January

Making the most of the fact the kids and Russ were all on winter break, we decided to take a little road trip down to Outer Banks on the North Carolina coast and then dipped down to just outside Lancaster in South Carolina to visit a school/work friend I hadn't seen in about 25 years.

Day 1. We stopped off at Virginia Beach for lunch (just near Norfolk on the map above) and had a walk along the beach - it was a very windy day!

We arrived at our accommodation in Nags Head, Outer Banks late in the afternoon, just in time for happy hour at the hotel - free beer and wine, thanks very much!

We decided to try the Outback Steakhouse for dinner, which claims to provide Aussie fare, and were amused by how it was basically normal food with Australian names (Toowoomba salmon or Melbourne rib-eye anyone?!). What really tickled our fancy though was the bloomin' onion, a deep fried very large onion with a spicy sauce. We had to try it - it was actually very good, but not particularly Australian. 

Bloomin' onion

Sunset at Outer Banks

Day 2 we decided to explore the area, starting with  a drive down to Cape Hatteras Lighthouse https://www.nps.gov/caha/planyourvisit/chls.htm, which should look like this:

...but the day we were there it looked like this:

...which was a little disappointing, but we took a selfie anyway!

We then decided to drive from the lighthouse, which was located at the bottom of Outer Banks, to Duck, a town at the very top of Outer Banks for a pizza lunch. We clearly didn't appreciate how big the region was, at it was over 100km. Oops!

We had intended to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/index.htm but unfortunately they were not allowing any new visitors to the park by the time we arrived.

Sunset on the beach

Day 3 we drove to visit Lynell and her husband Mike at their home in South Carolina. Lynell and I went to school together and we also both worked for Westpac, which was my first full time job after school. Lynell and Mike moved over to the US shortly after they were married in '95, and I've only seen Lynell once since then, in the late 90's.

Lynell and Mike have a beautiful home which backs onto a reservoir. We had a fantastic time catching up and reminiscing about old times. 

What a view!

Day 4 (after a very slow start) we left Mike and Lynell's, headed to Roanoke, which is just over the Virginia border. A harrowing drive on the Interstate 81, which is a major north-south freight corridor, left us all shattered by the time we arrived at our hotel, not least of all Laura who was driving. Trucks aren't speed limited here like they are in Australia and everyone drives at least 10 miles over the speed limit. We have told Laura that if she can survive driving here, she can drive anywhere!

Day 5. Homeward bound after a quick visit to the Roanoke Star https://www.visitroanokeva.com/things-to-do/attractions/roanoke-star/. Laura did not drive this day.

We arrived home on Sunday, 5th January. School was due to resume the next day, however the weather gods had different plans for us when we woke up to a winter wonderland on Monday morning and a snow day for the kids.

Compulsory selfie.

Our house.

Our street.

Our car.

Nightime. It was so light because of the reflection off the snow. This was taken at 9.30pm.

On Tuesday we woke up to glorious sunshine, and another snow day. Russ had online lessons this day.

We ended up with one more snow day on Wednesday and a two hour delayed start on Thursday. As you can imagine the kids were pretty happy with that.

On Saturday the 11th we were up early and trudged through the snow to the Metro and into DC as we were lucky enough to have booked a self-guided tour of the White House. No access to the West Wing, but an amazing experience nonetheless.

Outside selfie.

Inside selfie.

Library

Vermelli Room

Diplomatic reception room

State Dinner Service of Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight  Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson & Ronald Reagan

State Dinner Service of Presidents William Clinton, Barack Obama x 2 and George W. Bush 

East room

Green room

Blue room

Red room

State dining room

I was particularly taken with the portraits on display. The below were my favourites.

John F Kennedy

Ronald Reagan

George W Bush

Barack Obama

Michelle Obama

The following weekend (18/19/20 Jan) Laura had her first All-star cheerleading competition which took us up to Connecticut. We flew into Providence in Rhode Island late Friday night and hired a car the next morning to drive to the competition venue, which was Foxwoods Casino Resort in Mashantucket.

We have never seen anything like the chaos of approximately 1000 cheerleaders together with their coaches, parents and judges crammed into a convention centre. 

The team performs a two minute thirty routine which includes tumbling, stunts (lifting team members) and dance. Laura does a lot of tumbling and is also a base for the stunting. The team competed on Saturday and Sunday and came third in their category. A couple of action shots from the competition:

Laura is in the left hand group, right hand side

Laura is right hand group, right hand side. 

Although the competition was in Mashantucket, we stayed in the most adorable seaside town called Mystic, which was about 14km away.

Bridge heading to the Main Street.

The weather was pretty cold and miserable while we were in Connecticut, with quite a lot of rain and even snow on our last night, but it was fantastic to get to see a part of the country that we most likely wouldn't have visited if not for the competition.

After arriving home on Monday afternoon, the next day Russ jetted off to San Francisco for part of his American Studies program. This field studies trip was designed to look at the relationship between big tech, the US free market systems and their impact on social welfare by using Silicon Valley as an exemplar. The trip included a visit to Google as well as hearing from experts on the cost of living and homelessness.  

First up was a run across the Golden Gate Bridge - it was much harder than it should have been!!

One of the buildings at Google's Bay View complex. The roof is made up of solar panel tiles, demonstrating that solar doesn't have to mean ugly panels on your roof.

 Every work place should have a bowling alley!!

Inside one of Google's buildings. Everything you hear about working at Google is true.

While in San Fran, some of Russ's class got to visit Angel Island. Angel Island is the west coast's version of New York's Ellis Island, where immigrants would go on arrival to the US while awaiting processing.

The group

A very healthy coyote just hanging out. The coyotes only arrived on the island a few years ago during COVID. It is assumed they swam over one night and since then have adapted to living on the island.

Looking down on to the arrival point for the immigration station.

One of the few remaining immigration buildings.

The accomodation.....delightful!

Some graffiti from the 'guests' as they were awaiting their fate. There was even some graffiti from a Kiwi, but there was no trace of any Australian graffiti.

For the last weekend in January the family was spread over the country. 

Russ was still in San Francisco.

Ben joined Boy Scouts of America earlier in the month as most of his mates from school are involved. There is a weekly group meeting but the main attraction is the monthly campouts. For January they went to Ocean City in Maryland from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, staying at a beach house, visiting a boardwalk arcade and generally having a blast with his friends.

Beach at Ocean City.

And finally, Laura and I travelled to Reading in Pennsylvania for another cheer competition. It was just one competition this time on Sunday afternoon, so we drove there on Saturday and drove home Sunday night - we didn't get in until about 11.30pm. Apparently we didn't take any photos of the trip, but here is a screen shot of one of their stunts: