The long hot summer

So we are just coming to the close of the summer. The mornings are just starting to have an edge to them and while the days are still hot you can feel a shift!

So how was the summer?

In May we were the only people outside at night enjoying the evening. In hind site we must have looked like lunatics! It felt good to us, much like a summer evening in England when it starts to get just a little nippy... By mid June we understood why no one was out in May!!! Evenings were as hot as English summer days and the temp at night only got warmer throughout the summer, even to the point where it was too hot to sit out at night, hot and humid at times... certainly way too hot for the fire pit to be lit!

We began to understand why so many Americans don't go abroad for holidays and sometimes don't even go away anywhere. The summers ARE hot, the sun does shine most of the time and if you have a pool... well why pay to go to a hot country... when you are in one!

You will also find wildlife like you have not seen before. This summer we have had our garden filled nightly with fireflies, for about a 6 weeks in early summer. We have seen chipmunks, Herons, very large hawks, golden eagles, red and yellow finches, hummingbirds, snakes (not in the garden) and even a raccoon. But with the good comes the bad... mosquitoes are a real pain.... we have all be bitten to shreds at some point and they can ruin an evening. We found mosquito incense burners work well and some sprays but nothings seems foolproof. i think we may invest in a bug light next year!

We took a road trip this summer.
We drove first to Canada and across to the mountains, visiting friends and family as we went. We then went through the mountains back into the USA and headed home crossing Montana, part of Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I can tell you... some of this country is beautiful... Glaciers, caves, mountains, wild animals big and small... so beautiful and some is so painfully boring as its flat and very very big!!!
Montana took many hours over two days to drive across, and many or those many hours were intensely, painfully boring due to the vast expanse of nothingness. Also as I said its hot here and one night while camping it was 100F overnight (37c) which made sleeping very difficult, it was like sleeping in a sauna!!!!!
If you are interested in road trips I would say, there were times it was really interesting... the mountains and glaciers, mount Rushmore  (although we just took pictures and moved on) and camping in various spots, making a fire, paddling in lakes was fun, but... don't be fooled into thinking there is something exciting round every bend.... there is not and we had many hours at a time where there was nothing to see or do. We have a DVD player in the car so had movies for the kids, books, also activity books, puzzle games and we all played car games, and we tried to stop every couple of hours to stretch legs, get a drink or something to eat.

We learned that there are some amazing beaches around here, as good as any beach in the Mediterranean and fresh water too!! The kids loved that. They hate sea water so this was bliss for us all.

There are lots of outdoor pools, most with a few slides and Raging waves water park which was quite fun. There are also lots of forests, canyons and creeks to walk along or wade in.

Camp grounds are not like in the UK, many have pools, even hot tubs, arranged games and other activities. You can choose basic proper camping but if you want to give the kids a thrill you can also have a very... entertaining experience.

Americans love to celebrate everything. This is great because it meant there was something going on pretty much every weekend! From large festivals to small fairs, and even better, many of the activities were free! free bouncy castles, free petting zoos, free live bands. We were able to do a lot without too much expense.

Now its October and the weather has started to turn, but there are still a few hot days left and there are still events going on all the time. I feel summers are longer, you defiantly get to have more of an outdoor lifestyle, but there are times when its unbearable too.