It’s always a bit nerve wracking coming home after 5 months away. Has our basement living quarters flooded, is there bad damp, which we’ve had other years. This time there was none of that. This time it was far worse.

As soon as I walked into the kitchen I could smell it. Sharp, unmistakable… and utterly familiar. My stomach churned with recognition. I hoped it wasn’t what I thought it was.

My nose twitched trying to track it down. There it was again, stronger now, my gag reflexes kicking in. I opened the cupboard door and my suspicions were confirmed!

Mouse! It was disgusting. We always mouse-proof the house before we go away. Every crumb, every morsel, carefully sealed in plastic containers. Nothing left to tempt him. Nothing, that is, except this time… we had forgotten the flour.

There were two big bags of bread flour in a cupboard we hadn’t checked. And the mouse had eaten the lot! The bags were still there, but they were completely empty. And there was mouse shit everywhere. It was so disgusting. Mike put on his mask and gloves and spent the next few days cleaning it up. It didn’t help his mood when a mouse ran across his foot in the process.

So we put out the traps with peanut butter. Mice LOVE peanut butter. But you know what? For a week they just licked the peanut butter off and didn’t trip the trap. How the heck were they doing this? Night after night they would sneak around, shitting over our cutlery, t-towels, bench top, eat the peanut butter, then leave. Day after day I would rewash the cutlery, throw out the t-towels and sanitise the bench top. It was a thankless task so we took action. We went to Bunnings and bought a load of plastic containers to keep the cutlery in and T-towels in. 

But still, they kept coming, eating us out of our home. By the time they’d polished off the peanut butter jar, we refused to buy more. It wasn’t the cheap stuff either!

Out of desperation, I rang sister Jenny. She has a farm, and mice are always a problem on farms. She said she has had exactly the same problem with the peanut butter. She said she superglued cheese to the trap. Great idea!

So off to the supermarket we went to buy cheese and superglue. An odd combination, but by this stage we were desperate. That night, Mike set the traps, and we hoped for the best.

Dead bodies are not what I usually want to see first thing in the morning, but I was actually hoping for them. And sure enough, a quick glance, I saw papa mouse lying next to the trap, And in the garage, mama mouse had taken the bait too. They must have thought they hit the jackpot with cheese! I felt a bit mean, but then I got over it. 

For some reason, instead of renting a car to get to the airport like we normally do, we decided to catch a bus to save money. This was a big mistake. Not only did we spend more, we have also decided to never catch the bus again. Here’s how our trip to Heathrow went.

We dropped Bertie (our van) off at Mich’s work, and walked 30 minutes to the Poole bus station. When we got there the driver wouldn’t let us on board. The reason was not pleasant.

Someone had spewed up on the bus on the way down from London. Apparently it was everywhere! But they had no replacement bus. So the driver cleaned it up as best he could, and told us we’d have to travel on the sick bus to Bournemouth (about 45 minute drive).

I picked a bad day to forget to bring a face mask. Thankfully a lady waiting for the bus lent me one. We all piled on the vomit bus and headed to Bournemouth. Thankfully I didn’t notice the smell through my mask.

At Bournemouth station there was a delay waiting for the replacement bus. A couple of people waiting were getting a bit stressy as their flight was later that day. Thankfully we were smart and our flight wasn’t until the next day so we didn’t care too much.

Eventually the bus arrived and this one smelled way worse. There was a toilet on board and really pungent toilet smells wafted around the bus for the entire 3 hour journey. I think I would have preferred the puke bus!

The driver was telling us how he got stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway the day before for 4 hours! Thankfully we had a good run in to Heathrow with no delays.

We stayed in an airport hotel, and the cost of bus and hotel was a lot less than a rental car. But by the time we added dinner, breakfast, and taxis to and from the airport, it worked out to a lot more. But no problem, we had a nice hotel stay, nice breakfast and a low stress morning before our flight.

As I mentioned in my last blog, we were heading up to Telford for an event. The plan was for a mini road trip, however the weather was so bad, we decided to stay put at the Salisbury campground.

It was just as well we did, as that day there was major flooding on our route. People were stranded on the M5 motorway and having to be rescued!

So the next day we had a four hour drive to Telford which turned into a 5 hour drive. Have I mentioned why we are heading up?

Some YouTubers we’ve been following for years have just finished driving their old van around the world and we’re having a welcome home party. So we thought as we were in England it would be a great night to attend. We actually met Chris and Marianne on Vancouver island, but we hadn’t met Trudy, their van.

It was a really good night. 3 course meal, some talks about their travel and we got to meet a few other YouTubers who attended.

The night finished up with dancing, and as per tradition, we were one of the last to leave at 1.30am.

It was a good fun night!

We left Bournemouth and started heading north to Telford, for an event we’d booked into on the 27th sept. But we got as far as Salisbury, an hour or so from Bournemouth, and stopped. The weather was miserable, cold and wet, but thankfully Bertie is super warm and cosy with the heater going. And no leaks so far!

We’d been putting off booking our flights home, not really knowing what we are doing.

But a few things at home are calling us back. We both have medical things to be checked out, and Mark and Sophie (our flatmates) are moving out, and then there’s all the work we need to do in Wellington.

Our travel insurance runs out on the 30th sept, so we needed to see if we could change that first. I had to stay up late (10pm) to call them, and was blown away by how much they were going to charge each week we were away! I think they don’t like you to be away for more than 6 months at a time!

So that prompted us into action. Thankfully we found a flight on special just a week away.

We’re still about 4 hours drive from Telford, but more about that later.

We’ve been hanging out in England for the last week or so, catching up with family, and Mike has been doing some enhancements on our van.

The biggest improvement is setting the electrics up so our house batteries charge as we’re driving along from the alternator . He has also set up an electric hookup so we can hookup at a campground. we’ve yet to test this out!

We’ve also put some storage baskets up where we can store cables and bits and bobs.

We’re going away tomorrow, heading north for a mini uk road trip. We just found out Eddie has Covid though, so we may not get too far if we get it. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Today we got up at 6am to clean and tidy our car. It was good to be at the circus circus rv park to be able to clean our van with the a/c running.

It was another day of putting pressure on ourselves.

We also thought we’d better book our flight to LA and a rental car at Heathrow. We booked our flight for 12.30, giving us plenty of time to drop our van off.

We had arranged to drop our van at storage between 8 and 10am but when we arrived at storage at 8.30am the guy didn’t get the memo.

Thankfully we were able to get hold of him and he arrived at 9am. Mike unplugged all the electrics and we said goodbye to Rodger.

We caught an Uber to the airport and arrived early so we asked about an earlier flight. She said one was available at 11am, so we changed to that flight. It was currently 10am.

Then we saw the queue in security. It was moving very slowly. With only 30 minutes to boarding, we were dreading changing our flights. What if we missed this one, and our original was booked out?

Finally we got our turn to show our IDs. But they didn’t accept our nz drivers licence, so I rummaged around looking for our passports.

He then sent us to a larger screening queue with extra security. Sheesh. We put our bags on the conveyer, then had to step through the 3d scanner. Something metallic showed up in my groin area. WTF????

The lady spent ages telling me exactly what she was going to do, where she was going to touch me etc. she even asked if I wanted to go to a private room!

I think it must have been a zip on my shorts that triggered it. But I got through eventually.

As it turned out, we didn’t need to run for our flight, arriving just as they were boarding.

They don’t have allocated seating on southwest, but they give you a boarding priority of a, b and c. We we’re in C, the last to board. T

here is a thing on US airlines where people take on huge carry on luggage, and if you miss out on an overhead locker, then you have to check your bag. Ours had all our camera gear and laptops so this wasn’t an option. So that added to the stress as the plane was chockers!

As we were boarding, I asked the flight attendant if there were any seats together. She said no. So I grabbed the first aisle seat I saw near the front of the plane. In front was a middle seat so I told Mike to grab that. Then a nice lady in the aisle next to Mike offered to swap with me so we could sit together. In hindsight, it might have been because Mike hadn’t showered for a week ( fyi: I had a shower that morning.)

The only problem was, we had to take our bags all the way to the back to find room.

It was an easy 1 hour flight to LA on our 737-700. They gave us pretzels and a glass of coke. We landed and had to wait for everyone to get off so we could retrieve our bags. There was a slight panic when Mike couldn’t find his. It had been moved and someone had put there bag in front of it.

We went straight to our hotel. I had a splitting headache so took a couple of painkillers and went to sleep.

It seems we like to put pressure on ourselves. We got up at 5.30am to watch the sun rise over the Tufas. It wasn’t as cool as we thought it would be, and it was freezing, the wind blowing straight off the mountains.

I rang air nz again to see if we could change our flights. There was only space left in business class but it was not too expensive.

We then had to make sure we could put our van into storage a week earlier and on a Saturday. They said this was fine. We decided to bite the bullet and change our flight to Sunday.

It was now Friday, and we had a 6 hour drive to Vegas. It was doable as long as we didn’t break down. At 2 hours east of Vegas we broke down on the side of a busy highway.

A few swear words flew out of my mouth. It was in the back of my mind this could happen, it turned out it was the switch Mike had put in, same problem as in Moab. So he fixed it quickly. Thankfully we had the foresight to buy multiple switches.

My original plan had been to drive into Vegas early morning to avoid the August heat. But we did the exact opposite. We drove in at 5pm and in a Friday afternoon too! But the traffic wasn’t that bad so we were lucky.

We arrived at Circus circus RV park at 5.30 pm and tried to hook up power, but none of the power sockets were working. Two hours later we finally managed to find one working. So much for arriving early and cleaning our car out.

We went for a stroll down the strip and had a pizza for dinner. Then we packed our bags ready for the morning.

Today we got up early to watch the sun rise, then headed to some more natural hot springs in the desert. These ones were called Wild Willy’s hot springs and are clothing optional so aptly named.

There weren’t as nice as the travertine one we visited the other day, and there were 3 other people there. But as we were leaving a large group we’re heading down, so we timed it right.

Then we visited convict lake, which has some history to the name which I’ll Google before the video comes out. It was really picturesque surrounded by mountains. We had an afternoon nap in the van .

We went back to mono lake where we camped the night before as it’s really nice there and hardly any people (they’re all in Yosemite).

We tried to change our flight but the lady said all flights were full. I’ll try again in the morning as I didn’t believe her.

Today we went to Mono lake, which is interesting for a few of reasons.

It’s ancient lake over a million years old, and it’s 2.5 times saltier than the ocean! It also has some cool statues protruding from it, called Tufas. They look like hoodoos and are made from calcium carbonate. They were really cool.

I really wanted to swim and float on the water, but there were loads of critters swimming around in there. They were just krill, and harmless, but they creeped me out. And the water felt slimy from all the minerals. So I sent Mike in. I wanted to see if he floated!

And he did! And Mike never floats!

I still wasn’t tempted. The water was so calm and I wanted to put the kayak in. But there were signs warning about strong winds after midday, and around 1pm we noticed the wind picking up so we didn’t.

We then drove about 40 minutes to Yosetime national park. It was a stunning drive in, up a steep hill to almost 10,000 feet!

We did a short hike along some of the Pacific crest trail, and 5 minutes in I rolled my ankle on a rock. My other ankle this time. I sat and swore as it hurt like mother cluckery! But after about 10 minutes I was able to continue walking.

We walked for about an hour through trees and beside a creek, and it was more a gentle stroll.

We spent the rest of our time driving through the park admiring the polished granite cliffs, carved smooth by ancient glaciers.

We headed down off the mountain and spent the night overlooking Mono lake. We saw the sunset and the moon rise. It was pretty special.