I blame Jackson Browne

The story goes that Jackson Browne had written a song but had got stuck and it wouldn't be completed in time for his next album, so he showed his neighbour who loved how it started, and offered to some more lyrics. Jackson Browne was so impressed, that he gave his neighbour song writing credit and gave it to his band to perform. His neighbour was Glenn Frey of the Eagles and the song was Take It Easy. The line that Jackson had got stuck on was "I was standing on a corner of Winslow, Arizona"... and since Take it Easy was released, Eagles fans such as myself, have seen Winslow as a bit of a Mecca.

As I've mentioned in my previous blog entry, it was the thing I was most looking forward to seeing along Route 66. As a student of American cultural history, with a thesis on car culture behind me, Route 66 was something I needed to cross of my bucket list before we buy a new house this year and commit to a much bigger mortgage, ceasing the international travel, that's almost become part of who I am. The whole upcoming US trip revolved around going on a Route 66 tour through Cosmos Tours.

Monday, we got the news the tour had been cancelled. I was/am completely shattered by it. This trip meant a lot to me, for many reasons, but the main one, was while it sounds odd, I felt like this tour was going to "complete" me, well at least in a for now sense and also because the tour was smack bang in the middle, so many changes would have involved lost money or compromising existing plans. With the confusion over the holiday and the very early stress of thinking about selling our house combined, I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday and the holiday was nearly cancelled.

Then, after a blurted vent on Facebook, some accompanying wide advice both online and off, Aaron and I started thinking about the gaps and what we could do. By the end of the night, we had a new plan, and we were genuinely happy and looking forward to the holiday.

Plans actually changed again this morning, when my mother referred us to this Trafalgar Tour Colourful Trails of the Southwest she found, which fits into our plans perfectly and looks really quite amazing. Monument Valley was the other place on my most want to see list and it's on this tour.

As you can see from the map, it covers a lot of natural wonder places, which Aaron and I love. It also lets us see Phoenix which was on our list of places to fill the gap. So if this tour is still available when my travel agent returns from a conference next week, this will be going in.

It won't let me feel like I'm part of Eagles history, but it's going to be great, and Winslow will be there, giving me a dream to keep going back to when I'm trying to learn how to save money!

2014 - A Huge Year With A Less Huge Me?

2014 is here, and that's as good as time as any to start my blog again. It's also a good chance to see if I can stand doing lots of typing on the iPad. (Current guess is no.)

I've missed blogging, so I'm looking forward to starting again and I think it's going to be useful because I'm expecting 2014 to be a pretty big year. This year will feature another series of trip updates as we're back off to the USA for 5 weeks, and we're looking at buying a new house. Exciting! (And in regards to the house completely overwhelming and terrifying too.)

I feel like I'm also having an epiphany of sorts at the moment. I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions but around the start of the year, in complete coincidence - although possibly heavily influenced by complete festive overdoing - I seem to have just fallen into a pattern of looking after myself more. (I say this as I sit slumped on the couch, watching hours of episodes of Say Yes To The Dress).  I don't feel like this is a conscious attempt at weight loss, thought that would be a nice by product, just as if I've realised I deserve better than the sluggish, uncomfortable, unfit person I am. I feel like it's never clicked that way before. I'm far from doing anything drastic - chocolate, coca cola, cookies and cheese are permanent friends of mine, but I'm getting my thyroid medication finally right, I'm drinking a lot more water, cutting down on takeaway and I've even started waking earlier to use my treadmill. (I know, you couldn't be more shocked than me.) It's just feeling like a natural progression.

Anyhoo, that's boring. I'm going to NEW YORK CITY again. It'll be interesting to see it after seeing Paris, which was always my fantasy city. I think I'm going to love it as much as before - Paris will be more beautiful, but NYC will always feel more like a home.

This trip to the US is intended on being a bit of a last hurrah, as we cut down on travelling to be sensible audits with a bigger mortgage, so it's covering the one thing I felt I still needed to get out of my system - Route 66,  a "Greatest Hits" of places we've already been and loved - NYC, Vegas, Chicago and LA/Anaheim/ Disneyland, and a surprise visit to New Orleans which we added after we had a spare space.

My love for Americana, especially my interest in the 50s, car culture and diners (heh heh), has meant that Route 66 has felt like somewhere I've needed to see sooner rather than later, so we're doing a tour. We picked the tour based on the "promise" that they stopped at Winslow, Arizona so I could stand on a corner with this guy.

Taken from TripAdvisor

(Eagles fans shout out!)

So all things seem quite good. I finished 2013 feeling completely stressed, sad and flat, and it's nice that a lot of those feelings seem to have stayed back there.

Here's to 2014. Hope it's great for you.