Adventure and Apple Pie - Final

The bathrooms or loos (as we say) in America were an experience to behold. You never really ever needed to use your hands. There is a push button at hip height to get in and after using the toilet and standing, the toilet flushes on its own. The next step is hand washing, no need to touch taps; a small sensor triggers tepid water. Same goes for soap. The paper towel flows out of a plastic box after triggering yet another sensor. It’s high tech.


We drove a fair way in America. I think it was about 3,000 kilometres in the end. I really enjoyed driving although LA was a bit hairy and very easy to get lost in. On every car except perhaps one, were magnets representing large ribbons saying ‘Support our Troops’. We wondered if they had been given out for free at service stations because there were so many of them adhered to the backs of cars but I have a feeling every car owner paid for one themselves. I just can’t imagine Australians being so patriotic about anything like this, I don’t know if I’m glad or annoyed at that. It seems a bit over the top to me though and a bit contrived. But that is my opinion.


The number of fast food restaurants in the US is staggering. I will list merely a few. Burger King, Pizza Hut, checkers, Hardees, White Castle, KFC, Arby’s, Carls Jnr, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Dominos, Roy Rodgers, Burger King, Big Boy, Subway, Qdoba Mexican grill, Chick – Fil – A, Donut King, Krispy Kreme, Mel’s diners, A&W Restaurants’, INS and OUTS, Starbucks, Denny’s, Long John Silver’s, Dairy Queen, Sonic Drive In, Hard Rock Cafes and of course on every corner and in every field, McDonalds. It is fat heaven. It is also a cheaper option and an endless variety. You can’t ask for more than that. What isn’t a cheaper option is ordering a pot of tea from a casino hotel room in Las Vegas at $11.00 a pop and have it arrive cold.


The tipping and the taxes drive you a bit mad after a while and in the end when we weren’t as keyed up any more and people were rude to us we just didn’t tip much at all. We did not mind tipping well if people were courteous but why should we pay them a gratuity for fucking impoliteness. It’s wrong. Taxes are unavoidable but we had some power when it came to tipping. Piss us off, very small tip, nice to us, great tip. We kept a collection of smaller notes in our pockets constantly because we would forget to keep smaller bills and then it was embarrassing when you had a few quarters and dimes to tip and that was all. We just couldn’t afford to tip $20 notes. It was hard to work out how much to tip sometimes and math is not a strong point for either of us, at all. The very last day we were there (typically) we discovered the easy way to work it out. Just double the tax.


Since 9/11, security has become exceptionally stringent and thanks to God for it. On arrival in the States we had our fingerprints scanned and our retina’s photographed. I was glad to do it. We frequently had to remove belts and shoes and have our backpacks checked in airports, buildings, shops and museums with and without special gadgets that picked up explosive dust or something. It became an automatic practice to kick off shoes and pull belts from pants upon entering any of the above without being asked. I found myself very aware this trip of the low flying planes or anything seeming odd. I didn’t expect to react that way at all not having been back since 1989 but the world is different and I think America will always be a mark for that shit.


The West and East coasts are very different from each other and each of the cities I have visited really has different and interesting characteristics of their own. Los Angeles, city of Angels is a seedy place with a great feel though. It’s warm and ‘out there’. I probably liked it more this time than any other time and when I’m there I think I probably won’t ever return to LA but whenever I leave I know I will. It pulls you to it. I guess I have my own agenda with an interest in Hollywood and the movies but it does feel comfortable to me.


San Francisco is a scenic city with a beautiful harbour, famous bridge, hilly streets and a prison called ‘Alcatraz’ or ‘The Rock.’ I have always loved being there, the city not the prison of course. Las Vegas, God what can be said about this place of ‘Bright daytime lights at night’ and endless gambling? Gambling, cigs and booze, bad make up and Hawaiian shirts come to mind. Buffet meals, $1.00 beers, free cocktails while gambling and rooms filled with smoke and body odour from stale old gambling fuckers who never quit, not even to shower. The day you roll into town your eyes nearly bug out of your head. I swear we didn’t utter one word bar “fuck me” while driving through town. It is so full on and weird. It is dreamlike and bizarre and when the sun goes down it remains surreal and you love it because it is unlike anything you have ever seen in your life before. You love the fountains at the Bellagio, the colossal well lit billboards, all the rooms full of games and cheap meals in restaurants, seeing incredible casino’s like Luxor, Mandalay, New York New York, The Venetian, Caesars palace, Paris, MGM, Monte Carlo and Flamingo, just to name a few. Then a day or so later after getting married by Elvis and losing $50 bucks in a poke on a poker machine, you know you hate it with all you’ve got and you are coming down with something. You cannot look at that carpet on all those casino floors anymore because it looks like multi coloured throw up. And on your way out of Vegas, city of sin, heading for the desert, you swear you will never be back but you don’t know if that’s true or not.


Flying by small plane from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon National Park and then through the Grand Canyon itself via helicopter, cruising the Colorado River and heading to amazing look outs by way of a hummer with a native Indian was an extraordinary experience I will never forget.


Washington DC was the revelation of the trip we weren’t expecting. We loved it. We did not have enough time there because we didn’t want to cut any more days from New York but next time, we’re staying a week. It is a beautiful, historic metropolis that is very different from our own capital and the people there seem lovely. The memorials, statues and monuments are a sight to behold and are spread across the capital so that the whole city is worth venturing into. Then there are the Smithsonian museums that can occupy you for days. It is just so very interesting which is possibly what separates it from the rest of the cities we went to, irrespective of their own attractive features.


The thing with America is that we all know all of it so well. We see it in movies and on television daily and walking the streets in those places feels very, very familiar and almost natural even on a first visit. It is in our consciousness and it is in our history and as eccentric as it can seem I will always be drawn to it like a moth to a flame and I have no idea at all, why that is the case. My love affair started with the United States long before I went and the visits there have only consolidated it...not that I’d ever leave my country to live there for good.

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