Spent the last few days getting all hot and sweaty. Hey! Get your minds out of the gutter! I meant that the temperature is soaring, and we’re loving it. Almost cracked the ton the other day with a 99F temperature in the area around Phoenix where we were, and it was really quite nice to not be thinking about putting on the Polarfleece jacket when getting out of the van.

We’re currently in Yuma (town motto : “Lots Of Old People From North Come Here Each Winter”) and the number of RV parks is staggering. We lost count on the way in, and in each park, there’s a few hundred sites. It’s really quite incredible.

Stopped at a rest stop on the highway last night and while we were sitting there just before going to bed, a torch was shone in our door (it was open). Turned out to be a Border Patrol Agent who was just checking us out. Apparently there were about 60-70 Mexicans crossing the border about 4 miles south of us, and walking to the highway where they had paid a person to meet them with a van. Happens each night apparently - not sure why they bother - I would have thought that “they are always waiting for it because it always happens” would have filtered back to them by now…

Anyway, since we were a van, they had to check us out, but we were able to assure him that we really didn’t need to get employment in the US by smuggling Mexicans. This morning, we actually got a look at the terrain they were walking over, and frankly, it’s 4 miles of dirt, rocks and sage brush - not very pleasant going at all, especially in the middle of the night with no light to assist them.

This morning we also met Chuck, the guy who cleans the rest stop and we got to chatting about land values. He was so happy that he was able to get cheap land in the area at US$2,700 per acre! We could not believe that someone considered that a bargain at all, and that he really believed it was cheap for land which appeared to be worthless.

It’s currently on 90F, and not too bad, and we’re heading to San Diego. Not entirely sure what’s there other than a zoo, but we’ll see. We’ve been through the Lonely Planet, tourist books, and other various guides we have and, to be honest, California looks like a state we could happily miss were it not for Yosemite, Joshua Tree, Death Valley National Parks, and a couple of other side attractions like the town of Felicity (”Official Centre Of The World”, apparently).

Los Angeles looks most unappealing, despite the fact that Verity flew around the world to see a storm drain in Griffith Park there. We’re thinking more of going for a drive in Los Angeles - should be a lot of fun. We hear that it’s a pleasant city for a lazy, relaxed drive and that there are very few people on the road. Well, perhaps that’s not what we heard. Perhaps it was slightly different to that…

Anyway, must dash. Lots of sand and dirt to see. With the exception of the occasional cattle feedlot which are very impressive to see. Right in the middle of desert, you just suddenly come across an ocean of green fields and cattle feedlot facilities, and then, just as suddenly, you’re back to the desert once more.
Oh, in important news, Diana has managed to find Coke made to the Australian recipe, not the US recipe, and it’s quite cheap. It’s Safeway brand cola, and at US$1.67 per slab of 12 cans, works out to be a lot cheaper than buying real Coke. Plus, it’s a lot nicer, so hurray!

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Incidentally, we ticked over the 10,000 miles a few days ago in Gallup, New Mexico - shortly before the snow arrived. Despite all the miles so far, we are still not feeling fatigued or sick of driving yet.

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Okay, there’s been a bit of stuff happening between the last post and this one, so bear with me here…

Firstly, we have finally seen an episode of “Survivor” on television, and we realised exactly how bad it is, and how gullible the American public is if they really believe they are in the Outback. We chortled as their big challenges included emailing their families on an iMac in a little wooden shed. Ooh. Difficult stuff. I bet that’s where Burke and Wills went wrong - no iMac packed in with their stuff. Come to think of it though, Burke and Wills actually had a piano or organ strapped to a camel, if I recall correctly, so perhaps this lot of survivors are not that stupidly equipped in comparison.

Secondly, we have left the USA. Well, we did for an hour or so anyway, venturing over the border into Mexico and getting fleeced like the stupid travellers we are. Ended up bargaining some reasonable deals, though we’re sure we still paid too much for some souvenirs. Oh well.

Incidentally, while we were on the bridge on the way back, we found that the level of Mexican scammers is quite inadequate. The ones in Melbourne are far more persistent. A guy came up to us with a look of utter distress, asking if we could speak English, clearly about to tell us a sob story. I just replied bluntly “Yes, but if you’re going to ask us for any money, we’re not going to give you any, so you might as well save your breath.” His jaw just dropped, and he stumbled away without any word. I mean, come on - I expect to have a better fight than that if you want to get money from me. Of course, since I never give money to anyone asking on the street, he stood no chance at all, but hey, he could have tried…

We’ve since been cruising the back roads of Arizona and New Mexico, wandering from one rock formation to another. Very beautiful country, much more interesting than many of the other states we’ve been in which were more developed.

Climbed up El Morro, which is a very tall mesa near Grants, New Mexico. We started at 2:10pm and went around the base to look at the inscriptions (interesting aside: any graffiti left long enough changes from vandalism to a national historic site) left by travellers in the 1500’s and 1600’s.

Went up the top to look at some ancient Indian ruins and were nearly blown off. The wind was so strong that we could hear it coming up the box canyon toward us, and we’d have to brace against it since we were on a very narrow ledge in a few cases, with a few hundred feet to fall on one side. When we got to the bottom, we found they’d shut it down for the rest of the day due to high winds - a mere five minutes after we’d gone out. There is something oddly satisfying about getting off a high-wind mesa alive, and reaching the bottom to find a sign stating it closed due to “SEVERE WEATHER CONDITIONS”.

Stopped in Gallup for the night at the Red Rock State Park and when we went to clean our teeth, it was snowing! Snowed during the night and we ended up with about 3/4 inch covering the car which was very exciting! First time we’ve ever woken to that! Built a snowman next to rocks that are the same geological formation as Ayer’s Rock (it really felt like camping at the base of Ayer’s Rock) which was a heck of a weird contrast.

Went westward to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. Very little left of the Petrified Forest since apparently despite all the warnings and fines, 1 ton of petrified wood is stolen PER MONTH from the park. Painted Desert was great and so beautiful - we expected to not see colours very clearly but it was superb and a definite must-see for anyone remotely close to the area.

In an aside, my mother emailed me to let me know I was sounding rather negative about the trip so I should be more positive. Of course, she advised me I should do with motherly advice what I always do with motherly advice. That is, mock it in a public forum, I guess. Hi Mum!…*grin*

Anyway, we went to the Grand Canyon, and I hate to be a negative, but really, it’s not that impressive. I expected it to be much bigger, and that makes me sound like a real jerk, I expect, but tough luck. I think actually it was so big that it looked small. Bear with me here, okay? What I mean is that since it was such an enormous thing to take in visually, every feature looked a small part of the overall panorama and if any of those individuals ridges or spires were isolated - people would travel miles to see them. So many of them in one place had the effect of making them all merge together and be lost.

What is more disturbing is stuff we learned during a ranger hike - of the millions who travel to the Grand Canyon each year, a mere 10% hike more than one minute below the rim. 90% of people never get off the ground level at all, preferring to do a strenuous bus ride to the gift shop to buy an icecream as a treat for their hard work. What a waste of time to drive there if you don’t hike into it a little way.

Di and I hiked down a part of the South Kaibab trail but since Di’s eye was still playing up (meaning she has to wear her glasses, not contact), we did not make fast progress since the steep gravel trail was rather difficult to navigate, even with regular vision. We still went down and back over a 1.5 mile trail though, which was extremely steep, taking 45 minutes to get down and 50 minutes to get back up (shows how much fun the downhill bit was for us).

From the Grand Canyon, we’ve headed south again, and we’re back down in Cottonwood at the moment. We called into the visitor centre today just to find the library location and got into a conversation with a couple (Roy and Terry Bird) in the car park. What began as a five minute conversation stretched longer and longer until we’d been chatting for almost FIVE HOURS in the shade of a tree, all about Australia and the US, research facilities here, and things to see around the countryside. We got to try home-made Indian bread, and had a great rambling conversation that was just fantastic. Certainly did not expect that when we came to Cottonwood, but it was a brilliant way to spend the day and really enjoyed ourselves.

We’re heading further south from here to see some cacti, since it seems like a daft idea to drive hundreds of miles to see prickly plants, and that’s right up our alley. From there, we’re heading north again (since we run into Mexico once more) and our movements start to become more defined for the first time in a long time. But they are a secret still, and it would spoil the surprise to tell you where we are about to explore.

And now, in deference to my mother, and because I was intending to do this at some point any way, here’s a list of ways the US is better than Australia :

1. Free refills of drinks in restaurants.
2. Cheap fuel (even if the locals don’t realise it).
3. Fantastic rest stops by the highway which really look after traveller’s needs.
4. Amusing billboards by the side of the roads which make us chuckle. I mean, come on, where else in the world can you find a “Got Hepatitis C?” billboard? (Florida) Or a “Need A Buddy With Bail Money?” billboard? (Kentucky)
5. People that love us and help us out with cheap prices because we’re different.
6. We’re here. Naturally, this is a point that ceases to become a good point for the US as soon as we depart, but it’s important to note that we’re here which is a good thing.
7. Fast internet access in libraries (all hail Bill and Melinda Gates for their Gates Foundation computers!)
8. Giant drinks at service stations for a pittance. For example, a 64oz cup (yes, about 2 litres!) is a mere $1.29 at Circle K.
9. One day you can be in a dust storm (El Paso, Texas) and the next you can be snowed on (Gallup, New Mexico).
10. Roads that have a 75mph limit on them. I’ve yet to see anywhere in Australia where they say it’s fine to drive on a basic road at over 120kph!

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The Grand Canyon, as mentioned on another page (see Cottonwood, Arizona) did not actually seem that large until we started hiking down into it. I think part of the problem from viewing it at the rim is that it is so big, you can’t comprehend the size properly.

It kind of looks like a postcard, simply because the brain struggles to take in the size of the landscape affected by the Colorado River over time. This page was added just to include some images we took when we went for a hike down the South Kaibab Trail.

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After watching a 15-minute documentary about how petrified wood was formed, we wandered through the display in the visitor centre. As we were looking at some examples of items to look for in the area, a girl of about 10yo came up to us, pointed at some petrified wood and proudly informed us “God made that! And that! And that!”. We, for our part, remained quiet, but did wonder why that had not been in the documentary…

There is an area within the park known as the Crystal Forest. It is so named because when it was first became a tourist attraction, people used to be dazzled by the immense number of shiny fragments on the ground. These days, there’s nothing left virtually. With more than one tonne of wood being stolen from the park each month, all those people who have pocketed a crystal for a souvenir have now left the park a wasteland.

The remaining logs weigh several tonnes and there’s no chance of them being stolen in a hurry…

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You knew it was coming, didn’t you? There was no way we could be down in this pocket of the USA and not stop by to see if we could find any little green men. Well, we found some weird forms of life, but alas, they were not green, so we have no other race to laugh at than our own.

Spent the past hour exploring the UFO Research Centre and Museum (aka Craporium). With such scintillating displays as “Crop Circles : Phenomenon or Hoax”, it was hard to pass up. Of course, they never bothered with little details like, say, information. Much better to go with the “what do you think?” comments on everything and then there does not need to be evidence.

The really sad thing is that I walked in the door as a believer in the existence of other life forms and yet, when I walked out through the gift shop (aka Great Wall of Crap), I was kind of ashamed to have been there in with all the kooks. Oh well, it is how it was presented, and that does not change my opinions on the subject. I am a kook. Just not as kooky as the other kooks.

Checked out Carlsbad Caverns yesterday, and we found one of the most interestingly stupid ideas we’ve found so far. When you go to the caverns, you have the option of hiring a US$3.00 audio presentation of the tour and you can listen to it while you walk around. Whole families were showing up and hiring one each instead of one parent getting one and then telling the kids what the tape said, in a quiet voice, at each formation.

No, with everyone wearing the headsets at full blast, the caverns were full of tinny little voices coming out of people’s ears, and then being drowned out by the people wearing the headsets speaking REALLY LOUDLY to one another because they had things over their ears! And so, with 95% of people wearing these things, the caverns were full of people walking aloud saying “HEY LOOK AT THAT ONE!” when standing less than two feet apart. Not a good thing to do in a cavern where the sound echoes off everything! Let’s hear it for the NPS who couldn’t think about putting that information on the signs that they put up in the cave anyway.

An interesting twist on the “Survivor” line of questioning - one of the people in the hairdressing shop today (yep, went and got shorn) was living on a diet of rice for a month since she made a bet with her teenage nephews that anyone could live eating just rice for one month. If she wins, they are her slaves for two weeks. She was at 2.5 weeks already and looking quite fit and healthy, so she was hardly wasting away. She was, however, looking forward to deer season so she could “get out there and kill Bambi and Bambi’s dad and Bambi’s grandpa too”. It takes all kinds, I guess.

We’re heading off now to go look at sand. Yes, driving through the middle of the deserts of New Mexico to look at gypsum which is apparently a National Park. Quite warm today, so not a smart idea, but hey, nobody ever accused us of being overly intelligent.

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Reporting in from the heart of Route 66, we’re in McLean, Texas right now, heading westward to Amarillo, Texas.

We’ve explored the remaining wonders of Kentucky, mosied into Missouri, ambled through Arkansas and ‘opped across Oklahoma in the last few days or so. Something went astray in the plans to head north - I believe it was the cold. Di thinks it was the lack of warmth. Both of us agree the falling Aussie dollar didn’t help.

In Kentucky, we collected more bugs on our windshield than we’ve managed to do so in any other state we’ve driven through. It was phenomenal how many of these invertebrates seemed to want to kill us by flying into our path and distributing their innards over the glass. We were cleaning off the windscreen three times per day there for a short while, just to get visibility back.

In Missouri, we cruised the back roads, going off to see such oddities as the “Little Grand Canyon” in Thayer. We figure, having now seen it, that the good people of Thayer may have gotten a little carried away when describing it. More of a depression in the ground than a canyon, it’s basically a cave where the roof collapsed in during an earthquake once. Not overly deep (~30m), there was definitely a good pubilicity department at work in the naming of the park.

In Arkansas, we went on a bit of a spiritual drive to the home of Walmart - Bentonville, in the upper left corner of the state. This is where Sam Walton first opened his “Five and Dime” store that has now grown to be the all-dominating empire of Walmart Supercenters across the length and breadth of the country. Since we are spending quite a few nights in the Walmart carparks as we travel, we felt it only fitting to go pay tribute to the man who has given us free accommodation by crushing every competitor in town and creating a Microsoft environment in the grocery store industry. Ironically, the Walmart Supercenter in Bentonville does not allow any overnight camping for folks in vans and RV’s. Presumably this is because the carpark is not overly large and it was very full when we were there.

Oh, that reminds me - Easter. Easter sucked this year, as the Easter Bunny was not able to find us with decent chocolate. In a country where they put sugar in everything from white bread to butter, the chocolate is not sweet enough and so we could not eat any of it. Possibly the most evil thing in the world to do to people is to surround them with a festival where chocolate is the dominant food source, and then make it inedible for their palates. That was our Easter…*sigh* Cadbury’s is going to be seeing high profit margins when we get back, according to Di’s estimate of how many Top Deck family sized blocks she could devour right about now.

Also in Arkansas, we found a town more evil and full of tack-o-rama than in Tennessee. We never thought it possible to outdo Pigeon Forge’s and Gatlinburg’s display of bloody awful things to see, but there it was, waiting for us, in a town where they have a replica of the Holy Land, a chunk of the Berlin Wall, and a giant statue of Jesus without any feet - Eureka Springs. The latter we found out about through www.roadsideamerica.com and figured that it was worth checking out the statue. Apparently when they were building it, since it was placed on a hill, there was a need to have a little red blinking light on top to warn aircraft. Therefore, rather than have Him suffer the indignity of the red light flashing on his head, they removed the feet from the plans. End result - a pretty awful looking theme park / place for the devout to visit. (Please note that before I get abusive mail for mocking Jesus, I am not mocking Jesus. I am mocking the people that built the giant Christ With No Feet. Put down the keyboard. Relax. Calm yourself.)

In Oklahoma, we found a woman in the Beachley’s IGA deli section who was an authority on the world, all courtesy of television. From television, she knew that :

1. All women in London are fat. There are no skinny women in all of London.
2. Australia was a beautiful country filled with deadly animals.
3. Only foreign people have accents.

Now, mind you, this woman heard my accent when I was ordering some bacon and *knew* beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was from Russia. It took me a little while to convince her that I was definitely not Russian, but Australian. Her co-worker and I gave her the same “where the bloody hell did that come from?” look when she identified me as a Russian, incidentally, proving that SPOTDs get the same looks all over the world.

We were planning to go to the Devil’s Rope Museum here in McLean, but alas, it is closed Monday, like about 50% of attractions in the USA. It’s all very odd how people say they hate working Monday when so many things are only open Tue-Sun, or Tue-Sat. Devil’s Rope, incidentally, is another name for barbed wire. Yes, there really is a museum of that. In fact, there are a few scattered across the USA.

Departing now for Amarillo, where there are lots of people wearing hats, and none of them seem to have a broad brim like an Akubra. They all seem to have brims out the front and back, but since the side curls up, don’t seem to offer decent weather protection. I have made it my mission though, before we depart Texas, to find the answer as to why the hats are all like that - there must be a reason that we’re missing.

And finally, in the “How Australia Is Better Than The United States Of America” stakes, Di got an infection in her eyelid and had to go to the doctor. It’s covered by insurance, but still - a US$75.00 fee to walk in the door. A doctor looked at her eye, and concluded that she had an infection in her eyelid (I told her she should have said “no manure”, or words to that effect), and then wrote a prescription. The doctor then charged US$102.00 for that four minute consultation. Working on that theory, he would be receiving a wage of US$1,530.00 per hour, if he was run off his feet.

Still, if we’re going to pay AUD$2000.00 for travel insurance, might as well get our money’s worth…

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We’ve spent the past couple of days visiting Deb and Dwayne, some more friends of mine met through the internet, and still no axe murderers found. Hurrah!

Di and I got to hang out in Williamson, West Virginia, and explore the neighbourhood, which was great since all the trees are just starting to bloom and there are vibrant colours everywhere. Many trees are just beginning to get green tinges, whilst others are blooming shades of purple, yellow and white. Ironically, one of the most prolific trees we see is purple in colour, but called “redbud” apparently. All very odd, but definitely scenic to drive through.

West Virginia, we decided, was basically the section where the people of Kentucky, and the people of Virginia decided they’d had enough of going uphills. We did not realise how mountainous the entire state was, thinking it was only in sections. We also did not realise how keen the coal mining corporations are to do something about that, removing entire mountaintops and changing the look of places in a rather greedy fashion.

An interesting drive in the area, and we have no idea of exactly how we got there because we were being chauffered around, was to the Dingus (spelling?) Tunnel. It’s an old, one mile long railway tunnel that has been converted to a road. You drive from one end to the other inside a mountain where the walls and roof arch over you, finished in brick, with water dripping down from the roof. Being one mile long, it’s kind of hard to work out who has the right of way - there are no traffic lights - so you just put your headlights on high beam and charge in. Pretty impressive, and it got our vote for the best tunnel we’ve ever been in.

Back at the house, I decided to see if I could handle the hills and become an honourary hillbilly. Turns out that it’s unlikely I’ll get that title in a hurry - I was exhausted after clambering up the side of the mountain opposite Deb and Dwayne’s house. Mind you, it was not made easy by the fact that some parts of it were close to 50 degrees angle, and were covered in loose dry leaves on flat rocks, so you just took a step forward and slid 1-3 feet down the side of the hill. Still, got some good photos of odd rock formations, so it was worth it. Sort of. Still picking evil briar thorns out of my pants two days later…

Heading off from Williamson, we went to Kentucky - not hard to do since we were looking at the border out the back of the house. We stopped and tried to post a letter, but the post office we went to was closed for lunch. We went to another post office, but it too was closed for lunch. I finally found a third post office in another town just outside of Manchester, Kentucky and found the post mistress was mentally out to lunch.

I asked how much it would cost to send something to Australia. She didn’t know, since she’d never had that request before. She then looked at her electronic scales to see if they could solve the problem. She punched the button marked “Country Code” and it beeped once and brought up some text. Looking up at me with a hopeful expression, she tentatively said “Well, I got Afghanistan…” as though it would be okay since both countries started with the same letter.

After a couple of minutes of her not having the faintest idea of how to use the machine, I leaned over the counter, looked at the keypad upside down and instructed her which buttons would be the ones to press. It was clearly not a difficult machine if I was able to work it out upside down, but she was at a total loss.

We finally got to the bit where I had to decide which level of postage I wanted, and I was able to work out how to change the type from “1st Class” to other levels, but when I asked her how long it would take for each level to get to Australia, she didn’t know that either.

I grabbed my things and began to head out the door, looking for another post office in another town. As I was leaving, she called out that she hoped I found one that could help, and that she loved Australia and wanted to go there one day. It was all I could do to not call back it would be best if she didn’t try to mail herself there…

Reaching the town of Corbin, we went to the Cumberland Gap State Resort Park to see if we could spy a moonbow over the waterfall there. Apparently there is such a volume of mist coming over the falls that on full moons, and two nights before and after, a moonbow can be seen. We were there from 6:00pm - 10:45pm and didn’t see a thing. As we got back to where we were staying the night, about 20 miles away, we noticed the moon just creeping up over the horizon. We figured we must have missed it and it had gotten up early. Still, we decided that since the park closed at 3:00am, the moon would still not be high enough by then to see the moonbow and we slumbered.

Today, went to the KFC museum (also in Corbin). The AAA guide recommended a 30 minute minimum visit. We did it in four minutes. A rather pathetic gathering of Colonel Harland Sanders memorabilia shoved into a couple of wall displays and two glass cabinets. Still, it was free, so we didn’t lose any money. Plus, the fuel in the gas station next door was the cheapest in town, so it did not work out as a total loss.

Toured the Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky today. Ironically, we were the fastest car on the road to get there since we thought we might miss it. Arrived at 1:02pm for the 1:00pm tour, and had to wait until 1:50pm until our group was ready to go through the factory. All very interesting to see the cars assembled but more interesting to see what a great deal the workers had.

They work 30 hours per week, and the shifts finish at 1:30pm and that’s it for the day. They are permitted to smoke anywhere they want (except in the cars). It seemed their union was really giving them a good deal. Assuming you wanted to smoke, of course, but still, a 30 hour week sounded pretty good working conditions anyway (says the guy on day 61 of his vacation).

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The weather forecasters here are as accurate as back home. Yesterday was predicted to be 68F and sunny with a slight chance of showers in the afternoon. We awoke to grey skies and were being pelted with a downpour not long after that.

Still, the day slowly improved to the point where the rain stopped and it was quite humid, which was lucky, since we’d gone into the Shenandoah National Park anyway. Turned out, incidentally, that we did not need to pay the US$10.00 to go on Skyline Drive since it was covered by the National Parks card we bought to cover us for all National Parks through the USA.

Since Shenandoah has the highest density of black bears in the US, we were kind of hopeful of seeing one (this time from the comfort of the van), but we lucked out and didn’t see any. Saw some scratchings on a tree where a bear had been when we hiked to the Dark Hollow Falls, and were very on edge then, since the scratchings were fresh, but still no bear.

We did see plenty of deer though, and on the way out of the park in the evening, it was very daunting to be driving in a thick fog that we could not see more than 12 feet in, and to know there were a lot of deer just grazing on the side of the road, ready to leap in front of us. The speed limit on the road is 35mph, and we rarely got above 15mph due to the poor visibility.

Stayed the night in Harrisonburg, enjoying the luxury of the Walmart carpark once more, and are now in Staunton checking email, taking care of things and trying to work out various options for the upcoming travels.

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Having escaped the clutches of Washington DC without having spied the Dubya, we have made our way back down to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

We lined up to get White House tour tickets while we were in Washington, having asked the visitor centre what time to arrive to get tickets. They had told us to be there at 7:30am, so we got up at 6:00am, jumped on the train at Greenbelt (closest station to the National Park where we were staying) and went in to get in line. Arriving in the line at 7:45am, we were told by the guard that there was only a small chance we’d get tickets since people had been in line since 4:30am and the last people they’d guaranteed tickets to had arrived at 6:15am. We stuck it out, hoping to get lucky, but there was no chance at all. Speaking with other people who missed out later, anyone arriving after 6:42am missed out.

The main reason for the disappointment is apparently that Dubya did not like the idea of White House tours and so cut the number in half pretty much as soon as he came into office. Therefore, if we’d been there while Clinton was in the office, we’d have gotten tickets. With Dubya’s rules, we missed out. Not happy, since we got up at 6:00am!!!

Went to the FBI building to go on a tour there. Rather disappointing since they took 35 people in a group, and the area you could fit people into for each area was about 12-14. The guide just started speaking and anyone in the back missed out because he was walking away by the time they got to the exhibit. There was no chance to ask questions at all, and the person we had spoke so rapidly and mumbled so much that he was nigh impossible to understand. It was rather telling at the end of the tour because we’d heard the other tours ahead of us finishing with rounds of applause from each group. At the end of our tour, everyone just walked off, and he did not get a single compliment or clap since we were all so disappointed to have waited two hours to get someone so pathetic as a guide.

Checked out the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the afternoon, which was quite interesting, but there were too many kids. Okay, so you’e sitting there thinking we have to expect that, so I will clarify it - there were too many kids and not enough attentive parents and teachers. One major difference we’ve noticed between Australia and the US is the level of devotion parents go to here for their kids.

We met one woman in the line at the FBI buiilding who was there, having missed out on White House tickets, calling her children to get them out of bed so they could come and join her now it was not so cold and early. This was not isolated, in that many parents seemed to be doing the same thing. Also, when it came to the Smithsonian, there were kids running everywhere and screaming but not one adult telling them to calm down a little (they were overstepping the “boisterous” mark and into the “running into people and causing damage to exhibits” mark). No control at all.

Di and I are just looking at all these kids and thinking what they need is a good smack on the bum to sort them out. We would have been killed for doing some of the stuff these kids are getting away with, and we did not have super-strict parents. We just knew where we stood, and we reminded when we forgot. Okay, my rant is over - I’ll calm down now…

Moving on to less stressful matters - let me tackle the issue of banks…*grin* In one of those “why does this stuff happen to me?” tales, I went to the bank yesterday to get rid of some change in the ashtray. We had accumulated 100 pennies, so I took them into the bank to get them converted to a $1 note.

The teller looked up at me with a look of disdain and we had the following conversation…

Bank Teller (BT): “You have to roll them first.”

Me (blankly): “Roll them?”

BT: “Yeah, you need to roll them before we take them.”

Me: “You might need to clarify that. I’m not sue what you mean, but I’m guessing you don’t mean I should roll them from one end of the bank to the other. What do you mean roll them?”

BT: “Put them in a roll.”

Me: “Um, what roll?”

BT: “Don’t you have a roll?”

Me: “Nope. Got a bread roll in the car.” (trying to diffuse the fact I am looking really stupid now)

BT (rolling eyes): “I’ll go get you a roll then.”

Me (relieved): “Thank you.”

She returned with a couple of small pieces of flat cardboad and handed them over to me. I thought this was a very strange situation and looked at them blankly while I tried to figure out how they worked. She quickly grabbed one, and folded it out so it made a sort of octagon shape and then gestured to put the coins in the end.

Me: “Don’t you have a better method of getting small coins counted than this? Like a set of scales and you just weigh them?”

BT: “Nope.”

Me: “And the customer has to count the coins and put them in the roll?”

BT: “Yep.”

Me: “This is not something a teller has to do? Wow.”

I went back over to another bench to clear the line and try to put these fiddly little pennies into a cardboard roll that really did not seem large enough for them to fit into. The first few attempts, I put coins all over the place, distributing them evenly over the foot or two around me on the bench.

I should point out that all this time, there was a guy at the far end of the bank getting more and more angry and aggressive by the second. Apparently he wanted to cash a cheque, and he needed three forms of ID - an account number, a diver’s licence and a non-driver’s licence photo ID. He had an account number, a Virginia car driver’s licence and a Virginia truck driver’s licence, but the bank would not accept the third one since it was technically not a “non-licence photo ID”.

They advised him to go to his own branch where they would know him, but he could not get to that branch before they closed at 2pm (a lot of banks close at that time here!). Also, he would have had to drive to the other side of Virginia and then back to spend the money he wanted right there and then.

He had a decent point and I have to agree that the bank should have given him the money, but the way he was going about it was rather frightening. He was screaming at people and looking like he was about to punch them at any moment. He was using the “F” word in a variety of ways I’d not even heard myself about 4-5 times per sentence, kicking poles, slamming his fist down on benches and computers and generally being extremely intimidating. He was dressed in clothes that suggested he might be carrying a gun (don’t forget I am really paranoid about angry Americans and assume they all are ready to shoot) and so there was me, trying desperately to blend into the background and not make sudden noises to attract his attention. Meanwhile, I am spraying pennies around the bank, bouncing on the bench and tiled floor again and again, terrified that he’s going to pull out a handgun and shoot me at any second.

He finally decided he was not getting anywhere with the bank staff, so stormed toward the door, knocked over the portable barriers that formed the queue for tellers, kicked the glass door so hard I thought he was about to put his foot through it, and then roared:

“Fine f***ing way to run a f***ing bank. I’m f***ing come back to sort this out, f***ers!”

Okay, so now I am really worried this guy is going out to his car and returning with a shotgun to just start blazing away. The staff and other people in the bank were clearly rattled as well, since there was no nervous giggling, and a lot of concerned looks, which delighted me even less. I finally got the two rolls with all the coins in them, one with 60 and one with 40 and raced over to the teller to get out of there.

BT: “How many coins in each one?”

Me: “Well, it says I can fit 50 in each, but I got 60 in that one and I don’t know what to do with them. Can I just have my dollar and go?”

BT: “You’re only supposed to put 50 in each.”

Me: “I didn’t know that. I don’t know how they work. I just filled one and assumed that was 50.”

BT: “You’e only supposed to put 50 in each.”

Me (nervously eyeing the door, watching for gun-toting psychopaths): “Can we just count them, you can see there are 100 and then I can go? You told me to roll them - I don’t know how to do it - I am just rolling them over to you and you can do it now. I’m sorry. Please, I’d just like to go.”

BT (exasperated): “Look, I’ll show you how to do it!”

I watched as she gently opened the roll at one end, lined up 50 pennies on the palm of her other hand, and then experienced a sweet feeling of delight as 16 of them fell to the bench and the remaining 34 took off across the floor, under the photocopier, got stuck in cracks near benches, under seats, everywhere they could roll to, up to 12 feet away.

Me: “Ah, I see now what I was supposed to do. I should have just distributed them evenly on the floor.”

BT: “Oh dear me. Oh dear me. Oh dear me.”

As all four tellers scampered around behind the benches, picking up the coins, I waited until they’d found all 100. The teller finally got them into two rolls, and then gave me a $1 note with a look on her face that clearly expressed she was not pleased to have gone to so much effort and pain just to change 100 pennies to a single note.

And the moral of this story is? I finally learned why it is that wherever you go in the US, people have thrown pennies into wishing wells or creeks or any body of water they can find. No matter where you go, from a National Park to Disneyland, there are pennies in every fountain and stream. After all the hassles to get them changed, I now know why.

The other moral of the story? If you are loud and angry and looking like you’re about to go get a weapon from the car and return to shoot up a bank - you have my full and undivided attention!

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001
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