http://riverecho.com Echoes from BJ Hansen and Lisa Ridenour... Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:40:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en And just like that we are back in Jackson, Wyoming crossing our fingers for more snow, getting our ski legs back, and testing our lung capacity in this thin dry mountain air. If you are up for it, we've put together a slide show covering the last 14 months in ... http://riverecho.com/2010/01/a-year-in-review/ 43.4597015 -110.8045044 Just after Christmas, we picked Shalyn and Randall up in the Melbourne airport to spend a handful of days exploring the city, driving the Great Ocean Road, eating at only the best restaurants, becoming thoroughly engrossed in the sport of cricket, and simply enjoying the company. We packed a ... http://riverecho.com/2010/01/exploring-melbourne-with-shalyn-and-randall/ -37.8156357 144.9671783 16,023 kilometers around Australia We drive barely two hours to Melbourne (southeast Australia) today to pick up my sister and her husband and Western Australia seems like ages ago. It’s hard to believe that we were there, 1800 miles away, just last week. Since our last post, we spent a ... http://riverecho.com/2009/12/merry-chrissy/ -37.1460915 142.5205078 13,299 kilometers around Australia We spent a few days in the sleepy town of Walpole exploring the giant Tingle trees and walking along the 38 meter tall Tree Top Walk (totally worth it and not as touristy as we were expecting) before we pushed on further down the coast to ... http://riverecho.com/2009/12/southern-coast/ -33.8449211 121.9023972 12,227 kilometers around Australia We spent a week in Margaret River wine tasting at Voyager and Leeuwin Estates, riding our bikes along a couple awesome unmarked mountain biking trails, enjoying our proximity to town and drinking way too many coffees, and actually seeing some live music by the regionally well known ... http://riverecho.com/2009/12/southern-forests/ -34.9870758 116.7190323 11,742 kilometers around Australia While we may not have had the most traditional Thanksgiving celebration around family and lots of food, we kept ourselves busy and thoroughly entertained on the mountain biking trails in Wellington National Park. We zipped around a few purpose built trails at Leonard Hill but our ... http://riverecho.com/2009/12/margaret-river/ -33.9587975 115.0683517 A few things have changed since we arrived in southwest Australia. We sleep cuddled up in sleeping bags instead of sprawled out with the van doors open and our feet hanging out the back. We’ve found huge forests to camp in and awesome single track mountain biking trails. And we ... http://riverecho.com/2009/11/campfires-bike-rides/ -33.3906593 115.9824066 As I sat at my computer this morning, bundled up in my sleeping bag and listening to the rain fall outside, it boggled my mind that we were in over 100 degree heat just a couple days ago before we parted ways with Jean to return to the southwest. The ... http://riverecho.com/2009/11/into-the-red-center/ -25.2368317 130.9924622 Welcome to Australia Jean, let’s go see the crocodiles. After a visit to one of Darwin’s well known outdoor markets, we left the city a day early to head to Kakadu National Park. Kakadu has been recognized as a World Heritage Park because of its diverse species as well as ... http://riverecho.com/2009/11/the-northern-territory-with-jean/ -12.8963451 132.5175629 We made it to the local tavern in Cervantes right in time for the Melbourne Cup to begin and as exciting as it was to watch those horses run their hearts out, I had barely had a sip of my beer when the race was over. It was especially ... http://riverecho.com/2009/11/back-to-the-northern-territory/ -12.4275780 130.9001007