Congratulations. An incredible achievement.

As one of your online friends, although we did meet several times in meat space as you so charminglv call it, I enjoyed this post. Would you believe I was looking for the like button to click for a few seconds till I came to my senses and signed into Typepad? you do like to pigeonhole your friends with fancy sounding names, don't you? Although you always have miscategorized me. Laughs. I think I am a Left Liberal while you push me far more to the Left into the Marxist camp I fear. I'm lucky you are so tolerant and of course lucky to be your friend!

I’m not the erudite reader you are but I read this many years ago and count it amongst those books which made an impact on my life. It’s certainly a book that I think everyone should read in their lifetime. I’ll be interested to see what else you are going to recommend and wonder if I will have read any of those. Laughs. When I think about the books I have touted over the years to anyone who would listen it is an incredibly eclectic collection. Oh my latest touting is When Breath becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a bit close to home for me, but a very different look at what makes life meaningful.

Carcassonne is one of my favourite places in all of France. Unfortunately when we did the tour it was only available in French and while I can still read French relatively well, my understanding of the spoken word leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately my daughter is fluent and she filled in any missing details for me later.

Laughs!

Do you know that in Australia Tax Freedom day was April 12th this year? We are both living in the wrong country! However the discrepancy is so great I think they must calculate it differently.

June 10th for us Canadians, well that was in 2015 and it's been creeping later every year so I am sure 2016 will be no different.

Merry Christmas to you and your daughters, Tom.

Testing, testing, testing.

I'm sorry your Philadelphia sojourn was so messed up. I really loved that city with all the independence hype and of course the very splendid Rodin Museum which wasn't on your agenda. When I visited the Declaration of Independence in Washington DC I was strangely moved by the whole experience and Philadelphia was a similar experience for me. You sound quite nostalgic now the journey is over. What an achievement! Those wide open roads were built for Speranza and I'm sure she enjoyed every moment of it too. Especially the admiration!

One wonders if you will ever wear your collection of Tshirts again when you get back to the UK. But perhaps you'll have acquired an American attitude on this trip. Tradition be damned! I love the American "why not" attitude in the face of 'You can't do that", because some outdated "tradition" dictates one can't.

Thank goodness. California will keep for another visit, perhaps not with Speranza but there will be lots of muscle cars for hire next time. I hope that's not an insult to Speranza, comparing her to a muscle car, although we all know she is in a higher class.

I hope you appreciate that I photoshopped the garbage can out of that photo! The OS moved it out of the way for one photo but put it back before I took this one. Shakes her head. He doesn't do photography but he does garbage quite well.

Those places look familiar! A lovely day indeed. It was good to see you again and show you a few of the highlights of this lovely city, my adopted home. Bon voyage.

That "island" made by your route lines is actually known as the Cascade Loop minus a tiny bit on the coast and a very well known tourist drive. You can google it. I've never driven it but it is said to be very beautiful. I think taking the longer route would probably be more scenic. Maybe it won't be more scenic than where you have been but it will certainly be spectacular. You'll go past Mount Baker and Lake Chelan and the North Cascade Highway sounds very scenic. Frankly I would ask the locals when you get to Wenatchee, they'll be better able to give you advice than me. Don't worry about time, as long as you get to Vancouver in time for dinner. Planned for around 6.30pm give or take. :) Crossing the border can be a tedious delay as the Canadians return from their cross border weekend shopping sprees, but hopefully it will go smoothly.

Yes. Yellowstone :) is amazing and it is a huge park! Do you still see signs of the huge bush fires of 1988? We certainly did when we were there. I can't imagine how horrible it was and devastating to the wildlife.

This "shambles" does not sound like you at all. But yes I think Yellowstone is worth another day. In fact we spent a week there a few years ago. Besides the geyser area which is fascinating, the wildlife is amazing and along with Yosemite and the Grand Canyon is one of the finest national parks in the USA.

You're suffering the reverse of what we people from newer places find when we go to the UK and Europe. We are overwhelmed by the depth of history there while in the New World you have to search hard for historical moments which just seem like yesterday. It takes some adjusting but the finds are none the less interesting and enjoyable. It gets "worse" the farther west you go. But then there's always the scenery! And the people!

Laughs. I'm glad to see that common sense prevailed over "snootiness". Enjoy!

Personally I have been wondering why you just didn't go buy a US loaded Garmin or some such for this trip as soon as you arrived. I don't think they are that cumbersome, although I have a fancy built in GPS myself so have only seen other people's in action. Being "snooty" about it is cutting off your nose to spite your face you know! :) I do believe that navigating by map is more efficient with two people in the car and driving by the signs has not proved effective for you, once at least.

You were lost? Misleading sign? Those dratted androids!

That credit card nonsense is incredible. I have a US credit card issued by a Canadian bank and have used it for years. Last year I was unable to use it to buy Metro tickets at the railway station because of this so-called security implementation. To give the employee credit, he phoned the higher ups and had it changed so I could use the card the next day. There are some generic numbers you can punch in for those with non US credit cards but my bank had not been added until he instigated it.

My last two cars have been Fords! The first lasted 16 years and I really like the latest one. The model I have was Car of the Year in the USA. Of course like all newer cars it is very low to the ground and you have to be very careful of concrete buffers etc. I'm sure you have this "problem" too. We can't all have Ferraris!

Laughs. I knew you should fill the tiny boot/trunk with sacks of money to pay the speeding fines although no doubt they take credit cards nowadays.

Americans are chatty!!!! You may have some English reserve but you are pretty chatty yourself. It's going to be an interesting trip.