Planet Ruby Starrs

I'm 21934 days old today and to celebrate I finally did something I had promised myself as a 60th birthday treat. Running 19 days late Dr Fred and I took ourselves off for a special lunch at Spurellis ice cream Parlor in Amble where I had a ginormous Cherry Ice Cream Sundae... IT WAS MARVELOUS!!! Cherry Sundae I do love an ice cream and I've often been in Spurellis having a coffee and seen people eating extremely scrummy looking ice cream but have always put the temptation aside thinking to treat myself on a high day or holiday... today was neither but in fact a high day that had been held on a holiday so now was the time!! I cant wait for the next high day as it was very difficult to choose which one to have - they all look truly scrumptious and all deserve a try at some point. This wasn't the only highlight of the day - we decided to earn the ice cream by having a brisk stroll around the harbour and were delighted to see some rare Amble wildlife - a porpoise or d...

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things  going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.

sunrise from the plane It was a long haul but we are home, back in North Toggie and it feels good.  The whole journey home went incredibly smoothly, no hiccups and in fact we made it in better time than we had anticipated and as we got a little sleep on the plane (10 hours flight ) and the coach back to Leeds was earlier( 7 plus hours...boring...) we figured another couple of hours was nothing and worth it to be in in own bed.... so we headed straight home.... after being on the road for 40 or more hours it was truly great to have own bed - and a loo in reasonable distance and comfort!!! (to say nothing of a bath!!!!!)  A week on, sleeping is still a bit hit and miss - we haven't really settled alternating between sleeping 12 hours and 4 hours  ha ha ... today feels more normal and over the last few days we have been out and about down the harbour, Alnwick and beach for walks so I'm feeling reconnected with home life again. I've fed my my addiction to Masterchef ...

wildlife on Ice Fields Parkway Its our last night of an amazing trip, we've been out and stuffed our faces and now are drinking all the left over beverages and doing the final packing.. lost baby - but wasn't there when we returned 8 weeks later!! As always the last 9 weeks seem to have flown by, loads of adventures and more stories - some we have recounted on here but there's some that didn't make the final cut so lots more to share.  We got off to a bad start, plagued with various illnesses but in the end the good times and  highlights are too numerous to detail.  Elk in Banff It was probably my best ever eclipse experience,  and I loved the wildlife especially the bears, elks and bison.  Yellowstone was fabulous but so was Craters of the Moon and City of Rocks. It was great to meet up with out friend from Australia and spend some time together drinking grey goose and sharing bad jokes!!! Solar viewing buddies I liked the off beat ...

Its been a wet grey day here, good preparation for our return to the UK. We had a nice wander in the rain across Vancouver city centre, taking in some nice buildings we had missed before.  We walked along the water front - all very modern and not really very appealing so we turned back into town and went to have a look at the Contemporary Art Gallery, a small but nicely formed exhibition of landscape, moose and bear paintings by Levine Flexhaug, a Canadian artist famous for his conveyor style paintings pretty much churned out for commercial profit but are strangely compelling when viewed on mass. The other exhibition,  'Be Polite' was a very provocative collection of drawings and paintings by Australian Artist Gordon Bennett detailing the life and oppression of indigenous tribes in Australia.  both interesting viewing in a nice space. We walked back to the apartment  past the landmark science museum an unusual if ugly building that dominates the skyline...

Full circle,we are back in Vancouver, in an airb&b place very central - good spot, very nice apartment, modern with a little outside deck to sit on - and we are minutes from down town Vancouver.   Not that we are too bothered as we are cream crackered - interstate driving - and then city driving all very different from the wide open spaces we have passed through over the last few weeks.  Its that point in the holiday when its time to go home.... The car has gone back - we are unsure as to whether it still housed a mousecedes or not, we haven't had any food or drink in there for a few days but I did discover when I unpacked my emergency pants they had been shredded!!!  BUT they were my emergency pants and I hadn't needed them so they could  have become part of a nest any time over the last weeks... The car people seemed quite happy with the mess we left the car in having practically lived in it for 60 days - we didn't mention mousecedes but there was a lo...

I've survived six decades... under a fairer government I would be drawing my old age pension from now.. as it is like so many people of my era I have to wait another 6 plus years.  I can legitimately wear purple and a red hat, eat sausages and butter etc... (see Jenny Joseph Warning) Its also my lovely granddaughters 8th birthday today - obviously a very special date!!!! I refer to think I am celebrating my Diamond Jubilee - Diamonds used to be for 75 years but Queen Victoria changed all that  and for some reason made it 60 years... Its only a number but it feels like a significant one, In a good way I might add.  I have no issue being 60 years young - to be fair being a nana is more aging, having children in their 30's makes me feel old, crawling in and out of the b****y tent has aged me - however those days are passed... we have slept our last in the tent... final striking of tent  We have just had the most lovely few days - the last few days in our ten...

Everyone in the USA is celebrating Labor Day - even us in our own quiet way... the coast was manic to say the least - think bank holiday times 10 and then some...  there was no camping to be had and no reasonably priced motel anywhere down the coast so we were forced to move inland to the the grand metropolis of Centralia... At first impression it was a bit grim... but it was the nearest affordable motel and we needed to know we could sleep somewhere!!! We bedded down for the night eating microwave meals and watching crap american TV - quite a luxury to be honest, hot water - comfy bed - today we got up and did a supermarket shop in prep for hitting the wilderness again for the last few days - Everyone and their granny who didn't make the coast was in Walmart!!!  Then we headed downtown Centralia for coffee and cakes to be pleasantly surprised at the old town main street.   Lovely theatre, old playhouse - fabulous bar, rather too many 'antique' shops but really ve...

Lovely day walking on the headland at Cape Look Out just north of Pacific City, a small seasidy place on the coast of Oregon.  The walk was though a beautiful forested area with some almost tropical plants growing.  It was very lush, verdant and quite damp (very muddy) in places.  The terrain was a bit uneven with amazing root formations to clamber across and ridges to wander along high up giving amazing views down the coast. We followed this little wander with a frolic on the beach at Neskowin - nothing much there except a huge rock with  lovely crepuscular rays seeping over tit and a unreachable (due to pesky varmint children) natural arch. some nice fossil rocks and sea weed - not many people - altogether very pleasant

We've had some seriously hot days this last week... the hottest we have had the whole trip. Temperatures of over 40 degrees on the move and even higher while stationary so we decided no animal could survive that in the car, we probably had a dead mouse on board! There was no water available for it and little food it couldn't possibly survive, so not wanting to find a corpse in my luggage, two nights ago I decided to empty everything completely - food bags, bathroom box, kitchen box, our wardrobes, (rucksacks) the day packs - every thing got emptied and the only sign was a few mouse droppings in the bottom of my bag... no dead mammals -  All returned neatly and orderly packed up back to normal... The next day we found a load of blue stuffing on Dr Fred's bag!! Another start of a nest - our pet mouscedes was still with us!!!  We must have disturbed it without realising and this must be car seat stuffing - it doesn't match anything of ours!! We threw the stuffing o...

potential bivi if no camping... We are back on the coast. its much cooler and great to be back by the sea.  We stopped for clam chowder and clam fritters and had a walk down the beach to the Devils Punchbowl a stunning cliff cave hole thingy which we could get to because it was low tide. We booked into a motel about 2 blocks from the sea, we feel the need for a bit of comfort, plus we got caught out by an American national holiday for Labor Day and camping is scarce - actually everything is scarce so we are forced to move inland tomorrow 😖😖😖but we just couldn't face trailing around - so making the most of what we have for now, bathed and tidied we headed down the road to watch the sun go down over the sea - not a cloud in sight..... ....and strangely for a holiday weekend not many people around either - it was just lovely, bit like Druiridge bay - except planning gone a bit mad but long empty beaches with more sea gulls then people and a setting sun rather then a ri...

We crossed the border and entered Oregon, found a map with non-existent campsite on and drove much further than we wanted to but eventually found a lovely campsite by a lake – showers and everything!!! Dr Fred was knackered but he done well so we cracked a couple of beers and watched the sun go down over the lake.  There was grass!! No dusty cinders or rocky outcrops for us that night – it was like lying on a feather bed.  there was a lovely sunset across the lake, it was sooo peaceful after such a manic week... We had moved a time zone so were an hour out which meant we went to bed early and got up early and were out on the road again before the heat set in.  We have seen massive variation in temperatures on this trip from below zero and ice on the tent in Yellowstone, to the heady heights of 40 degrees plus even up the mountains.  Trouble is there’s not much you can do in such heat apart from find a nice café and drink smoothies for a great part of the day...

Our friend started his journey back to Australia and headed off back in the direction of Denver. We set off driving in the opposite direction through Idaho to Twin Falls to find the Shoshone Falls.  This was tip off from someone we spoke on the campsite and at first we couldn’t find the falls...  We considered giving it a miss so we found a supermarket and stocked up on food supplies and then had a coffee and realised we had wifi in the supermarket so we checked the maps and found the falls.  I’m glad we made the effort.  The woman who told us about them said they were considered to be the wests answer to Niagara but we were a bit skeptical as we had not seen them advertised anywhere - They were actually pretty amazing, not as amazing as they would be in the rainy season as the water levels were low so they were only coming over a small portion of the rocks but even that was quite impressive.  There were some nice rainbows at the bottom and I took some pho...