Senior Forums

Hi Maureen, thanks for the welcome.
I have lived in Arizona for 11 of the last 13 years. I was in New Mexico for 2 years in between, having lived there for 10 years before moving to AZ. Outlander represents the feeling of not belonging and refusing to accept a world going very wrong. What about you?
Chuck

I'm an Aussie living in Sydney. My nom de plume, Warrigal, is the indigenous name for the Australian native dog. I spent a couple of weeks touring some western states of US, including Arizona, with my now late husband, in a hire car. It was a long time ago.
Don't worry about not fitting in. This is a large forum with something for everybody.

I've never been "down under", I'll bet there is much more to it than what you see on videos. It's good that you visited America during a much better time. Did you see the Grand Canyon?

Did I ever! That, and the active volcano in Hawaii, were my top reasons for exploring US. Throw in the spectacular scenery of the western states, Death Valley and a couple of National forests and it was the complete package. However, also on our itinerary were San Franscisco and New York.

The absolute highlight of our trip was a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon and down into it. Absolutely fabulous.

That's quite the adventure! I just looked up Sydney time and you're 17 hours ahead. You must have had some jet lag for sure.

Yeah... nah. No jetlag. we had a round-the-world plane ticket.
This ticket, for a fixed price, allowed us to travel around the globe without backtracking, breaking the journey wherever and whenever we pleased. It was offered by QANTAS and Air Canada.

We left Sydney, flew to Cairns for a three day stopover (Great Barrier Reef and hinterland) then onto Honolulu.

After 3 days there, including 2 on the Big Island we flew on to Los Angeles, picked up a hire car and took off south to San Diego, then headed east over mountains to the Grand Canyon after which we turned north-east for San Franscisco. Along the way we found much to interest us. We stayed in cheap motels and met lots of locals.

From SF we travelled back down to LA along the coastline. All in all, I think we spent about 3 weeks in US. Maybe more.

After US we spent about 6 weeks in Canada where were mostly stayed with family and friends of a Canadian friend living in Sydney. We also had a side trip to New York before flying out to UK where we stayed in a 400 year old farm cottage with another friend. While there we self drove around England, Wales and Scotland.

On the way home we stopped in Paris, Rome and Singapore before landing in Perth. We then spent a few days in the iron rich Pilbara country with another friend from Northern Ireland.
When we finally touched down in Sydney, we had been away for 5 months altogether.

What a fabulous trip. I can tell it brings back fond memories, very good for the soul. These are the most valuable treasures one can collect over a lifetime.

There is a 420 character limit in this section which is why I had to break my post into snippets.

I found that out already, lol! Bedtime for me now. It might be easier to communicate via email?
Just a suggestion, no worries.

Communication is easier using the conversation section. I'll explain how that works another time.