'From sea to shining sea'

Our final port-of-call in Utah was Zion National Park, a hilly, green oasis in the middle of the waterless desert, and also the place where they filmed 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', if that helps you to picture it. We hiked alongside the rushing Virgin River, skimmed stones, and stood (and got soaked) underneath 'Weeping Rock', a big round, you guessed it, rock out of which trickle big droplets of water at a steady but relentless pace. Apparently it takes over 1200 years for each droplet to percolate down through the rock from the top to the bottom. Think on that. So the water that drenched us entered the rock in 809 AD, the year when Emperor Saga succeeded Emperor Heizei as emperor of Japan, as I hardly need to remind you. I may or may not have consulted Wikipedia to find that illuminating nugget of information.

Apparently Zion National Park is so named because the Mormons, trekking wearily across the desert in search of their promised land, thought they had found it when they reached this place. Brigham Young, one of the leaders, declared upon his arrival that, although he agreed it was very nice, it was 'not Zion'. The name 'not Zion' stuck and, over time, the 'not' part fell by the wayside. It's now one of the oldest and most popular national parks in the country, with over three million visitors per year. That weight of numbers has apparently encouraged them to pay lip service to eco-friendliness, as in a message on the hand-towel dispensers in the restroom they had advised us to use the electric dryers. Next to the message someone had scrawled, with admirable succinctness, 'why don't you just not put this here?'. Fair point, I think.

On Saturday we drove a hell of a long way back to Los Angeles; it was the first time in the whole nine-week 

odyssey that we had returned to any given place, and it felt a little weird. Tony and Erica once again were generous enough to put us up, and put up with us, as we recuperated before flying back to Boston on Monday. It would be going too far to describe it as a culture shock, but Boston really is quite different from the West Coast. There are still Starbucks' and McDonalds', of course, but then they exist in Tokyo, too. Coming back to the East has underlined for me the astonishing diversity of this nation.

America is a country the size of a continent (if you ignore Canada, which most people seem to), and it is geographically, topographically and climatically extremely varied. Landscapes exert a tremendous pull on the people who live in them, so it is no surprise that the people of the coasts, the people of the mountains, the people of the humid South, the people of the desert, and the people of the stultifying, waving-corn flatness of Middle America should be so utterly different in so many ways. On top of that, there are pockets of disparity so drastic that they are practically nations in their own right, like the Mormons and the Navajo Nation, and of course, huge and rapidly expanding populations of minorities. It has been said before by people vastly more qualified to talk about such matters than me, but I think it's true so I'm gonna say it anyway - America is a land of contrasts; almost anything you say about it is true, and the opposite is true too. It's extremely rich and extremely poor; it's the model of federalism but also highly regionalised; it's a place of immense hope but simultaneously full of anxiety and nihilism.

And yet, given all that, it is a much more harmonious place than one might expect. The country could comfortably envelope Europe, a continent (if you want to call it a continent) of countless, often incompatible, cultures, languages, and world-views, yet America is, to a large extent, unified. The 'American Dream', for want of a better expression, is responsible for a great deal of heartache (if 'Death of a Salesman' has taught me anything...), yet there is something to be said for it as an agent of uniformity. Everybody in this country has a shared ideal, something with which to relate to all those around them. The slightly unattractive side-effects may be introspectiveness, isolationism and, sometimes, superciliousness, but the trade-off is a pretty robust sense of national well-being; the people know what their country is about, and that has to be a positive thing, at least as far as individual happiness is concerned. There is no equivalent 'European Dream', or even 'British Dream', which perhaps explains the correspondent identity crisis in those places.

This could all be changing. One of the reasons for the aching void in the British national consciousness is surely postcolonial guilt - Britain used to be exceedingly confident in what it was and where it was going, but this jingoistic attitude died with the empire that fostered it, and was replaced by frantic soul-searching. If I might dip my toe into the murky waters of current affairs, it would seem that America could be entering a post-imperial (certainly post-Bushist) age, in which the old certainties are disappearing. Whether this will precipitate the disintegration of the American ideal, or serve to reinforce it, remains to be seen. It should be interesting.

After that thoroughly unwarranted pseudo-intellectual digression, back to the real world. So, yeah...we're going home tomorrow. It's very bizarre. There are lots of things that I'll miss about the States - the food, the friendliness of the people, the landscape, the lemonade. But it will be nice to be able to pick up a sports section without being bored to tears; nice to be able to ask for 'water' without being stared at/misunderstood/laughed at/all of the above (delete as appropriate); nice to watch programmes on TV rather than adverts.

What have been my highlights of the trip? I know you didn't ask but I'm going to tell you anyway. It's literally impossible to pick just one, so I'm going to throw a tedious, disorderly and inevitably incomplete list at you that will probably just be confusing:

hiking to the top of the waterfall in Yosemite, taking the paddlewheeler on the Mississippi, going to the baseball in LA, cycling by the Pacific, the 'Bean' in Chicago, Capitol Reef, hiking amongst the Redwoods, swimming in Lake Michigan, the Grand Canyon, having a great time doing nothing in Charleston, Universal Studios with the Vickers', the enormous buffet in Las Vegas, Guys and Dolls on Broadway, watching the breakers roll in off the Pacific in Gualala and Bandon, Slide Rock State Park with Crawfs and the gang, Point Lobos State Reserve, skimming stones in Zion, swimming in Yosemite, Monument Valley, Six Flags Magic Mountain, the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the whole train journey, eating Wendy's in front of 'Walk the Line' on our final evening with the car, Canyon de Chelly, my first swim in the Pacific, driving Highway 1

Still awake? Good. That's about all from me, and from this blog I'm afraid. I hope you've enjoyed reading it, at least more than we've enjoyed writing it, because it's been a right chore to be honest with you. I'm joking of course...but you knew that. It's time to go home. Take care y'all.

- Adam

'Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill ya!'

Capitol Reef is, as I'm sure you've guessed, not really a reef at all, but is so called because the early settlers thought it looked a bit like one, and I suppose it does, in a way. Only, you know, without the water...and the fish. In reality it is an arid, rocky wilderness, having as its centrepiece a series of smooth-sided rock formations that together are known as the Waterpocket Fold. It is the least popular of all Utah's national parks, which seems a shame, because we liked it very much, although it was quite nice not to have to fight past fellow tourists all the time. The Reef felt more authentically Western than, say, Monument Valley, which, though incredible, suffers a little through overexposure. It also, apparently, used to be a favoured hangout of Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall gang, which makes it well worth seeing in my opinion.

We had some fun shouting things at Echo Cliff, which is exactly what you think it is, and took a good look at some of the abandoned buildings left over from when the Mormons settled here, including a one-room school building so small that it made Sark school seem like Eton. Capitol Reef is also home to some truly remarkable 'petroglyphs' - pictures etched into the cliff-face by the Fremont Indians more than 1000 years ago. As one of the recurring images is a bighorn sheep, it is thought that the Indians 

carved the symbols in response to a famine, hoping to conduce the gods to provide more game to hunt. But who knows - it could have just been graffiti.

The following day we went to Bryce Canyon, which is an extremely odd place; an eerie landscape of jutting red rock pillars called 'hoodoos' that are quite enchanting. These sandstone sentinels keep watch over dramatic vistas of the Utah desert that sweep in all directions to the horizon. It's very beautiful, in a weird sort of way. Also very orange. 'Bryce Canyon' is a misnomer, as it is not really a canyon at all, but I can see how they made the mistake. The other part of the 

name recalls Mormon settler Ebenezer Bryce, who memorably declared, with a delicate sense of understatement, that it would be 'a helluva place to lose a cow'.

Bryce Canyon is higher than anywhere I've ever been before, and I've certainly been feeling some of the giddy effects of the altitude. It probably doesn't help that I've spent the majority of my life at more or less sea level (actually in the sea as often as possible), although Scarlett seems relatively unaffected, so maybe I'm just being pathetic. Fortunately we only spent a few hours there before descending to a less ridiculous altitude, so it's all good.

That's your lot for now. We only have a few days left on the road before we return to Los Angeles and then head back to Boston, and then home. A week to go. Bet you're excited.

- Adam

'Who are those guys?'

Four days, four incredible experiences in the awesome Southwestern desert. On Saturday, the weather having sufficiently improved, we made the bold decision to venture to the Grand Canyon. When we first arrived, there was a layer of mist obscuring it from view, which, though quite atmospheric, was more than a little irritating; fortunately, we stuck it out, the fog rapidly rolled away, and we were treated to a simply unbelievable view. It really is as amazing as everybody says it is. It may not be the biggest canyon in the solar system (that coveted honour, as I'm sure you don't need me to remind you, 

belongs to Valles Marineris on Mars - can you tell we went to an observatory the other day), but credit where credit's due, Mother Nature surpassed herself here. As I said in Yosemite, I don't fully understand the geological forces required to transform the earth in such a way, all I know is that I'm grateful to them.

The canyon is almost too big to properly get a handle on mentally. At over one mile deep and stretching across practically to the horizon, it is an overwhelming expanse that stands apart, intangible. No photograph can truly do it justice, but I have to take pictures because I don't know what else I would do. Imagine discovering it for the first time - you're walking along, hands in your pockets, whistling a happy tune, and then suddenly you turn a corner and the earth opens up in front of your eyes. Bizarre.

What else have we done? Well I'm glad you asked. On Monday we met up with our pilot friend James, who we met on the train (43 hours turns out to be a long time to get know someone when you're on a vehicle you can't get off), and some of his pilot pals (who demonstrated themselves to be pilots through and through by arranging to meet us at an airport) in Sedona, a town situated in the heart of Red Rock country. There's no denying it, the rocks really are quite red. We had a whole lot of fun at Slide Rock state park, where the undulations of a river over dips in the rock creates a kind of natural water park. It was a bit like the flumes at Beau Sejour, only faster, colder, and in the desert. 

You can almost become desensitised to the landscape here once you get used to it, particularly when you're travelling through it for hours, but occasionally I am still struck by the astonishing incommensurability between here and home, and driving amongst the arresting rock formations around Sedona was one of those times.

Another one was when we went to Monument Valley, a stark landscape of sandstone pinnacles, and a place that demonstrates that rock can be more beautiful and more varied than you might imagine (some of the formations included 'Snoopy' and 'The Dragon', and really looked like them). These towering monoliths, rising imposingly out of the drifting red sand, are incredibly familiar, largely because producers of Westerns, notably John Ford, quite rightly recognised that this would be an ideal spot for shooting, in both senses of the word, and consequently they have become perhaps the archetypal Wild West image.

The feeling of timelessness that swirled around us as we stood beneath remarkable windows in the rock called things like 'the ear of the wind' and 'the eye of the sun' was accentuated by the beautiful, mournful flute music played by our Navajo guide. They can probably be forgiven any melancholy.

Straddling the borders of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, and encompassing Monument Valley, the Navajo Nation today consists of around 300 000 inhabitants, making it the largest Indian reservation in the States. The people may be fully immersed in American culture, but to a reasonable extent it does feel a bit like another country. In 

1864, the Navajo were forcibly and systematically relocated to New Mexico, and although they were permitted to return to their ancestral lands a few years later, it understandably fostered a resentment that persists in some form to the present day. There are many shameful episodes in American history (the 1984 invasion of Grenada springs to mind), but few are more regrettable than this 'Long Walk', which formed part of the broader 'Trail of Tears' that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Indians.

On a less depressing note, we were afforded a fascinating glimpse into indigenous history at Canyon de Chelly, where the people whom the Navajo call the 'Anasazi', or 'ancient ones', constructed a number of elegant cliff dwellings that have so far survived the ravages of time. 25 Navajo families farm the canyon floor today, continuing where their forebears left off - the Anasazi's abundant harvests of corn and squash provided them with the resources to build their mysterious cliffside villages. Canyon de Chelly, though still enormous, is not nearly as big as the Grand Canyon and therefore, in a way, perhaps even more beautiful, if not quite as extraordinary. I actually felt more trepidation standing near the edge there than I did at the Grand Canyon, because the latter is just so deep that it scarcely seems real.

I apologise for the unnecessarily long, and long-winded, entry today, but we've done so much in the last few days and who knows when we'll have the internet again. Right now we're in a 'town', though really it is just a couple of motels and a gas station, with the hilarious name of Mexican Hat, and we're about to set off for the national parks to the west, beginning with the Capitol Reef, which sounds just about as incongruous as it gets in the Utah desert. I'll be sure to keep you, quite literally, posted.

Utah-kin' to me?

- Adam

'Get down! It's not a climbing frame!'

After leaving Yosemite, en route to the national parks of the Southwest, we drove down through the heart of the Californian desert to Bakersfield, which is apparently the fastest-growing city in the States, for reasons that are not immediately obvious - the only tourist pamphlets available at our motel were advertising attractions hundreds of miles away in LA and San Francisco, which ought to give you an insight into what sort of a place it is. To be fair, we didn't exactly see very much of it, as we arrived quite late and left quite early. But it did have a Denny's (who'd have believed it?), so it wasn't all bad.

The following day we took the opportunity to observe the compelling decadence of Las Vegas, the sight of which, rising like some sort of neon jewel from the desert, is pretty remarkable after driving through hundreds of miles of arid, 

sparsely-populated terrain. We elected to stay for only one night, fearing we might otherwise find it just a little too decadent, but, thanks to our dear brother Benj, spent it in style at the enormous, Egyptian-themed Luxor Hotel.

As we checked in, the receptionist gave us directions to our room that went like this: 'take a left at the Starbucks over there, walk all the way down to the other Starbucks, then take a right' - that was our first indication of the kind of hotel we were dealing with. Alright, maybe our very first indication was the fact that it was shaped like a pyramid, with a colossal sphinx guarding the entrance, but you get the picture. This impression was swiftly reinforced by the presence of a number of vending machines dispensing ipods and iphones. Who needs an iphone that immediately? Imagine if you tried to buy one and it got stuck, and you had to buy a second one to push it out, you'd be gutted.

The hotel was extremely cool though; very Luxorious (do you get it?). We did our best not to get swept up in the gambling, resisting the occasional pulse-quickening thought of, 'well, I've got five dollars, I could turn that into ten dollars, and I could turn that into a million dollars!'. We managed to restrict our involvement to only a quick go on the bewildering fruit machines, which yielded, unsurprisingly, no return. Only put in a dollar though, so the joke's on them. I noted with interest that there are no clocks and no windows in any of the casinos. The House always wins.

Nevada's unique existence as a haven of vice in a notoriously puritanical nation is the reasonably predictable outcome of its history as a frontier society; anxious that death was just around the corner, it's small wonder that people opted to indulge in a few games of chance, and other shady pursuits. Take that Wild West morality and leave it to bake in the scorching desert sun for a few hundred years, and you end up with Las Vegas. Moreover, I think people go a little bit stir-crazy when they're this far from the ocean all the time; perhaps that might also explain the frightening conservatism of parts of Middle America.

The ubiquitous neon reminded me slighly of Tokyo, but aside from that the city was completely unlike anywhere else I've ever been. It's bizarre that people are there every single night. Maybe a little bit sad too.

After another exceedingly long drive, over the Hoover Dam as it happens, we arrived in Flagstaff. It was so hot in Las Vegas (it's like driving through a sauna) that we were consequently very surprised, and not 

inconsiderably miffed, to find it cold and wet in Arizona. That was most definitely not in the brochure. It's probably because we have, without particularly realising it, ascended to almost 7500 feet above sea level, which puts us much higher even than Yosemite. The altitude only became truly noticeable when we tried to walk around 200 yards and I found myself disarmingly short of breath.

It's funny how absolutely anywhere can look like England when it rains. The name 'Arizona' is synonymous with the Old West, yet in the grey drizzle, with the dramatic mountains that surround Flagstaff obscured by fog, we could easily be in the midlands. It's still damp and murky today, so we've had to postpone our planned excursion to the Grand Canyon until the weather improves, since otherwise we won't be able to see anything. Instead, scratching around for things to do indoors, we passed a diverting morning at the Lowell Observatory, the place where, in 1930, an American astronomer discovered Pluto. Here's something I never realised: apparently the task of christening the ninth planet with a name was opened up to the global public; suggestions included 'Aero Nautus' and, rather more mundanely, 'Jean'. The winning idea of naming it after the Roman god of the underworld was proposed by an 11 year-old English girl in a telegram that read, 'new planet name. please consider pluto. suggested by small girl. for dark and gloomy world'.

According to our tour guide, Saturn is currently in a very favourable location for observation, so keep your telescopes handy. From all of us here, I'm Leonard Nimoy, good night, and keep watching the skis. Er, skies.

- Adam

'My god man...do they want tea?'

I sort of imagine national parks to be similar to parks in England, in other words a few picnic benches and a pond. Yosemite isn't really like that. You could spend practically an eternity here exploring the forested valleys. Sadly we only had one full day, so it was important that we make the most of it. Since we are,

 as I'm sure you can imagine, hikers by nature - Bear Grylls and I are very much kindred spirits - we elected to follow the reasonably demanding six-mile trail to the top of Vernal Falls.

We scrambled beside the rushing Merced river up a set of slippery stone steps, carved so elegantly (and precariously) into the rock that, after our experiences in Japan, I felt sure we would reach a temple at the top. While the roaring torrent of water cascading over the edge and thundering onto the rocks below is a singularly glorious sight to behold, it also generates a hell of a lot of spray, and we were absolutely soaked by the time we reached the top. The path is called the 'Mist Trail', which is definitely an understatement. Since it was a pretty hot day, however, this was quite a good thing, and we were rewarded for our efforts with some stunning views of the valley stretching out majestically beneath us.

Yosemite is just astonishingly, impossibly beautiful. It really does look like a canvas painting, or like it's been created on a green screen, because it's hard to believe that anything this spectacular could be real. Aristotle said quite a lot of things, including many pithy, university-friendly quotes, one of which I know to be, 'in all things in nature there is something of the marvellous'. Had he been able to visit Yosemite, he would have had to append his statement with, 'and in some things there are bloody loads'.

It's been a national park since 1909 (that makes it the centenary year, for those who are keeping up), and has always been looked after reverentially, by the Indians and the Europeans who displaced them alike. Even in America, a country that evolved from a colonising project based on the concept of 'land's gotta be settled', people used to engaging in a struggle to master nature took one look at Yosemite and said, 'hang on a minute lads, we might want to protect this'. I simply can't begin to understand the geological processes involved in creating a valley like this. It certainly makes you feel insignificant, in a good way.

Unlike in the Redwoods, this trail was reasonably busy, so we didn't feel the need to pollute the 

air with our singing, even though there are both bears and mountain lions about (didn't see any - it's almost disappointing). Along with other equally intrepid hikers, we had to share the path with a number of national park workers whose job description didn't appear to extend much beyond 'smash up rocks for a living'. Still, there are worse places to do that job I guess.

Afterwards we intended to drive to Glacier Point, the clifftop with supposedly the most striking views of the valley, and indeed got much of the way there, but we were thwarted by the sudden onset of an enormous

thunderstorm; we didn't think it was a particularly good idea to drive to the highest point for many miles when there's lightning knocking about. Hopefully we might get a chance to go back tomorrow on our way out.

It's going to be a wrench to leave Yosemite, but it's time to head for the desert. Las Vegas is the next significant port-of-call, with an overnight stop somewhere on the way. Should be a cracker.

- Adam

'Awesome like a hot dog? Like a million hot dogs sir'

Hello avid blog readers! I am JOLLY tired while I write this, so I warn you it will probably make about as much sense as a pig in a jam jar, but you don't mind do you?

We are in Yosemite National Park! We're staying in a hostel called Yosemite Bug, and they're not kidding. About the bugs, I mean. It's dark now, so every time we go in and out of our room to the bathroom we have to be superlightningfast so as not to let in the swarm of daddy longlegses that are hovering about outside the door. I hate them so much! I have thrice been engaged in mortal combat with one of their kind this evening and although I have a significant height advantage (not to mention the flip-flop weapon) they can put up a pretty good fight. It's mainly because they dive-bomb. Onto my head! Bleuurgh yukyukyuk.

So, it turns out I'm not really an 'outdoorsey' person. But Yosemite is absolutely amazing and I'm sure I will be converted to outdoorsism after we do the big 6-mile hike Adam has planned for tomorrow, because it's supposed to have some of the most spectacular views in the world. We did a scenic drive today (much more up my street!) and it was absolutely incredible - my brain just couldn't process some of the views as being real life and not a photo or painting or movie or something. It was awesome. 

And it's hot! The car told us it got up to 101F today, which is madness. This afternoon we went to a 'swimming hole' near the hostel, which was freezing but absolutely perfect - it's a natural pool in the rocks with a waterfall running into it. We had to hike there from the hostel (only for about ten minutes, but still) and it made it all the more satisfying. 

We have spent a great few days in Oregon, enjoying it's uncalifornianess (in particular the absence of sales tax - woohoo!) and it's English-countrylike scenery. We spent two days in Bandon; a small town on the coast, where we stayed in a lovely family-run motel with views of the sea. Importantly, it had a TV so we managed to watch the season finale of Lost, and we spent a whole day without driving anywhere which was marvellous! We had planned to go to Crater Lake on Thursday, but we found that the roads were still closed because of snow, so we skipped that and drove inland (for the first time!) to a very interesting little town called Ashland. 

We liked Ashland a lot because it reminded us of home, and there is a very good reason for that. It holds the Oregon Shakespeare Festival every year from February to October, and the whole town is modeled on Stratford, so it's a very bizarre English-feeling place. It's also absolutely full of hippies because the water from the river flowing through the town is supposed to have incredible healing qualities (and also because it's full of actors and all about the art, maaaan), so it seems like a very relaxed place. It was absolutely packed with school trips, of course, which took us back. 

We didn't actually see any Shakespeare plays (because they were sold out), but we did get to see a new American play called Equivocation, in which Shakespeare was the main character, having to write a play for King James about the gunpowder plot. It was... interesting. I have never seen Shakespeare portrayed with an American accent before! That was a new one. And I'm fairly sure they didn't say 'goddammit!' and 'you got me wearin this goddam diaper!' in Shakespeare's day, but I could be wrong. And hey, I shouldn't be too harsh - the acting was fantastic and it was great to go to see a live show, but unfortunately the play itself was an extremely thinly veiled comment on American society, dressed up as a historical drama... some of the comments about torture and unnecessary wars were completely transparent. Funny though! 

I'm going to brave the walk to the bathroom now... wish me luck!

-Scarlett

'If you can't do better than a bunch of old Romans...you ain't no brothers of mine'

Yesterday we ticked off the 23rd state of our journey as we crossed the border and began breathing in the sweet air of Oregon, which admittedly is a lot like the air in northern California, if noticeably a little cheaper, as there is no sales tax here. We found a nice, family-run motel perched on the cliffs in Bandon, a typical Pacific Northwest fishing community, and took the opportunity to have a much-needed rest day between exceptionally long drives. There's a storm brewing out to sea, the wind is howling, and raindrops are beginning to flick the window. It's pretty atmospheric.

Bandon is a town so reminiscent of Middle America that its residents must be constantly surprised when they wake up each morning and discover the crashing Pacific at the end of the main street; it's the only thing that rescues this otherwise sleepy community from aching banality (that and the apparently popular golf course, though as a general rule I feel the less said about golf the better). After the occasionally maddening sprawl of the cities we've been to however, such rusticity is quite welcome, and it's not exactly a backwater - we had some incredible thai food last night, for 

instance - unlike, say, Kansas, which really is just empty, with even Kansas City preferring to situate itself in Missouri than in the state whose name it bears. We've been for a couple of walks on the beach; rugged and windswept, the sea forbidding and grey, it is extremely beautiful, and reminds me quite a lot of Guernsey in the winter, even if at home you're unlikely to encounter any signs that caution 'Warning! It is illegal to harass the sea lions!'

The Pacific Northwest is, to my mind, one of the most fascinating parts of this country. It's not one of the more talked-about regions, but in many ways it is a microcosm of America - a whole host of diverse cultures (the Indians of course, the Russians, who established a series of outposts in the 18th century, the Euro-Americans, who flocked here during the Gold Rush, and even the Greeks, would you believe) competing and interacting in a frontier society, all strewn amongst astonishingly beautiful scenery.

And boy, is the scenery beautiful. After Gualala, we spent two days in Redwood National Park, in a cosy hostel that had expansive views of the ocean (it's becoming a pleasing theme of our overnight accommodations at the moment). There really are some big trees in these forests. The tallest stands at a neck-craning 364 feet. There is no viable way to fit an entire redwood into your field of vision, or indeed a photograph, though we had a good go at it, as you can see. They're fairly old too; the most ancient is no less than 2200 years old, which means that when Jesus was born it was already a pretty old tree. That's simply unimaginable.

We hiked a trail through the forest that, although only six miles long, felt a lot longer as it sneakily went up and down hills. It looked a lot like 'Return of the Jedi', which I suppose isn't that surprising since that's where it was filmed. As we traipsed along we had to resort to our full repertoire of songs, appropriately including those from 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', to try and keep the bears at a safe distance; we may have sounded a bit like we were trying to keep our spirits up in a collapsed mine, but we didn't see any bears so it obviously did the

trick, although it was a little embarrassing when we came across other bemused-looking hikers, who clearly had not been given the same advice (though who knows whether they made it to the end of the trail!).

We did occasionally work up enough courage to desist from singing long enough to listen to the unforgettable silence created by the towering canopy. As Scarlett pointed out, it's so quiet it actually hurts your ears, as they strain to hear something, anything. Unfortunately, after a while this precious silence was shattered by a lone fly, who appeared to take great delight in pursuing us doggedly for several miles along the trail. You've honestly never heard a fly so loud. We were told to 'keep the wildlife wild', but given the chance I would have killed that fly, so as I would.

I'd better sign off, otherwise I'm going to miss the beginning of the Lost three-hour season finale event, which ought to be incredible, even if it will be punctuated by adverts that say things like 'too old for acne but too young for wrinkles? Your skin is practically perfect, but don't worry, you can still spend money on it by buying this wholly unnecessary product'. Tomorrow we're making a right turn and heading inland to Crater Lake, before dropping back down into California on our way to the Arizonan national parks. Watch, quite literally, this space.

- Adam