Just Has to be, " Y Viva Espanha" and with plenty of vuvuzelas to mark the day!

***Miles travelled today: a few but not many

***Total Miles: one can guess

***States travelled through: we're now staying in Washington until we fly back to Boston, Massachusetts; next week.

First off - Happy Birthday Mom / Mrs D ..... hope you had a great day and it was lovely catching up with you this morning.

.....Before we left England nearly three months ago, I asked Linz to 'do a little exercise' in the diary we bought specifically for our roadtrip (yes, we have -:blog, facebook, tam tam, skype, atlas, electronic journal and....an actual real diary). The exercise was about 'not planning' but about working out a 'more-or-less time-frame' with suggested 'possible place names' of the route we'd looked at; so that I would have an idea of how long we could 'play with' at each destination - just in case something cropped up and we wanted to stay longer.Well guess what, we are by Linz's calculations; exactly where we should be as the diary has us at Mount Vernon on Sunday 11th July and that is precisely where we are!

Now, I'm not sure whether I should've expected such precision or been surprised by it :) {Linz added, 'for those of you who saw the bound planner, it has been exceptionally useful throughout the journey' and my comments to Karen and Nigel in respect of this are, 'it's all your fault' }

Having travelled along R 11 (coastal road) to Mt Vernon, Linz kept her head mostly bowed and in a tour book reading up on 'stuff to do'. I didn't particularly mind this today as the roads were very narrow and not necessarily made for big cars with anxious passengers and precipices on their side. I think her head is going to explode one day soon with 'American stuff' but before that happens, I suggest that if anyone needs to phone a friend (re N.American trivia) - please consider Linz and share the winnings with us..... (I'm Needing someone else :) to listen to all this information)

Mt Vernon is not what we individually thought it would be - somehow I thought it would be more city-like but in a 'small-town-kinda-way' particularly as we're only about an hour north from Seattle. The town appears grey and spread out around an Interstate - although I recognise that this is the main road that connects America to Canada (we're only about an hour from Vancouver). Having checked in, we went off for a drive in search of a late lunch and in our efforts to avoid all the fast-food places, the family-style dining that is popular here and Dairy Queens; we headed towards a Native American Reservation (Skomish) where we hoped to find something authentic. As tourists driving through, we didn't find any place to stop and amenities were lacking with the residential area appearing poor, but patriotic. On leaving Bellingham this morning, Linz took a photo of a home with the red,blue and white bandanas hanging from its windows and here in the Reservation, we saw homes with totem poles and American flags painted onto its walls. There was also a tall metallic totem standing proudly outside the Tribal Court, a little wooden building set at the entrance to the Reservation.

On finding a place to eat off the Reservation, we were lucky enough to catch the end of the World Cup Final and watched as Spain won. What is the world going to talk about now that the World Cup is over, but at least South Africa put on a show and introduced everyone to the drone of the vuvuzella!

I recently found this book called 'Breakfast with Buddha' which we've been reading aloud to each other which makes it kinda like an audio book. Ironically, it's about this guy who goes on a USA roadtrip and who takes with him, against his will; a Budhist. It's been both funny and poignant as the story unfolds some of the places we've visited and the questions we've asked ourselves. We have no idea where the book will take us nor do we know the answers to the questions.

Anyway, tomorrow remains unplanned (this is becoming a habit) and that is the best bit about waking up.....

We still have a couple of weeks to experience and learn before going back home and sharing in person with others.

Hey Sus - remember to put a sticker on Mt Vernon, Nanny Syl says your map looks much better than her's as you've got stickers on all the places we've been to. We'll have to take a photo when we get home, well done sweetie and see you soon x