Dec 21 to Dec 27,2003

So one day we decided to drive across the USA. 2700 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina to Texas to the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas to Death Valley and then to Vancouver (not CA) at Washington (not DC).

This trip meant that, in one year, we have driven I90, I80, I70 and I40. Don't ask about I60 and I50. We've asked but no one has an answer about why these are absent from any map. It's a mystery.

We drove this trip together since we haven't seen much of each other this year and a little Helen+Tim time is just what the doctor ordered. Which doctor? Why Doctors Burgess and Menzies, of course.

Sad to say, we didn't find the elk. But we remain hopeful and check the mail box each day.

Anyway, we got lots of good photos.

Best in show

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

The digital camera never stopped clicking for the whole trip. Each day, we took up 75,48,54,95,125,.... pictures. Each evening, we'd work through them and throw away all but 5,8.6,15,17,... .

Here's the best of each day's crop:

Driving in a winter wonderland (South West Virginia).

Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Pittsburgh,PA to Asheville,NC

Picked up Helen from Pittsburgh airport, 10:30pm Saturday. 1am, back at Morgantown. 8am, woke up too early. Don't remember much of the morning (so sleepy).

Something about driving through a sunny winter's day between fields of snow.

Had a cultural education session at lunch. We were waiting in line for one coffee that we wanted and another we didn't care about (I'd ordered the wrong thing for Helen so we were just going to share mine and dump the other). The American woman next to us pointed out that, as long as they haven't made the coffee yet, we could swap our order for something else.

My instant reaction was "no, I don't want to do that. See, we're English and we like suffering."

Helen, ever the loyal wife, chimed in. "That's right," she said, "we come from a culture that doesn't do anything about what bothers us."

We carefully described our belief system to our latest American friend. Centuries of awful food and weather and in-bred rulers, followed by forced migration to remote and hostile lands, have conditioned us to ineffectually complain about things we can't change.

"We just like it that way," we explained.

The American laughed but her "have a nice day" smile flickered, just for a moment.

Day 2:NC,TN

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Asheville,NC to Memphis,TN

Spent the morning keeping up with the Jones. Actually, the Vanderbilts. They made their money in the 1800s from shipping, then doubled it in railroads.

Then they built themselves a little weekender up in the hills. Welcome to the Biltmore estate, Asheville, North Carolina.

Drove on into the night. Late in the evening, somewhere around Nowhere Tennessee, we pulled off the (very) busy I40 to check out something. Gazing up from a dark country road I saw the Milky Way- for the first time in about five years. Good thing too. I was getting worried that it had been stolen.

Signs

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

As we drove, we monitored the signs. And the signs were very very good. For example, its hard to go past Licking, Ohio or Boring, Oregon.

And you really should pay a visit to Truth And Consequences (just out of Albuquerque) or BugsScuttle Texas.

Helen likes Elephant Butte, New Mexico since she can say Butte like butt and snicker.

But my personal favorite is Tenkilling Recreational Park, Oklahoma: a great place to doss down with the whole family (that is, if your family is a mite too large).

Other signs are looking good as well. Vasectomy reversal is a booming industry in the U.S. of A. (thats the Unsterilized Studs of America).

We were going to make the call to 1-713-REVERSE to check how their money-back guarantee works. But we figured it out. After the surgery, no one leaves town till someone is pregnant. See, we only saw these signs in remote towns- last one we saw was near Nowhere, Wyoming. Its all part of a national program to fill up under-developed areas where's DNA is thin on the ground.

Guess they sell fireworks here.

Day 3:TN,AK,OK

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Memphis,TN to Elk City,OK

Memphis! Home of the blues! And Graceland!

Every morning, we visit American royalty. Yesterday it was the Vanderbilts. Today we shall visit Elvis. Tomorrow we shall be in New Mexico, there to meet with Coyote and Roadrunner.

But the best laid plans of mice and man often go astray. It seems Elvis is closed on Tuesdays (maybe its his song writing day).

Missing Elvis threatened to put a cloud over the whole day. We're in "the middle bit" and if the road ahead was like the "middle bit" on I70,I80,I90 then we were in for the dullest of dull days.

We decided that our prayer is "give us this day our daily cruise". Now a cruise is not just driving. Its being in the zone, zipping around, being in control and in charge.

My daily cruise was at sunset driving through the staples in the middle of the map of America (at Henryetta, Oklahoma).

Helen's daily cruise was after dark through the Oklahoma City expressways at 70mph, gliding through a constellation of shiny dancing lights. "Its like flying!", she squealed as she took down yet another common commuter who hadn't realize what they were up against. Captain Burgess, commander of the starship JeepCherokee! Conqueror of continents!

Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Elk City,OK to Flagstaff,AZ

Weather holding up well- quite warm, no snow.

Dull overcast day. Broke through into bright sunshine, mid-afternoon which lifted my mood++.

Mid-morning, we realized that we couldn't find Helen's hand bag (which contains her credit cards, driver's license, etc etc). Mad scramble followed as we pulled car apart, looking for the bag. No cards! Much misery and wailing followed. Remembered that, for "safe keeping", my other credit card was also in her bag. Which triggered much more misery and wailing and casting of glances and careful selection of words.

Rang the cafe where we had had breakfast (300 miles ago). They have the bag! They'll post it on to Vancouver! And the people rejoiced.

Today we made it over the flat bit in the middle.

And the flat bit was very flat indeed.

Albuquerque, we are sure, is Indian for "when they built the Grand Canyon, they had to put the rocks somewhere".

Vampire Trucks

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

We travel to learn and to understand more. About ourselves, about the land we live in, and about trucks.

What did this trip teach us about trucks? Well, ever noticed that, before dark, there are many cars on the road but, after dark, its all big mudda-fudding trucks trying to run you off the road? Why is it so?

The answer is obvious. Consider the clues:

• Cars have a few wheels.
• Trucks have lots of wheels.
• The number of wheels seen per mile before and after dark is a constant.

Clearly, cars and trucks are actually the same creature, but at different stages of their life cycle! That is, the American highways are inhabited by vampire trucks that are built from the littler cars. Every sunset, the cars fuse together into larger vehicles and every dawn they break apart again. We've never observed this fusion/fission process ourselves, since it happens in the dark. However, we conjecture that every car/truck wreck on the side of the road is the remains of a failed fusion.

This theory explains so much:

• Trucks aren't really trying to run us off the road. Rather, their trying to swallow us to become bigger.
• The reason we've built fast roads and zippy cars is that this is our defense over the larger, slower, trucks.
• White line fever is actually a fugue state where we remember being part of a vampire truck.

But we've said too much. Its dusk and we have this strange yearning to be on the road again. See you there! And please bring along your car- your bright shiny car- with all those wonderful wheels.

las vegasXXXX: respects no dirt. loves asphalt. scared of ther concqueored lands. stomped on it. tamed and cacooned it so we'd never see it again

Day 5: AZ,NV

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Flagstaff AZ to Las Vegas NV

Christmans Day, 2003

As we drive through the desert, our thoughts naturally turn to cartoons. The epic struggle between the road runner and the coyote echoes humanities' discomfort with new technology. The new stuff never works (damn that ACME corporation) and nature always makes us looks like fools. Beep beep!

Today, nature had us staring like fools into the fog. We dreamt of a white XMAS and, like the old saying, may your dreams never come true. We think this is a photo of the Grand Canyon, but we can't tell. Fog so dense that we couldn't recognize irony if it slapped us in the face. Which it did- wind so cold that it froze our very marrow and had us scuttling for the car heater. We had to abort our Grand XMAS experience after 20 minutes or risk snow-blindness and frost bite.

The morning was clearly won by the road runner. Technology failing everywhere. Weather reports shot to hell. All the highway food dispensing units were inoperative Something about XMAS being a family day and why the hell do you need to eat out today when all the relatives are back at the house. Wait a minute, they're all back at the house. Even Aunt Beryl. Especially Aunt Beryl. Hmmm... maybe I will just step out for a thick shake.

In the middle of this famine, in the middle of nowhere, we witnessed a cattle truck of tourists milling around the only open fast food joint on the highway. It was a scene of great chaos and deprivation. Huge lines for food and toilets spilling out of the building. Mother lions hoarding food and snarling at anyone daring to approach the kill she'd won for her pride. Little starving children with bloated tummies and wide trusting eyes up-turned to the World Vision cameras so we can see one tear marking a trail in the dust on their face. Hyper-inflation as Diet Sprites were sold and resold for all the money in Montana. The horror! The horror!

As a matter of historical accuracy, I am obliged to add here that Helen thinks it wasn't quite as bad as all that. What is certainly true is that I could not get a thick shake without waiting for half and hour. And the road runner was smirking in the background. Beep beep!

To wipe that smile off the face of the road runner, we moved on to the Hoover Dam. Gawd bless them, for once in their corporate life, the ACME Corporation had built something that works.

At the dam, we noticed that a whole mess of Indians tourists (real Indians, not the ones Columbus found). We think they are all IT-geeks and that the reverse hitech invasion has begun. Soon, India will rule the world saying "Very sorry, but now I will be taking hundreds of billions of dollars annually from you and your family". "Hooray" says Helen. "Finally we can get cricket, and some decent tea!"

After dinner, we made a call to the ACME Corporation. The dam was good, we told them, but Las Vegas was a little over the top. ACME broke down, cried, and confessed all. They are working under a secret DOD contract to design a generation ship. In such a ship, there are no road runners and everything is technological controlled and repressed. The open research issue for such a ship is how to stop the inhabitants from going insane from boredom. So the ACME psychologists and sociologists have designed an artificial environment that offers the lest variety while still keeping the apes docile. Viva Las Vegas.

Day 6: NV,CA

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Las Vegas, NV to Walker, CA

Today defied the camera.

Sure, we took some snaps but these don't catch a third of it.
We stopped, tried to take it all in. Failed.

Here's Helen looking for her husband. "I think the view took him", she told police.

We sat here eating lunch on the day after XMAS. Yesterday, we thought, we say the Hoover Dam and the lights of Las Vegas. Today, oasis and desert. Not a bad life, eh?

We checked the map and saw that we were in a cul de sac. Dodging all high passes would add hundreds of miles to our trip. So we bought chains and drove on into the night, nervously reading how to install snow chains. "Don't worry", we told each other, "we have four wheel drive. If the other 4WD aren't putting on chains, we'll just sail on through." No worries. The Titanic is unsinkable. And Mr. Chamberlain has a peace treaty.

Guess what? The Titanic sank, war was declared, and EVERYONE stopped to put on chains. We got out, laid out the chains in the dark on the road side, and starting noticing a few things. One, the instructions that came with the chains were truly horrible. Two, we're mechanical idiots. Three, there was a little caravan up ahead where, for a fee, someone would chain you up. Hooray for American free enterprise!

We paid up and watched an expert struggle with the chains. And struggle. And struggle. Our egos were restored. There is NO WAY we would have worked that out ourselves. Eventually, he got them on and we drove on.

Turns out that the chains were just a waste of damn time. The road was fine. Some Polly Prissi-pants who didn't check the roads had cried wolf cause a little snow fell. The chains actually broke cause we grinded them down on dry roads for an hour or two (all the while, deep bass notes jarring THUMP THUMP THUMP into our skulls).

But our schedule was shot to hell. We were aiming at Reno that evening and didn't even make it to the border. We stopped at some little village with two motels and a closing mini-mart. Bought a picnic and retired to a motel room to watch Monk on television and eat sandwiches in bed.

Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Best in show Day 1:PA,WV,VA,TN,NC Day 2:NC,TN Signs Day 3:TN,AK,OK Day 4: OK,TX,NM,AZ Vampire Trucks Day 5: AZ,NV Day 6: NV,CA Day 7: CA,NV,CA,OR,WA

Walker, CA to Vancouver, WA

Last day.

Woke up glad to be alive.

Actually, after last night, woke up amazed we were still alive. Dead set, we should be culled from the next generation. No need to call 1-713-REVERSE.

Woke up to a fairy land of sweet little farms dusted with snow and no one using snow chains.

We had breakfast at the Platonic road side dinner. Home fries to die for. Locals called loudly to each other across the diner. A woman bustled in, pulled off her gloves, threw herself onto a bar stool and told everyone who cared to listen "can't wait for my husband to get back, so he can feed his own damn animals". Here, we were told, no one is in charge but everyone thinks they're the Mayor.

This was a long day's drive: 14 hours and the last 5 were done through the dark, up and down steep and fast passes through driving rain. Tim crapping himself, Helen at the wheel- a lean mean driving machine.

And, at the end, home to a cat happy to see us.

Wow, that was a huge trip. Death Valley. Biltmore Estate. Nearly killed by our fear of snow chains. Snow blindness at the Grand Canyon. The flat flat lands of Texas. Vampire Trucks. The lights of Las Vegas. Coyote vs Road Runner. No elks. And we don't talk about Albuquerque.

Bye now! Thanks for reading and have a great new year.