4,898 miles traveled.
1000+ photos taken.
9 states and 2 provinces traveled. 2 border crossings.
We’re home.
Work. Emails. Sites. News. Unpacking. Cleaning.
Life was interrupted for a wonderful adventure. Now trying to get back on schedule.
We made it to Canada very late Tuesday night.
After traveling over 2,000 miles and surviving the most intense lightening storm I’ve even been stuck in the middle of. It was pouring rain as we drove from Calgary to Edmonton and we weren’t sure if we were going to die. Lightening was striking 20 feet from us and we could see the smoke and sparks fly up as it struck the ground. INSANE for a girl from Los Angeles where it never has lightening storms.
We’ve been having the most amazing time. Sure, I have 20 mosquito bites and of course Remi got a wicked sun burn.
But we’ve finally seen Zion National Park and count the days to when we can go back and explore even more. We got to see the massive Grand Tetons and paddled a canoe on a peaceful and gorgeous mountain lake. We watched Old Faithful spit water 120 feet up into the air. We’ve seen a wolf bound in a meadow like a little puppy playing. We’ve driven along side a bison chewing his dinner. And we literally almost ran into a black bear eating raspberries along a hiking trail paying us no attention. We’ve decided that animals pose for the tourists in these parks… from toads to deer to dragonflies. Oh, and chipmunks are like the most adorable little creatures in existence.
Now we’re visiting family and not necessarily enjoying the heat and humidity up here (though as I’m typing, there’s a lovely cool breeze sweeping through the house.) We leave for Jasper and the Canadian Rockies on Sunday… and look forward to the cooler weather of the Pacific Northwest. Give me some fog. Stat.
Photos taken so far: 600+
So much going on. Been meaning to post but all I come up with is lame. Proceed to read the lame.
You know, my head is close to exploding with everything that’s been going on. Work hectic, family stuff a little nuts, online headaches with a lame web host (any LUNers reading this, we will do what we can to get things back up before we leave), and trying to get everything ready for our massive crazy road trip.
We leave tomorrow. Over 4,000 miles in 17 days. Of course, there’s a heat wave and wildfires going on in many of the states we’re driving through. Good times.
Even with our usual bad luck when traveling (we were in NY for the one week they had a heat wave) we can’t wait. Super excited to see places we’ve never been and take a much needed break from work. And I get nephew therapy in 2 weeks. That’s always good for the soul.
In other happenings… Harry Potter was fun. Might be my favorite HP movie now. But I say that after every new HP movie.
We’re once again addicted to Psych now that season 1 is on DVD. Season 2 premieres tonight with Tim Curry guest starring as his own version of Simon Cowell. Even though we have to do a lot of packing and organizing of camping gear, we will not miss Shawn, Gus, and company.
Will try to post an update when we make it to Edmonton next week. Will try to write a post not as lame as this one. Stay cool out there!
NME has the scheduled line up for the London Live Earth gig up.
Duran is playing 4 songs. I’m half super excited, half scared. Rupert Everett is going to introduce them (yah!) and then they are playing:
Planet Earth (I knew they would do this) / Ordinary World (Again, knew Simon would bust this out) / Night Runner / Falling Down
The last 2 are new songs. Which is always tricky at big gigs like this. But Justin Timberlake AND Timbaland are going to perform with them. Ack.
They did brilliant during the Concert for Diana (though the sound mix seemed off for Dom). So I know they can do this… but I’m nervous and curious and scared. I can’t help it. My stomach is doing flip flops just thinking about it. I’m such a nerd for Duran Duran. Sigh.
Did I really pay to see Transformers? Oh yes… I did. I had no desire to see the movie but I went along hoping it would be at least dumb and fun.
It was only half that. The Transformers were one of Remi’s favorites when he was a kid. I never watched the cartoon. I was into Rainbow Brite. Seeing all the concept art and trailers, Remi knew this movie was going to break his little kid heart and not do justice to the characters and story he loved. But we both figured it would still have cool special effects and be loud and silly and over the top.
And it did have some fun moments. But not enough.
Oh Michael Bay. How does this guy still get work? I guess when they want a guy to deliver the Michael Bay cliches. And he did, in spades.
As a Transformers movie, we knew this was going to be bad. And it was. In the end it wasn’t much of a Transformers movie.
As a Michael Bay movie, this was silly and stupid with his usual military fetish, slow-mo dramatic shots, and swinging camera angles (Hot Fuzz parodied this brilliantly.) There was just not enough funny though. I actually got bored and fidgeted in my seat towards the end there. Plus too many blurry action shots were giving me a headache. And it really started to drag in spots.
I could really rip into this more but it’s not like I went into this thinking it was going to be any good. At least in that respect, it did not disappoint.
