Amanda and Graham's Great Pig Adventure

Here are a few statistics and thoughts about the tour:

• 83 days on tour
• Shows in 29 States and 2 Canadian Provinces
• 51 venues
• 65 shows
• 33 nights or day rooms in hotels
• Total road miles travelled – 16,550 approximately
• Highest altitude – Beaver Creek, Colorado 8,500ft
• Average number of steps per day – around 14,00 with a few days up to 28,000

Itinerary

Maps

Overview

Things we loved

The people were all so friendly and helpful. As soon as they heard our English accents they wanted to know all about us and what we were doing. They were all so excited to hear about Peppa Pig! Drivers were extremely courteous too and always stopped to let pedestrians cross the road.

We saw some fantastic scenery and a huge range of large, modern cities and small historic towns. We were lucky to have enough spare time to explore each place and always found things of interest, (even when staying at rather unpromising out of town wastelands!) We have seen far more of the USA than most Americans!

The birds and other wildlife – list to follow!

Our buses – the Florida Coaches! We all loved them, and our very comfy and cosy bunks. The current cost of a new one is around $2-3 million!

The theatres and concert halls – ranging from major concert halls to tiny local theatres. Many were on University campuses which were beautifully landscaped and the theatres were very well-equipped.

The show! It kept evolving, with more and more interaction between the characters and the orchestra and every performance felt different, depending on the audience and the stage. We never grew tired of it!

And not least, the company! We had such a happy team for the whole tour, and we all miss each other.

We will keep in touch and hope to have plenty of reunions!

Things we didn’t so much!

There was so much use of disposable cutlery, plates, and cups it was very frustrating!

The endless quest for a cup of tea! In hotels and theatres it was rare to have the perfect Holy trinity of tea bags (other than flavoured ones), milk (not the dreaded “half and half”) and hot water – kettles are rare, and there is often a flask of hot water, which isn’t really hot enough to make tea. We bought a kettle for the bus!

The hotel breakfasts, especially powdered eggs!

On major roads, the pedestrian crossing lights played a very aggressive recorded “WAIT” and the waiting to cross seemed never-ending!

Dodgy wi-fi, both in venues and on the bus. It was a challenge to get photos to load onto the blog and streaming TV programmes was a bit hit and miss.

Niggles aside, we would all have happily continued for another three months and would love the opportunity to do it all over again.

Bird List

Although the birds varied from State to State and West to East, there were several which kept us company throughout the tour. I miss the exuberant song of mockingbirds, Northern cardinals and grackles! I have listed birds as first seen, so it looks thinner as the days go by! Total: 138 species (I think!)

Washington state, 6th February

Common merganser, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead

British Columbia, 8th February

Bald eagle, Red-tailed hawk

Oregon, 10th-12th February

Double-crested cormorant, California scrub jay, American robin, Raven, Dark-eyed junco, Mountain chickadee, Pygmy nuthatch, House finch, Northern flicker, Red-breasted sapsucker, Townsends solitaire, Red-winged blackbird, Lesser goldfinch, Great blue heron.

California, 13th-22nd February

Brown pelican, White-crowned sparrow, American crow, California gull, Western gull, yellow-rumped warbler, Black phoebe, Anna’s hummingbird, Western grebe, Oak titmouse, American kestrel, Western meadowlark, Western bluebird, Bushtit, Brown creeper, White-breasted nuthatch, Downy woodpecker, Nuttall’s woodpecker, Belted kingfisher, Bushtit, Cedar waxwing, California towhee, Song sparrow, Black-capped chickadee, Cooper’s hawk, Killdeer, Great white egret, Blue heron, Mourning dove, White throated swift, House sparrow, Starling, Allen’s hummingbird.

Nevada, 21st-24th February

Great-tailed grackle, Collared dove, Gambel’s quail, Brewer’s blackbird, Bewick’s wren, Verdin, Abert’s towhee, Black-tailed gnatcatcher, Crissal thrasher.

Utah, 25th February

Magpie

Colorado, 26th-27th February

Rock wren, Canyon Wren, Woodhouse’s scrub jay.

Texas, 4th-8th March

Pie-billed grebe, Ring-necked duck, American coot, Burrowing owl, white-winged dove, White-throated sparrow, Northern cardinal, Barn swallow, Red-shouldered hawk, Turkey vulture, Ruddy duck, Turnstone, Willett, Laughing gull, Ring-billed gull, Rock dove, Blue jay, Yellow-bellied sapsucker, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern bluebird, Tufted titmouse, Chipping sparrow, Pine warbler.

Indiana, 12th March

Carolina chickadee

Missouri, 14th March

American white pelican

Ontario, 21st March

Long-tailed duck, Tundra/Trumpeter swans

Ohio, 25th March

Hairy woodpecker, Field sparrow

Maryland, 26th March

Black vulture, Tree swallow, Wood duck, Canvasback duck.

New Jersey, 1st April

Fish crow, Bufflehead, American herring gull

New Hampshire, 2nd April

Eider ducks

North Carolina, 6th-7th, 10th and 14th April

Brown thrasher, Swamp sparrow, Northern rough-winged swallow, Brown-headed nuthatch, Hermit thrush, Fish crow, red-bellied woodpecker, American goldfinch.

South Carolina, 8th April

Blue-gray gnatcatcher

Georgia, 9th April

Red-eyed vireo, Black and white warbler.

Virginia, 11th April

Purple Martin

Florida, 15th-17th and 23rd-25th April

Osprey, Chimney swift, Royal tern, Green heron, Tri-coloured heron, Snowy egret, Anhinga, Roseate spoonbill, Black-bellied whistling duck, American moorhen, Boat-tailed grackle, Limpkin, Purple gallinule, Glossy ibis, White ibis, Snail kite, Monk parakeet, Blue-crowned parakeet, Royal tern, Least tern, Gray kingbird.

Alabama, 21st April

Yellow-throated vireo, Brown-headed cowbird

Georgia, 22nd April

White-rumped falcon

Critters!

• Beaver, Marmot – Modesto, Californis
• Prairie dogs – Lubbock, Texas
• Groundhogs, Eastern fox squirrels – Anderson, Indiana
• White-tailed deer – Georgia
• Red-eared sliders, Common snapping turtles, Painted turtles – Texas, Oklahoma, Maryland, Florida
• Carpenter bee, Crawfish mound – Virginia
• Bullfrogs, Bats – Texas
• Bullfrog tadpoles – South Carolina
• Eastern Tiger and Black Swallowtail butterflies – North Carolina
• Iguanas – Florida
• Alligator – Florida
• Apple snail eggs – Florida