30
November
To some, New York is Times Square or the Statue of
Liberty, that universally-recognised icon of democracy that has
welcomed millions of the world’s poor and dispossessed huddled
masses. To us the first recognizable icon was something as simple as
standing beside a woman hailing a yellow cab in the East Village on a
chilly Saturday night.
Yesterday, 30 November, was our wedding anniversary. The longest we’ll probably ever have. Leaving Brisbane at 9.30am and arriving in New York at 5.00pm is, of course, not as simple as it sounds. In between was the slow torture endured by most international long haul travellers – trying to sleep in a space designed for the smallest Japanese person imaginable when you are a large, economy-size, non-Japanese person. Not that the service or the quality of the planes is in any way deficient. It’s just the sleep deprivation!
We survived – as we invariably do - and arrived at
JFK airport excited enough to instantly wipe the 24 hour flight from
our minds. Spirited off in a taxi by Anne-Marie and Ed (sister &
brother-in-law), we were wined, dined and on the streets of the Big
Apple just in time to catch the woman at the corner of First Avenue
and East 4thStreet,
who unknowingly etched herself into the minds of two tired travellers
as our first symbol of ‘being there’.
An
exploratory visit to a couple of local bars – just to learn local
bar etiquette – saw out the remainder of a day that for us had
spanned 36 hours!
1
December
Even by local standards, a
maximum of –2C and a wind chill factor of around –10C was
considered ‘severe’ for this time of the year. What drew us to
the streets was the clear blue sky and bright sunlight! Anne–Marie
took us on a NYC orientation - a whirlwind of subway rides, Central
Park, Uptown landmarks and, of course, shops. Now, as those who know
us will undoubtedly know, Paul hates shopping with a passion.
However, that was before he saw the New York Prada store. A museum of
modern art in its own right, the exclusive Prada outlet leaves
anything that we have seen back home with the Kmart and Woolies
class. Not even the prices phased him ( probably because none of his
credit cards were in any danger of covering even the cheapest item on
display.) The universal favourite was certainly the $US 35,000
‘picnic rug’ that felt as though it was made out of kitten fur.
A traditional ‘NYC slice’ of Pizza and a stroll through the West Village topped off the afternoon.
Again some of the simplest images will probably be the most enduring. The splendour of one’s first ‘litter whirlwind’ in a NY cross street and an old yellow school bus full of orthodox Jews rounding a corner at ‘speed’, make you just want to ‘get amongst it!’… (Ray Clarke 2002.)
December 2
Reputations are mostly misleading and like that other word favoured by those who love to generalize, ‘perceptions’, are sometimes strongly fed by ignorance. The fact is that Twenty-first Century New York is one of the safest cities in the world. Not only that, but somehow its citizens have a most un-big-city like attitude towards those around them. Sure, the unenthusiastic plastic salutations of the checkout girls are less than convincing, but at least they go through the motion, which is more than can be said for most of their big city counterparts elsewhere.
Today, we walked the full length of Downtown from 4thStreet to the Staten Island ferry terminal. The level of civility on the busy Monday morning streets was reminiscent of that old Chipmunks cartoon classic, where the characters become so obliging to each other that the simple act of going through a doorway becomes impossible because of their mutual deference. Every accidental brush of the shoulder on the street or collision on the subway stairs elicits an apology. Even at night, the subway feels safe.
Without the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, the skyline looks bare. The site itself is now totally cleared and the reconstruction of the subway that once rumbled under the complex has commenced. There is little to see here now but even on this very cold and dismal December day, hundreds gather at the fences to gaze into ‘Ground Zero’.
Given the dismal day, we spent the remainder of the
afternoon at the Jewish Heritage museum and the Metropolitan Museum
of Natural History.
The local TV news lead story was again the weather. Clear skies and freezing winds. Far colder than yesterday, but the views on such a sunny, clear day were spectacular.
Before we leave the local TV stations, the parochial nature of some of these programs is nothing less than hilarious. After 30 minutes of New York politics, traffic, celebrity gossip and weather, the anchorman led into the last five minutes of news with his national and international lead item, ‘Heavy snow closes highways in Buffalo, New York!’
On a full-on tourist day we visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and enjoyed the still imposing NYC skyline. What we didn’t enjoy was the blustery –12C to –15C.
December 4
Anne-Marie took us around town to some of her favourites. The top of the Empire State building on such a crystal clear day was spectacular. It’s hard to believe that this and the Chrysler building were built in the thirties. They are in excellent condition and their Art Déco style shows just what can be done with high rise buildings if some ‘style’ is applied.
We have seen some of the world’s truly great museums, the Prado, the Louvre and the British Museum. New York’s ’Met’ has to be right up there. The totally reconstructed Egyptian Temple of Dendur is housed in its own wing. It was retrieved from the Aswan area on the Nile as part of a US funded project. The story goes that the Egyptian government ‘offered’ one of the five temples salvaged to the US in gratitude. … One wonders??
December
5
The forecast snow arrived with a light dusting greeting us this morning. By the time we fought our way out of the subway uptown, it was coming down in earnest. And it didn’t stop!
All of New York seems to enjoy the snow. Shoppers are greeted with heavy mats to catch the melting snow as they enter the furnace-like heat of the store interiors. Now, as we all know, shopping is not one of Paul’s favourite things! On this occasion however, the sheer scale of the stores had him enthralled. Macy’s in particular just goes on and on. A half a floor of LBD (little black dresses) was a show stopper and nine levels of shopping was a girl’s idea of “Died and gone to Heaven!!” PLUS clean toilets!!
Bergdorf Goodman’s was seriously intimidating. Once inside the hallowed doors, dinner-suited waiters have mineral water and hors d’oeuvres for customers to sip and nibble on while they decide what and how many they want to buy/be fitted for!! Scary stuff for two Aussies suited up in their Drizabones which don’t quite cut it with fur coats and rocks on fingers.
Visiting Anne-Marie’s office early in the evening, we caught up with some of her Aussie friends who hold a fair degree of sway over the content of People Magazine where Anne-Marie is a Senior Editor. A few drinks at a local bar with Patrick, a New York journalist who we had met in Australia last year and then off for the ‘Christmas Lights.”
Times Square is yet another New York icon. And again it didn’t disappoint. Tacky, tacky, tacky. You gotta love it!!! Finished the day with a visit to Lombardi’s ‘Pizza Joint’ and then the ‘Mafia Bar’ - an unaltered watering hole once frequented by ‘Uncle Frank’ and others who were ‘connected’ from the 30s through to the late 50s. The night ended with a snowball fight in the back streets of the East Side!
How New York can you get?
Now we are only going to do this once. But!
What about those New York prices? Fares on the subway are reasonable. Better in fact than London. However, there it just about ends!
Sorry, but paying A$60 for a bottle of wine that you know you can buy at the over-priced liquor store over the road for A$30 is sad enough, add to this the fact that the same wine or one of better quality could be purchased through any pub drive-through in Australia for A$15 is a bit much! A$15 for a bread roll with a bit of salad and meat or chicken is about average.
There was one bright spot in this saga. During our roamings through the Lower East Side we came across a street full of 99c stores, great Chinese seafood, meat and vegetable markets and other bargain outlets. Obviously the shopping precinct for the poorer residents of the Big Apple. We were right at home, purchasing some of the necessities for us to survive the remainder of our US trip, a toaster, electric cooking ring, pots, plates, bowls, cutlery etc. Cheap, cheap cheap!
A trip to the New York Tenement Museum put us in our place. We thought we were going to do it semi-rough, cooking in motel rooms etc, but life in tenements 100 years ago was seriously basic. An interesting afternoon.
Our last night was also Italian, a different but again, a great restaurant. The huge prices mentioned above took away some of the gloss, but it has been fun living the life of a New Yorker for a week. Anne-Marie and Ed have been great hosts and shown us a side of New York we probably wouldn’t have seen on our own.
Boston
December 7
Boston or bust today. Snow still thick on the ground, we dragged our bags to the local subway and headed for Penn Station to jump the 10.00am Acela Local for Boston. A relatively painless exercise with the exception of having to throw our 30kg bags over the turnstiles in the subway and carry them up and down several sets of stairs.
We all know NYC is a big city. After an hour and a half of fairly smart train travel we were still in the burbs. It was not until we hit Rhode Island, two states away, that we started to see some open country. A beautiful day with blue sky and cold clear air made this a memorable trip. Towns and small cities slipped past, all dusted with clean white snow.
Guards on the Amtrak trains wear the same livery now as they did in the 20s and 30s. traditional Pill-box caps and the whole thing! Announcements for upcoming stops are always delivered with a theatrical flourish. Service is however a bit less than we are used to, but that seems to be a fairly uniform issue in most places we have been to date… Let’s see how this develops. To be fair, most observers believe that New York is not America and we have a lot to see yet.
December 8
Boston is far more like Australian and European cities than New York is. Open, clean and more modern, but with pockets of narrow, winding streets and timbered shops. Clear and cold again. We are settled into the Motel6 at Braintree about 15 miles from the centre of Boston. A good location with the T (Boston’s subway) a couple of hundred metres away and a Mall over the road to provision our in-room cooking.
Found a liquor store that sold BOTH beer and wine (didn’t happen in New York) and a grocery store for tonight’s dinner and we’re happy as pigs in mud.
Boston boasts a pre-eminent place in the history of the USA. Yesterday, we saw the historic highlights of the revolutionary wars and the early days of the new nation. Today we visited the JFK Museum and Library, a great tribute to one of the great leaders of the 20 Century.
This is our last night at the Motel6, Braintree. Tomorrow we’ll jump the T (subway) and slip into Boston to pick up a hire car for the next week. Seems that the weather is about to warm up – we fear, however, that rain will be the trade-off.
Motels are to be our home from here on. Sadly, they are one of the things about America that are least different to home. Same layouts. Same noise, but not all the usual facilities. This one has no coffee making facilities and no fridge! We have adopted our usual approach to these difficulties. We have improvised. A toaster and hot plate (purchased in the ONLY bargain shop in New York) have been matched with a cooler bag to create our own carry-around kitchen. Menu options are limited, but the prices are great!
A nice little Galant awaited us at the Alamo car hire depot this morning.
Our lodgings in outer Boston were a long subway ride away from the ‘depot’ at Logan International Airport, so on the train we went, with all our gear in tow. This jumping on and off trains and subways is fine once one cottons on to the fact that a whole range of facilities have been provided for wheelchairs in stations. In New York – still novices at this dragging bags thing! – we hurled our heavy luggage over the subway turnstiles. Now we use the disabled lifts and exit through the wheelchair gates.
Driving an automatic compact car on good wide US roads is far easier that pushing a manual motorhome around tight medieval European streets. So our previous lefthand-drive experiences were far more harrowing than the past couple of days have been.
US drivers are unquestionably good! In general they are courteous and (so far) patient and tolerant of slow and hesitant drivers like us.
Small towns like the pre-revolutionary war settlement of Marblehead in Mass. are easily accessible this time of the year when the locals and the few crazy tourists like us have the place to ourselves.
Housing styles in New England have remained much the same since the 18thCentury. Clapboard two to three storey homes, 90% of which are painted white or off-white, sit in mostly unfenced yards nestled amongst now winter-bare trees. Very few people are out and about, even though it’s been much milder the last couple of days, mostly just above zero.
Last night, we had a lot of trouble finding a motel. A few lessons were bitterly learnt as we paid well above market price for a fairly ordinary place simply because it was all we could find. Having spent some time on the Interstate, we now realise that the cheap chain motels cluster around the exits, as fortunately, do the fast food outlets and supermarkets.
Tonight (Dec 11) we are in the village of Bar Harbour in northern Maine preparing for a lobster and clam dinner.
If any group is broadly accepted in America, it must be the millions of veterans of the many wars that this nation has fought. Like their counterparts in Australia, veterans here have an association known as the American Legion. Chapters of the Legion can be found in every village, town and city across the nation. Unlike their Aussie compatriots however, these poor souls have not yet discovered the Poker Machine.
Walking through the snowy streets of the small town of Bar Harbour, we happened upon an American Legion Post. It was a poorly maintained double-storey timber house on a side street. Compared to any suburban RSL at home, the poor vets of the USA seem very badly done by. Admittedly we have seen some small halls in other towns that are a little more grand than the poor old Bar Harbour Post, but even these are a long way from the Twin Towns RSL at home! Ah, the benefits of the evils of gambling and booze!
Our purpose in visiting Bar Harbour was to visit the Arcadia National Park which boasted the best views of the rugged Maine coastline. Sadly, the tail end of a snow storm hit us during the night, closing access to the park and limiting visibility to 200-300 mtrs. All was not lost however, as a nice feed of famous Maine lobster at a pleasant little restaurant down near the harbour made the trip well worthwhile.
Today we stayed off the Interstate and enjoyed a stately drive through snow-covered New England towns and villages, stopping for the odd wander in through snowy streets and a visit to that pinnacle of American fast food chains – Dunkin Donuts. With a cream cheese bagel welded to the insides of our stomachs and a not-so-flash coffee over the top, we were sated for the remainder of the day.
Americans are devoted to two things – the Stars and Stripes and special holidays. The flag flies from homes, fences, cars, kids’ prams, just about anything- and the Christmas holiday season is in full swing with Christmas wreaths and red bows attached to anything not nailed down; electric candles in every window, Santas hanging from beams, and house and garden displays to make Clark Griswald green with envy. But…. We can’t call it Christmas. Oh no!! It’s holiday time. We say “Happy holiday” now instead of “Have a nice day”, but we can’t mention Christmas – it seems it’s now politically incorrect - big time!!
December 13
US Country folk are great!
We have often been told that the US is in fact a number of different countries. To this point, this is proving to be the fact. While New Yorkers were far more civilized than we had anticipated, they are not a patch on the ‘country folk’ of New England. People say ‘Hi’ on the street. Drivers stop to let you out of side streets. The slightest brush against someone elicits an ‘excuse me’. Every door is held open for those following.
A bright day greeted us again this morning but, after spectacular views in the Franconia National Park, we were enveloped in heavy, frosty fog.
Mid-morning we were back in tax-free New Hampshire. Cheap booze at the state-run liquor shops was gleefully taken advantage of. Then on to the villages of Grafton and Chester. Covered with clean snow and lit by the fog-filtered sunlight, they were as advertised – the best in New England!
Very few Black Americans seem to live in the rural areas of New England. Replacing them as the generally poorer group in the community are poor WASPs. Some of these communities have very obvious socio-economic divides. Shopping in a ‘Dollar Tree’ shop (where nothing is more than $1) is an amusement to impoverished Australian travellers, but to many locals, it is survival.
December 14
The weather turned nasty today. Rain! However, temperatures through most of New England were milder and noticeably so as we wandered about without coats.
We spent the morning mooching around fabulous downtown Brattleboro, Vermont, followed by a look at the revolutionary battle site of Bennington, which also houses a museum containing the largest collection of Grandma Moses paintings in the world !!Then a very long drive through Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania to where we are entrenched tonight in the cheapest motel yet! US 29.99.
Tomorrow we are off to the battlefields around Gettysburg, PA.
Interstates and their navigation are getting to be far easier to deal with than we had anticipated. Directions are managed by numbers. As long as one knows what direction you want, everything just flows. North–South Interstates are odd numbered. Those going East-West are even. Exit numbers are the number of miles from some known point. The only draw back is knowing what that ‘known’ point is! Sometimes it’s the state line. Others, it’s a large city. Just to make matters more interesting, exits are even numbered by the distance from the start of the Interstate…!
None of this is half as complicated as it might sound and the highway system that was the vision of President Eisenhower is right up there with the Autobahns. Autopistas, Autostradas and Motorways of Europe AND here, they are mostly toll free!
It must be extremely difficult for those who hover at the fringes of the ‘American Dream’, particularly given the lack of the social ‘safety nets’ provided by democratic socialist nations like Australia and Europe.
In the midst of what is today one of the poorest industrial/rural slums areas of Pennsylvania, lies the Gettysburg battleground. Here in early July 1863, General Robert E Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia into what has been described as the decisive battle of the Civil War. Confronting him was the Union Army of the Potomac led by General Joseph Hooker. Lee was on the road to Washington in a daring move to capture Washington, the Union’s capital. Hooker’s orders were simple. ‘Stop him’. That he did.
Our battle with the high cost of motel accommodation has taken a positive turn since we moved away from the ‘trendy’ areas of the North East. While some of the locations are less than picturesque and one has to be able to sleep through periodic freight trains that seem to be coming through the car park, the rooms are always clean and at prices around US$35 (AUS$60) compared with some at US$70+, we are hauling back our budget deficit.
One gripe, the lack of Internet facilities. In New York, we were able to take advantage of Anne-Marie, but since then, we have only been able to access the Net from public libraries - free, but with limited times. Internet cafes have been invisible. This, plus the absence of the comforting presence of the mobile phone, makes us feel a little isolated compared to our last trip when everybody and everything was as close as a button away. The much-heralded centre of the telecommunications world seems to be behind - or at least - apart from the rest of the world – the isolationist policy continued????
Sixteen lanes, eight each way! Speed, nothing under 70 mph (120 km/hr).
Welcome to big city freeway driving. Scary as it sounds the Interstate (s) into Washington were manageable. Bring on LA!
For this time of the year, 8C to 10C and sunny in Washington is a GREAT DAY.
Arlington National Cemetery was moving. We saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – always a sobering experience. Then we moved to the JFK memorial – very sad with the slabs of Jack, Jackie and their two unborn/stillborn children, but not John? At the entrance has Bobby’s grave – a simple cross with his name, birth and death dates.
On
arrival, we left the car at our inner city motel, located in a fairly
dodgy area, and walked to Capitol Hill. The scale of the public
monuments and buildings in Washington is staggering. As we write, we
can see the Capitol from our motel window (it’s not that dodgy a
motel!!!). We did the full Capitol building tour this afternoon (it’s
free!). The building is inspiring and after visiting Arlington
National Cemetery this morning, we were truly prepared for the full
dose of democratic principles that the Capitol conveys.
You do have to love ‘em. The Americans that is. They do so love their country and all it stands for. As for the rest of us, they are very welcoming and most willing to help us understand where they are leading the world. All that is missing for us is an understanding by them of what the other 6.5 billion people on the planet want out of life. This is not meant as a disrespectful statement. This is a great nation with great people. But as we become more exposed to the national ethos it is difficult not to be concerned that from a non-US, ‘first world‘ perspective, that so much cultural influence and power has become concentrated in the hands of one people….
December 17
Monuments, monuments and still more monuments. Washington is simply ‘monumental’. Seriously, this is a beautiful city. Lacking the old world attraction of Paris, Berlin, Rome and London, Washington has been constructed during the 19thand 20thcenturies. It is a modern ‘classical’ city. The scale of the public buildings and the open layout of this city are more than equal to the above-mentioned old world cities.
Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson share the sacred ground of the National Mall with monuments to the veterans of the Korean war, Vietnam and ‘coming soon’ the monument to WWII veterans. The Mall and its monuments are on such a grand scale that walking distances are very difficult to estimate. From a kilometer away, the Washington Monument looks as though it’s only a block off – Not so! However, the walk was worth it – the view from the top on this beautiful, clear day (max 37F) was spectacular.
The National Museum of American History kept us occupied for the remainder of the day. A very well organised display of America’s history, incorporating such things as the story of five families who lived in a 200 year old house, Judy Garland’s ruby shoes from The Wizard of Oz, a phaser gun from Star Trek, Indiana Jones’ jacket and hat, the story of African Americans ‘From Field to Factory’. We spent three hours wandering happily, through the museum until the thought of back-street Washington after dark drove us homeward bound.
We had been warned by the security guard at the Martin Luther King Jr Library that the area wasn’t safe. Then there was the number of homeless dragging bundles of gear (sometimes in Samsonite luggage) camped on the streets, and the hotel manager’s suggestion that after dark we should be careful. All this had us scooting home by 5pm. We may be super-cautious, but…??
Our hotel view of the Capitol is still on show … it gets the morning sun and the sunset glow… just gorgeous!!
Museums in Washington are free. Consequently, we spent most of the past couple of days ‘doing the rounds’. Spacecraft, Dorothy’s shoes and Mr Spock’s Phaser rate a special mention. Amongst the hundreds of thousands of priceless items gracing the halls of the various Smithsonian Institution museums, it’s interesting how the artefacts of popular culture like the shoes and the phaser standout. We could have spent another two days hard at it and still only take in a small portion of the exhibits.
Our motel, as we said previously, is just on the edge of Capitol Hill. During the day the neighborhood is quiet and safe. Nights are a slightly different matter. Scratch the surface of this city and there are some nasty ‘scars’ underneath.
Writing this, we are on board AMTRAK ‘Train 89’ from New York to Miami FA. We of course, picked up the train in Washington and are heading for Charleston SC. Right now, we are pulling into Richmond VA. It’s a fairly glum day which probably does very little for the jumble of back yards, parking lots that have slipped past the window for the past couple of hours. This is a nine hour trip and we arrive at 9:40pm tonight. Only seven hours more of noisy kids and rambling old (ie 50+) African American men, who sound like too many bad movies we’ve seen….. (“Mmm Hhhhh Yeah! Right on Brother. I hear what you say!”) Don’t get us wrong. Long Distance train travel is new to us and to this point it’s not too bad. Leg room is twice the airline norm. You have scenery. And on US trains, built in entertainment by way of our fellow travellers.
20 December
Segregation legally disappeared over 40 years ago in the USA. The law is one thing, reality may be another.
Charlestown SC was the city that in 1861 saw the flashpoint that started the Civil War. Fort Sumter fired on Union ships and it was all on. The war, of course, was the combination of basic economics and high moral principles that tend to cause most large scale conflicts. The ‘high moral principles’ revolved around slavery.
One hundred years later, in 1961, the systemic discrimination that replaced slavery was dismantled across the nation.
Charlestown today, geographically, is at least two cities. Downtown Charleston is an historic gem. Restored following its near destruction after 500 days of siege during the civil war, it is a major tourist attraction. North Charleston on the other hand is a sprawling amalgam of industry, middle class housing and at the lower end, strips of ‘trailer homes’ paralleling the interstates.
“
In Charlestown, this ‘line’ seems to be at the point where the I-26 Interstate meets the historic main street of Charlestown, Meeting Street. In this downtown area, Caucasians are well in the majority on the streets. (This next part is sensitive and perhaps just said as observed.) African Americans are generally confident and LOUD! on the streets and in the subways. Not overtly threatening, but somewhat ‘in-your-face’ by Australian standards. (as observed in New York, Boston and – especially Washington). In downtown Charleston, they are uniformly demure, even deferent. Cross the line back into where we are staying – Motel 6 North Charlestown and at the local Wal-Mart we seem to be back in ‘their world’.?
December 21
The Grace of the ‘Old South’ was in its winter zenith today. A beautiful 18C+ day with blinding sunlight greeted us as we exited the Charleston North Motel6 this morning. A visit to an old South Carolina plantation on the outskirts of Charleston recalled some of the issues we had explored about the realities and origins of frictions between the races. Our tour guide was very PC as she described the conditions under which the slaves of ante-bellum Carolina lived. It is hard to believe some of the platitudes that are mouthed by the gentry of the ‘Old South’ when you see the gaping social and economic divide that still persists between the masters and their old ‘servants’.
Current political controversy in the US has highlighted racist comments made by the ex -Republican majority leader, Senator Lott. Pertinent to our musings about the realities of the racial divide in the USA is the statement made by the good Senator’s defenders – ‘You have to understand. .. he’s from Mississippi’ –
Debates about the ‘social undercurrents’ of the south aside, the hospitality of the South is as advertised! People from taxi drivers to ‘store clerks’ are universally ‘charming’. And, they seem far more legitimate than their ‘plastic’ counterparts throughout responses in most of the north. The oft-espoused view is that the USA can be experienced as a number of different countries. New York is definitely in a different world! New England and the Mid Atlantic may be another and so far the South is again another, if the streetscape and laid back attitude of Savannah (Georgia) are any indication.
Tonight we rejoice in a Days Inn Motel which provides us with (oh joy!) a frig…. And a microwave. For the last few nights, we have had to make use of our little “esky” and the ice vending machine to guarantee a reasonable temperature for our coffee milk – a far cry from our early travels when we just ducked outside for some snow.
December 22
Atlanta, the ‘Capital of the New South’.
Another magic day weather wise, temperatures in the high Celsius teens or even low twenties had us walking about in shirtsleeves. Another frantic ‘Interstate’ drive across the city’ 16 lane freeways and a minor unscheduled detour through north-central Atlanta (lost again) finally saw us settled by mid-afternoon in another Super8 Motel right across the street from the Amtrak station from which we will ‘train it’ to New Orleans in a couple of days.
“Sir.” ‘U A’ll should just step back into your room”. “It’s on account of the dog sir. – that dog..”
This is the Lighthouse Motel, just off the Interstate (I-10), Lafayette Louisiana. The dog was in the company of six, black-suited officers of the law who were positioned in an arc around the stairs outside our room. Having seen attack dogs in action before, Paul immediately withdrew. – Stuff the washing… Five minutes later, the car park was empty. No dog. No cops. All was quiet. Just another night in a budget motel in the USA!
Christmas night we had a full Cajun feast. Sorry to report, it was foul, all grey and brown, deep fried and heavy. Grits (a wheat porridge) for breakfast is fine. But the rest is for the birds. When you think about it, this is the food that the very poor ate 150 years ago. We wonder why we want to eat it now – and at outrageous prices!
Avoiding the Interstate Highways, we followed the Mississippi south today to the swamps of Louisiana. Sugar cane fields, sugar mills and chemical plants lined the river for hundreds of Kms. Town after town cower behind the levee banks rebuilt from early 19th Century beginnings and completed during the late 1940’s. The levees are engineering marvels that protect this valuable farming and urban land from inundation during regular Mississippi floods.
Some of the original plantations still remain in southern Louisiana. We visited Nottoway Plantation outside Baton Rouge. Interestingly, it is owned by an Australian who bought it sometime in the 1980s for $US4M. A bargain. The sun was belting down while we toured the beautifully maintained house and grounds, which are largely as they were before the Civil War.
Friday, December 27,
We record the funeral of Mama, Janita’s grandmother, who died (Brisbane time) on Monday, December 23. Mama lived a full and happy life and was 101 when she died. She is sadly missed.
28 December
Texas means oil and oil means heavy industry. The Gulf Coast has both. We have seen the Ruhr and the Rhine, even climbed sand hills on the North Atlantic Coast of Holland to see the industrial landscape of the Dutch EuroPort at Rotterdam. The industrial areas around Houston TX leave all these for dead! Huge refineries and chemical plants line the coast and rivers as far as the eye can see.
Texans are world renowned for seeing themselves as different, even special. Their history is both of these things. Most of what is now Texas was claimed by Spain in the 17thcentury, then by the new Mexican Republic in the 19thcentury. At about this time, American colonialists started to take up land in modern day Texas.
The way they tell the story, these colonials were oppressed by the Mexican government and were therefore, duty-bound to throw off these shackles in the name of freedom and democracy. This they attempted to do in the 1850s. An early victory to the Mexicans at the Alamo incensed the Texans and they commenced a most successful campaign, led by General Sam Houston, against the hapless Mexicans. The end result was just as those of us who were brought up on a diet of western movies would predict. Yep! At San Jacinto, just outside modern day Houston, the despotic, oppressive, anti-democratic, and possibly most significantly militarily-weak Mexican army under the command of General Santa Anna was defeated in a matter of minutes.
Jingoism reaches new heights in Texas. Most of the people of the USA openly express their love of country and this is one of their most positive traits. In Texas, this is often taken to extremes.
The State Museum of Texas in Austin is one of the best historical museums we have seen. Skillfully used audio-visual presentations and well presented static displays do an excellent job of conveying the history of the Lone Star State. Topping all this was the theatre presentation – The Spirit of Texas – Technically, this was an absolute marvel. Culturally, it was simply ‘over the top’. We wondered what any street-toughened New Yorker would have thought about the highly emotive claims about the supremacy of the ‘Heroes of Texas’. Great fun as long as you don’t take any of it too seriously!
Previously we had visited the Texas State Capitol, a great building with a real sense of history. Of note though was the fact that our young guide made a point of the fact that the dome of the building was in fact higher than the Capitol in Washington DC.
On to San Antonio for more Texan legends, the Alamo! On the way we covered some of the Texas countryside and visited a couple of interesting small towns that looked as though they were sets for western movies. Storms chased us most of the way but we avoided most of the worst of the weather and enjoyed sun, hail and rain all within a few miles. Temperature wise it has been very mild, 20C – 25C most of the day.
Event though it is quite a large city (1.3M people) San Antonio is easy to get around. The ‘downtown’ area is very pleasant and, like other Texas cities we have visited, it is well laid out and ‘car-friendly’.
The Alamo was obviously sacred ground for Texans. There is very little left of the original mission, but the parklands that surround the famous front gate of the mission and the remnants of the walls of the makeshift fortress give visitors a good idea of what it all might have looked like in 1836 when the Alamo fell.
The drive from San Antonio to the Gulf Coast city of Corpus Christi was again very reminiscent of western parts of Queensland. Very flat, open and dry. We even saw ‘cowboys’ on horseback working cattle on the plains.
It has been another spectacular day. As we drove into Corpus Christi, the sun was still high in the clear blue sky at 3.00pm and the temperature was in the low 20’s Celsius. With the palms lining the streets, one could easily ignore the mile after mile of oil refineries and chemical plants that lined the Interstate into town.
Today, we saw people lining up to collect their pays in CASH from a Brinks security van…..and this country is the leader of the Free World? Go figure…
New Year’s escaped too much attention this year. We managed to see the Times Square celebrations through on TV. – Most exciting!
Galveston was in all its glory on New Year’s Day. The holiday crowds were down from nearby Houston to enjoy the almost perfect winter’s day. The seawall, that runs the whole length of the island with its piers, bars and sea views, was the main attraction. It was constructed in 1902 to protect the island following the devastation of the 1900 hurricane that killed more than 6000 people. This remains today the greatest death toll for a natural disaster in US history. Modern Galveston is a clean, attractive beach resort and port, but it is only a shadow of its former glory. In its hay day, during the troubled times of the birth of the Texan Republic, it was the largest city in Texas and a contender for capital city.
The Gulf Coast is flat. Many houses are on stilts a la Queensland houses, and especially North Queensland houses. Some have one room built-in underneath, but most are just sitting on their stilts, with not even lattice to enclose the under-house areas. They’re ready for any high tide that chooses to rush in over the land.
Other parts of the USA enjoy gently putting Texas down. In some perverse way it’s a bit like attitudes to New Jersey. Both are often laughingly referred to as foreign countries. With all their bluster and pride, you could never accuse a Texan of being inhospitable or unwelcoming. Back in Louisiana tonight, the difference was immediate. The usual laid-back friendly, ‘nothing is too much trouble’ attitude of most people we met was instantly replaced with the rehearsed, courteous indifference that seems to characterise ‘service’ in many parts of the east cost of the US.
Las Vegas beckons tomorrow and we needed to be back in New Orleans to catch an early morning flight. So we hit the Interstate and drove most of the day, largely back over territory that we had explored on our way west into Texas a week ago.
Remember the heavy industry and OIL? The monument to the battle, that we visited today, which marks the site of the decisive battle with the Mexicans is smack in the middle of probably the most wealthy agri-industrial complex on the planet.
Damn bad luck, Mexicans.
And, by the way, the end result of the struggle between the US and Mexico was the annexation of all of Texas, California, New Mexico, most of Arizona, Nevada and parts of other states that aggregate to 1/3 of the land mass of today’s USA.
So far, Texas is yet another country within a country. Much cleaner, more modern and apparently wealthier than their neighbours in the South-East, Texas has a real ‘power-house’ feel.
Reflecting back to our first contact with the USA in New York, this is a vastly different world. Racially, we are suddenly in a world where African Americans are very much a rarity. Hispanic Americans (Latinos) are everywhere and Spanish is almost as prevalent as English. Food is different (except for the ‘fast’ variety). The climate is different, 20C+ today in Houston, consequently, people dress differently and on a very warm, sunny day like today, are all out and about!
Where is the ‘real’ America?
December 29
Houston’s premier attraction is the NASA Johnson Space Centre, better known as ‘Houston Mission Control.’ An unused Saturn rocket and other ‘space junk’ lie beside the car park. Impressive! The NASA Visitors’ Centre itself however was somewhat of a disappointment. More like a theme park than a serious tour of the facility, the hordes of kids all loved it, but it left us a bit cold.
Tonight we are in Austin TX. After a fairly uneventful drive we are enjoying a nice (cheap) motel with a kitchenette and the usual 100 TV channels. It has been “hot and sticky” today, in the low 20s Celsius. To think that only a few weeks ago we were rugged up against freezing winds and driving snow.
Leaving New Orleans this morning by plane was our first exposure to the new security arrangements on US domestic flights. Happy to say it was a non-event. We had arrived two hours early as instructed and were through security and sitting in the lounge an hour and a half before take-off and that was after having breakfast in the airport!
We had planned to have a three hour stopover in Denver to give us some time to get out in some real snow. As you might guess, we got it wrong again. While Denver had been buried under several feet of snow in December, today was sunny and in the low 60sF (20s C). A dust storm raged across the mammoth Denver International Airport as tumble weeds rolled amongst the lines of jets awaiting takeoff on the three parallel runways. Taxi drivers sported shorts and the ground crews worked in T-shirts. To top it off, heavy snow in the North East put connection flights back over an hour. Our planned snowy stop-over extended to a four hour roam around the airport shopping mall!
Created during the ‘50’s out of the desert of Nevada by a combination of corrupt government and the ‘mob’, Las Vegas today is a monument to the exorbitant wealth that all Americans covet. Whichever way you look at the phenomenon that is ‘Vegas’, it is over whelming.
Arriving at sunset on a warm sunny evening we were first treated to the natural spectacle of the Nevada desert. From the plane the golden glow of the setting sun created a sight that had even the most hardened air-commuter pressed against the window. By the time we cleared the casino that doubles as Las Vegas International Airport and headed up the ‘Strip’, it was dark and the neon jungle and monumental tackiness of it all was in its full splendour. Circus, Circus, New York New York, Luxor and on and on.
Images of the ‘Rat Pack’ and 007- like characters strolling the casino floors in the company of beautiful women in cocktail frocks were washed away in a swamp of dirty jeans, thongs, T-shirts and floral tropical atrocities. There appear to be no rules other than Spend!
Enough already. It’s time to get down and tacky!!! Love it!
January 4
The Vegas Strip is more than 8 miles (13 km) long. For most of that length it is lined by some of the world’s most recognised landmarks, or at least recreations of them. Scattered amongst these are truly American icons like The Frontier, Circus Circus, and Mirage. Inside are tens of thousands of slot machines.
An early morning excursion to the local Seven Eleven up Fremont Street from our hotel, the Four Queens, showed a different side of the so-called ‘Fremont Experience’. The streets were empty even though all the casinos were still open. In the morning light, the five hundred metre long arch over the Fremont Mall looked more like a very large garden arch than the blocks-long television screen that it was last night. Every hour, a spectacular video sequence, the ‘Fremont Experience’, pulls the crowds out of the casinos and onto the street. The experience includes Starwars-like space scenes, tropical jungles and a simulated fly-over by fighter jets projected on the mall’s blocks-long, arched roof.
This morning in the bright sunlight, a few straggling drunks (not us) were all that was left of the neon lights, video projections and thousands of punters packing the streets.
We’ve visited most of the strip’s casinos today. Tonight we’ll be back again.
Who
wins in Vegas? Not us, and not many of the 30M punters who come here
every year. However, we did manage to have a good time and escape
with only limited damage.
Leaving Las Vegas and heading into the Mojave Desert we were amazed at the natural beauty of the desert. Most visitors to Vegas probably never see more than the neon lights and the closest they come to the desert is a dirt car park. They are missing a spectacular part of the US.
Hoover Dam, just outside Vegas, provides the life-blood that allows the rapidly growing city of Las Vegas to exist. Completed in 1935 as a project to create employment during the Depression, the dam provides not only water but also power to five states.
The desert changes as we cross every ridge, rugged gorges one minute, rocky plains with tumbleweeds and stunted shrubs the next. To top it off, we were treated to a dust storm, just as we drove into the old mining ghost town of Chloride, Arizona. The town today is only a couple of stone buildings surrounded by a rubble of old shacks and the ever-present trailer settlements.
Climbing into the high desert late in the afternoon, the temperature at last dropped back to something like winter! It was 22C in Las Vegas this morning and further west in LA it was in the high 20s C. Tonight we are in the small desert town of Williams which is a stepping-off town for the Grand Canyon. The town is on what once was described as America’s main street, Route 66! There is not much left of the old Route 66, most of it has disappeared under Interstate 40. The small portions that are left are being preserved as part of the nation’s heritage. We will travel the last remaining long stretch in a few days when we head west again into California.
It snowed here last night and also up at the canyon, so we are looking forward to seeing (and feeling) a bit more of the cooler weather we escaped a Brisbane summer to find.
January 7-8
Anything that can silence the generally exuberant (and LOUD) American travellers must be special.
Most of those around us, including the stereotypical ‘ugly Americans’, were silenced as we first sighted the Grand Canyon. On a day which was generally accepted as the ‘best you could get!’, we were at least as impressed as the locals. Any attempt to describe the canyon would simply be a waste of words. We roamed, open-mouthed, from view-point to view point along the canyon’s rim for most of the day. Then to top it off, we headed for Flagstaff through the Navajo Nation and the Painted Desert.
Sadly, the Indian settlements along our way were less than attractive.
The deserts of Arizona seem to change with every highway turn. Flat to the horizon one minute, coloured, rolling hills the next, then craggy hills and mountains. We have driven through many hundreds of miles of the Mojave Desert in the past two days with never a dull moment. Most of these miles were travelled along the famous Route 66.
From the early 1920s to the late 1950s, this was the main road from Chicago to Los Angeles. ‘Main’ being the operative word. Its nostalgic importance to Americans goes well beyond its link with the 1960s TV show. Route 66 became known as the Main Street of America, as it passed through the main street of hundreds of towns and cities as it crossed the nation.
As dust storms turned much of the Great Plains into a desert waste land during the ‘20s, thousands of poor farmers abandoned their land, loaded their Model Ts with all their transportable belongings and headed for California along Route 66. Later, in the 1930s, the flow was somewhat in the other direction. The nouveau riche of the Los Angeles movie set cruised the highway east. The ‘ghost town’ of Oakman, some 400kms from Los Angeles for example, was all the rage with the super-stars of the 30s. Gable and Lombard were married here and today, the room in which they spent their honeymoon in the town’s old adobe hotel, is part of the razzle dazzle that draws thousands of tourists here every day.
By the mid 1940s, the traffic became mostly military as troops and equipment rolled west to support the Pacific War. From then on, the route declined or was turned into double lane road as the Interstate Highway system was constructed. The remaining stretches of Route 66 have now been preserved and the few small towns along the highway are, like Oakman, quickly learning how to exploit the tourist $.
Irrespective of what atrocities are perpetrated in the name of tourism by the dying towns along the highway, nothing can diminish the natural beauty of these parts of Arizona and California.
Early settlers on their way to California, ran the gauntlet of Death Valley to avoid battling the snow storms of the Sierra Nevada Range, which blocked their path to the west. The choice must have been a difficult one. The valley is pleasant this time of the year, but even today, with temperatures hovering around the low twenties Celsius and the sun taking a narrow arc in the northern skies, the heat shimmer above the salt pans was enough to make one think twice about any long walks.
Evidence of the effects of the hand of man on this valley is mercifully slight. Two or three small ruined mine sites can be seen from the road. The rest of the valley has a truly wilderness feel.
Our drives through the Nevada and California deserts over the past couple of days have racked up significant miles. However, the scenery is exciting enough to maintain interest. Today’s drive included a salt pan that is 282 feet below sea level, Zabriskie Point (of long-forgotten movie fame) with its magical golden waves of rock and Ubehebe Crater, 500 feet deep and ½ mile from rim to rim. Loses a lot in description, but our jaws have gravel rash.
Tonight we are in the ‘almost frontier’ town of Beatty, Nevada. Like many desert towns on this side of the Nevada/California border, Beatty’s main street is a dusty array of Hotel/Motel/Saloon/Casinos. Gambling is probably the only way small towns like this can survive in the desert. Alternatively, there are ‘red light ranches’ on the outskirts of town that boast truck parking?
With an early start and the good roads, the million tourists that visit the valley every year can now escape back to the sanctuary of the chain motels that line the interstates to the south, rather than overnight in the few small towns like Beatty that can be reached from the National Park. We are a little slower than most and will return to the valley tomorrow.
January 10
What might the hardy souls who survived the trek across Death Valley have thought as they finally dragged themselves to the top of the pass through the Tehachapi Mountains and caught sight of the Southern California Valley? Behind them lay some of the most inhospitable and dangerous desert areas on earth. Before them was a land of plenty, that today, as we crested the same pass, was such a lush green that it reminded us of Ireland and England.
Back in the valley, our last day in the desert was overcast and grey. In some ways the weather enhanced the mystery that hung around the two ghost towns that we explored.
Rhyolite, on the Nevada side of the state line, once had a promising future. A grand stone railway station is still fairly well intact at the top of the town’s deserted main street. Several gutted two-storey stone edifices still stand amongst the remnants of lesser structures that lined the street until the final demise of the town in the first decade of the last century. Every town like this has its ‘hang on’ character (s). The couple who seem to have decided to see out their lives in this long- dead desert township were scuffling around outside their ruined home as we explored. Imagine your caricature of a ghost town character and multiply by two. Yep, that’s them.
Ballarat CA, our second ghost town of the day, was named after its much larger sister city in Australia. In its heyday – 1878, Ballarat CA exported $1M in gold. With a population of 500 souls, 3 hotels, seven saloons, post office and school, the future must have looked rosy for the good folk of Ballarat CA. Sadly, by the end of the century, the gold was gone. When the post office closed in 1902, the town disappeared off the map. Ballarat’s ‘hang-on’ character was ‘Seldom Seen Slim’. Mr. Slim finally gave up the ghost in 1968 and is buried in the old town’s ‘boot hill’. One has to wonder who buried him. Even in 1968, this place would have been a long way from anywhere!
The town of Trona was also on our path today. It boasts the largest borax mine in the world, and we lunched today in a “Rest Area” between the borax “field” and the chemical plant which processes it. You’d have to see it to appreciate the “view”.
Memories of the hardy pioneers who braved the deserts of Arizona, Nevada and Southern California were in our minds as we drove down onto the Southern Valley near Bakersfield. Today, their path would have been blocked by the hundreds of wind generators that stand sentinel along the ridges of the Tehachapi Mountains. If they descended into the valley today, they would find a densely-populated, rich agricultural area that is the ‘food basket’ of America, with orange groves, vineyards, cattle feed lots and vegetable farms that can supply the northern markets with fresh veges even in the depths of winter.
11-12 January
Natural wonders seem to abound in California. Over the past two days we have visited three of the most famous of the US National Parks, Sequoia, King’s Canyon and Yosemite. Two glorious days enhanced the experience with clear blue skies and mild temperatures. Some of the roads in the parks were heavily iced and snow tyres or chains were required. Apparently! – we have snow tyres on our Buick. A lucky circumstance as some of the steep climbs and descents were a little challenging to us as ‘tropical country drivers’.
Sequoia, Kings and Yosemite are everything and more that you might expect of these National Parks: amazing trees with bases up to 40 feet in diameter and branches 8 feet thick!: a granite monolith that is the largest in the world at 3593 feet, incredible waterfalls, amazing views of valleys and mountains, snowscapes – did we mention that it was amazing?
The rigours of the roads in the National Parks were not as life-threatening as one might imagine. Despite this, the heavy duty SUVs were out in their glory. Don’t know what an
SUV is? It took us a while to figure it out as well. (Sports Utility Vehicle.) Essentially a 4x4 in Australian terms, here they also include the millions of pick-up trucks that seem to make up half the vehicles on the road. In all, SUVs probably at least equal the numbers of normal sedans roaming the highways.
An interesting twist on the SUVs is the push by a congressman to discourage the expansion of this phenomenon on the grounds that their owners are supporting terrorism. Lost? Well, the good congressman believes that ‘gas guzzlers’ like SUVs are putting dollars into the hands of Middle Eastern exponents of terrorism. We kid you not. This was a serious news item discussed in full on all the reputable networks.
Some of the areas we drove through over the last couple of days reminded us of home. It was partly the ever present Gum Trees, but eventually we remembered that this part of California was the heart of the Gold Rush of the 1850s. Miners coming to Australia from the goldfields of California reportedly homed-in on gold deposits in Australia because they recognised that the country and its geology was very much like California.
A final point. The valleys of southern California are the food bowl, not just of the USA, but to some extent also of much of the world. The scale of agricultural industry here is staggering. Hundreds of miles of orchards, vineyards and intensive vegetable cropping dominate every square inch that hasn’t fallen under the scar of urban sprawl.
Roseville is a newly developed city within greater Sacramento, California. There must be thousands of suburban areas like this throughout the USA where many millions of Americans live. Life here is good. Good schools, good roads, great neighborhoods and nice houses. Kids play basketball, ride bikes and roller-skate in the safe streets. Our cousin Michael, his wife Courtney, their three children, Caitlyn, Padderson and Rileigh and Courtney’s parents, Jim and Fran, live in this particularly pleasant part of America.
The city of Sacramento is within striking distance of the ski fields of Lake Tahoe and the ‘high desert’ of Nevada and California. The past couple of days have been spent exploring some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the world in the company of Mike, his family, another visiting cousin, Oliver, and his friend, Carl. Yet again the weather has been kind to us, sunny and warm with temperatures so mild that sweatshirts were all that we needed even at 8000 ft.
Lake Tahoe straddles the California and Nevada state line. On the Nevada side the focus is just as you might imagine, casino after casino. Reno is probably the best known of the string of ‘poor man’s’ Las Vegas clones that line the lake. On the California side, a solid line of holiday homes and small villages is broken by a few state parks that have preserved the most spectacular portions of the lake front for the public.
Snow had closed most access roads to the lake shore, but the higher vista points gave us enough breathtaking views and photo opportunities to thrill us all.
On our second day with Mike, we struck out early to visit the well-preserved ghost town of Bodie, a five hour drive each way. Virtually every turn on the whole journey had us pulling over to savour the wonders of the high desert in winter. After five hours of driving, the fact that our original destination was inaccessible was only a minor setback, given the unforgettable beauty of the high desert.
Today, we spent the afternoon in San Francisco. The city was at its best. No fog, clear skies and almost hot! Comparisons are often made between Sydney and San Francisco. On a day like this, it’s easy to see why. The bay setting, thousands of boats and an attractive skyline are common to both cities.
City ordinances in San Francisco are favourable to those seeking welfare payments. As a result, the city hosts one of the largest populations of homeless people in the US. Shopping cart ‘caravans’ that serve as homes to the poor, are parked at almost every street corner, at least in the less hilly parts of the city.
Having just passed a relaxing few days in Roseville with Mike et al, in such a great American family environment, the contrast between the America that this family lives in and the ‘other’ Americas that we have come across over the past couple of months, is staggering.
Roseville is a long way from the dilapidated trailer parks, re-locatable home villages and shopping trolley hovels that the ‘other Americans’ live in.
Car is definitely king in California. Even in a large city like San Francisco, most people prefer to drive rather than take public transport. Consequently, every square inch of street space in the city has a car sitting on it! Parking is expensive, but that does little to deter the good citizens of San Francisco.
Our car is sitting under our motel and will do for the next couple of days. With so many options in this city, we have taken to the streets, rails and waters armed with a daily pass. San Francisco has streetcars (trams), trolley buses, cable cars, a subway and ordinary buses. Our goal while here is to master them all!
Alcatraz and a walk on the beach at the Presidio filled in most of our day. The old prison closed in 1969. Today, much of it is in ruins, but the main cellblock is much as it was in the 1930/40s. Most of the cells are set up as they were , including prisoners’ personal items and bedding. We took an audio tour which focused on some of the better known characters like Al Capone and the ‘bird man’ – Robert Stroud. Interestingly, Mr Stroud never had birds during his time in Alcatraz. He was just a major behaviour problem who spent most of his time in solitary confinement.
This tour dispelled a number of popular misconceptions. There were successful escapes. Sharks in the Bay are not man-eaters. They are fairly small sand sharks. The currents are not unmanageable for a good swimmer. All this was evidenced by the three prisoners who escaped in 1962 by expanding the vents in their cells, with smuggled drills and chisels. Once in the service tunnel behind their cells they climbed out of the block and used raincoats as flotation devices to escape the island.
Back on the mainland, a crab sandwich was our lunch. A small roll jam-packed with crab was nice, but reminded us that Qld mud crabs must be the best in the world. The Wells Fargo museum chronicled the history of Wells Fargo and the Pony Express. God, but these people were tough!!!!! One look at the 100 year old coach which took 18 people – nine inside and nine on top – and we will never complain about airline seats again!!
Late this afternoon, we jumped a trolley bus out to the Presidio to see the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. Through the residual haze, the bright sunlight turned the bridge red. As we walked back towards the city, hundreds of windows reflected the last glow of the setting sun. Beautiful!
21 January
LA gets some really bad press. In some ways it’s well deserved. The only murder stories that make the news are those where kids are killed or injured. There were three of them tonight. The deaths that are attributed to the gang violence that is rampant in some parts of the city, seem to be treated more like death by natural causes. Given that the life expectancy of African Americans in some areas of the US is 37 years, you can see why.
On the other hand, despite the lingering haze that the weather channel tells us is ‘fog’, the city is a unique part of America and, probably, the world. We jumped the Santa Monica Freeway into downtown LA this morning and with very little trouble, had ourselves parked and on the downtown DASH bus inside half an hour. Traffic moved fairly well on the four to six lanes each way. As most Americans are very good drivers, all this works amazingly well. Along the way, through the haze, the high-rise buildings of this huge Megalopolis lined the freeway for the 12-15 miles into central LA. It seems that LA has almost the same number of skyscrapers as New York City; they are just scattered over an area about half the size of the whole of New York State.
Despite the common view both in the US and elsewhere, LA does have a city heart and it’s not too bad. Many of the older (1930s) buildings are either Mexican era reproductions or excellent Art Deco masterpieces. The fabulous Union Station is both. Along with the nearby Pueblo de Los Angeles, the history of this city is well preserved. We loved the oldest house in LA, the Adobe Avilo. Right in the middle of this crazy city, you can sit alone in a small, quiet courtyard with desert dust, cactus and orange trees.
Modern buildings are set in open plazas with landscaped gardens and evergreen trees, including Moreton Bay figs.
The heyday of the downtown movie houses that once lined Broadway have long gone. Bargain bazaars and cheap food outlets now occupy the once-grand foyers of the Odeon, the Tower, the Palace and many other, long-defunct picture shows. Some day, this whole area will be restored, and what is now a seedy area of urban decay, will have a new life.
Back in Santa Monica this afternoon, we were down to T-shirts for a walk on the beach. The distance from the ocean to the sidewalk is almost 1 kilometer of sand. This clean golden sand is raked and rolled every night to keep it neat.
An amazingly small section of Santa Monica Beach is home to about fifteen (mostly private) dwellings sitting right on the beach. They seem to have been there since the 1930s or 40s and their owners must have been very distressed when Highway 1 was created at their backyards. Never mind, the price tags for what were probably once simple beach shacks, would probably console them.
22 January
Image is all in the illusion that is Hollywood. That image has been very effectively projected, because the reality is far from magical.
By day, Hollywood Boulevard is just a street. Sure, there are some movie theatres and a few attractions like a Wax Works, Ripley’s Believe it or Not and the Hollywood Guinness Book of Records. Grotty souvenir shops and the ubiquitous chain fast food restaurants fill-in the spaces in the 2-3 kilometers that form the Hollywood strip. Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was the one point of real interest. From the early years of the ‘Hollywood Movie Era’, the greatest stars have been invited to write messages and put their hand and foot (in some cases, nose and hoof) prints into the theatre’s concrete sidewalk.
Rodeo Drive was another disappointment. A small enclave of exclusive, characterless, brand-name shops in a bland streetscape dominated by financial district high-rise buildings. At 11a.m., the rich and famous had yet to surface.
Houses in Beverly Hills are happily not as over sold as the rest of the ‘Hollywood glitter’. Even in these winter months, the gardens are beautiful and, without exception, homes are truly stylish and tasteful (with the assistance of the Mexican “help”).
In the midst of all this glitz and glamour are the La Brea Tar Pits. For thousands of years, tar expelled from oil deposits has oozed to the surface of the earth, setting deadly traps for hundreds of thousands of animals whose fossilised bones have been excavated since the early 1900s. A well-presented (though small) museum contains complete skeletons of extinct animals that roamed the LA Valley hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Driving around LA is an experience in itself. Traffic flows as long as you avoid peak hours. Parking is not a problem even in the centre of tourist areas like Hollywood and Beverly Hills. But how many cars are there in this city? Parking lots line most major roads and in the many centres of this mammoth city, high-rise parking blocks are almost as numerous as other buildings. Meanwhile, every alley, street and freeway is packed with cars.. cars.. cars..
Our last full day in the US.
After two months we have just about got the hang of freeway driving. Today we jumped the I-405 to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary. Six ‘traffic-packed’ lanes each way travel at 70-80 miles per hour, (that’s 120-130 kms per hour) with a speed limit of 65 mph. Nobody seems to abide by the limit even though it’s rigidly enforced. The theory seems to be that there are so many of ‘us’ – drivers, and so few of ‘them’ – the Highway Patrol. It’s a bit like a single lion stalking the mass migration of wildebeest on the Serengeti. Every now and then, the lion pounces on a slow wildebeest. The message is that one should never be the lagging vehicle in a group when the Highway Patrol vehicle slips up an on-ramp to join the fray. To avoid such a fate, just go like hell!
After two days of hazy skies, we were treated to a clear and very warm (22C) day. The Queen Mary was an interesting, although outrageously expensive outing. Walking the halls of this grand lady, one could easily imagine the ‘high life’ enjoyed by first class travellers. Many thousands of Australian troops travelled on the Queen Mary in far less luxurious circumstances as they were transported to Africa and the Middle East in the early days of WWII.
As the afternoon heated up, we drove north through Malibu. A beautiful drive with beaches and headlands that seem to go on forever. The many rich and famous who have houses on the Malibu coast seem to accept great risks, with their expensive houses teetering over the ocean supported by wooden pylons.
To top it all off, we walked along the beach from Santa Monica to Venice Beach this afternoon, witnessing a beautiful sunset and hundreds of very ‘different’ people!!
While we are swanning about in shirt sleeves, the news tonight has stories of Arctic weather conditions all up the East Coast. The Hudson is freezing over. Florida has temperatures below zero… and we are hot!!!
We have again been blessed with great weather throughout this trip. It has rained on two days out of two months and even then, only for parts of the day. We will reflect further on our US ‘adventure’ when we get home.
29
January (Reflections)
Travel to the USA was always low on our travel priority list.
Now that we have finally had a tastewe will return.
Our previous reluctance can probably be attributed to a perception that the USA would be much the same as home. To some extent, this was true. Language and some cultural aspects were obviously no surprise. What did hit us was the gap between the projected image of the US and the reality.
Sure, there is no questioning the nation’s pre-eminence on the world’s stage, the great monetary wealth, phenomenal infrastructure, industry, natural resources and, above all, the total devotion of its citizens to their country and all it represents. And this is what is projected and believed by most, both in and outside the US.
But what about the millions of poor and homeless who haunt every city and town? We have seen rural poverty at home in Australia and in Eastern Europe and the few drunks and unfortunates who live in the streets of Australian and European cities. The scale of the problem in the USA was a shock. Perhaps it’s the difference between the more egalitarian semi-socialist systems at home and in Europe as opposed to the US’s interpretation of capitalism?
The divide is clear, and sadly, it’s still geographic and racial. Broadly speaking, west of the Mississippi is a vastly different world to the crowded cities of the east. Statistically, African Americans, who are far more numerous in the east and south, are more likely to die young and die poor. Compounding this huge social divide, is the fact that many Americans from the safe, green, clean, ‘cheer-leader’ side of the tracks seem blissfully unaware that there is another world out there.
Having said what had to be said…
The USA is GREAT!
People are friendly and polite – VERY polite. Travel is easy – if expensive! And the scenery is breathtaking. We feel as though we have in some ways visited a number of different countries within the US.
New York is a world on its own and most Americans see it in the same way.. ‘New York is not America’. Exciting, BIG city feel, art and culture up there with the best of them, but definitely not America.
New England and the north east has a certain ‘old world charm’.
The ‘Old South’ retains and dotes on the heritage of the ante-bellum culture with which it is romantically linked. Grinding away under this façade is the reality of some yet unhealed scars of the segregation years and the development of a large ‘underclass’ of poor, both black and white.
Texas! What can you say? BIG. Beautiful and exciting!
The West coast and the ‘desert states’ felt a lot like home –with the exception of Las Vegas (Wow! - where did that place come from?) – laid-back, beaches, natural wonders and a diverse, but fairly settled, ‘cool’ populace.
Next?
See the footprints in the photo above? They’re heading for Egypt and maybe a return to Turkey………………………………….
Paul & Janita
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