Tonight (Wednesday) we are in an empty RV site in Port Angeles, from where we will take the ferry early tomorrow morning to Victoria in British Columbia in Canada! Yeah!

California Cruisin'

I'm not saying this because I come from California, but California has to be the prettiest state in the country.

I haven't seen all of them. On this trip, we just entered our 14th (Oregon), but we've seen a nice sample already. California rules.

The last three days had us travelling up the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) from Morro Bay to Santa Cruz, then up the Central Valley to Redding, then right by Mount Shasta to the Oregon border.

On Saturday, we drove up the PCH, a mostly one-lane highway following the contours of a rugged coastline. At times, it's very windy and steep, but the views are breathtaking. I have to admit that one corner, I took a bit a very sharp corner a little to narrowly and cheated over the yellow median line and was greeted with an oncoming biker with an adament one-finger-salute. I made my peace with biker nation when I was given the regular five-finger-salute as I pulled over and let a whole convoy pass later on. You know me, I'm down with the bikers :)






On Saturday night, we spent with my friend Nasser (or as we called him when we were younger, "friend-father"). He lived with us when I was a young boy (from the ages 6 through 10) and had an fatherly influence in my life well beyond just those years. He knew my mother very well and it was nice for Margreet to learn about my mother a bit and get a picture of my life as a kid (as my recollection is quite hazy). We also went through a lot of old pictures of my childhood, many I don't even recall seeing. Nasser is one of those people who has an uplifting affect on other people, and I can say that I always feel I have more positive energy after I visit him, and this time was no exception. Noa had a field day in his house and learned to climb up and down the 3 wide steps from his living room to his dining room, and just generally running around the place. Thanks for the nice stay, Nasser.



The next day, we drove from Santa Cruz to Redding, a full 300 mile drive that wasn't too exciting. However, toward the end of the drive, as we approached Redding, we could see the snow-capped Mt. Shasta looming large over the other moutains. The next day's drive would have us driving right by it.

Today (Tuesday), we headed north and uphill. Immediately, we were surrounded by mountains and lakes. Just beautiful. Interstate 5 runs just 10-15 miles west of the summit Mt. Shasta, which stands at over 14,000 feet. There was snow covering the whole of Mt. Shasta and the tops of many other mountains in the area. In fact, it snowed a few times while we were driving through as well.









Tonight we pulled into an RV camp just north of Eugene, Oregon. Tomorrow, we will stay with my friends Tamara and Tim, who I haven't seen in ages, then on Thursday we'll stay with our friends John and Shauna in Victoria, British Columbia who we haven't seen since they left the Netherlands last year.

Pilgrimage to In-N-Out

Every time we come to the US, we make at least one trip to In-N-Out, a fast-food joint popular in California and beyond. Today, driving through Fairfield, California, a small town just east of San Francisco, we made our annual pilgrimage to the Best of the Best.

This is going to sound like advertising for In-N-Out (and come to think of it, I should get something for this), but I'm crazy about their hamburgers. Everything is made fresh, nothing is frozen. Even the potatos are cut right in front of you, which is probably one of the reason the fries at least don't taste as good as McDonald's, whose fries are laden with yummy flavourings (allegedly). But their burgers, hmmmm....

In-N-Outs are always packed. The queue of cars lining up for their drive-thru's typically block other businesses and spill out onto the streets, blocking traffic. Inside is a study of mad efficiency. Burgers are made on an assembly line that would make Henry Ford proud.

We ordered a hamburger and a cheeseburger, and 2 fries and it cost us US$ 6.50 (around EUR 4.00). So friggin' cheap!!!

I want to open my own In-N-Out joint in Holland. Problem is, with the higher cost of labor, it would cost twice as much! And come to think of it, how many drive-thru's are there in Holland?

Damn, I love those burgers.

Swinging Through Southern California

Tonight (Friday night) is our 6th night in California and I'm a bit behind on my blogging, for which I apologize. Apart from my grandmother's house, we haven't really had access to the internet.

But I have to say that we FINALLY have some nice warm weather since we've been in California. I'm even a little tanned on my head :)

For our first night in California, we stayed right on the Colorado River in a small town called Needles. We had spent the whole day driving, arriving at the campsite after 5pm. At 6pm, it was still warm enough to take a little dip in the pool, which was very cold. Luckily they also had a hot tub. So far, Noa hasn't been too keen on swimming. And by not too keen, I mean screaming her bloody head off when we try to take her in. I think some trips to the swimming pool back home are in order. Funnily enough, we ran into another Dutch couple and their children at the pool. Damn, these Dutch are all over the place!

Of course, I have to take a video of Noa with her big budda belly (which she gets from her father) walking around the pool:

On Monday, we finally arrived at my grandmother's house and we've done very minimal driving since then. Kind of a little vacation from our vacation. We stayed 2 nights with my grandmother, who although she's turning 90 this fall, is still sharper in the head than I am on my best days. A lot of my friends came to visit us there, including Derghi, Rosita, Serge and my friends Aimee and Mike (and their son Aaron, who Noa's taken a liking to, if we interpreted her poking him in the eye correctly). Very cool of them to drop by and if you're reading this, then thanks!

There was a computer there, which belongs to my uncle Alan who also lives there, so I was showing my blog to my grandmother, who just loved it. But hard as I tried, she would not let me teach her to look it up herself. I even put a shortcut on the desktop, but to no avail. I guess the VCR was tough enough. To be honest, I'm very pleased that my grandmother (my only living grandparent) was able to see Noa, and for the second time to boot, and I think that she liked it too!

We then drove up a short hour to the Ventura area, where I used to live before finding myself in Holland. We camped up at McGrath State Beach, which is in the dunes between Ventura and Oxnard. It was very relaxing, but had no hookups, meaning no electricity and no wireless internet. Now we've been very spoiled with all these RV parks with wifi, meaning we could call people using our Skype connection. Here we were isolated from the world, yet so close to so many of my friends in the area.

Which is why I was a little bit disappointed that we didn't get more visitors, especially since we decided to spend our extra day there. But we were very happy to see our friends Brandon and Elizabeth, with their son Dylan, whose about the same age as Noa. My friend Martha also came by later on and it was nice to catch up with everyone!

We did a little bit of hiking around the dunes as the weather was just wonderful.

On Friday, we did drive a little bit more and pulled up in Morro Bay, a very picturesque little town in Central California where I've been many times. Here's one nice photo that Margreet took today:

Yeah, to think that I moved away from here :)

Photos From Arizona, As Promised

The last 4 photos are taken on the Old Route 66.

Long Arizona Detours

On Sunday, we drove a lot - in fact, we drove way too much.

The plan was to go across Arizona, from Holbrook to Needles, with two minor detours. Without the detours, the journey is already 300 miles long. With the detours, it increases to 400 miles. And they weren't any ordinary detours, they were the slow moving windy mountain detours. We left that morning at 7am and didn't arrive at our destination until after 5pm. Noa had 2 separate naps and watched the same Teletubbies DVD 4 times - poor girl!

Having said that, it was the detours that really made the day. The first one had us leaving the Interstate at Flagstaff, heading south through Sedona, Jerome and Prescott, then back up to the Interstate at Ash Fork. Sedona seems to be a posh desert retreat town surrounded by large red rock formations. Very Arizony. In my opinion, a town I would highly recommend visiting more than Sedona is a small town called Jerome. We just drove through, as by then we had realized that we were behind schedule. Jerome is an old mining town that is basically on a steep slope. To drive through it, you had to zig-zag your way through very steep roads. But as with all nice towns so far, everything is way too touristy for our liking.

The second detour was the last part of our trip and is the only part of our whole trip that we spent considerable time driving on the OLD route 66. Of course, we pick the toughest part to do this. Between Kingman and Needles, route 66 goes through the mountains and through a very small town of Oatman. The Lonely Planet we bought in Europe recommended this route for the real feel of the "Mother Road". If real feel means narrow, badly maintained, steep, no guardrails with sharp drop-offs, then it was real. Probably not the best road to take with a 24 foot RV. Normally, Margreet is pretty relaxed when I drive, but she was definitely white knuckling it. Most of this part of the trip was done below 20 miles per hour, very slow, but hey, we're still alive. The town of Oatman, again very commercial, but kinda neat to see.

Note: I'll post some pictures of this trip in this same blog tomorrow morning (Tuesday in LA) because I'm knackered and off to bed.

Driving Through The Desert

Saturday, we drove from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Holbrook, Arizona by way of Albuquerque. When we got up, everything was covered with a small layer of snow, which was nice to see. We headed down the mountain and got to Albuquerque and decided to see the old town. We drove around the block in the touristy old town. We didn't even get out of the RV! I call it drive-by tourist! (Really, how pathetic!!!)

Whereas Route 66 went through towns, Interstate 40 bypassed them altogether. So, here and there, we decided to get off the interstate and go through some of these towns. Today we went through Grants, New Mexico to see what it was like and to get some petrol. There's not much there and the town looks run down. A lot of the shops along the main street are abandoned and you have to wonder how many more generations are going to populate it before it becomes a ghost town. The train tracks run right through the town and we saw a (very) long one ride through, giving you the feel of a David Lynch movie.

The other town we went through was the one we ended up staying and where I'm writing this from, Holbrook, Arizona. It's got a bit of the Route 66 kitch, and we took some nice photos of the ride today and Holbrook.

And for Tori (and everyone else) who's reading the whole blog just to see photos and videos of Noa, here's a lil' something-something for you :)

Cribs RV Style

If anyone has any connections to someone inside MTV, can you peddle this video for an episodes of Cribs? This has to go as one of the pimpest cribs since 50 cent!

Off The Beaten Path

Interstate 40 is one of the main highway arteries crossing the US from East to West. I-40 starts in Wilmington, North Carolina on the Atlantic coast and ends in Barstow, California. From Oklahoma City, Oklahoma westward, it is practically built on top or besides Old Route 66. Since we got on I-40 in Eastern Tennessee, we've made good progress on our journey westwards as far as distance covered.

Today was our first foray off the Interstate for the first time since the Blue Ridge Parkway. Just past Santa Rosa, New Mexico, we took Highway 85 north towards Las Vegas (no, another Las Vegas), then down Interstate 25 toward Santa Fe, where we are staying tonight. The route we took follows the Old Route 66 before they made a shorter Route 66 in 1937 that cut straight from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque, cutting the journey west by over 100 miles. The ride was beautiful, just long lonely stretches of road, really isolated. You can see for miles in all directions and beautiful mountains are in the distance. We took some pics from the drive.

In Santa Fe, the buildings are all uniquely built, short and brown, I guess made from clay or something. Added some bright colors for windows and doors and you have some pretty houses.

You never realize it, but by the time you reach Santa Fe, you're over 7000 ft (2000 m) above sea level. It was really cold this morning when we left Amarillo, Texas. As we passed Las Vegas, we saw a few snow flurries. By the time we got to the RV park in Santa Fe, it was coming down hard. Here's a little video clip:

Through The Eye Of The Storm

During our trip through the states of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, we have literally gone through a storm, with a lot of rain, thunder and lightning, tornadoes and flooding leaving death and destruction in its wake. But we’re OK, thanks for asking!

I even checked cnn.com today and the weather in these 3 states was the top story (yes, seemingly more important than Britney Spears).

In Arkansas, as we drove across the eastern part of the state, we saw what appeared to be huge lakes on either side of the interstate, but what in fact we’re flooded agricultural fields. Sometimes, we would see roads that would just disappear under water. Luckily, however, Interstate 40 must have been built on raised ground, so we didn’t experience any delays whatsoever.

In Oklahoma, we must have been driving through the roughest part of the storm. It was pouring down heavily and I was very glad when we arrived at our destination, because the road we were using had a lot of truckers, and it just didn’t feel very safe at all.

Driving through Texas panhandle today, the sun was out, but the winds were blowing hard. So hard that it made driving the RV quite difficult. You could see the trucks swerving with the wind. Not very comforting seeing that some of these trucks are 2 carriages long and can easily take you out.

The scenery has also changed quite a lot. In Arkansas, you still had a lot of trees, and a lot of colour, especially in the west of the state. As you go through Oklahoma, the trees get smaller and more sparse. The ground went from green to yellow. In Texas, there are no more trees, everything’s dusty and, because of the wind today, tumbleweeds were blowing across the highway.

Although we’ve been traveling alongside Route 66 for day now, we haven’t exactly been ON Route 66 yet. We’ve been waiting to go along some of the more scenic sections of the historic route in New Mexico and Arizona. And we enter New Mexico tomorrow, and should be staying the night in Santa Fe, if all goes as planned. If anyone has seen the Pixar movie “Cars”, then you would understand the desire to get off the interstate.

Something interesting has happened to us a couple of times, once in Arkansas and once in Texas. In Arkansas, we were stopped at a Wal-Mart to stock up on food, and we were looking for some wine, but couldn’t find the alcohol section. We asked an employee and she told us that we were in a dry county, meaning no alcohol could be sold in stores, supermarket and the like. Funny thing is that you could go to a restaurant and order a glass of wine, no problem. Go figure! Then today, we were in a restaurant, and Margreet wanted to order a glass of wine with dinner, but again, we were DENIED. We were, evidently, in a dry area and could not buy alcohol. Now I understand why there’s so little alcohol abuse in this country!

An Eventful 24 Hours

The last 24 hours have been quite an experience. We've had 3 different incidents that, looking back, have given us a good laugh - but we weren't laughing at the time...

The first happened last night at the campsite in Hell ... I mean Heth, Arkansas. For some reason, Noa was having trouble sleeping - was it all the trucks driving by? Margreet had already gotten up at midnight when Noa started crying, so when she started crying again at 3am, she let it be known that "it was my turn". In our RV, there is a big bed in the back, on top of which we put Noa's portable crib. Margreet and I sleep in the (tiny) sleeping compartment above the driving cab, and you need a ladder to get into it. Well, I climb down the ladder and set my foot into water. Not good. Noa's cying, I'm still half asleep, and the whole rv is flooding. I hear water running from the bathroom, so I go in and turn on the lights. Water is overflowing from the toilet! Luckily (as if there is a bright side to this story), there is a plug in the toilet, so nothing that we have previously sent down there came back to visit us (we'll spare you the gory details). So I'm putting on some shorts and going outside the trailer to empty the tanks, then using towels to push all the water out the door and drying everything up.

The second thing had Margreet and I laughing for quite a bit. We were visiting my father and his wife Irena in Rogers Arkansas. Irena collects a lot of nice things and has a lot of expensive carpets all over the place, including in their bathroom. Well, we were taking advantage of having access to a nice shower and bath, so Margreet and Noa are taking a bath together. After Margreet is done cleaning Noa, she hands her to me, so that I can dry her off while Margreet takes care of herself. I finish drying Noa off and let her walk around naked while I finish shaving and getting dressed. Of course, we forgot to bring in a new nappy, so I had to get dressed first to go out and get it. But I figure there's nothing wrong with letting the little run around in the buff. Can you imagine what's coming??? Noa's standing by the bath looking at Margreet and Margreet says, "I think she's pooing." Of course, she standing on one of the nice carpets. I pick up the last nappy and got it under her JUST as Noa pinched a beauty off. Now THAT was close! I don't think we would be invited back if that had dropped!

The last thing happened this morning as we were about to leave Rogers Arkansas for our trip to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and it involves neither toilets nor poo. I hit another car. I have never hit another car in my life, but I did today. Luckily, I was going very slow (I was pulling out of a parking spot) and the damage was minor, but it really pissed me off because it was avoidable. But there you go, shit happens. Anyway, the girl who owned the car was in the Starbucks that we were planning to visit. She came out when she realized that we had hit her car, but she was really cool about it and we exchanged information. Hopefully, the insurance will take care of her car, but I have a sneaky suspicion that we'll be liable for the damage to the RV. I guess we'll find out later.

So as you see, it's been an eventful 24 hours, and I didn't even mention driving in the pouring rain, getting completely drenched setting up in one campsite, then having to go to another because we couldn't get an internet connection! But that's another story.

Change in Dates - Los Angeles and Ventura

We cut one day out travelling from my friend Virginia's to my dad's place in Arkansas, so we'll arrive one day earlier in Van Nuys. But instead of staying 3 nights in Van Nuys, we'll stay an extra night in Ventura.

So basically, here is our updated Van Nuys/Ventura schedule:

Grandma's house, Van Nuys from Monday 4/14 3pm until Wednesday 4/16 9am.
McGrath State Beach, Ventura from Wednesday 4/16 1pm until Friday 4/18 10am.

Email me if you plan to visit!

Tennessee Could Use Less Churches And More Starbucks

When I had originally planned this trip, I purposely chose local roads and avoiding interstates and major cities. I was hoping to see the real America.

After two full days meandering down the Blue Ridge Parkway, we saw amazing views, we drove many hours and many miles, but we really didn't cover so much distance. After these 2 days in the rain and the fog that followed us down in Virginia and North Carolina, we decided to jump on the Interstate and make our way west.

Over the last 2 days we completely made our way across the state of Tennessee. The east of the state is very hilly with a lot of trees, but as you moved west, it flattened out and the trees grew more scarce. After you cross into Arkansas, then there's really nothing, but flat empty land. To be honest we just entered Arkansas today and we're only 20 miles or so from the border with Tennessee, so we haven't really seen so much of it, but can't say I'm too impressed.

The RV campsite we are staying tonight is really the pits! My best guess is that this will be the ugliest site we'll be staying in during our stay. It's right off the interstate and there's a huge truck stop next door, so you can hear the trucks driving around all the time. We'll see if we can hear them during the night too. The campsite itself is on a little lake whose colour is a dark brown (guess we won't be swimming in it!). The campsite is also not well taken care of, so there's mud everywhere. On the bright side, there's a decent wi-fi internet connection, which is the reason we picked it. Plus, it's right on the interstate, so we'll save some time tomorrow when we have another 300 miles (490 km) to reach tomorrow's destination: my father's house in Rogers Arkansas!

The campsite we stayed at yesterday was probably the best one we had so far. It was on a huge lake (colour blue) in a beautiful state park right in the middle of Tennessee. We made some nice pictures and took a little video to show you how nice it was.

Before you leave Tennessee and enter Arkansas, you go through the city of Memphis. Now I knew that Memphis is the city where Graceland is located (Elvis's home and shrine). I had planned to pass this by as I had no interest in seeing it whatsoever. Margreet, much to my surprise, did. So we made the pilgrimage. I made it as far as the parking lot (which set us back $10), and took a very comfortable nap while Margreet ponied up the additional $32 and took Noa along in the stroller and visited the Mansion, the cars and the planes. Her comments were very touristy, not very pram friendly, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

Driving Down the Blue Ridge Mountains

We just pulled into the Flintlock Campsite in Boone, North Carolina on our second stop since leaving my friend's Virginia's place near Richmond, Virginia.

We took a few hours getting to the Blue Ridge Parkway, then spent the following 2 days driving down it, or alongside it.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a two-lane highway that spans some 400-500 miles along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains which run along the western edge of the states of Virginia and North Carolina. While researching for the trip, I learned that the Blue Ridge Parkway was supposed to be one of the most scenic byways in the States.

The views have been indeed breathtaking. The road is narrow, but is well paved, ranges in altitude between 2500 and 3500 feet (800-1000 meters) and has scenic overlooks every few miles. In fact, since the road runs along the crest of the mountain range, you have scenic overlooks on BOTH sides of the parkway, sometimes at the same time. And the views are quite amazing. On the north side you can see the Appalachian Mountains that go on forever, then on the south side you see Shenandoah National Park. On either side, you see hills and mountains of various heights and distance, seemingly tinted in various shades of blue, with low clouds moving among them lapping at its sides like waves crashing onto the coast. You could actually SEE the clouds moving as if someone filmed them, then replayed them in fast motion. The photos we took cannot do the views any justice, but we took some anyway.