BACK IN THE MOTHERLAND

Recently I had the pleasure of a flying visit back to the UK so made best use of the opportunity to do a little tourism and visiting friends. Starting with a trip to Greenwich and Blackheath. Then visited London again with the parents though this time slightly wetter. Then finally finished up with a visit to lovely Lincoln to see my friend Tim.
Here's a few snaps from the flying visit.
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Greenwich and Old Naval College

This is the BBC.

A very wet london on the way to The Design Museum.

I mentioned I was going to the design museum which Hannah was fine about missing until I mentioned they had a temporary cycling exhibition with some awesome bikes!

Got no photos of Lincoln itself but enjoyed a classic Charlie Bingham pie (and a very tasty Japanese beer) from Waitrose, oh I miss that place!!

#PARENTS ON TOUR - GRAND CANYON EDITION

The Grand Canyon. I really don't think I'm going to be able to put into words just how majestic this place was. We had two days to explore it and the nearby town of Williams, but I feel like we could have spent weeks at the canyon and still not seen all there was to see. I have to admit it does look slightly fake at first, just because you can barely take in the sheer size and scale of it. 

The first day we were there we started off at the visitors centre of the South Rim and walked along the canyon rim trail. We didn't go as far as we had anticipated but there was a lot of stopping to take photos and the icy conditions made you a little more cautious, especially as there wasn't a lot between you and the edge of the canyon!  

Day two we did more of the Canyon, but from the other end of the South rim, so that we could see the Desert watchtower. Then we spent the rest of the day in Williams looking round the famous route 66 town. There wasn't a lot to do there as most of it was shut up for the winter so we didn't spend long there. We did eat (for the second time) at an amazing little Italian bistro which had a brewery attached. The food was insanely good. 

And of course no trip would be complete without a bear...

There you have it, the Grand Canyon in one blog post. If you ever get the chance to visit it you really should. It's breathtaking. 
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#PARENTS ON TOUR - HOOVER DAM EDITION

Whilst my parents were here we undertook a rather long road trip, about 7 hours to be precise. Our destination was the Grand Canyon in Arizona but on the way there we decided to take a detour via the Hoover Dam. The dam itself is built on the border between Nevada and Arizona so it was an excellent way to ensure Mum and Dad properly visited the two states. 

The Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s and is one of the largest concrete structures ever. As my Dad is a civil engineer by trade, and a rather big fan of concrete  we assumed this would be a good stop off. I was expecting him to be rather excited but to be somewhat underwhelmed myself as funnily enough I've never been that impressed by concrete! I couldn't have been more wrong. 

We arrived at the the dam having driven past Las Vegas and we drove over the top of the dam to park on the Arizona side.We then walked back across the dam so that we could see it from all sides and angles. 

Dad and Andrew decided to take a tour of the power plant, however Mum and I were not so sure about it as there were signs warning you not to go on the tour if you were worried about small spaces. Not wanting to chance it we had ice cream in the sun, whilst the boys went about their geekery!

I love those photos, they make me think of those government adverts where you see people in their work place talking about pensions or how the new working wage is helping them. Sorry, my brain thinks weirdly!

Once we had seen everything it was time to hit the road again for another 4ish hours until we arrived at our final destination; the Grand Canyon. 
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LAKE TAHOE - PART II

The second half of our Lake Tahoe trip obviously involved a lot more playing in snow. Macintosh absolutely loved spending every day just wandering around in the snow. Its definitely harder work than you'd expect clambering around in deep snow but it was so much fun. 

One thing Andrew and I had been so excited to do was to cook a traditional Christmas dinner for our friends. We had already cooked one on Christmas day, but making one for a larger number is much better. We didn't manage to snap any photos of the dinner, other than one right at the beginning because we were all too busy munching away! 

New years eve was going to be the highlight of the week for me as we were going to attempt to ski for the first time. Andrew, Nicole and I had signed up for a half day of ski lessons. Nicole had done it a long time ago, but Andrew and I were novices. I was super excited prancing around in all my snow gear and the first half of the lesson went really well. I didn't really fall over but Andrew did. I was beginning to feel confident. Then we went onto the slopes. It all changed. 

Our instructor was a bit of a wally and I didn't really get on with him. He kept pushing me to go further or faster than I felt comfortable and I just kept crashing out. Andrew was maddeningly good (as always). He was trying to help out a little bit but I just couldn't seem to stop crashing. Then on the final slope of the morning I got my revenge, albeit accidentally. I was skiing down the slope, as instructed, and ended up heading straight for him. He didn't hear me coming and I couldn't stop quickly enough so I took him out! Was not so amusing at the time as he landed awkwardly on my knee but Andrew and Nicole were rather pleased I did it. 

The afternoon however was better. I managed to stay upright and skied a fair bit. It was possibly made better by the fact that Andrew kept falling over on the last slope of the day. It may have made me feel a little more excited. But here are the few snaps we got. The last one is us at the end of the day feeling cold but happy with ourselves. 

We celebrated after skiing with a meal out and then some rather exhausted partying back at the cabin. The dogs, who had spent all day in the cabin just chilling out pretty much looked how we felt!

But we pressed on, played some games, watched Jools Holland (via the wonders of the internet and delayed tv) and rang in the new year pretty much as we crawled into our beds! 

Some of us partied harder than others! 

One New Year's Day our final lot of friends arrived having had an awful journey saga. They had tried to fly across the country to Lake Tahoe several times but due to a variety of insane issues they didn't make it until the penultimate day. As we waited to hear whether they had finally made it Andrew and I took a walk and spotted a guy being pulled along on his snow board by his dog. Obviously that got us thinking and we tried to get Macintosh to pull us on a sledge. The affect was no where near as cool. 

The final day at the cabin was a sad affair. We absolutely loved our winter wonderland, but we took one last stroll and play in the snow and then packed up to go home. Poor old Macintosh refused to get in the car, I think he wanted to stay forever. He is definitely a cabin sort of dog. But I think we've decided that a snow trip is needed at least once more this year!

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