The purpose of coming to Colorado was to do skiing. So with our camp set up in the RV, we were able to travel around and experience some of the best skiing in the world. Vail and Beaver Creek were amazing.

.... of course we are all experts by now even if we have only been on skis for 2 hours.

The first and only time Mum went on skis.

One cool Dad.

One cool Julian.

Day 165 - Dallas to Denver - January 17th, 2005

Julie and I got up at 6:30am again. Who said anything about taking it easy? We had to do a final pack and prepare to leave Dallas, my brother and his family and set off on our great RV adventure. Our flight was at midday from Dallas.

Although we had a large tin trunk delivered to us in Canada and we arrived there with a big case and a little case each, we have now got our luggage down to one large roller case each, one hand luggage each and the electric guitar (in it's own case) and the computer (in it's own case). So we travel now with 10 bags. We have left a very large bag in Dallas with Tony, which he will either bring over to France later in the year or we will arrange for it to be shipped back to the UK.

We had high hopes for the guitar. It belongs to Sammy and he had lessons for a couple on months before we left, so I agreed that we could take it with us for him to continue to practice. I too thought that I would have time to learn a few new cords and become generally more competent. However, neither of us have been able to bring ourselves to do much with it. I was very tempted to leave it in Dallas but decided against it at the last moment as I have re-committed to playing it whilst in the RV. Also, it looks very cool in airports when you have it slung over you shoulder. We always take it into the cabin (as it would probably not survive in the cargo hold). I am always hope that someone will mistake me for an ageing rocker (which of course I am).

We managed to get all our gear and the four of us and my brother (the driver) into his Land Rover Discovery thus alleviating the aggravation of 2 cars having to drive to the airport.

It was sad to go. Julian and Sammy have really enjoyed getting to know (and fight with) their cousins and they will miss the warmth that they have shown us. I really enjoyed living with my brother and his wife and it was the first time in at least 30 years that I have done so. Although he is my brother, ever since I was about 7, we have mostly lived apart. For one reason or another he had been in a different country to me most of my life. He emigrated to Canada some time in the late '70s and apart from a couple of years when we worked together in Canada in the mid '80s, we have lived very separate lives. So I really enjoyed getting into his life for a while and seeing how they do things in Texas.

The flight from Dallas to Denver was our 6th on this trip. We are becoming more accomplished at navigating the security, customs, immigration and other checking in procedures that you are faced with today. Now when we tell boys about our next flight the first question is always "how long will we have to line up". International travel, which I always remember as being great fun, is now reduced to a demeaning scrum for most of the time. Nearly all the airports I have been to in the last couple of years are struggling to cope with the huge numbers of people who fly and the new security measures required to protect against terrorism. The boys actually thinks it's quite a drag. The novelty has worn off already.

However, we remain stoical and have all taken responsibilty for jobs we are required to perform to get through the process. Julian takes on being the navigator (we put him on Point). Upon receiving the information as to which gate, terminal or exit we require, he will lead the way and guide us clearly to our destination. Sammy is baggage control. He stands on guard, never leaving his post, looking after all our luggage, whilst we disappear to the toilets, restaurants, games rooms or book shops (Julie). Julie is responsible for supplies and will scout around making sure that we have food, drinks, treats, books and newspapers for the flight. Many of the shorter flights we have been taking have been around lunch time and no food is served. We learnt our lesson on not taking food with us very early on. I'm responsible for passports, tickets, boarding passes and money. Also for getting the story right at US customs who, by the way, now finger print you and photograph you as you enter and leave.

The flight from Dallas to Denver was only an hour and a half and the circling in was quite spectacular. Denver is a city about the size of Dallas. It has an interesting skyline if you like modern high rise office buildings. This is set against the spectacular backdrop of the snow capped Rocky Mountains. The flatness of the land to the east of the city accentuates this spectacle.

We passed through the airport without much to do but had already noticed the numbers of people carrying ski and snowboarding equipment. The mountains were calling.

We were told by the RV company to take a taxi to their depot as the journey was only about 30 minutes and would cost less than $50. We found a taxi big enough to take us and all our luggage. As is usual with us now, we interogate the taxi driver and find out a little about who he is and his family. Today we had a Somalian driver who turned out to be an ex 5,000 and 10,000 metres running champion. He ran professionally for the USA during the late '80s and early '90 and competed in several olympics. He had travelled all around the world as a long distance runner and had settled in Denver as he always used to train in this area. Denver is over a mile high (altitute is 6,000 feet plus), so it's an excellent place to train because the rarified atmosphere helps develop your body for running. He now has 3 kids (he married another Somali as their is a big Somali community in Denver) and still runs nearly everyday. He had his running kit in the car and was training for the Boston and New York marathons. Although he had never done a marathon before, his best time for a half marathon was 1 hours and 6 minutes and in his prime he could complete the mile in 3 minutes and 50 something seconds. I'm telling you the in the US yoiu just meet the most amazing people. (another amazing people story follows soon).

We got to the RV rental station and started to fill in the pages of forms you have to complete. He showed us around the vehicle and told us how everything worked. We also rented 4 bicycles, a toaster ($3 for a month), and a couple of deck chairs. By this time the boys were nearly wetting their pants with excitement, having already decided in England where they were sleeping (in the high cab above the driver).

I am sending this (unfinished) using the wireless network of the local high shool. I will finish it later (you've heard that before).

This is our home for the next month. 25 feet of home. It has hot and cold running water (sometimes), heating, a/c, microwave, cooker, fridge, freezer, toilet, shower, beds for 6 and a massive 6.8 litre V10 (yes V10) engine. She also has 4 bikes strapped to the back. We passed on the options for boats and towed cars.

Another day in the office. 3 boys hard at work. 

Day 164 - Cancun, Mexico - 14th January, 2005 ..... (I'm carrying on from the previous one - see below) I was immediately in a bad mood (you know how difficult that must have been) and kicking myself all the way to our hotel. We talked about it and decided that even though I was going to loose the $40, we wouldn't prostitute ourselves by pretending to listen to a presentation. So we never went. 

We checked ourselves into our hotel and went immediately to the pool. The boys both love swimming, since they were taught by a young lad from Twyford School and spent the rest of the day swimming in the pool and jumping in the Jacuzzi. 

The trip from the airport was quite interesting and all of us had our ears on stalks listening to the other passengers in the mini-van. Unfortunately Cancun is at this time of year, used by businesses to reward their staff for achievements made and sales targets met. 3 of the passengers were from a pharmaceutical company who sold, amongst other things, breast implants. They were obviously on a "high", having achieved their quarterly sales figures and were on an all an expenses paid jolly. But one guy admitted that he had only been in the business for a few months which didn't stop him doing a great deal on 125 implants for a hospital near New York. Another deal he closed recently was for over $250,000 but he was (to us) clearly a product of the United States of America. His motto (the words actually came out of his mouth) was "Work hard and play hard". He was living the American dream. If you want it bad enough you can get it. All he had done was work hard and have a bit of luck. Now he was going to make good on the "play hard" bit. We heard stories from the others of previous beanos, with boasts of drinking and off the record (and without the wife knowing) escapades in "gentlemens establishments" and with other party members.  

There was not much we could do about the boys being within earshot. One of the party did kindly ask another to clean up his language due to the presence of kids. But when we got to talk about it both boys knew what they heard was outside our code of behaviour and they dismissed it as such. Julie and I were both like "Oh dear what is this place like?" 

It turns out that Cancun is a kind a bachelor party, corporate jolly sort of place. But aside from that it is a beautiful place and the weather was mostly good. We did have a bit of rain but they were only showers and passed quickly. 

On our first day we just got to look around the hotel and discover the restaurants and facilities. We had lunch in the pool bar, did some beach and had a rest in our room in the afternoon. We took a cab into town in the evening passing Porsche, BMW and Volvo dealerships on the way. We headed to the Walmart store which was about the size of 5 or 6 football fields. It also contained a McD's, a Dominos pizza and 6 or 7 other mini stores. It was more like a shopping mall. We were amazed at the prices which for something like a baseball hat (the reason we went there in the first place) were 3 times the price in Texas ($10 as opposed to $2.79). Given that the average Mexican around here probably earns a tenth of what the average American does, it pretty much staggers me that they can get away with it. The place was full of Mexicans. Very strange. I just can't figure it out. We came back to the hotel using the same cab driver that took us. If a tourist gets in a cab you keep him for as long as possible. So he had a kip whilst we did our shopping. Makes you feel rather important or exploitative depending on whether you are me or you are Julie. 

We came back to the hotel around 9:00 pm and went for a quick stroll along the beach. It was still in the 80s. The boys sand castles were still in tact (although requiring some repairs) so we patched them up and then watched a huge electrical storm lighting up the night sky from some distant spot far away across the Carribean. Bed felt good and this was just the beginning.

Sammy discovered that he loves to Jet Ski. Daddy discovered that after about 10 minutes he'd had enough of boucing across the waves. (click on image to enlarge) 

Day 163 - Cancun, Mexico - 13th January 2005 We never really planned to come here. The original idea, when I booked the tickets, was just to get us to the nearest landmass to Cuba that was not in the US. If you don't know, you cannot get from the US to Cuba. There are no flighs and President Bush has made it illegal for US citizens to travel there. Funny but I thought the US was a free country. So you can only go from Canada (expensive) or from Mexico. Since Cuba was where we really wanted to go, Cancun was the nearest place to start that journey. 

I started investigating Cuba whilst we were in Canada a month or so ago. Since we wanted to get a clear 30 day period in our RV across the US, we really couldn't use up more than 4 or 5 days on the trip to Cuba. The prices to fly from Cancun to Havanah were about $1,200 for all of us. We then wanted to stay in the Nacional Hotel in Havana (the really old one in the centre) and this would have cost us about $250 for the night. Then we were going to go on a beach break up the coast where Hemmingway used to hang out. This would have cost us another $1,200 for 4 nights (all inclusive resort). All in all the whole thing started looking very expensive bearing in mind a whole month in an RV costs about $2,000 at this time of year. So Cuba got the boot from the itinerary and we looked at staying few days in Cancun. 

Cancun is a totally fabricated resort. 20 years ago the whole place was just jungle. Over the last 20 years 100s of hotels and resorts have been built here such that it looks like a cross between the Las Vegas strip, Benidorm and Miami Beach. There is not an ounce of culture or history here. Some way down the coast there are some Mayan ruins but that's it. We looked at the hotel/resort websites and choose the Hyatt Cancun Caribe since it looked like it had a decent swimming pool, was actually ON the beach and proported to have all kinds of stuff for kids. It cost $146 per night for our room which comfortably accommodated the 4 of us. So we booked 4 nights, since we already had the air ticket to the place and didn't want to do a turn around in the airport and come back to Dallas, which is the next flight we have to do. 

The flight was 2 and half hours from Dallas and was only about one third full. We arrived at about noon. The airport was brand spanking new (as is most of Cancun) and we collected our bags and proceeded to leave. Then we got hit with the dumb tourist scam. I've done enough travelling to know better but they were so convincing. About 20 to 30 uniformed young Mexicans were on the other side of the exit door. One comes up to us and his badge reads "Tourist Advisor" and he asks if he can help us with any questions we may have on how to get to our hotel and what we would like to do whilst we are in Cancun. Well how kind. Julie and I were both thinking how well organised the Mexicans were putting on this kind of service. First, he showed us which shuttle bus to use to go the our hotel and where to get it. Then he asked if we knew what we wanted to do whilst we were here. By this time he had taken us over to a cubicle. There were perhaps a dozen of them. He then told us about the various excursions and tours that were on offer. We could do a day trip to the Mayan Ruins, do speed boat excursions, visit the Island of Meyerles and so on. He told us the price of each of these and they were in the $30 to $50 each bracket. 

Then came the clincher. By now we were debating about which trips we would like to take. The boys had already made up their minds and we had decided what we would also like to do. Ruben, our "Tourist Advisor" then suggested a great way to do the trips. Simply get in a taxi tomorrow morning and ask them to take you to the Moon Palace Resort. There someone will meet the taxi, pay the taxi fare, take you to the best restaurant in the hotel for a bumper breakfast and give you 8 free tickets for the excursions we had just been eyeing up. Since Ruben had been so kind to stress the "regular" cost of these, I took no more than a moment to realise this could "save" us $320. The only slight draw back was that we were required to listen to a little presentation whilst we were there. Furthermore, I was required to pay $40 to Ruben now and this would be fully refunded by the rep at the hotel. By now I knew it was a "time share scam" so I cross examined him on this one. No it was not a time share but yes there was a presentation. I assumed it was a similar thing being called something else. It was some sort of membership club to the resort. Even so, we thought to ourselves, who cares if we have to sit through a boring presentation for a while if we can get $320 of free tickets. Do you know that feeling when you know you are about to be "done" but somehow fall for it anyway? Well, we knew it but paid the $40 and agreed to go to the hotel the next morning .....

Day 157 - Dallas, Texas - 7th January 2005 Today my borther's wife, Carolyn, agreed to look after the boys for the day. This included home schooling them in the morning and taking them with her when she went to collect her own 2 girls from school (she has 2 older girls who have left home already). Julie and I (boyless for the first time during the day for what seems like for ever but must only have been when they were last at school during December) headed into downtown Dallas proper. 

This is a 50 minute drive from where we are but we also agreed to take one of the girls to school in the morning, as we would be taking one of the cars for the day. Everything here starts early. School starts at 7:30 am (that is unless you have basketball (or some other team sport) practice and then you start at 6:30 am) and finishes at 2:30 (that is unless you have basketball (or some other team sport) practice and then you finish at 4:00pm. The two school age nieces I have here are often at school for 8 or 9 hours. One has been at school for 12 hours once. They are aged 12 and 15. They go to school with one sandwich, an apple, a couple of biscuits and a bottle of water. They will often come home with a couple of hours of homework just to make sure they are not slipping. 

Offices have the same routine. It seems that the schools prepare them for this. They start at 8:00pm and go to 5:00pm but typically work on to around 6:00 or later. So in order to get Jennie to school we are up at just after 6:00am and we leave just before 7:00am. Jenny is 12 and goes to a private Christian school about half an hour away in a town called Grapevine. There are no school buses to this school (although there are many to the local schools) and in Texas there in no, none, zip public transport. The only way to get anywhere is therefore by car. This is OK for Mom (as she is called over here) if she doesn't have to go to 2 different schools or do too many activities afterwards. It can become very hectic. 

Something else that is mind blowing over here: you can drive at 15. Yup 15 years old. Sophie, another niece here, drove to school by herself starting at the age of 15. The car parks at some of the local high schools cater for over 1,000 student cars. So we drop Jennie at school just before 7:30am (it's still dark here) and head off to Dallas. We hit all the commuter traffic but it still seems like a Sunday morning in comparison to the QEW to Toronto or the M1 coming into London. The Highway are pretty easy to navigate as long as you know the direction you are travelling (north, south, east and west). To a european this is not an inherant skill. When the weather is poor around here it's very difficult to know. The land is flat and it all looks the same. So when the Highwas is marked up as "Highway 35 W (for West) North" it means this is called Highway 35 East but you are going in a Northerly direction. Is that clear? It became clear to us eventually. Dallas and Fort Worth are 2 cities that sit side by side (like Minneapolis/St.Paul). They are connected by a highway (Hwy 30) and in between sits the DFW airport which is one of the biggest in the world in size. 

The city of Dallas could be walked in a morning and the city of Fort Worth could be walked in 1 and half hours. Although both have huge buildings they are in fact very small. Fort Worth in about the size of Ealing. We went first to the Sixth Floor Museum of the old Texas School Bookstore Depository from where President Kennedy was shot on November 22nd 1963. We got there as it opened at 9:00am and were the first through the turnpike for the day. I had been here previously 33 years ago and nothing had changed. Julie loved it especially as it would not have been a place we would have visited with boys. There really was nothing to see but to read the story boards about the assassination and to see the window from where the shots were fired (or so the story goes). We enjoyed it immensely. We then drove the 30 minutes from Dallas to Fort Worth. Incredibly the weather changed from being drizzly, overcast and cold to blue sky and sunshine as we drove this short distance. 

Fort Worth has some much older buildings and a very lively little downtown section know as Sundance Square. Sophie, who we were visiting in Fort Worth, works for Radio Shack in their world headquarters which are located there. She is in marketing in the digital imaging division, assisting in the marketing and promotion of digital cameras in Radio Shack stores. This company has 7,000 stores. 4,000 owned by the company and 3,000 owned by franchisees. Imagine how many digital cameras they shift? Sophie deals with many of the suppliers of these cameras and had a desk full of the latest (many yet to be released) cameras. A geeks dream. The Radio Shack Corporation has just moved into brand spanking new purpose built offices that are simply gorgeous. Floor to ceiling windows all around (my favourite), open plan offices, little cafes on each floor, huge restaurant on the ground floor. I was amazed. She then showed me the company's computer support operations department. In a room lit only from the glow of computer screens and very dim lights were four of five rows of about 15 computer stations. They were all facing the same direction looking towards a solid wall of screens and panels. The only way to describe it was that it looked just like mission control at Houston. Each station had 3 large flat panels arranged like a dressing table mirror, slightly curving in around the sides. Each operator, who was equipped with headset and mike, was dealing with a computer issue generated either by a worker in the offices or any of the dealers in the network. Price changes and till receipts were being monitored worldwide. As far as I was concerned this was where it was at. I would work there for nothing.

Julian in full cut. 

As a marketing ploy, the kids barbers are kitted out with a load of video game machines. When you sit in the chair for the cut they ask you which game you want to play. Julian was very dissappointed that his cut had finished before his game. You even get to play the machines whilst you are waiting. That is after you have been driven to the place whilst watching a DVD in the back of the car! Anything for the weekend sir?