Ramada Inn Conference Center Morgantown

We are back safe and sound from our trip to Arequipa and the Colca Canyon. I wanted to tell you what a wonderful travel agency were Inka Fest Travel. They were PERFECT! They took very good care of us - especially after I got sick while hiking out of the canyon! That was a rough day for me. The rest of the trip was great! They are really nice people, too...

Thanks for everything, it was a great trip!

... the road. So we went to the concessions area and parked the the Rhododendron trail head. Took that trail, which met-up with the Mt. Chateau trail. It seemed like a long hike and steep descent down and I kept thinking this is going to be tough coming back! But we were pleasantly surprised when the end of the trail opened out onto Cheat Lake. We sat on the rocks and had lunch and watched all the boats and jet skiers (very loud ...

... continuing south toward key West, we decided to pick up Ohio (remember a few days ago when we headed into Canada early and missed Ohio). Today we made a lot of progress toward our goal of hitting all 48 States and we swung into Washington DC to add that to the list. We are now back on track to that goal and still in good time to finish the Four Corner's Tour well within the required 21 days.

Now to the scary stuff. As we headed west into ...

... right on the top of a hill with a rock on the top called sky rock. It was beautiful up there but very hot so it was a bit of an effort to get up there! We then drove on to another bigger look out in a park called Coopers hill. Just as we parked up and got out of the car we saw another car arrive that looked like the one that my parents were driving. Then we realised that it was my parents! They had my Mum's cousin Tessa with them, and they were on their way ...

... The cycle back did us in as it was a long steep uphill grind back and the temp was around 100 F. We had burgers for dinner and a Lego building competition, the kids got to watch some TV too which was a novel experience. We had a restful and refreshing day and the Aircon cooled sleep was bliss.

... plug into the mains and run the Aircon at night which was a relief because even at night the temperature didn't drop much. Unfortunately the fuse blew the first night and we had a hot night but we solved the problem the next day by running the fridge on Propane while the Aircon was on. We had a nice time catching up. Terry and Sally own a big farm around the house, basically most of the hill, and ...

... the World- Chilkoot Trail, Fearless Planet, Extreme Alaska, Travels on the Edge, various travel channel shows like Alaskan Wild, Wide Open, Artic Wildlife, etc., and even Sunrise Earth for goodness sake! So our trip begins with leaving Friday evening to stay overnight in Pittsburgh and possibly catch the 1st conference playoff game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers. Go Pens!

... like our own personal roller coaster. We went through Gore, VA, Romney, Junction, New Creek, Mount Storm, Aurora, Erwin, Grafton, and finally tucked in at our final stop - Clarksburg, WV. A nice heavy dinner and a few beers and we called it a day.....we plan on an early start tomorrow and would like to get to my cousin Kurt's house in Cincinnati by early afternoon.

Hi all, Nice to be out of the East Coast heatwave and back in civilised (ie down to the high 20s) temperatures. This is a very picturesque area - lots of forested hills etc. Unfortunately my camera battery ran flat in New York, & I left both my spare and the charger in Boston in my backpack as I only carted 1 bag down here.

... Pittsburgh and Florence I have a stop in Chicago O'Hare's airport. My actual air-time will be about 12 hours. I'm really nervous about the flight because I'm not sure how I'm going to stay still for so long and because I'm leaving everyone behind. I've never felt so scared about going out into the world by myself, so please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I know this is ...