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 [...]
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 [...]
Driving on the dark side
It’s not the first time I’ve driven on the other side of the road. The first time was in Caen, in Normandy, in 2006, in a little grey Opel. A manual car, and I hadn’t driven a manual transmission for about thirty years. I not only had a new car to learn, but a new [...]
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, [...]
Looking for couth and coffee
The Midwest was not the home of high style. The roadhouses had whole aisles devoted to beef jerky, some places you could assemble your own hot dog or taco, and although the pour-your-own coffee sections often had cappuccino machines, they had several spouts, labelled “Vanilla Capuccino”, “Caramel Capuccino” or “Chocolate Capuccino”. I began to suspect [...]
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, [...]
Over the Miss
A city and a river. Surely not New Orleans already? I raised my eyebrows at DD. “Baton Rouge”, she replied. I shrugged. Another hour to go. FutureCat looked around from the front passenger seat. “The Mississippi!” she exulted. I smiled. It was exciting. The first time I crossed the Mighty Miss, I did it three [...]
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.