A little trip over to Killarney - it was for work - but was as good as a holiday...



More lenticular clouds - view from Malton Hotel




Last time I was at Ladies View it was raining (it was about October 1987) - much better in June 2009 - but my colleagues would not come out - they sat in the hotel drinking Guinness



The Malton Hotel - best in the town - where I stayed and where Erik proposed to my sister on New Year's Eve 1988/9

View from outside the very nice factory in Rathmore - where real, fresh, Kerry milk goes into the chocolate

After the 2009 Harvester - 100 minutes in the dark over Merthyr Common - a detour over to the National Botanic Garden of Wales...




The glasshouse is stunning but the rest is a disapointment - very earnest, very worthy but also a very typical Millenium project. A nice little earner for a whole lot of "consultants" but no real soul or drive or reason (contrast with Eden Project) - and now looking decidedly tatty and underfunded is places. It was a lot to get in - and I won't be going again. When I turned up - 10:00 on a sunner June Sunday - there were 3 other cars in the carpark.



The content of the glasshouse was special - all the "mediterranean" biomes collected in one place - I think this is a South African plant




Its a horse-tail from Kamchatka - the highlight of the rather sparse and dismal Wallace garden



Nice Poppy!




Bromeliad - like a little nest of sparrows



Proper traditional smelly rose - (rosa x damascena) - used for perfume but mostly for flavouring sweets



Inside the glasshouse - probably Australian - probably bird pollinated (flowers are red and shaped like a bottle brush)

New 'Old' Car

It is still very green in Vermont



As close as I ever want to get to the centre of Boston - too much traffic!



Holiday Inn - just right and just south of the start on day 1

Two gold medals at the US ARDF Champs - I won by about an hour on each day

There was a Swiss plane to take me home!

To the Finger Lakes (remembered from o-level geography) and an overnight in Ithaca



Then through the very green Adirondack Mountains to Lake Placid - in the middle of absolutely nowhere and really very small - I am told they bussed competitors, organisers and spectators in from a hundred miles away (I met a retired Olympic speed skater - there were no olympic size rinks in the US and no world class coaching - so she had to travel to northern Sweden - where they trained on frozen lakes)



To John Brown's Grave (as in "a mouldering in the")



Turns out he was into direct action - attacking a fereral armoury - to get guns to support a slave revolt

Mrs Brown does not look amused

Niagara Falls... ho hum - probably better from the Canadian side - but I would need a visa to get back in the US



Strange that it is the US side with the government protected park - and the Canadian side with the casinos and towerblocks






I was glad to get away

The Air Force Museum, Dayton, Ohio

A very emotional day out...




The one and only Douglas VC-54 - used by Roosevelt and Truman



The XB70



My Namesake



The Bomb

Ahhh... Waffle House and all for $6.49

Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear



It is not that truck that is worrying me - its the squall line off to the right

I was worried it was a tornado - but no, just a squall line, though when it attempts to tip your car over - the difference in classification is immaterial

There are 50 states in the US of A




and Indiana makes 48



Michigan 49 and...



Ohio 50... the set - 1987 to 2009

To the US ARDF Champs...



Let down by Swiss (see below) - Lufthansa stepped in and got me the last seat on the Frankfurt flight and an upgrade to business class

Yes - it is the coast of Greenland - and just about where I landed - Kulusuk Airport

I was too tired to eat out - having had no sleep worrying about the flight (I found out at 11:30pm that my LX flight from Zurich to Chicago was a) In the time table but b) not in the schedule and c) on my e-ticket but d) certainly not departing.




So it was a Cheese Danish from the vending machine - yes a sweet pastry - with added cheese - the nutrition facts should be replaced with a Health Warning...







An amazing technical achievement and "only in America"

Closest Holiday Inn to the airport - fine by me