Witness Number Five?
The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly I love a good legal thriller, and Michael Connelly has produced a ripper with this one. We meet Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, again as he ploughs through a new world of legal practice, the humdrum but topical world of mortgage foreclosures. Happily we don’t spend the book rummaging [...]
A Route 66 icon
We cruised our way out of Oklahoma, through museums and hokey little towns, capturing a border sign at Texola and the leaning water tower in Groom, but we were really aiming for Amarillo. In fact, we were aiming for Albuquerque, but we were doing so much lollygagging and having so much fun just poking our [...]
Flight of the jumbo
I love flying out of Sydney. I get to use the awesome Qantas First lounge. Even if it’s only a cup of coffee, sitting away up there with the huge windows, the smiling staff, and the art on the froth of my latte sets me off on the right foot. I glide down the hall [...]
Into the desert
We woke up in Paris. Paris, Las Vegas. But that’s another story. We paused for photos at the town sign – it has its own car park and Elvis impersonators – but that was only a minute or two. Henderson was a longer pause, for Starbucks and an emergency shop for a camera battery charger. [...]
Signs
Now you go through Saint Louis, Joplin, Missouri And Oklahoma City is mighty pretty. You see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico, Flagstaff, Arizona. Don’t forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernandino. We ticked them off, one by one, aiming to get a photo of the town sign for proof. Not sure we got St Louis, but we [...]
The grandmother road
You can’t drive Route 66 any more. Anybody who says they’ve done it, Lake Michigan to Santa Monica Pier is lying. Historic Route 66 is out there, sure enough, and there are any number of websites and guidebooks offering turn by turn instructions. But every now and then they direct you onto I-40 or some [...]
Bourbon and beignets
New Orleans was perfect. We’d planned our visit for Saturday night after another long day of driving when we could use a little relaxation. Halfway through our eastbound crossing of America, New Orleans was our chance to let our hair down, sample the fabled delights of the South, get wild and hungover. The one black [...]
Rushin’ Blue
The BCinDC 10th Birthday BookCrossing convention was superb in every way. Apart from the weather, and on the Saturday it was damp, to say the least. Look at Sherlockfan in her gossamer raincoat there. Saturday’s morning experience, amongst a great many roll-yer-own adventures, was for me the Museum teaser tour. A rush along the Mall, [...]
Joplin’
The talk was of tornadoes that day in Joplin. A massive outbreak had hit the US over the preceding few days, and here we were in tornado territory. We were back on Route 66 after taking a few days off to see friends in Kansas City and to attend a Sister Hazel concert in Columbia, [...]
Long weekend
I’ve been reasonably discreet with the news, but I was involved in yet another cab crash on Friday morning. Just after midnight, on the way in to the Alinga Street rank with the city centre full of young folk and the prospect of three hours of work, a young lady made a right turn across traffic, imagining that the green light freed her from the duty of giving way to oncoming traffic – me.