The Six Thousand Mile Entry

Photos

Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Mountains, VA
The 100 mile scenic route (that took $50,000 per mile to build in the 1930s) through the park was actually something of a disappointment. Whilst intrinsically beautiful (especially with the light dusting of autumn's first mustard leaves littering the road), it paled in comparison with the geological madness of Utah; the rocky, green mountains of Colorado; Lake Tahoe's serene sandy simplicity and Route 101's sheer sensory onslaught. Somewhat miffed, we left the scenic route prematurely and headed to D.C.


Washington, D.C.
Upon entering the city we were saluted by the Washington monument (it was pleased to see us) and met with a criss-crossing mess of one way streets that bash you around like a gigantic pinball machine. We ricocheted into the bar we had been aiming for, where we met our allotted couchsurfer (thoroughly inebriated and brandishing a pool-cue). After a sound, drunken flaying at pool (as usual) we finished our beers, licked our wounds and headed back to squabble over the couch. 


The next day we took the metro to town, sucked down a delicious Chop't salad (that came in an industrial bucket) and waddled down the mall, salad-filled bellies wagging in front of us. Catching sight of a large and ornamental white building we quipped "Gee, I wonder what that is?". We wandered round it, taking photos and wondering a) how far you would get if you attempted to single-handedly storm the building (not far on distended salad-bellies) and b) how quickly it was possible to get arrested and consequently c) what concrete tastes of. We continued down the mall, admiring the proud and simple Washington monument, the fancy but sobering WWII monument, the reflecting pool (somewhat clouded and fouled by the gallons of ducks and their accompaniments) and Abe Lincoln, sitting nobly on his chair amidst great stone walls and between speeches of great solemnity and occasion. We then caught sight of another large, white, ornamental building with an even greater dusting of tourists than the last one. Hmm. This turned out to be the White House, and the earlier building the Capitol Building. It even had written all over it "Capitol Building", which we somehow managed to ignore. Slightly humbled, we took our photos and slunk away, keeping a weather eye out for Obama just in case we could high-five him.


We met with Ashley the couchsurfer again and, hungry for another serving of utter defeat at the hands of the pool shark, returned to her bar. In the morning we cooked English breakfast by way of thanks and headed into town to see the legendary Air & Space Museum. Washington was chock-full of historical buildings, exhibits, monuments, museums and institutions, and it would be very easy to spend a long time there simply soaking in knowledge and history. Washington itself has struggled with a reputation for crime and violence, but it is believed to be outgrowing those days as money and gentrification is ladled out around its districts and suburbs. To us it appeared a well-organised (as long as you don't try to drive in it), clean and well-to-do place. Probably a little too serious and "grown-up" to be a really fun place to live, unless you are a serious and grown-up person.


New York City, NY
We knew better than to attempt driving in New York. As Phillip J. Fry once observed "Nobody drove in New York; there was too much traffic". So we stuck to the outskirts, started our run in Staten Island, put away our targeting computers and aimed for Queens. Immediately on entering the city limits a storm of traffic blew up and froze us where we were, forcing us to plough through the sticky metal mess no faster than an aphid might plough treacle. After making it to our couchsurfers in Queens (a computer programmer and a cake decorator) we jumped on an express bus and went downtown. Instantly we were swept up into the flowing hustle-and-bustle of Manhattan that carried us past the Empire State Building (although we were initially unsure, not wanting to repeat our mistake with the Capitol Building) and directy into a pizza shop as a fierce storm broke overhead and lashed the city with rain and phenomenally loud lightning that blasted up and down the flooded streets. Whilst wrapping our jaws around meat calzones, a tornado warning was issued over the radio, warning people to get inside. The rain eased off as quickly as it came, and we stepped back into the sloshing torrents of people, sweeping us through Grand Central Station (both grand and central, very nice), Central Park (big, green, damp and hard to get out of as all the roads lead subtley back to the middle), Broadway (glitzy and neon, but bizarrely not over-the-top; a different animal from Vegas) and Times Square (which would be better named as Times Triangles).


In the evening we queued for our bus as the rain started up again, amidst literally hundreds of people. Thinking nothing more of it, we sat and waited, eventually asking a passing bus driver whether our bus was running. He told us that tornadoes had unleashed their fury on Queens and Brooklyn, throwing down trees all over the place and playing complete havoc with electricity and power. He told us what he told the other people: the bus could be hours, get on his bus free of charge due to the circumstances and he'd take care of us. He was an interesting, softly spoken man that reminded us a lot of "the good cop" in Batman Begins. As we slowly made the next stops, many people came on asking questions, to which the answers were bellowed merrily by the passengers. It took 4 hours to make the 40 minute journey back to our neighbourhood in Queens, finally getting there at 2am. It might sound odd, but in terms of experiencing NY culture, a natural disaster was excellent. We have all heard of the legendary NY blackouts of the past, where stranded people congregated in the streets, warmed and comforted by vendors giving away food and hot drinks in the time of crisis. We were lucky enough to experience that same legendary NY solidarity that evening - the people truly banding together and looking out for one another as much as they could in a crisis affecting most of the city. The worst traffic jam in over 7 years and we were there!


We awoke lazily (what's new?) the next day, and disengaged the mental cat from Mark's face. We took the metro into town (the traffic still being bad) and then the free ferry to Staten Island (after a delicious smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel...oh my) so we could gawp at Lady Liberty on the way over. She didn't disappoint. We took in Wall Street (extremely unremarkable, not even punctuated by the anguished cries of ruined bankers) and Ground Zero. Looking at the emptied space in the skyline and the foundations of a new building, it was hard to really grasp the extent and true meaning of the attack that took place there. Finally, we grabbed a cup of "cwoffee" and a slice of NY cheesecake, then headed back to the couch. We ate Chinese dinner with our very interesting hosts, and met their eclectic friends including a greek google programmer (Us: "So when will google take over the world?" Him: "You are using the wrong tense") and a librarian/professor of Spanish literature.


Ithaca, NY
Ithaca is a gentle and quiet place, with a chill and a scent in the evening air and a discrete flow of Ithaca and Cornell students throughout the town. A reserved and pleasant place. We met with our couchsurfer Jessica (and her 5 housemates, all girls, all drama students...go figure) and went out for a few beers. The next day we struck out for Niagara Falls.


Niagara Falls, ON
We initially planned to stay on the U.S. side of the border with Canada, but due to recommendations/damnations by the Lonely Planet and the fact that the American falls are lame in comparison to Canada's Horsehoe falls, we braved the aggressive and humourless border guards and crossed over. We checked into a hostel and walked down to witness one of the world's great spectacles, anticipating a burger and beer overlooking nature's arena. Unfortunately, Niagara town was an exploited wreck of hotels, casinos and hard rock cafes, with absolutely zero charm, if not less. We returned in awe of the falls, but with unsatisfied stomachs. Taking the car to find the nearest supermarket Joe backed into another car, giving it the "iron kiss". Joe claimed "I didn't bother looking; I assumed I was too good a driver to crash like this". Luckily it wasn't serious - just a small area of paint missing, a mildly popped panel and an incensed German. We smoothed it over and went out in search of Graham crackers and Hershey's chocolate so we could make Smores using our infeasibly vast bag of marsmallows. Mark sharpened his French on some of the hostel's clientele and Joe set fire to marshmallows.

The next day we took one last driving tour of the falls, didn't see Caroline Dhavernas (much to our abject and total disappointment) and headed back to the border, where Joe put on an Australian accent ("We're from the United Kingdom, maiiite", claiming all he would need to do was "brazen it out".

The End
We returned to Ithaca, where we toasted our trip and reminisced about the good times. The last day was spent de-packing The Steed and re-packing bags. Mark took The Steed to Syracuse to catch his flight the next day (forgetting the plane tickets he was so insistent on printing that morning) and Joe waved a tearful goodbye from Jessica's porch.

The Future
Joe will next be heading to New York to meet with his dear esteemed Grandmother and begin the next adventure. Mark returns home to prepare and commence his Earth Systems Science PhD at Reading University.

Total mileage: 6500 miles.
States visited: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Tenessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ontario.

Biggest smile: The obscurity of Kansas.
Biggest regret: Not enough time.

This officially concludes the First Great American Adventure. Thank you for following.

The Five Thousand Mile Entry

Photos

Memphis, TN 
Memphis! Home of blues music and stomping ground of The King (of the Elvis variety) and King (of the Dr Martin Luther Jr variety). Memphis has something of a ruined feel to it - there are many vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Despite being a large city it conveys a sensation of space wherever you go. We went to the Arcade diner, a place where Elvis frequented, but it was closed. We then went to the Museum of Civil Rights, but it was closed. Well, we tried to be cultural at least. We finally ate at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken, listening to the blues of Al Green on the jukebox, and staring into the vortex of 50s hairstyles - Elvis apparently lives on in Memphis fashion. We took a wide-eyed and tight-fisted hike down Beale Street, which is now an exploited tourist trap - something of a far cry from the place Luther King first raised his voice in protest. Nothing much to see, but some things to hear - an excellent blues/rock band that played for you when you gave them a dollar. Seeing little to stay for and with the day still young we drove on, intending to camp somewhere in 'Bama.


Mississippi
Our route took us briefly through Mississippi, and Joe demanded that we scour the state for the famous "Mississippi mud pie". After several denials of even the existence of mud pie (and one awkwardly blank stare that lasted so long we were on the point of calling an ambulance) Joe gave up and accepted a delicious-looking piece of "carrot cake cheesecake" that in reality was very disappointing, and failed to live up to the hype of either of its components. 


Alabama
We took the backroads just north of Birmingham and attempted to locate 1 of the 4 campsites on the map. After 45 minutes of fruitless driving around the pitch-black countryside we found ourselves in an abandoned track and decided to call it a day there and sleep in the car. Mark immediately stepped in something that felt like a stinging nettle. Setting his jaw at a manly angle he stubbled his way through the pain and limped on, professing that he had no fear of dying. As the stinging marched up his leg Mark realised foul play was afoot (or aleg) and he had stepped in an ant's nest, so feverishly set to brushing the ants off himself and into the driver's seat (genius). After 10 minutes of springcleaning the ants we attempted sleep in the hot, humid and stuffy car, unable to crack the windows for fear of mosquitoes and a continued campaign by the ants to conquer Mark. After an hour of sweaty, uncomfortable nightmarish half-sleep we decided that nature could win this round and we'd find a nice barren motel. The next day Mark discovered that they had been fireants, and Joe was forced to stop making fun of his pathetic mewling and whinging of the night before. Mark is still harassing Joe about parking him over a nest.


Atlanta, GA
We made it to Atlanta in the early evening using directions accessed on an iphone at an AT&T mobile shop (now that's resourcefulness! Of course if we had been organised we wouldn't have needed to be resourceful, but where is the fun in that?). Iphones may be trendy, overpriced fashion icons but you can't say they aren't useful. We met with an ex-Chinaclimber called Wade that had returned from the far east earlier that day, and went out to Ormsby's bar, to meet his sister and her insane friends (one of which exploded when we pretended we were from Wisconsin). We drank excellent beer (as usual, yawn, yawn) and Mark got caned at "shuffleboard", which depending on who you listen to, is an excellent game requiring skill, strategy and cunning, or a pointless cheater's game for small-minded fools. It is something like curling but uses sand instead of ice. 


The next day we breakfasted at Waffle House (where we ate waffles), interneted, played football in the park, watched Wade's sister-in-law's ridiculous dog attempt going down polished stairs (somewhere between googly-eyed panic and tail-wagging excitement) and in the evening watched a film after being fed to bursting by his very pleasant parents (hot wings and chocolate fudge pie!). We didn't really feel any urge to see Atlanta's famous Museum of Coca-cola (apparently nothing more than a relentless multiple hour advert) or any other sight, so didn't bother.


Raleigh, NC
We waved a tearful goodbye to Wade and zoomed off to Raleigh, North Carolina. Upon arrival and meeting Katie the couchsurfer, we were whisked off to Raleigh's first annual Hopscotch music festival, at which Katie was volunteering. Katie's friend had spotted her ex-boyfriend with a woman earlier that day thus was a total wreck and could no longer leave her ice-cream tub, let alone volunteer, so with nary a backward glance we stepped into the breach and quickly found ourselves organising queues of North Carolinians outside the rap and r&b venue. It was an easy job and we were able to chat to plenty of people, so it passed fairly pleasantly. After a couple of hours, however, we got bored and returned to Katie's house to drink some beers with her friends (is there even a single a sentence in this blog that doesn't contain "drink some beers"? Maybe we've become alcoholics). 


We got up late, ate a breakfast of melon and toast and headed into town to take in the daytime part of the Hopscotch festival. We enjoyed a couple of perrys and beers watching the bands come and go from the stage erected in the street. Some bands were great and others so badly mixed that half their instruments were inaudible. Such is live music! We had a look in the overcrowded science museum and also the starkly contrasting history museum, more or less devoid of people (and balanced history). After that we drove to Durham (half an hour north of Raleigh) to watch a baseball game and eat a pile of shattered nachos covered in chilli and glossy liquid cheese. Baseball mostly isn't as exciting as football, unless a foul ball cannons into the stands or an overzealous player flings his bat into the crowd. Entertainment between plays consisted of an organ, the mascot (Wool E. Bull) riding a go-kart and firing t-shirts into the crowd from a converted paintball gun, and bizarre races and challenges involving members of the crowd and a deliriously enthusiastic and encouraging compère. We returned, again flushed with a victory we had no part in, met with Katie and company, and went out for some more beers. Mark took it upon himself to strengthen US-UK ties and Joe went home.


Joe woke up on a different couch from the one he fell asleep on, minus one t-shirt. No questions were asked. We staggered (it was a particularly long and demanding night the night before - we must have met half of Raleigh!) to the grocery store where, after a lengthy and pointless debate about the merits of bread (brains not firing on all cylinders, supposing cylinders were even present), we bought all the components necessary for the Full English and returned to the apartment, slaver dripping from our maws as we prepared to throw around a variety of animal products in pans of boiling grease. Leaving our hosts with dirty plates, empty teacups and stunned with new-found Queenly patriotism, we bid a greasy farewell and set off toward Virginia.


The Future
We are heading to Washington DC, via Shenandoah National Park, Virginia!

The Four Thousand Mile Entry

Photos

Lawrence, KS

We got up early as Becky had to go to work (work? what is this work?) and we wandered off to find Massachusetts Street - Lawrence's main drag. After misinterpreting the simplest of directions we finally made it to Mass and parked ourself in the nearest coffee establishment, which proved to be a poor substitute for Stumptown and The Cup. In the afternoon we went to a sit-in bakery and ate their bread whilst taking turns using the mainframe (sorry, I mean laptop) and reading our books. We met with a couchsurfer called Rachel that evening in her awesome apartment - a converted munitions depot of the 1800s - and in the evening went to the Jazz Haus...which served neither Jazz or House, preferring Punk and Indy. The Indy was actually pretty good, despite the singer being propped up on a crutch with a broken foot he still cavorted and whipped round the stage. The punk band was very loud. We assume that that ticks all the necessary boxes for good punk.


We slept in the next morning, STILL using the internet (not whilst asleep, although that would have been far more efficient) and went out to another café in the afternoon (its a hard life). Here we met with our 3rd couchsurfer, Kim, a tiny blond Texan, who lives in a classic (or what we assume is classic) midwestern house - cream wooden exterior, wooden doors, wooden floorboards and a covered porch for drinking on. Sadly the porch lacked a rocking chair, a shotgun and a dog called Jessie but we work with what we have. That evening we went to Casbah, where we ate burgers and truffle fries. Truffle fries are to fries what a lover's embrace is to a broken leg. We're barely even exaggerating. After that we went to yet another bar and dissolved the night away in a whirl of friendly Americans, and one greek/geordie/wisconsinite, with correspondingly the weirdest accent imaginable. We finished the night off drinking bourbon on the porch.


Forcing eyelids open with trembling fingers we achieved conciousness. Today was game day! Mark accidentally purchased tickets for a Kansas State (Manhattan, KS) game, rather than the University of Kansas (Lawrence) so we hightailed it off to Manhattan, to support the rivals of all the friends we had just made.


Football!
After the previous evening's high-jinx and some time zone confusion (times for games in Kansas are listed in Washington time. Why?) we missed the all-American tailgating experience. Tailgating is turning up many hours before the game, drinking beer and barbecuing piles of meat. Making it to the game is a secondary consideration. Failing as Americans we turned up 20 minutes before kickoff, taking our seats with 50,000 other people for the opening game of the season: KSU Wildcats vs. UCLA Bruins. 

American football has several differences from the real kind: rather than turn up and spend a depressing 2-3 hours in a rain-soaked wind-lashed stadium of nightmares watching your team trip over their own bootlaces, you spend 4 hours slowly roasting on a bench as a spectacular sound and light show is shoehorned into your brain by an army of players, spectators, marching band, dancers, cheerleaders and an unashamedly biased commentator.

We found it hard to follow the game - 4 hours of real time (and 1 hour of game time) later, we were just about getting to grips with the announcer's 'FOURTH AND 8, WILDCATS ON THE BRUINS' 29'.... 'that's good... for WILDCAT!', to which the entire stadium responds 'FIRST DOWN!' and whips their arms toward the endzone. Wildcats beat the Bruins in an exciting last quarter involving 3 touchdowns and 2 field goals! Mark had never seen his team win at anything before, so was stunned with a plethora of strange, positive emotions. All in all football is as over-the-top and American as it could be. It isn't just gigantic men crashing into each other. It's not just a game either. Its a veritable show, drama, spectacle, day out and for some a way of life.

We returned to Lawrence, flushed with a victory we had no part in and spent a last evening in Lawrence, relaxing with Kim and her housemate Katie in a café/bar called Henry's. Or Harry's. Or Hattie's. In the morning Katie supplied us with delicious FREE pizza from her pizza place, and Joe had a t-shirt printed (the iconic Golf Mk3) at the awesome ACME t-shirt shop that Kim works at. Our favourite t-shirts there read "Kansas: Racing Utah into the 19th century" and "Kansas: Protecting the world from Missouri".


Eureka Springs, AK
We drove down from Kansas City (half of which is in Missouri for some reason), through Missouri and into Arkansas. Arkansas is not completely dissimilar from northern rural England in appearance (apart from the sunshine); the hills were rolling gently and unlike California were covered in modest trees of sensible heights, with small fields scattered among them. The main difference was that most of the road traffic were moustacheioede bikers, riding chrome steeds the size of small cars, wrapped in flaming headbands, harley t-shirts and black boots. Another difference was that the trees lining the road were drenched in thick spiderwebs, wrapping up the branches to make them look like cotton candy. There was no camping available in Eureka Springs (perhaps the film of spiders covering the state are something to do with that) so we were forced to crash in the Joy motel, and were privilege to some drunken Texan bikers' conversation that went something like this: "I'll give you $200 to let me knock you out".


Once you break through the heavy crusting of motels, Eureka Springs is a genuinely old-style town, sporting many victorian-era buildings, complete with tall fronts and jutting-out wooden balconies hanging over the streets. Something like an old western town, but constructed of painted brick and stone rather than wood, if that makes any sense. It is also the gay capital of northwest Arkansas, although you wouldn't believe it from the rumble of bikers littering the streets. Then again, we saw bikers eating in "Peace, Love and Cheesecake", so who are we to assume anything?


The Future
The next day strike out for Memphis, TN!

The Three Thousand Mile Entry

Photos

Moab, UT
Arches National Park was filled to the gunwales with stone arches and other ridiculous formations, from the 3 footers to the exquisite 100m Landscape Arch, a few miles up the Devil's Garden trail. Utterly jaw-dropping (our chins are bruised from repeated impacts with the floor) scenery that words can not really do justice. Go and buy a plane ticket immediately, or if you live in the real world have a gander at the photos. Or watch a Wyle E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon. 


Moab itself seems to be composed more or less entirely of outdoor outfitters - everything from rafting on the Colorado river to 4x4 tours. We didn't stay long enough to say whether living there would be desirable or not, but as a staging ground for outdoor adventures and visits to Arches it was perfect.


That evening, after a failed attempt to get in touch with a local couchsurfer and a successful attempt at "stirfry on bread" (you would be surprised at what you can do with "taco cheese"), we went to the Moab Brewery, a sterling establishment that served a dizzying variety of in-house brews. We got talking to a bunch of people heading to the Burning Man festival in Nevada, and their wide-eyed reverent description of it made us curse our opposite direction and lack of crippling breakdowns in Nevada. One of them also turned out to have gone to the same school as Joe (although at a different time) and they bonded merrily over mutually despised teachers. 


Boulder, CO
The journey to Boulder took us from the plains and fluted buttresses of Utah up into the green mountains of Colorado, crossing over the Colorado Rockies. Climbing the range The Steed became more and more breathless, forcing us to ease back into a canter and we became more and more light headed, laughing at our own humourous prowess, bellowing nonsense chinese phrases at each other. We arrived in Boulder fairly late in the evening and met with a couchsurfer called Nico, a superchilled student of oriental medicine. We walked from his house into downtown Boulder, along an off-the-road walkway through green parks, suburbia and a chortling creek, occasionally having to step briskly out of the way as unlit cyclists hurtled down the path like bats fired from a cannon. Nico took us to the Mountain Sun Brewery (another microbrewery) where we ate killer burgers and drank more outstanding beer (brews such as the Jamaican Ginger!). The legend that American beer is "****ing close to water" could not be further from the truth, unless one is referring to Bud' or Coors. Frankly, the UK could learn a lot from the microbrewery culture. We're thinking of starting one. After the Mountain Sun we went to some dive bar where we drank $1 cans and got soundly threshed at pool by Nico until the early hours.


As we pioneered our way home, Joe's toe was intercepted by an object that proved to be a broken laptop, lying disconsolately by a "trash-can". Following some drunken antics with the laptop and nearby industrial sprinklers we set to looting and pillaging. Mark jacked 2 GB of RAM and a DVD-RW drive. Joe made off clutching two pieces of useless twisted metal, finding beauty in their form. Mark considered the night a win.


Groaning out of our sleeping bags (like toothpaste squeezed from a tube) we heroically propped ourselves into chairs in Nico's spartan apartment and allowed him to cure our befuddled heads with a mix of beetroot, kale and carrot juice that tasted of the earth. Deciding it was a coffee morning (any morning that is not a coffee morning is not a morning we should care to meet) we headed to The Cup, cousin to Stumptown Coffee in its apple-using clientele. It may have been Nico's horizontally laidback attitude, the excellent coffee, the beaming sunshine or titillating conversation that did it (or maybe the fat doob), but this was one of the most relaxing mornings we had ever spent. For 2 hours we sat outside, supped our brews, read our books and exchanged opinions on the world, even learning a little about nutritional medicine. Nico took off in the early afternoon to attend a seminar and left us to fend for ourselves. Eventually (fearing our constituent atoms would float apart under the relentless relaxation) we shifted and went to Illegal Pete's Burritos. In the afternoon we drove out of town a little ways to the State parks surrounding Flagstaff Mountain, where Joe indulged in a little bouldering (what better to do in Boulder?) and Mark had his world views widened by a book written by a dope-smoking biochemist. The air was so clear that sound played tricks on us; thinking people were just round the corner we eventually spotted them standing on the next mountain over. As we finished up and headed back to the car, 3 fearsome fawns took an interest in us and stalked us menacingly back to the car, walking parallel perhaps 10 metres away, flapping their ears in herbivorous malevolence. That evening we cooked a bomber curry for Nico and his friend by way of thanks and went carefully to sleep on our backs, lest we rupture our stomachs or blast vegetable madras out of every available orifice like shattered fire hydrants. All in all, Boulder was another place we would happily live. Full of people with new age hippy ideas, independent food&drink, dominant cyclists, happy university students with an expanding university, excellent rock climbing minutes out of town AND less than an hour from Denver airport, why would you not want to live here?


Lawrence, KS
As usual we awoke later than we should have and faffed about a lot before we finally got on the road. The night before Joe blithely spoke of "easily crushing the 300 miles to Lawrence, lets lie in" and only in the early afternoon did he realise he meant 550 miles. Some hasty in-flight rearrangements were made with our next couchsurfer, telling her we were "speeding as much as possible, don't worry". We crossed the Kansas border fairly quickly (accelerator foot buried somewhere in the engine bay), and much to Joe's surprise and disappointment, it was indeed the featureless cornfields that everyone warned him of, apart from Clark Kent running alongside the interstate on his way to school. Occasionally there was a signpost to "Scenic Point" but unless we missed something they were pointing to the odd shrub that stood proud in the goldengreen fields. At around 300 miles in we were succumbing to "Kansas Madness" and our conversation dried up to talk idly about thought experiments and tunelessly sing Journey. Fortunately we were saved by a cracking sunset and ferocious lightning storm that followed us for about 60 miles, bolts crackling and screaming against the windows in bursts of 3-4 a second, as the wipers clawed out visibility against the grey rain that hid the road amid the oceans of corn. 


A little further and a police cruiser flashed its lights behind us. "It's probably some other guy, like last time" we said to each other. Another moment and we realised that no, they wanted us. We pulled over at exit that appeared and awaited our fate, the blinding lights/tractor beams of the cruiser angled perfectly into the mirrors for maximum intimidation. It is amazing what stuff pops into your head when in trouble with the police. Most of your brain is thinking "oh dear. Oh dear", but a small and significant part is thinking "what is the worst thing I can say or do here?".


Officer Terror walked over and asked us for our license and registration documents, just like in the films! "Good evening, Ossifer". We gathered together the appropriate materials and handed them over. He told us he had clocked us at 81mph. "Is that all?". We mostly stayed quiet and didn't try to make excuses or argue. This strategy was going well until he spied the 18 empty beer bottles and cans innocently littering the back seats, which instantly raised the suspicion level a few notches. Apparently it's illegal. We were questioned about drugs and the driver received a drunkeness test, followed by a request to step out of the vehicle, sir. "You'll never take me alive!", followed by urge to run into the fields. He asked whether the driver was carrying weapons. "Only my wit". Then the same happened to the passenger, who was also patted down facing the vehicle with arms on the roof. *Grabs camera to take photos of arrest to put on blog*. Officer Terror then asked if we were carrying any other contraband ("contraband?" we squeaked) and searched the vehicle, finally allowing us to get back in. He let us off with a warning, a smile and a change of underwear, professing he didn't want to use up our money for our trip and he couldn't be bothered to take us the 13 miles to the post office (why the post office we have no idea). We turned up in Lawrence at 2345 and met Becky the couchsurfer, who stayed up and drank beers with us, bless her, as we sheepishly admitted we had been busted for the speeding we had boasted of earlier.


The Future
The next day we set out to explore Lawrence, the centre of the USA.


Disclaimer
By speeding we mean galloping up to 80mph in a 70mph limit, nothing crazy. Relax, mothers.

The Two Thousand Mile Entry

Photos

Davis, CA

Leaving the merry San Francisco to its own devices, we drove to Davis, CA, where another ex-Chinaclimber called Dan led us to the American River in the late afternoon, where we plunged gaily off rocks into the cold and swift water. A shame we couldn't spend more time hanging out, but Lake Tahoe loomed unseen over the distant horizon, beckoning us with its sapphire waves.

Lake Tahoe, CA/NV

En route to Lake Tahoe the sun took itself off to sleep and left us with a dazzling wash of colours as we climbed through the forests of evergreens. It was truly dark by the time we arrived, and armed with Alex's address we immediately set to getting lost. After half an hour of turning down identically labyrinthine streets we were forced to admit defeat and make a call. Alex and family came to extract us and provide an honour guard back to their home. What a home! Half way up a mountain and facing the lake; we had lucked out on accommodation! In the evening cool we drank a couple of beers on the balcony, caught up with Alex and marvelled at the starlight reflecting off the breeze-ruffled water. Having hammed up the food logistics (regrettably not literally) we were forced to scour any fast food establishments that might still be open at 10pm, but unfortunately we were in a respectable neighbourhood (Incline village) that had very few. Even Subway was regarded as slumming it. Mercifully, Alex and family took pity on our poor shrivelled stomachs and stuffed us with hotdogs.

The next day Alex and his sister were heading back to the UK, and Angus (Daddy Graham) off somewhere else for a few days. We were expecting to camp (surely no better place?) but had become a little nervous from the number of "don't camp; there are bears" warnings. One had the impression that Lake Tahoe was filled with bears, crammed in between the trees nose to tail and piled up in the Lake such that you might run from one side to the other. Mercifully we never had to chance the bears, as Angus very kindly offered the use of the house for as long as we needed. Later that day we went for a hike from Eagle Falls (shouldering our way between the bears) up to Dick's Lake. We took a wrong turning and never quite made it to Dick's Lake, but were more than content with the breathtaking scenery (quite literally, the mountains were steep and we have become fat and weak) we had found. 

Day 3, mountain biking! The strongly recommended "Flume Trail" turned out to be 4 miles of sandy uphill, which was not quite what we had bargained for, so we returned to the car (at relativistic speed), dismantled the rented bikes, unclogged the bears from the chain and chucked all the parts into the back of the faithful Steed. We then went to the Tahoe Rim Trail, which was utterly, utterly mind blowing. It was 12 miles of ridge-top trail 500m above the lake, through sandy, rocky woodland bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. Never been on anything like it. Joe ate dirt once on a sneaky turning jump, but was fairly pleased with his overall lack of significant damage. In the evening we rewarded ourselves with beers at Rookie's sports bar. All in all our impressions of Lake Tahoe are of a rich community of outdoor-loving (hiking, mountain biking, diving, boating in the summer and skiing in the winter) holiday makers. Of the people we met and spoke to, very few were actually from Tahoe. No-one in Tahoe is from Tahoe. 

Route 50 and Nevada

After an entire morning of faffing and trying to leave, we finally got on the road (bears ricocheting wildly off the front bumper) sometime in the early afternoon, striking out for mid-Nevada for stargazing camping. The change from California to Nevada was drastic. Within 15 miles of leaving the Cali border the trees stop in a disciplined line and handed over scenery duty to the dusty desert and low rocky hills. It turns out Route 50 is "The Loneliest Road in America". There were towns roughly every 80 miles but otherwise nothing but sweet desert to either side. As dusk fell the mood of the journey lost its franticness to "get going" and took on a more relaxed, cruising kind of attitude. The kind that eats up miles and hours without effort, and was perfectly augmented with Pink Floyd and a distant lightning storm, internal flashes lighting the clouds pink. One town we passed through had a police cruiser, a courthouse and jail all within about 500m. The cruiser kindly flashed his lights as we passed, causing us to drop a brick apiece. If we had been breaking the law we could have probably been caught and processed to a cell in under 3 minutes. After driving as far as we felt like, we pulled off the road onto a sandy track, and then again into the scrubby nothing. We ate a hasty meal of week-old boot cheese, nectarines and mouthwash and went to sleep in the car. Our plans for stargazing were foiled partly by the clouds overhead and partly by the sandy wind. It is very windy in the desert.

Utah

Mark's eyes slammed open at 6am with the rising sun and he set to driving immediately, grim determination in his eye and jaw. Today we were heading for Moab, Utah, so that we could visit the nearby Arches National Park. Joe, ignoring Mark's pleas for his co-driver and in-car entertainment, did his best to sleep, still in his sleeping bag. 2 hours later, coming across a sizable town we didn't know existed, we discovered to our surprise (nay, dismay) that we had taken a wrong turning, or missed a turning, or did something 80 miles earlier and ended up in Wendover, home of the tallest mechanical cowboy. Joyous as we were to see this visionary piece of engineering we were somewhat galled at adding mileage to what had already promised to be a formidable day. No matter. We manned up and got on with it, and a couple of miles later we were in Utah. Long, straight roads. Salt flats. Heat. Sometimes dust. Dark green scrub, yellow dirt, pink rocks, blue sky and white clouds (the fluffy continental kind). Tumbleweed. More salt flats. The saltiest lake ever. Words written in stones and beer bottles on the side of the road. Birds of prey wheeling above the highway. As we progressed south, the landscape changed from salt flats so vast and flat that the perfectly flat horizon looked like the edge of the world, to shallow rocky hills, to bigger rocky hills, finally to ravine and cliff like features -  the kind of thing you imagine old cowboy convoys rolling past. As we neared Moab, the geology became more and more outrageous. Who needs the Grand Canyon when you have Utah? So far we love Utah. Perhaps if you are desperate to be getting somewhere, then you will not enjoy Utah. If you are travelling for the love of the journey, then it is a fantastic place to be. 550 miles after awaking in the desert, we have reached Moab.

The Future

Tomorrow we head to Arches National Park and get a proper taste of Moab.

The Thousand Mile Entry

Welcome to the travel blog of Mark and Joe as they gad across America in their faithful car The Steed.

Photos

Well, where to start? At the beginning is as good a place as any. The best some say. I digress. We met in Seattle/Tacoma airport at 10am on Monday the 16th of August, after a gruelling and invasive (not physically, I hasten to add) interview by the US customs people. Both utterly jetlagged and bewildered by the shiny surfaces and aroma of coffee floating through the doors it took some time to work out that we had to leave the airport in order to continue the adventure. On the free shuttle bus to the travelodge we gawped at how American everything is. Hardly surprising, you masters of language might suggest, but it is. Everything is exactly how it appears in the TV and films that pervade our culture. Exactly. But bigger.

Seattle, WA

Having an entire day ahead of us we set off to explore, drinking "Peace tea" that comes in 1 dollar gigantic cans and has fabulous decoration on the side. We love peace tea. We went to the sci-fi museum where we oggled Captain Kirk's chair and the terminator replica, debating whether or not we could take one in a fight. We went to the Experience Music Project, which is more or less a large shrine to Hendrix and were saddened we couldn't get a slot in the "jam booths". We saw about ten trillion Starbucks, but decided not to grace them with our company and coin - a gesture of defiance as Starbucks was born in Seattle. Seattle is wide, clean place with fresh air, plenty of trees and a pervading aroma of fresh coffee. A place we both agreed would be little hardship to live in. On the second day in Seattle we went in search of an army surplus store that we might buy very cheap sleeping bags and a tent. Joe also wanted a spork, which was to be found at an outdoor shop manned by very pleasant people that gave us a modest "being British discount". More coffee was drunk. A visit to the famous Pike Place Market yielded little as we arrived as it was closing. Taco bell was tested. It passed. In the evening we took to the cheaper bars and marvelled at the fact we had made it to America and had a car full of petrol and a fistful of dollars. Nothing but the open road ahead.

The Car

On day 2 in Seattle we returned to the airport to pick up our car, where we found out we had been "upgraded" into what appeared to be smaller and less practical cars. Splendid. The choice was between a hyundai accent and chevrolet HTT (or something like that). The chevy came in a choice of 3 colours, but no colour could hide the fact it was essentially a Hearse. The hyundai appeared to be built using a technology similar to that used in the production of disposable takeaway containers, and contained a similar number of luxury features. In the end we decided the takeaway container was probably more efficient than the corpsewagon and went for that, dubbing it The Steed.

Portland, OR

Portland is what a city would be like if hippies and greebos got together and built one, which may be exactly what happened, given the Pacific Northwest tendency to grunge (Nirvana from Seattle, anyone?) and the overall inclination to liberalness. Fashion tends toward black t-shirts and jeans whilst food and drink tends toward independent franchises. Arriving in the evening we took the tram in for a quick drink at the Ash Street Saloon, which later turned out to be an "English style pub". News to us. Portland is well organised and keeps its citizens well fed with legendary "food carts", from which we ate a Hawaiian style breakfast/lunch of rice, sausage, egg, pineapple and orange pieces on the second day after riding into town on the tram. We searched for "Stumptown Coffee" (Stumptown being an old nickname of Portland due to the large amount of logging in the area), which was an excellent establishment, serving cheap, quality coffee with cheaper refills. A large number of beret-wearing applemac-using clientele littered the one large room and lended a pretentious, refined, independent air to the place. Not to be missed. 

We lunched on "Honkin' Huge Burritos", which were excellent and even the "small" lived up to the franchise's name. In the afternoon we rented bikes (Portland is loaded with cyclists) and cruised the streets looking for another army surplus to secure further camping items. In the evening we met with a "couchsurfer" called Alex (go to www.couchsurfing.org if your interest has been piqued) who showed us around the bar scene with her friend Louis. We started in a bar that had $5 infinite play arcade machines all over the place, so we enjoyed a few rounds of House of the Dead, Dance Dance Revolution (Louis: "Loosen up guys!". Us: "We can't; we're British"), X-Men and PacMan. Truly oldschool. After this the night becomes something of whirling blur of local beer (our favourite being Deadman ale), voodoo doughnut and jokes about the British. So thanks Alex and Louis, we had a wizard time.

Route 101

Ah. The legendary Route 101. A few hundred twisting miles of coastal beaches, jagged rocks and misty redwood forests. Before Route 101 between Seattle and Portland we quickly grew bored of the interstate I-5 and, taking a lesson from Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, turned off and followed the American equivalent of B-roads (somewhere around the size of a UK dual carriageway...well, almost) for the rest of the way. What a difference! From drear tarmac and glimpsed hills to small towns (our favourite was called Vader) framed in golden wheat and emerald trees. Anyways, Route 101 from Portland was awesome. We made deliciously slow progress, ate Philly cheesesteaks at Eureka and camped both nights, amidst the sprawling grandeur of gigantic pick-up trucks, RVs, and a plethora of outdoor gear including ATVs, windsurf rigs, dirtbikes and mountain bikes. Our toy tent and sleeping bags worked excellently. Somewhere along the way, turning into a road, Mark temporarily forget which side of the road to drive on and nearly drove us under a gigantic blue monster truck driven by two identical, slack-jawed barbies. What a sight.

San Francisco, CA

We landed mid-afternoon in San Francisco; blithely turning a corner on Route 101 we found ourselves on the stunning Golden Gate bridge, a monolith we could only have claimed to have seen in pictures and on Microsoft Flight Simulator '98. We met up with Joe's friend Josh from Chinaclimb and his friends in Fort Mason for a sunny picnic, and watched the happy, beautiful people of San Francisco at play for the rest of the afternoon. In the evening we went out for Mexican, and Josh gave us a quick driving tour of the city, including the quintessential superbendy part of Lombard Street. Day 2 in San Francisco was spent taking time out from the relentless grinding boredom of travelling and exploring to read our books, check our email, plan the future and write this blog.

The Future

Tomorrow we head to Lake Tahoe.