Hiding out in a hobbit house!

see all photos »

After a quick stop in Cape Cod and a fun but cold and windy day on Martha's Vineyard, which was a bit like being in Venezuela again (a very nice Venezuela, I admit) as we felt like we were the only tourists on the whole island, we made our way to West Stockbridge in the Berkshires to visit Emma's cousin Sarah and her husband Noah for a bit of family bonding!

When Sarah told us that she was living in a hobbit house we though she might be joking, but as we drove up the windy dirt road on the outskirts of West Stockbridge and spotted the little white house in the fork of the road, complete with smoke coming from the chimney, we realised she wasn't! What a cool place to live! Emma and I fell in love with our temporary little hobbit home and would definitely do a house swap whenever Sarah and Noah are interested.

Cape Cod lighthouse
see all photos »

During our stay we also got to meet Zippo and Rudy, the ferocious protectors of the hobbit house. If we had enough room left in our back packs we would have squeezed them in there to take home with us, but considering Rudy is part wolf he was too big and although Zippo probably would have squeezed in we didn't think Noah and Sarah could live without him.

We had an action packed weekend and definitely made up for the lack of partying that we had got up to so far! We didn't get to bed before 3.30 am both nights! This might seem quite tame but considering we had been mixing it with our grey nomad crew up until then, it was scandalous!

The lighthouse from another angle
see all photos »

Luckily for us Noah's band, Sunday Girl, was playing on the Saturday night so we also got to catch them play a rare gig in front of their home crowd, which was great. There were some interesting characters at the gig including the infamous 'Waterman', a local radio personality who has the only radio show in the universe solely dedicated to... you guessed it, water!! Anything to do with water, ie songs with water in the title, current affairs to do with water, movies about water, you get the drift! We also managed to convince a couple of stoned teenagers that the Australian government makes Australians carry around a list of Australian rhyming slang with them whenever they travel (we,of course had one handy - it's a long story!) and hand them out to the locals to spread Australian culture to the world! It was very entertaining!

and another
see all photos »

It wasn't all partying though, we did manage to soak up some culture by visiting the Norman Rockwell museum in nearby Stockbridge and the Clark Gallery in Williamstown. All in all it was a great weekend and Sarah and Noah made us feel right at home which was great after 11 weeks of living in motels and hostels!   New York is our next stop to finish off our big adventure!!