California - Day 1 to Day 12

There are few things more pleasant than getting home after a long trip. One of them is ending a 3-and-a-half week road trip on Greyhound busses with a week and a half with one of my best friends, Lee.

I met Lee two years ago, more precisely a cyber-Lee who I thought was a guy at first. In two years of back-and-forth emailing I’ve learned that besides being female Lee is a great tour guide and a passionate Californian. I thought it was about time that I found out for real.

One last Greyhound trip from Las Vegas, through Los Angeles, San Francisco, to Santa Rosa. Understand that I haven’t seen more than pictures of Lee (always smiling, usually with her 11-13 year-old son in the frame), so it was a pleasant surprise when reality added a warm Californian accent and subtracted a few inches from my mental image. I also had to add the full splendour of her Mini Cooper, a sweet supercharged character with Union Flags all over the place – ‘Lucky’. Lucky was one of the unexpected bonuses of the trip, Lee could drive him round bends like a rollercoaster.

Lee put myself and Barry up in a camper van parked in the garden of her house, her son and boyfriend lived in the house with her.  We arrived in the late-afternoon and went out for dinner and I sampled some ale and a burger and crashed pretty quickly that evening. After a trek of some 4500 miles at a guess, it was nice to be somewhere that resembled home.

The discussion after our arrival had included the best time for going to Yosemite. Since we missed Yellowstone, I was more than enthusiastic to get going, and was over the moon when the next morning it was planned that we’d drive down and stay the night. The drive down was five or six hours, and traffic had us come in at close to midnight... we bedded down at Yosemite Bug, a remarkably cheap and supremely comfortable cluster of cabins secreted inside the park.

I woke in the morning very well rested. We ate a filling breakfast and started the drive up the periphery of the park, to the tourist section.

The road we took along the outskirts of the park was in a long gulley, a river on the left and a shear rise of the right, dotted with trees and sunlight. After getting through the ticket barriers, and parking, we indulged in a honey sandwich and started wandering. The Yosemite Valley is a beautiful chasm with wide and flat portions enclosed by cliffs littered with waterfalls and greenery. Above it all, out of the stellar scenery, rises the half dome, a demihemispherical pinion atop the tallest cliff, visible from a large portion of the floor of the valley. It would be my dream to climb had I the skills.

The free buses inside the park ferried us round as far as they go, towards the Vernal Falls. The climb started with a couple of kilometres’ walk; we played ‘Spot the Biggest Rock’ until we reached the final accent. Crossing a stone bridge over the river, we had the start of a sightline to the water crashing down on the landscape. Well laid slabs and tarmac turned to uneven rocks, dry and then damp and then dripping with spray. The last climb was a steep staircase of rough granite stones, sheltered from the rainbow-casting water by thickening trees. Once atop the drop, the view was fantastic. The rainbow from the top was mild, and the sound was dull compared with Niagara falls; what excited was the view over the valley, and the snake that river made once it’d finally decided to stop living the high life and settle down.

A walk back and shuttle to the car park, and a quick pack-up closed the day at Yosemite and foreshadowed the lengthy drive back. Lee’s son and Barry slept for most of the trip, I think I dozed somewhat. When we arrived back under cover of darkness, my bed grabbed me before too long, and the next day began.

Sunday: “San Francisco” Forever will those words be voiced in my mind by George Taki, Sulu, piloting the Bounty towards Golden Gate Park. It took about an hour and a half to get there by car in the morning (*cough* late morning *cough* - we enjoyed a good breakfast), and the weather was bright and clear as it was for the whole time we were there. Barry, Lee and I got out of the car near the Golden Gate Bridge, wandered round the gift shop (where you can buy genuine pieces of bridge cable), and then took the pedestrian path along the east side of the bridge.

The view of the bay, the city, the water dotted with yachts and boats and even a couple of kayaks, was magnificent. The only thing to top it that afternoon was the view later, once we’d driven up to the northern hills. San Francisco hugs the hills like the architect had a fight with the landscape artist and lost. We returned to San Francisco on the Wednesday and rode the cable car up the hills; the operators had to ride the brakes on the way down just to keep it from going into free-fall.

After walking back from the bridge and driving back across (oooh, the Golden Gate Bridge is a fish-eye lens’ dream), the road around the hills on the Pacific side had a few view-points, flooded with cars. We had to find a spot a fair way out, but it was worth it. The one-way system meant that after stopping off at a beach... we had to go around again because we took a wrong turn; we were forced to look more at a crystal blue Pacific and green hills of California. We headed home for ribs.

The follow-up the next day was a trip to the Redwoods at Mendocino – I have to hand it to Lee, she can put together a smashing itinerary.  It was empty, the park had a car park and a path, and the only sign of life we encountered was a couple, with their photographer, doing a wedding shoot. The sharpest memory of the time we spent in Mendocino was of Barry sitting astride an off-shoot of a trunk – an off-shoot of a red-wood being like the trunk of a regular tree – proclaiming it his manhood, putting Lee in stitches.

The next day was spent kayaking and wine tasting: heading out in the morning, the drive to Sonoma lake gave a view of this artificial reservoir, of hills dipping straight into the water and trees submerged  and peeking above the surface.

Once on the water in our fluorescent kayaks we set out on the wind-whipped water around the bends of the reservoir. Before too long, the serenity of our paddling turned to jousting: doing our best to resemble knights on chargers in medieval times, myself and Barry had to settle for frantic paddling followed by a splashing, clashing collision of paddles and hulls... I fell in. I got back in. We paddled back to the shore.

Drying out was quick enough. That afternoon we set off to the wine district, not Napa itself, but there were more than enough wineries in Sonoma County. Visiting 5 or 6 wineries, tasting 5 or 6 in each, it was a wonderfully adsorbing afternoon: Californian wines don’t have the sweetness or the lightness of Virginian wines, a heavy body’s a good thing but it plays all kinds of fictitious, painful afterlife locales on my stomach.

By the time the last winery came around, I was easily convinced to buy some chocolate truffle sauce infused with Pinot Noir.

I’d planned on meeting up with a friend from uni who was over in the states, working in Foster City. The only way that was going to happen was if we went back into San Francisco... rather than drive all the way up, Lee had the wonderful idea of taking the ferry across San Francisco Bay. It took about half an hour to cross over, and we got a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge, shrouded in morning fog, and Alcatraz.

We pulled into the harbour, and walked out straight onto the Embarcadero. After taking the cable car across town and, visiting the harbour, we stopped at Lou’s Blues Cafe. Being treated to my first clam chowder is one thing, having a 32 ounce cocktail with it was a nice bonus, but seeing San Francisco’s own Bush Man was prime entertainment: the Bush Man is a homeless guy. He has a box. He has a ‘bush’, a clump of branches he hold out in front while he sits up against a bin across from Lou’s Blues. He has a unique appeal.

The Bush Man sits on his box until someone, usually women, walks by that he can scare. Shaking the bush and shouting, he got screams out about thirty people in the time we were eating across the road. A couple of times the scared would take pictures: “Hey, you gotta pay ta take a picture a ma bush! How’d you like it if a took a picture a your bush?!”

There was a street troupe doing an acrobatics demonstration, from the UK! After watching that we headed back to the bus stop, but I deviated when I saw a gallery. Exhibiting the finest works of the world premiere landscape photographer, it was a beautiful collection of the typical mixture of mountains and plains and snow-speckled plateaus, but what caught me was a equipment.... every shot in the gallery was taken on a photographic plate, using a picture box about two feet deep. I was so tempted to run off with it; the plates were about a foot square.

We took the bus back and hopped on the ferry back.

I am a huge fan of cheesecake. Say the word and you have my attention, and you’ll have it until I actually see the cheesecake... then you have you wait until I’m finished. Reputed to be great cheesecake makers, there was a shop that Lee took us to the next day. It was closed, but a sign at the front told of another shop nearby selling the same cheesecakes! We went in and grabbed one each (they were mini-cheesecakes) and headed off to Lee’s company meeting.

Lee coordinates about 50 special needs attendants that work one-to-one. At the meeting were mostly the attendees of the programme, discussing this and that about all the community work that had happened in the last week. There was a wide mixture of disability displayed by the group, but they were happy and positive, and collaborative. I doubt that anything as productive and inclusive would occur in the UK... a shame that California is bankrupt and funding is rapidly tightening.

After the meeting (and eating my raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake) we drove off to a thin stretch of beach. The sand nestled between shallow cliffs, and the gentle slope of the sand left 30 feet of wet shore to play with the Frisbee while being splashed by the freezing Pacific. A few sandwiches, some Pringles and some cider sufficed for lunch. After the beach, there were the rock pools: after a short drive and a walk through some trees there was a wooden walkway that sidled through tall yellow grasses, Lee thought it would be a great place for a wedding photoshoot.

At the pools were a few viewing platforms with information about the local flora and fauna... but when we got down to the pools not a single starfish was to be seen. Seaweed and bland molluscs, the occasional seagull, and lots of jumping between rocks and dodging spray.

The next day was Barry’s last. He was bound for Philadelphia via Sacramento Airport. The drive to Sacramento was a few hours and traffic wasn’t bad.

Over the weekend me and Lee visited the Noyo and Lee’s boss and her 5^th-wheeler. Still in love with the Mini, the drive over was relaxing. Once we arrived we stole Linda’s kayaks and set off up the Noyo. A river that is sourced from the Mendocino Mountain Range and drains in the Pacific, the Noyo is surprisingly peaceful, and after a mile or two upstream, so shallow that we had to turn back for fear of running aground. We paddled on that narrow stream, banked on either side with dark earth riddled with dense foliage. Crystal clear water shook with our wake, disrupting the near-perfect image of rounded pebbles and stoned bedding the river, almost completely level bank-to-bank.

Herons darted away from the boats when we drew close enough, Lee was enjoying the calm to use her camera. Once we turned around and reached the landing beneath Linda’s 5^th-wheeler Lee bumped into an old friend teaching a group to use their kayaks, and then we met Linda and her husband. After a great fajita dinner and beer-infused conversation, Lee took me to see one of the features of California that I had been longing to see since Lee had first described it. The bioluminescence in Tomales Bay is supposed to be spectacular, a paint stroke of green-blue light tickled by waves, extending for miles. Sadly, Tomales Bay was an hour and a half away... to make up for it, Lee found a cove where the microorganisms responsible for the bioluminescence could be found. Dark and lifeless, the still water in the bay could be stirred into a brief spackle by the brush of a hand. Fragments of light, like a meteor shower, split from the splashes, and fizzled out like fireflies.

My flight to Charlotte was to be on Monday, I spent Sunday doing next to nothing. After a nice lie-in I watched TV and cooked and talked and lounged.... a proper holiday day. On Monday we left early, trying to avoid traffic by leaving at 5 AM (my flight was at 10). We made good time and arrived with a couple of hours to spare. At the time I was working my way through Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ (an awesome book, the sequel’s begging for my attention) so it didn’t feel like too long before I was boarding. The flight wasn’t direct, there was a stopover in Houston, TX, and the next plane was much smaller. I soon got talking with my neighbours, comparing ticket prices, holidaying adventures etc... my immediate neighbour turned out to be a senior executive at Amway.

At Charlotte was the one person in the world that I’d wanted to see... I disembarked, made my way to the luggage collection point (navigating the signs posted around the construction going on) and there she was. Petunia, my Petunia. After weeks of calling into the wee hours, I was finally able to give a lingering, travel-tired hug. To quell the elation of arrival, my backpack decided to give me a heart attack by skipping the conveyor. It turns out that it had arrived ahead of me and slinked off to a corner of the collection bay.

Ah, 3 weeks of Petunia, Virginia, Richmond, wine, food and lie-ins...

Las Vegas - Day 1 to Day 3

Only 5 hours away from Flagstaff, Las Vegas sits in the Nevada desert like an anemone in the middle of bleached corral. The waving tendril buildings can sting, or provide a haven for those with the money to pay for their protection. One word that might suffice to describe the Vega strip is majestic, not the glory of Richard the Lionheart, but the posturing pretence of John the Pretender. There’s nothing actually false about Vegas; all the sculptures, the grandeur, and splendour and light, they are as authentic as the cultures they allude to. Recreations of New York, the Eiffel tower, whole rollercoasters... it was all well-made and epic, but after a day of wandering round, the soul of the place seemed lacking since everything, all the artistry, all the industry, is designed for one thing: making money. It doesn’t help that the strip is crowded with leafletters and newspaper bins dispensing pornography. I don’t have a problem with it per say, but like all you can eat buffets, you can have too much of a good thing.

The shops in the Venetian, the MGM Grand, the Bellagio etc. were fun to explore. The tech store in Venetian had all-sorts, a massage chair, a laser-based music system and there was a huge collection of classic cars in the Imperial Palace. We spent more time in the arcade in Circus Circus than on any of the casino floors. Most of the casinos have some exhibition of one sort or another, my favourites being the photography exhibits in the Bellagio and the Venetian. A book of the photos costs $175, had it been $80 I would have definitely bought one. There was one shot, a 4 hour exposure of circumpolar stars above an old Vietnamese boathouse, which took 6 months to perfect.

It’s possible that it was inspired partly by the artistry in those landscapes, perhaps it was the fact I’ve been dying to get my hands on a macro lens for ages, whatever the reason I spent $280 on a couple of lens and a circular polarizing filter. I was an impulse buy, a macro lens with a coupled fisheye/wide-angle lens. What I’ll use the fisheye for remains to be seen, I just know that it’s incredibly cool and my camera looks ludicrously professional with it stuck on the end (think Jack Sparrow in the ‘most awesome telescope competition’ in At World’s End). It’s a shame that the most appropriate subject for the lens was the Grand Canyon we’d already left behind.

Overall it was fun, but really not my thing. In the end, the only bet I made was for the chance of winning at air hockey against Barry. I changed a $20 bill into quarters for the arcades and used almost nothing... getting rid of that change is going to take ages.

The Grand Canyon - Day 1

36 hours, thirty-six hours... that’s how long a bus trip on Greyhound takes from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Flagstaff, Arizona. Remembering that a 2-hour car journey to Suffolk when I was little, I’m somewhat surprised that 36 hours didn’t have me running up and down the aisle and sprinting around the intervening stations. Perhaps I’ve grown up (*ah*).

Even though I did survive the trip, my legs could have received a health insurance claim from my rear on the basis that long legs like mine make it extremely awkward to sleep on a bus: to be comfortable, there needs to be good blood flow and that means actually having room to extend my legs and that’s just not gonna happen. Also, I like to tuck my legs up or brace them against something when I’m on my side... when I’m sitting up, all that does is give me cramps in my legs and a numb bum.

Once we got there, close to 11 PM we were presented with the single most unpleasant person we had yet met. The attendant at the hostel refused to accept the deposit we’d paid online, refused to change the room or the fee as we’d discussed on the phone and when I made my case in what I’d describe as logical terms she said she didn’t have time for us... complaints letters and an inquiry from the attorney general are forthcoming. Don’t stay at the Downtown Roadway Inn in Flagstaff, that’s all I can say. I’m still waiting to see whether the payment that she took from the debit account at the same time I was paying the same fee with cash will reverse itself. Somewhat pissed off, we went to bed disgruntled.

There seems to be no end to the meteorological buffet that has been battering my journey round the states. Earthquake, hurricane, hail storm, wildfire, thunder and lightning and a tornado. Actually, the wildfire was up and down the route we took into Texas and we never saw it, and the tornado appeared ten miles south of the Grand Canyon while we were there and never made it up... still, the warning dampened the already rain-drenched compound even further.

The shuttle bus from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon was $25 each way, with a $6 for the entry fee to the park.  Compared to the price of tours ($60+) it was easily worth it, but we were so close to being left behind. We got there a little late, and missed out on all but one seat... splitting up wasn’t an option so we resigned ourselves to taking the later bus (1 PM rather than 8 AM). However, the angel of mercy descended upon the travellers in the form of the driver, who had made great intercession to the powers that be such that two more persons could fit in the bus.

The Grand Canyon is probably the most dwarfing sight I’ll see in a while. Not content with being so deep that it looks unreal – no amount of depth perception difficulties could negate the sheer size, but the lack somehow removed my vertigo near-completely – the width and length made me think about what the first explorers would have thought... northern Arizona is largely flat, a plain of dry grasses and sparse trees with mountains away in the distances. Then, all of a sudden, a crack like the biggest Earth wrinkle you could imagine severs the link between north and south, the only means to cross being by air or by foot. Airplane and helicopter tours are expensive and there wasn’t the time for climbing down and camping in the canyon, we were only there for the day, leaving on the 6:15 PM shuttle.

What the 8 hours afforded was a trip up to Yaki point on the complimentary shuttle buses within the park itself, a walk around a few miles of the rim and an hour or so on the Bright Angel Trail. Yaki point is the most easterly drop-off on the orange shuttle route, a cliff edge that sharpens to a point overlooking a vast expanse of the canyon... the poor weather, light rain and that got heavier as the lightning approached, had encumbered the canyon with a light-scattering mist, occluding the brilliance of the stratified pillars and walls on the opposite side. There were layers of red and yellow, a dressing of green from the trees clinging to the inclines, some growing slanted at the rocks beneath had shifted over time. Larger groupings of layers were separated by mini cliffs and ridges part way down the walls of the canyon with large shifts of colour as they approached the harmless trickle of the Colorado River – a brown dirt-ridden ghost of the leviathan that in time prehistoric must have carved the chasm to begin with.

Walking along the rim provided endless new viewpoints on the gully’s passive beauty. In contrast to the roaring might of the Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon is a silent screaming mouth in the Earth. Sound is eaten by those lips as you throw your voice over the edge, dulled by the inhuman vastness. It wasn’t until we attempted to descend the canyon that the scale became tangible. Walking down for a good forty minutes, we barely made it down the first ridge below the rim. From the path – lined with stones and branches to make safe what could easily be deadly – we could see how little we could see. The path wound back and forth, hugging tight to the drop, scouting through arches and swift bends. The time we had left was too little to go more than maybe a tenth of the way down, as much as I wanted to see how the mouth would close around me at the bottom I was grateful for the relenting sun, setting away from the clouds: as we climbed again, the light chased us along the wall, threatening to lift the damp cool that made the climb easy, and along the floor of the canyon, finally, the vibrant brilliance of the drying rock spawned a rainbow that radiated up and out of the canyon itself – the canyon was sticking out its tongue.

Departing before sunset (something I will have to see in the future), we had a Thai dinner with some excellent plum wine and waited at the station for the bus out for Vegas.

New Orleans - Day 1 to Day 3

If there’s one stop-over on this trip that pales to insignificance as compared to the rest it is the three nights we spent in New Orleans. Were Barry to write this post I imagine it would be quite different. New Orleans is bound to look a little different if you don’t spend two of the three days in a warm bed, in a private room, with Spicy Chipotle Cheese Ritz Crackers and a tub of Philadelphia, and wifi. The trip to New Orleans took about 24 hours and the hostel (AAE Bourbon House, the best hostel so far by miles) had a pick-up service meaning we were ready to hit the bars almost immediately.

There was a great Mexican restaurant a few blocks down from the hostel, and a great mojito cocktail and Flying Burrito therein. After dinner we caught a cab out the Spotted Cat in the French district and wandered around with the guys and girls from the hostel looking for the best live music. We shouldn’t have strayed. A classic swing band brought the period photographs of the Spotted Cat to life... staring at the frames on the walls, you could swear that you were falling back in time (and if imagination wasn’t sufficient I suppose a wander down an alley or a linger on a street corner would have produced some medicinal aid).

The feeling of the group died at about half-midnight. After a taxi back I still hadn’t seen more of New Orleans than my tired eyes had made out in the shuttle bus from the Greyhound station. Seemingly resolute in my desire to shield myself from experience I spent the next two days indulging in food and blog writing and calling home and making soppy calls to Petunia.

I actually don’t regret it. After two weeks on the road, some me-time was exactly what I needed. There’s plenty in New Orleans I’d like to see – actually going to Bourbon Street, seeing the museums, seeing the remains of the Katrina damage – but it’ll have to be another time.

Florida - Day 1 to Day 4

The plan in Florida was to collect a car from the car rental in Tampa, spend that day with a friend of Barry's, drive over to the east coast and then boondock at a Walmart; the next day we’d go to the Kennedy Space Centre and after the day there, head down to Miami.

Once at the car rental, Barry had the closest feeling to a numinous experience he’s likely to get before we get to the religious communities of Alabama. We’d splashed out for a premium car on the Enterprise website, expecting a comfortable Buick. When the attendant gave us the option of the plain black Buick vs. a dark blue, arrow-sleek, 5.7 litre Dodge Charger... well, Barry had an expression somewhere between orgasm and winning the lottery. Driving a classic American muscle car around Florida will rate as one of the most awesome experiences of this trip, without a doubt.

  

After picking up the car we went to lunch with Gerald “G-Man” Gold and his wife, at Joe’s Seafood Cafe. Joe’s is a fairly expensive restaurant, typical for seafood I guess, it was the first time I’d had crab and the bibs handed out were a pretty good idea.

From thence we headed to a beach near Clearwater. The clouds had dulled the sun to twilight but the muggy heat permeated through. Rather than cloud-bathe there was a street break-dancing crew that we watched (they had a dance-off between kids and adults selected from the audience, the kids rocked, the adults sucked). The only problem with the beach was parking in the first place... there were plenty of spots going for free, all occupied, and further down the beach the hotels were milking the market at $20 a space. A retinue of spot hunters circled the car parks like vultures. We found a space in a parking garage that was going free at the time because of a grand opening promotion of the shop beneath.

After saying goodbye to Mr & Mrs G, we drove off in the direction of Titusville.

Walmart is a haven to the financially limited driver. For nothing, you can park (in a corner, away from the entrance please) and stay the night. The one draw-back is that we were in Florida. In Florida it’s hot, even in the middle of the night. After snuggling up in my sleeping bag with naught but an inch open on a couple of windows, we slept until about three o’clock... by that time, the accumulated sweat had drenched the inside of the sleeping bag (definitely a bad idea) and doused the windows. The fug didn’t help my already sleep-deprived brain, it took a while to get the command together to ventilate the car, wipe down the sleeping bag and get back to sleep.

Still early enough to feel sleepy but not so early that the sun wasn’t in full force, we set of at about 8 AM for the Kennedy Space Centre. The Kennedy Space Centre turned out to have the feeling more of a sedate theme park than a museum. After handing over a dear $45 – worth every cent in the end – the first thing I saw after the photophobic security was the NASA emblem in the middle of a court. After taking the usual pictures we headed to the rocket park (imagine the result of seeding a few engines in some really good solid fuel, pouring on some gasoline and leaving them to grow), and saw a little bit of a rocket exhibit before heading over to the IMAX theatre.

There were two films we watched back-to-back: Hubble, and the International Space Station. My love of Hubble is well known, I fall more in love with it as I see each new picture, as I fall more in love with Petunia as I get each text that signals one more day has passed before I return to Virginia on the 26^th of September. Seeing the 2D images of Hubble re-rendered in 3D, seeing them tumble into real space, and having the perspective pull apart familiar gas clouds and constellations... it was heart-stopping. Something about the scale of space relative to the scale of humanity, combined with the apparent ease with which human kind has unravelled the workings of the cosmos, brings tears to my eyes when it’s made so clear: stellar nurseries in the Orion Nebula; deep-field images peering into a past so distant that measurements of time and space surpass all comprehension; even the iconic images of the plumes within the Eagle Nebula, autumnal patterned chimneys many light-years tall spewing dazzling stars and smoky trails in livid green and vibrant orange, even those reminded me of the solemn beauty and elegance of the Hubble endeavour... a 13.2 metre long synthesis of 11,110 kg of metals, plastic, ceramics and inorganics, with a little bit of human imagination.

Barry preferred the one about the ISS. I have to admit that the idea of zero-gravity crystals and the wibbly-wobbliness of liquids in space (and probably other things) make the ISS eminently more productive than Hubble in a practical sense (and those videos of water droplets being fed Alka-Seltzer are way cool). Seeing the construction of the station in 3D and the final design flying over the face of the Earth was cool and awe-inspiring.

Besides being humbled* beyond belief, the Space Centre offered a nostalgic blast from the past in the form of multiple Star Trek exhibits. I can say now that my behind has kissed the indentations left by James Tiberius Kirk’s own two buttocks on the captain’s chair of the bridge of the starship Enterprise – it’s a pity my engage warp finger point doesn’t quite measure up.

*Suggestion: I propose the induction of a new word into the lexicon of geekdom. ‘Hubbled’ – v., to be so humbled by the awesomeness of the scale, ingenuity and/or complexity of something to the point of feeling either drastically superior or radically insignificant.

There was lots more to be done than sit around in the captain’s chair all day. A bus tour around the divisions of the shuttle launch procedure – from the 525 ft, one-storey, construction complex, along the crawl-way, up to a viewing platform that overlooked the distant launch platform – also stopped at the Apollo Mission Control exhibit. A full replica of the Apollo 1 mission control room provided credence to a video narrated by Jim Lovell himself detailing what would have been happening therein as the first manned mission in the history of American space flight went through preparation and take-off.

All the talk of the size of the space shuttle and the rockets involved in that and other space flights was grossly insufficient to prepare me for the sight of a full Saturn V rocket, the full 475 ft of knife-edge engineering and science, segmented and suspended on its side inside the next room. Not even the largest rocket in the rocket garden (a Saturn II I think) was comparable in size. The engines of the first state alone were three or four times my height, probably more, and that was just one of them. As we learned later as the Shuttle Launch Simulator, the sound alone from the space shuttle launch would kill at 300 ft, and that’s not even using the Saturn V.

The shuttle launch simulator was the last stop of the day, if you don’t count the full-scale mock-up of Endeavour outside. Using a rollercoaster-like stage, the simulator approximated the vibrations and g-forces (as best as can be hoped without asking the rider to undergo 6 months of physical therapy) using vibrating seats and a shell around the stage that could rotation forwards 20 degrees or backwards 90 degrees. The description of the stages of primary ignition, twang (where the shuttle rocks back a little bit), secondary ignition, lift-off and then the separate stages of accent was an excellent way of building the anticipation. I needed to use the bathroom at the time.

In the 9 hours we were there, the Kennedy Space Centre fulfilled a dozen boyhood dreams and gave me a renewed conviction that the Apollo space missions amount to the most amazing achievement of human kind in all of history.

Writing all of that has exhausted me a little. I almost want to take a break before going on to Miami and Key West. But I can’t, Barry’s given me an hour before I have to hand this laptop back and I don’t know how much I’ve already expended.

The trip to Miami was another chance for us to enjoy the joy of the Charger. Once in Miami, on SW 2^nd Ave, we were annoyed when it turned out that the website for the hostel  had the address slightly wrong and our true destination was SW 2^nd Ave, Florida City, a half-hour’s drive away. Thus we had the first piece of the case against the use of numbers for streets instead of names – I’m still in favour of numbers since walking NYC would have been a constant affair of map-checking without them.

Awaking in the hostel the next morning, we set off to Key West, for the most southerly point in the USA. It was my turn to drive... cruise control, unspoilt weather and minor traffic turned the 60-odd miles of straight road into an unadulterated pleasure. The sun was bright, the car accelerated like a hand off a hot stove, Barry’s heart attacks at my driving were entirely a result of an overactive imagination.

It took about 2 hours to get all the way. Each Key is separated by a stretch of road bridging the water between. The trees on land gave way each time to the sun-specked royal and baby blues of the Atlantic. A 2 hour drive felt like a cruise. Once in Key West we parked the car close to the first corner that showed the sea, finding a massive gum-drop pedestal proclaiming that we had reached the most southerly point of the US. It took about 20 minutes on the beach however before Barry realised that he had left his phone and his wallet at the hostel... I feel a smidgeon of guilt that it struck me as a little humorous that his face got redder and redder as I watched him search the car. It turned out ok because someone at the hostel had turned it back in and we went directly back to pick it up.

The hostel location mix-up meant we had to find another hostel for the second night since we needed to be in Miami to catch the bus on towards New Orleans. Actually only a couple of blocks from South Miami Beach, the Santa Barbara Hostel is a little cramped (three bunk beds per single-sized room) but it was filled with plenty of ex-counsellors and we went out for a good evening.

The next morning we split for the Greyhound station and set off for New Orleans.

Greenville, South Carolina - Day 1

Skipping out of NC to Greenville, SC, the bus left us at the Greyhound station at about 11:30 PM the same day. Duke picked us up and we spent the night at his parents’ place. Before going to bed I decided to make my my-world-famous omelette. Left with fridge freedom, I threw in onions, sausage, salsa and cheese, and carrots. To me, adding carrots to an omelette filling is not weird, it’s not. That didn’t stop everyone laughing at the idea through to the next day. After a really, really welcome lie-in, we went to Mojo’s.

Mojo’s is a burger joint that distinguishes itself from Five Guys in the following ways: a) their onions rings are huge, b) the meat isn’t as good and the use more sauce and c) they try to kill you. It’s not really fair to say they actually try and kill you; it’s more a matter of assisted suicide. The regular portions are the usual American fare, a bit on the large side, deliciously filling... the Quadruple Coronary on the other hand is as bad as it sounds. About 5 lb of meat in a 15-odd storey burger, the serving of chips alone would be enough to raise your BMI by five points, double your blood pressure and persuade your liver to move out of the waste remediation business. A hall of shame at the entrance exhibited pictures of those who had tried (and without exception, failed) to down the ultimate meal... the promise on the menu is that anyone who manages to eat the whole thing doesn’t have to pay for it.

Within 6 hours we were back on the bus, set for Tampa, Florida.

North Carolina - Day 1 & 2

Ha, and you thought it would all be smooth from there. Nah... the bus out of Radford alighted in Richmond, VA, and we waited for three and a half hours before being told that the bus wasn’t running and that a replacement was being arranged. The next stop before Goldsboro*, NC, was Raleigh. Initially told that Raleigh was closed, there was a chance we’d have to stay with one of Melissa’s friends before taking the bus to Melissa’s parents’ house the next day. Rather, the bus we pulled in on was rerouted out of Raleigh to Goldsboro and the tale of delays, trials, tribulations (whatever they are) and more than enough hassle with Greyhound – available in graphic novel form under the title of “Escape from Virginia” – ended with Melissa pulling up at the station.

*since Melissa’s house in Greenville lacked power (air conditioning, light, fridge... kinda important) we had arranged to stay at her parents’ house in Goldsboro.

American houses are awesome. It obviously has something to do with staying with well-to-do people, but it seems that the size of house available to someone of a given salary is a lot bigger in the US. Melissa’s house, built to her parents’ specifications, afforded us private double rooms with on-suite bathrooms... the Marrakech in New York was a far sight from this. We had a delightful time, me catching up with Melissa, and Barry taking the opportunity to teach me the finer points of IP address subnet addressing.

Going to bed fairly quickly after dinner, the next day started with another early rise so that Melissa could drop us off in Greenville while she went to uni. A wander through the campus (I looked at the chemistry department, Barry got a PhD offer from the IT department) sandwiched a trip to the barbers and a look at the park next to the river in north Greenville. The risen river, a remnant of the hurricane further to the trees down all around, encroached on the car park but the cool stuff – a sundial, the outside theatre, a cannon from the revolutionary war – was still accessible. To be honest, not even the barber could point out much to do in Greenville so we relaxed under a tree for Melissa to round up at the university.

Melissa’s house was on the sole block in town to which power had yet to be restored, so we went back to Goldsboro for the night. I think we went through about half my photos that evening with Melissa’s mum... about 2000 maybe.

By the next morning I was very tired of early rises. Monday and Tuesday were because of the Greyhound attempts, Wednesday because of the trip to Greenville and then Thursday because of the Greyhound schedule. Thanks so much to Melissa and her parents.

Radford, Virginia - Day 1 to Day 6

Having escaped the vibrant Washington – more elated by the novelty of the earthquake than actually shaken – the next stop was a less historically and scientifically taxing stop-over in Radford, VA... three nights with Petunia. Or rather, 3 nights that turned to four, to five and then to six.

Hurricane Irene, having been buffeted about the Atlantic with nothing to do for a good while, opted to vent her frustration on the east coast. Making land-fall in North Carolina, power lines dropped with trees, and the wind and the flooding caused damage from NC up to NYC – downgrading from a category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm along the way. As the days passed and the certainty of severe disruption became ever more clear, the phone calls to the next stop (Melissa in Greenville, NC) became more frequent and more tenuous: “It’ll hit on Saturday”, “The power’s out, it’ll be back in 12 hours”, “Power’s still down in Greenville, I’m in Goldsboro”... Radford is too far west to have been at risk so we stuck it out as the plans shifted.

At the fifth morning, at the assurance of Greyhound that services had resumed we rose at 4:00 AM to be at the bus station for the 5:30 bus. At 5 o’clock, the signs weren’t good: a couple of hopefuls were still waiting for the 1 AM bus and the office was closed. Petunia, having made it back to Radford after dropping us off, had just enough time to fall asleep before being roused by my call for advice, and later for a pick-up. At about 7 o’clock Greyhound phone lines finally opened and confirmed that services weren’t resuming until the next day. I love you Petunia, 2 hours and 40 minutes of driving before 9 AM is quite a lot :)

Before the eventual continuation of the epic journey through these United States, we did manage to fit in a fair bit of fun. There was a winery nearby, $5 for a talk and a sampling through some of the wines and a free pricelist. I’m not one for whites normally, give me a good Merlot any time, but there was an ice wine that deserves the price for a couple of bottles... I have a feeling that should I live anywhere near there in the future that I’d have to exercise a lot of self control to avoid drinking myself to oaky-with-a-dash-of-peach-cherry-and-blackcurrant oblivion on a regular basis.

There was also the frozen yogurt place and dinner and cocktails at Macado’s, but the majority of the time we spent reclined in various arrangements on the air mattress (parallel, cross-hatched and every once in a while, stacked). One of Petunia’s best friends, another Nicole (the fourth so far), enjoyed having ‘The Brits’ to stay... there are only so many times I can say ‘Willy Wonka’ before I burst out laughing. Since she never stopped asking, I spent most of the time she was there laughing. Hence, I’ve now adopted it as my response to “Your from England?!?! Say something!!” .

The other reason that a three-day delay didn’t bother me is that after a week or so on the road, having a hurricane mandate more time with your girlfriend there really is no downside. So, err... thank you Irene for that one grace. I suppose it illustrates that even in the most destructive of tantrums there remains the chance that a storming child, by sheer accident, might manage to knock two ornaments into a more pleasing position while destroying all the others.

So, after lots of cooked meals, cereal with milk, hugs, kisses etc., and a lot of attempts to catapult Barry off the air mattress through coordinated airstrikes, the journey continued via the 05:30 bus out of Radford, Virginia.

Washington - Day 1 to Day 3

 
Where to start? Normally a chronological record would suffice but instead I’m tempted to write in order of the events that made the three days in Washington one of the highlights of my time in US so far. That means that rather than starting with the tour with Nicole (not either of the camp Nicoles), I’ll start with the dinner at her grandparent’s house.

I’ve been forewarned about the behaviour of more southern families. The, to a Brit, reprehensible taboo of people popping in and out of other people’s houses and getting fed, or indeed feasted, and having a wonderful time. Nicole’s grandparents are probably the most wonderful combination of welcoming hosts, good cooks and adamant conversationalists I’ve ever had the pleasure of being guest to. We enjoyed ribs, macaroni cheese, fresh (oh, my goodness, fresh!) vegetables and a slab of cheese cake washed down with New York variety dry red wine. The tour around the Washington Air and Space Smithsonian, and the other main monuments had been tiring enough to guarantee that a home cooked meal would drive us into the living room for a long chat about Nicole’s Mum’s MBA, college football, and plenty about the UK, but not before Nicole’s grandfather took us to see his picture in Vietnam uniform, and began reminiscing over his children and grandchildren. Nicole dragged us back to the living room but I would happily have listened to Mike until he’d run out of family members to show off.

During the last three days we’ve seen the Air and Space and The Natural History Smithsonians and the International Spy Museum. As one would expect the Air and Space Smithsonian was packed with an amazing collection of memorabilia from the Apollo and Gemini eras, space suits, space craft, even models of some of the Russian spacecraft of the time... my heart stopped for a split second when I saw Voyager suspended from the ceiling (not the real Voyager of course, that’s gone where no man has gone before). 

The International Spy Museum on the other hand had its ups and downs. Firstly, it’s the best small museum I’ve been in – well laid out, thoroughly researched and packed to the roof with interesting stuff – but in contrast to all the Smithsonians it’s not free. The second set of ups and downs came about 15 minutes into our visit in the form of the earthquake. Since the previous exhibits had had light and sound effects , when the floor started undulating, the light-fittings shaking and exhibits rocking, I thought it was another immersive trick... then a staff member rushed us out into the street. The effects of the quake seemed minimal at the time: we stood in the street for no more than 15 minutes before being ushered back inside to resume the tour... it wasn’t until later that afternoon, wandering around the Washington Monument that we noticed there was a crack. A full 60% of the length of the monument, the side facing the White House, bore a very visible crack. Cordons roped off the monument on all sides. With a hurricane due to hit North Carolina while I’m out here I’m beginning to realise that I’m going to experience more of the wonders of America than I bargained for.

There’s little I need to say to recommend the Smithsonians. Even if you had to pay for them, they’d still be the finest collection of curiosity quenchers available to man. They’re all within walking distance of one another, the buildings rival the magnificence of the V&A, and everything about them screens “See me!”. It’s a major disappointment that into three days (two lie-ins and plenty of photographic distraction) I was only able to fit in three... I hope to return to see the Holocaust exhibit and all the others, not to mention the numerous nooks and crannies I missed. 

Niagara Falls - Day 1

We arrived in Niagara Falls at about 7 in the morning, at the Daredevil museum which doubled as the Greyhound station. A souvenir/convenience store, the squat building cornered an intersection only 10 minutes from the Niagara State Park. 

The weather was gloomy, a posse of clouds ambivalent on the subject of rain, so rather than hit the falls straight away we wandered round the State Park island, chancing that it would brighten up. The river leading into the Horseshoe Falls ran wide between the island and the mainland, gathering momentum before its final 100 ft fling into empty space; a thunderous, crashing roar produced a never-ending plume of cloudy water vapour that rose up from the river below, the river between the USA and Canada. The path round the island ended at the gift shop, a guy gave us a couple of free tickets to the Cave of Winds since he couldn’t use them, but in the end we opted for the discovery pass – 33$ for all the attractions.

The Cave of Winds isn’t a cave, unless they count the tunnel leading away from the elevator, it’s a route around the American falls. The awe-inspiring drop as soon from the island is something much more heart-stopping from beneath: from above the water vanishes, and the spray’s kicked high in plumes of rainbow-tinged spray; from beneath the spray is invisible beyond the wall of white, a billion drops of water weighing no more than a gram battering over the wooden walkway every second.

At the entrance to the Cave of Winds they issue ponchos and flip-flops, and an elevator takes you down 75 feet to the tunnel on the west side of the falls. There’s plenty of walkway that’s dry enough to shoot pictures from, and plenty of walkway where the water literally rains all over.

Speaking of rain, the clouds took the opportunity while we were ascending in the elevator to try and steal the Fall’s glory. Thumbs up for ponchos. The discovery pass grants access of the Cave of Winds, the trolley shuttle bus (which we never took), the aquarium, the Maid of the Mist boat ride around the falls and the IMAX theatre. As it was raining and the theatre was a short walk away on the mainland it seemed like a good idea to go inside. 

The history is Niagara and the Falls was shot beautifully in the 40 minute film. The Lelawala, the first steam boat to do tours around the falls before the Civil War, was recreated in its last Hurrah! journey through the troubled waters before the falls; the story of the Maid of the Mist was told, of a Native American girl unwillingly married, who sailed her canoe over the Falls, and as legend tells can still be seen in the rainbow of the Falls; of the few survivors who made it over the falls, including a school teacher encamped in a barrel with her black cat, the cat returning as white as fright from the descent.

Rain abated, we emerged from the show hungry and set off for Canada. Crossing the border wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it’d be, no pat-down, no queue, not even any more than a query over my washed-out visa photo. There was no way that we couldn’t go into Canada with it staring us in the face across the ravine, and going there for a lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and buying a postcard can hardly be said to qualify as seeing the country... but I have a stamp in my passport.

Once back on American soil we went on the Maid of the Mist boat tour. The Canadian side does have the advantage of a walkway behind the falls but the boat rides are the same as far as I could see. Everyone dons a blue poncho and crams onto the boat. The boat pulls out from the dock beneath the observation platform that juts into the void over the river, the motors fight the flow from the falls and charge toward the largest. Foam builds up in the water near the falls, but it’s a thick skin in the semi-circular cove around the falls where the Maid of the Mist turns, tilting into the spray until your eyes can’t stay open. I had my glasses and my hands to shield me but in the midst of the stream all I had were infrequent blinks in which to catch the majesty of the cascading water. Of all the things I did in Niagara, I was determined to experience this one completely, and hence avoided taking any photographs.

The rest of the time in Niagara was spent wandering around, seeing the shell of city that for all intents and purposes operates a life-support machine for the tourism. The same could not be said of the Canadian side, built-up and vibrant. We did visit the aquarium, watched a seal show, and stocked up on food for sandwiches before heading back to the bus station. Had I the chance to go back I would have gone to see the Falls at night, where lights of different colours illuminate the water and on some evenings fireworks do the same to the sky.

The bus from Niagara Falls to Washington, DC, was uneventful... I slept, in complete contrast to the first bus journey, and was fully ready for all the happenings at the capitol.

New York - Day 1 to Day 3

“New Yorrrrrrrrrk, concrete jungle where dreams are made, Oh, there’s nothing you can’t do-ooo, now you’re in New York, New York, New Yorrrrk”. I didn’t write that just because that song was embossed on my mind for the last three days, though it absolutely was, I wrote it because of the leg swinging, head turned skywards walk that goes with that song. In London I usually watch the pavement (sidewalk), a remnant of the time when I read books while walking to school... In The Big Apple the endless staggering architectural megaliths draw the eye up, and up, and up! 

Barry and I arrived off the bus a couple of blocks from Port Authority in the mid afternoon. Our ultimate destination, a cosy hotel on the upper west side, the Marrakech at 103^rd and Broadway, was reached by way of the Greyhound terminal at Port Authority. The discovery passes that we picked up are worth every penny (or will be), 60 days unlimited Greyhound travel, so far the trip to Niagara Falls reads as a little expensive ($550) but it’ll pay for itself in two weeks.

Since more than a dozen Lee Martians had booked in the same hotel, we went out together on the first night. After a tasty fajita at Mama Mexico the group reached a consensus on where to go through a process of ‘Follow that taxi!’, alighting together outside the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. A couple of Irish bars (and a very bad Guinness and a fantastic Long Island Ice Tea) later we found a club that took us up to about half two. Though rather expensive, NY has some great bars, and the never dying night has an addictive quality.

After a healthy lie-in (getting up at 8:45, Camp Lee Mar style) NY Day 2 started with breakfast and a trip to the post office. Since I’d brought enough clothes to last two weeks, and realised that I could clean clothes in the room on the go etc., rather than lug the extra weight I prepared a Flat Rate box, packed what I didn’t need and mailed it to Petunia the next day. The local post-office was a small affair by American standards, but compared to the one I grew up with – a little old lady behind a sweet counter in a shop one could take a couple of steps to pass and miss completely – is was huge. Compared to the post office opposite Madison Square Gardens however (our first port of call after heading south from Port Authority) that local post office was again tiny. Of the same proportions at the Natural History Museum in London, the respect shown to the posting of letters and parcels was immense. Since I was there I bought some international stamps so I could send home postcards and things, and was a little disappointed that the Pixar film-inspired editions were only available as domestic stamps. 

After the post office, we had fun trying to find the Empire State Building, wandering around using the map the hotel gave us, until we alighted right beneath it... the cost of the accent was $22, a bit much for a view, so we set off in search of the Rockefeller Building to see if it was cheaper. It wasn’t. We went to the Nintendo store next door instead and messed around with 3DSs for a while. 

Walking around Manhattan, NYC, is easy, the streets are parallel, laid out in a grid and numbered in ascending order west-to-east/south-to-north. What’s deceptive is the distance. 10 blocks is a fair distance, and the 60 odd blocks between the hotel and the Empire State Building is more than I’d be up for back home. The subway threw us off the first day as the mix-up between how express and local lines worked made us overshoot by a couple of dozen blocks. Local trains operate just like the London subway, except there’s a additional express service overlaid on the local service, going to only a few stations on the line. 

After StarFox 3DS, we headed to Five Guys for a really good burger. Anyone passing through NJ, NY or VA should check out Five Guys: they use real meat, I mean they make the burgers themselves where you can see, the fries are cooked in peanut oil and taste great and the strawberry ice tea is de-lish. Speaking of ice tea, it’s a drink that the UK doesn’t have so much, I mean there’s Lipton’s variety that I’d drink if there weren’t any Oasis, here there are endless options and some of them are really good. If you need evidence look inside my camel-back...  although it may look like a bag of concentrated urine it’s actually 2 litres of AriZona lemon ice tea! It was in fact ice tea that led to a bonding scenario with a fellow passenger on the bus to Niagara Falls: 

Bound for Buffalo, I sat opposite a man who I will affectionately dub ‘Splitter’, a real gentlemen. Talking on a night bus is frowned upon, but after a talk about London, and about all the people who’ve died and the few who’ve survived going over the Niagara Falls, I was thinking he was rather cool and we chatted for most of the journey regardless. A primary school teacher with some wicked dreads and a good story to tell, he related to just about anyone in ear-shot – including the border patrol officer at Rochester who checked our passports – that he’d been to his brother’s fiftieth birthday. After an unpleasant exchange with a fellow guest of the party he opted to sneak out the back entrance, take a taxi to the Greyhound station, board the first bus home and by ways and means ended up looking at every single picture on my camera. I’m very grateful to him for at the first service stop, before going through the photos during which Barry took a nap, he returned from the station with a 99 cent can of AriZona ice tea to find me and Barry chowing down on our $12-dollars-a-day sandwiches (for the last day in NY we managed to dine together, for three meals, on the ingredients for sandwiches costing only 12 bucks*). Upon delivery of our hopeful tale, of two young men determined to see America on a minimal budget, he bought us a can each... and we made him a sandwich, hence the synthesis of our conversations. Thus it is proven that ice tea can bring strangers together :)

* the ‘meat’ for the sandwich was the homogeneous Bologna of the sort that, were the original animal ever to be tracked down and accused it would deny ownership.

The highlight of the NY trip for me, beside seeing the city itself - feeling the ‘buzz’ - and seeing off more counsellors from camp, was seeing Chicago on Friday night (NY Day 2). I had forgotten to bring the card by which I’d booked the tickets out with me that morning so we returned an hour before the show to pick it up. Before getting on the subway there were signs of bad weather, clouds, what looked like heat lightning. These signs were as effective at communicating the impending deluge as a mouse squeaking “Oh, bugger” ahead of the coming of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Leaving the subway station, we saw a line up the steps, fearful of something above them. As we saw the truth, that if rain were radiation, the downpour would be a lethal dose, I removed everything but my clothes, left them with Barry and sprinted three blocks to the hotel. Steams were rivers, puddles where sinks, my trainers and everything else was soaked before I’d run three house-lengths.

In a frantic panic, this being less than 25 minutes before the start of the show, the theatre a good 54 blocks south from the hotel, I changed, grabbed coats and debit card from the room and hailed a taxi. NY taxi drivers know nothing more than the streets, not where the subway stops are, not where theatres are... and I didn’t either, not in terms of where X meets Broadway. Getting to the subway station after thinking for a while about where it was, I ditched that taxi in hopes of a more informed driver, grabbed Barry from the station and hailed a second cab. Alas, no luck in finding one who knew anything but intersections... I had to call Petunia, who’s internet have been connected only 20 minutes beforehand, and get the exact location. We got there about 5 minutes late. Nothing was ruined, we missed the introductory dance, but caught the first song – ‘All That Jazz’.

Chicago on Broadway is one of the best shows I have ever seen. The dancers’ and actors’ commitment and passion, and talent, was astonishing. Nicole Bridgewater’s performance as ‘Mama’ elevated ‘Be Good to Mama’ above all other songs in the show in my opinion. It’s well written, beautifully choreographed and it would be a mispresentation to admit that it’s not damn sexy as well.

Besides taking my breath away, the only casualty of the evening was my passport. I’d left it in my back pocket in that first sprint through the rain and the picture of my J1 visa is now a ghostly set of glasses below a shadowy mop of hair. It seems to not have been a problem since I was able to get into Canada and back while at Niagara Falls (a blog post for that is on its way).

One last thing in NY that was worth every penny for entry (alas, NY museums are not all free), was the American Museum of Natural History. The inevitable collections of historical artefacts, dinosaur bones etc. were offset marvellously by my personal favourite exhibition. The Rose Earth and Space Centre, I think I have the name right, is in a building overlooking the lawns. The natural light steaming through the floor-to-ceiling glass emblazons the planets, galaxies and moons, suspended from the ceiling in a celestial dance round about the Big Bang Theatre. Before I come to the theatre itself, it’s worth remembering the handrail around the outside... a number of panels dedicated to each, the handrail counted through all the orders of magnitude from the size of the atomic nucleus, all the way up to the expanse of galaxies and the dimensions of the known universe.

The Big Band Theatre itself is a sphere supported in space inside the Rose Centre by many pillars; inside is a section of the sphere that forms the projection screen for the show, a handrail borders the screen and the show is meant to be watched from above. Voiced by Liam Neeson, the presentation showed the scale of the universe in a way reminiscent of the opening to ‘Contact’, starting with Earth, expanding through lower magnifications, rings appearing to show the current scale: 1 light-year, 10 light-years, 100, 1000, 100,000 light-years, until the whole universe was contained within the theatre floor. Then the cosmic background radiation pattern appeared, with a time-line of the universe from the moment of the Big Bang until the present, Neeson’s voice intoning the stages of matter, star formation and finally the production of life. The exit of the theatre led onto a walk-way that spiralled down to the exhibition exit, sectioned into millions of years with more panels depicting the stages of the cosmos... I felt rather old by the end of it. 

Having said a few final goodbyes at the hotel, myself and Barry went down to Port Authority to catch the night bus to Niagara Falls.

Adult Week - Day 1 to Day 6

Adult week may have been one ninth of my time at camp, a whole six days more in America adding to my now-impressive tally, however the relaxed nature of the adult programme – a holiday rather than a development camp – meant that pretty much nothing incidental happened. There’s a lot I would like to relate, most of it to do with sugar, but it is forbidden.

The fog of fatigue that had settled with the departure of the keep-on-your-toes kids had thickened into a smog once the adults were well rooted, a smog enriched by kidsickness and holiday-hopefulness reduced evening activities to half-hearted pilgrimages to church and recuperations in the staff lounge. The loss of the Americans (and if I’m being totally honest, their cars as well) was felt throughout camp, not least by myself as my belovéd Petunia was one among the departed. It was wonderful to reunite with Penelope in New York, though I’d like to know how she and Mr Yee-Ha! got home given that their four legs together were no better than their own two alone.

Myself, Barry and CPFMK were working together, me and Barry living with the travellers in Cabin 6, and CPFMK attending during the day. Adult week would be better sold to the staff as a slow wind-down after the kids’ wind-up. Of the many hours that made up a given working day, too many were spent lying in the bunk attending those who wished to enjoy their holiday in the proper fashion: lying in, lying through and lying thereafter. While lying in bed was initially tempting and welcome, the reduced pace, rather like a sprinter after the finish line, had us tired and exhausted after a couple of days. I took to running everywhere when not attending to the travellers to maintain my energy.

One happy circumstance of adult week was the larger portions that were possible. Not on a restricted diet but instead on holiday, the counsellors were free to indulge with the travellers as much as their stomachs could accommodate... I had thirds at most ever meal for the first few days, and toned it down a little thereafter as the huge amounts of food only added further to the slothful feeling.

If there is one incidental detail that must be related it had to be the devastating effect of Richard Simmons’ ‘Dancing Sweat’... there’s much to be said about the benefits of exercise, much to be said about the effectiveness of dancing as an exercise, and further said about the focused combination of the two. When ‘Jazzercise’ was mentioned as an activity, I thought we’d actually do some Jazz. Instead, we got Dick. There are few sights at camp that will summon a greater feeling of collective embarrassment than the dozen or so counsellors (myself included naturally) doing side-steps, ‘hair cuts’ and plies in front of the big screen, while the majority of travellers opted for expressions of entertainment, bemusement or obliviousness behind us.  I think that Camp Lee Mar counsellors could bring back the 80s all on their own, if only we could find enough leotards.

I bid the adults farewell without drama, and those I will miss I look forward to being reminded of when I see CPFMK’s finished scrapbook. The big affair was saying goodbye to those among the staff who wouldn’t be joining the group bound for New York later that afternoon. Besides being paid, the only upside to the afternoon were the reminders of how good camp had been, and how great the friends I’d made were when we all bunched up in a staff hug and then dispersed to form hug-lines in front of those staying at camp or going elsewhere. Having friends in Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Mexico, England, Scotland, Ireland, elsewhere and of course America will no doubt come in handy, but I’m so sorry to see the family spirit that has percolated through camp over the last two months spread thin over so many miles.

‘Til we meet again Lee Martians! :)