well hows it going everyone - just a few lines to tell y'all how its going over here in the states, and to prove that i havent been hiding out in one of the brothels on hay street in kalgoorlie!

well i had a few days in san fran when i arrived in the states, and spent them explorin the city and hangin with my mate ben (little fatty) and got to see osme really god spots in town that i didnt go to when i first went to san fran.

then off to chicago for a week to do a couple of days induction for the exchange. even spent a day in milwaukee, a couple of hours north, still on lake michigan. chicago is a cool city, not amazingly pretty, but good beers and lots of sports - went oto see the chicago bull basketball team, which was pretty cool - although michael jordan hasnt been there for a few years.....

then to tucson, and into the south west of the states - very similar town to kalgoorlie, but obviously a lot bigger, and with 4 mountain ranges surrounding the town, so its a lot prettier. it has a really good feel to it and is nice and close to mexico so i can supplement my income being a coke mule if need be..

welli'm living in a two bedroom apartment with a recluse for a house mate who steals my food and says maybe 2 words to me a day - but thats ok cause i peed in his apple juice - no not really, but he's a bit of a knob. The apartment complex is good and has a pool, so theres pretty much always some uni girls there sunbathing in bikinis. its a hard life.....

i'm doing lots of work and research at the moment into dendrochronology and a lot of stuff to do with fire history and regimes in the past. Its really interesting and i'm going to get to do field work in some really beautiful places in arizona, new mexico, nevada and california - not too shabby!

Well at the moment i've been at home for most of the last week researching and reading lots of papers, which fits in cause i've done some damage to my knee after falling over playing soccer on the weekend - it blew up like a balloon then has bruised most of the way up and down my leg. fun stuff!  I've just bought a new car too this week, so that was also good fun to do on one leg, especially with the lady selling it had to tramp all over town to chase up spare tyres that were falling apart. yeehaw. also she was a stereotypical american single mum too - very fat, very lower class and not too bright. ooh and her dad was in the air force too! yeeeeeehaw!

so i'm orf to vegas tomorrow for the weekend to hang out with steve, mary and ben, my surrogate family form england, who have come over to visit ben in san fran - should be a great itme, and get to go to the grand canyon again - and see the north rim. should be sweet as!

VEGAS 

Well i managed to get on the plane with my buggered knee and walking cane and got to the Luxor hotel to meet Steve and Mary, and later on Ben, my family from england. Ben and i got set up in our room and hit the buffet first (of course). Best buffet ive ever seen and only managed to have 3 plates and some dessert cause of the drugs i started taking that day - oxycodon i think i was and it made me feel like i was buzzing all over the place and couldnt focus on anything. took away the pain though so i didnt complain! Then hit the streets and made a few hundred dollars for an hours work - very easy to do in vegas if you know how to use your hands...

and no - no pimping for the avid traveller in Vegas (New York maybe..) but blackjack - jeez guys - get your minds out of the gutter!

Then we packed up in the car and headed for the north rim of the grand canyon, didnt fall in, then headed round the east side of the canyon and stayed in a little indian town called Cameron, where we met the person checking us in randomly walking around the parking lot out front mumbling something  in indian. Woke up the next day to find that we stayerd in one of the biggest wastelands in the world, which tied in with the US policy of giving the native indians the worst last possible in the country!

Then up through polygamy country and back to vegas by the sunday night - for me to fly home - well actually thre story went that i was bumped off two flights and had to stay another night in vegas in a crappy motel and caught the red eye in the morning. gotta love american airports!

Spent a few days going back up to polygamy country for work, and up into the mountains of nevada and northern arizona doing some work with the desert tortoise. Got to see some huge houses in the polygamy towns, all with multiple doors into the place so each wife couldhave their own entrance and not bump in to the others if they didnt want to - talk about being lucky fellas living there! although, having 4 women nagging at you at once wouldnt be worth the orgies me thinks.....

ALso been on a couple of field trips up into the mountains of southern arizona and northern new mexixo learning about fire scar samling and tree coring for work - some absolutely amazing places and views and luckily i havent been eaten by a bear yet. very happy about that one......

 

part 3 up soon.....!