Alex Kretzschmar

Dearest friends and family, we're emigrating to the USA. Come September, that's it. We're off. Yes, we're going to live in a country whose supreme leader is a pseudonym for the word fart.

I missed writing up our last dedicated tubing day but we had a mammoth day today. We took in a grand total of 21 stations heading out beyond the M25 along the original tube lines of, primarily, the Metropolitan railway. Running total completed: 108 Completed today: 21 Remaining: 408 (haven't actually counted this one) Stations completed today: * New Cross Gate (Overground) * Whitechapel (Overground - Hammersmith and City) * Great Portland St (H&C - Metropolitan) * Northwick Park (Met

Here are some of my drone photography highlights from 2017.

Day 15. Cliché title? Glitz and glam papering over the slighty grotty cracks in the desert? That can only mean one thing, Vegas baby! As I write today's entry we are flying northwards to Vancouver to spend a few days with my Uncle David and Auntie Anne. Our route took us over directly over Death Valley. I was able to spot the valley from above by recognising the road structures, a favourite game of mine from the air! In the distance the view is framed by the High Sierras - oh and there's La

Day 14. Ok, let's get this out the way. WE FLEW IN A HELICOPTER TODAY!! For both of us, it was our first time and it was fantastic fun! A real buzz. People told me that the Grand Canyon was... big (I'm looking at you Ben). They weren't wrong. It is, in fact, quite big. One might say grand. But. In the last 2 weeks we've seen some pretty amazing stuff. Lots of canyons. Lots of rivers. Lots of scenery. I was pretty much averagely "whelmed" by the Grand Canyon. Apparently this is a word accord

Day 13. A shaft of warm golden light pierced my slumber at sunrise, the door of the Yurt and bed placed perfectly so that you could see it. The stillness in the calm of dawn, particularly here in Dead Horse was remarkable. Peace that even the lightest of footsteps on the gravelly, sandy ground shattered. Magical. After last night's failure to get into Arches National Park due to the construction on the entry road we headed there after a little snooze, blog writing and breakfast. We dutifull

Day 9. Words fail me but I'll try anyway. 49C. That really is hot. That was the maximum temperature recorded by the car in Death Valley today. We continued our roadtrip from Mammoth Lakes, in the mountains near Yosemite, to Beatty on the edge of Death Valley National Park. Rewind. The first portion of our day involved driving South and descending (thank god!) down to around 3700ft where we pulled off the highway and visited Manzanar, a Japenese internment concentration camp during WWII. P

Day 8. I'm feeling rather bleary eyed this morning after less than 4 hours sleep. We rolled into Mammoth Lakes after leaving behind the Bay area in the morning at around 10pm. At an altitude of 8000ft (2450m) I'm really feeling the effects when trying to sleep. Perhaps that's not too surprising given that we're effectively in a town on top of an Alp. It's like a cruel joke. The conscious part of my brain is able to tell me that I'm fine and not about to suffocate but the moment I nod off that

Day 7. So much of my world is dreamt up in these few square miles, actually being here is almost daunting. Where to begin? What to see? In actual fact, there isn't much save for the outsides of company HQs and organic coffee shops. That didn't stop us trying though! After a lie in we hopped into the car and headed out for breakfast. Soon after we found a cafe where we could have breakfast and I could write up yesterdays adventures in San Francisco. Afterwards, we drove past Tesla, VMWare, Micr

There was a Starbucks next door attached to a grocery store which had, like most things here, a really astonishing amount of cheese. Not good cheese though, just slightly different types of pre-grated or different rubber compounds like hard, medium and soft.

Day 2. We began the day around 9.30am by walking a couple of blocks to a bike rental place nearby, as recommended by our Airbnb host. It didn't open till 12 though - time for plan B. Uber! It was only a couple of miles to the beach and the Uber fare was estimated at around $9, approaching what it would cost us to drive and park there - I really wanted to try and avoid that madness. So, we opted for Uber pool instead bringing the estimate down to $5.50, much more agreeable. I think Uber itself

Entrance to the Space Shuttle Endeavour exhibition hall was $2 each, more than reasonable in my view. This was just the coolest thing. Who doesn't love the idea of a reusable spaceship!!!