American beauty

[Going a very long way back to Monday, 30^th July]

48 A.D.

The day started badly when I had to remove a clump of a fellow guest’s snatch from the shower plughole without it coming into contact with my flesh. I won’t moan any further.

After a continental breakfast consisting of two (count `em) bowls of cheerios, which I’m quite growing to like, we boogied out of the hotel and caught the endless bus ride to Santa Monica. This is a resort out on the coast and about as far west as you can get in LA (if you don’t count Malibu). It’s also the end of good old Route 66, which we hadn’t seen since our adventures through Arizona...how distant they seem...how distant everything seems before Vegas!

Obviously homesick for Southport, we went along the pier and took in the sights and sounds of the beach community. It was warm, but not too hot. There was a breeze, but it didn’t provide a chill. In fact, it was just how coastal weather should be, demonstrated by the number of beachgoers taking in the rays on what was to the rest of the world a manic Monday morning. The place was so chillaxed that even the coppers carried surfboards on their trucks!

We stopped for lunch and Tim had clam chowder, whatever that is (it was on his list of meals to eat when in the States). Next we strolled along the beach, dipping our feet in the Specific Ocean, which looked absolutely delicious, though there was no way I was going for a swim. Oh, did I say in the last post that I’d be displaying my wares on the beach? Gotcha!

If you walk far enough from the Santa Monica pier than you get to Venice Beach, famous for its boardwalk of weird and wonderful shops and stalls. Plenty of them seemed to be selling some kind of legal marijuana – you probably have to smoke three kilos of the stuff to get the sort of buzz equivalent to turning on the television and seeing that your favourite show is on, before you immediately realise it’s a repeat and come down again. Don’t worry, mum, we steered well clear!

It’s quite apt that not much more happened in this day -  no strange incidents, no bizarre comparisons between English and US culture, and no crazy characters offering tales of the unbelievable. I think that over the past six weeks we’ve come across more than enough of them! Now it’s our last night in the USA and what are we doing? Staying in the hotel with a couple of cans, with our favourite TBS shows on the telly. In a way I feel disappointed that we’re not out there getting smashed in a big slurred, “Seeya, America, itsch been fun!”, but on the other hand I really don’t think it would be worth it. LA is just so vast that if we tried to go on the razzle anywhere other than downtown, it would take us decades to get back. Maybe we should have stayed here a few more days to really get to know these suburbs-looking-for-a-city? Maybe it just couldn’t compete with the Cisco Effect.

Ever since I was a wee lad I wanted to see America and this year I finally got to do it. And I @~%^ing loved it! It was fast, it was furious, and at times it was a bloody hard slog, but we got to hit all the cities we wanted and we had a ball. I can head to New Zealand safe in the knowledge that I “did” the USA. And if anyone is interested, here's all the towns that we travelled through (albeit without even getting off the bus in some of them):

New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Syracuse, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Cleveland, South Bend, Chicago, Gary, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Athens, Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Opelousas, Alexandria, Shreveport, Dallas, Fort Worth, Wichita Falls, Vernon, Childress, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Gallup, Flagstaff, Kingman, Bullhead City, Henderson, Las Vegas, St George, Cedar City, Parowan, Provo, Salt Lake City, Wendover, Elko, Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Lovelock, Reno, Carson City, Minden, Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles.

20 states, ladies and gentlemen (21 if you include Ontario!)

We've met some wonderful people, seen some amazing sights, and met some less wonderful people. I guess it’s time for a change of pace, both for our sanity and for the level of entertainment this blog generates. Can’t have you reading about hicks from Alabama forever, can we? I’d just like to say that knowing that people out there are reading these scribbles provides me with so much inspiration. Thanks for that!

Yep, America was beautiful, America was on fire, but even with all its heat...America was just the warm-up - BRING ON THE REST OF THE WORLD!!!