Category: USA 2019

In my haste to get yesterday’s post published, I forgot to give you yesterday’s vital statistics.

Yesterday we travelled from Waco down through Austin and onwards to San Antonio, covering about 228 miles (370km). Not particularly astonishing, but we had expected it to be a relatively short driving day.

I mentioned yesterday that we went down to the river walk last night. What I forgot to mention was that we “happened” to end up in Macy’s department store with time for a look around before heading home for a light dinner.

All of the stores here have their “Black Friday” sales on (the day after Thanksgiving) and Macy’s were getting ready for it.

I found a nice jacket – $75 with 40% off – but MBW said it didn’t suit me 🙁

Last night we stayed at Lisa’s AirBnB in San Antonio. It is in a unit complex quite near the hospital so it was a bit noisier than usual for us. Because Lisa is working afternoon shift, she only got in very early this morning so we didn’t get to meet her.

Today started a little warmer – a balmy 16 deg C – so it was short sleeves today.

I went out to load up the car to find two things: it was very foggy, and The Don was covered in autumn leaves. Covered is a relative term.

Now the more observant of you may have noticed something about The Don … he’s a different colour to The Don I introduced you to a couple of days ago. You can look here to see the original Don.

So here is the story. The Don had a bad rattle under the dash. We rented a luxury car for a 3 week trip around the Deep South and we thought it reasonable that The Don wouldn’t rattle – and believe me it was playing havoc with my OCD.

So we called the rental company and had a discussion about it, and I am now pleased to introduce you to Don The Second AKA The Don II. I am extremely pleased to advise that The Don II does not have a rattle and my OCD is intact.

So today we got an early start by heading down to see The Alamo (as in “Remember the Alamo”). It was the site of an historic battle and is quite unusual in that it is right in the middle of the city of San Antonio.

After we left the Alamo, we headed off towards Lafayette LA – tonight’s stop.

Now I may have mentioned in previous posts how confusing it can be on the interstates when presented with multiple exits and multiple lanes.

Notwithstanding all of that, we had a pretty good run on the interstates today and I continue to be impressed with their road/transport infrastructure.

Hence the significance of today’s song title – we felt like we were in a convoy of trucks all day sitting at around 80mph for hours on end.

I’m not sure what CB handle that MBW would give to me, but I’d have to say – given that we are driving around in The Don II – that hers would be “The Godmother”, or just “The GM” for short. (You may need to listed to today’s song to understand the significance of that …)

Somewhere around 1.00pm we were getting peckish and MBW identified that there was a good place in Houston to stop for lunch – The Turkey Hut – so we detoured off the interstate and found our way to Houston TX downtown and TTH.

By the time we got to The Turkey Hut it was about 1.30pm and a late lunch … but that didn’t stop all of the locals from still waiting in line for a feed.

20 minutes to get a table, another 10 minutes to get served … how long should it take to get a feed? About an hour later, lunch turned up.

Vegetarians look away!

Yes i know – another display of a lack of control! Smoked turkey leg with sauce, spinach, shrimp, and red onion in a bowl and the waffle fries can’t be seen. We did share though … and it was gooood 🙂

You know that you are in Texas when you see signs like this posted at a restaurant…

After lunch we got The Don II back on the I-10 pointed east, and back up to 80mph.

They say that age is just a number, and I’d argue that the speed limit is just a number too. At one point overtaking a truck, I think that The Don II hit a top speed of about 91mph … I’m not sure if MBW noticed, but she didn’t say anything …

We had a short break to stretch our legs, use the facilities and top up our caffeine at the Chambers County Safety Rest Area.

I have to say that they were the cleanest public facilities I have ever seen and fully air-conditioned. They put Australian facilities to shame!

So back to today’s song and the title of the post. This one is an absolute classic trucking song and one that you will simply have to add to your Spotify playlist … enjoy … Convoy (CW McCall)

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Yesterday’s post had a warning for vegetarians. Unfortunately today’s is no better – in fact if you are a vegetarian you are possibly better off going elsewhere. There are going to be at least a couple of “beef” references today.

I had intended to give you some vital statistics about our trip but I keep forgetting.

Day 1 we travelled about 14,000km although I admit that it was mostly at around 40,000 feet and I watched movies and tried to nap most of the time.

Day 2 we had The Don and we travelled from Fort Worth to Waco, and travelled about 120 miles.

Today started as a beautiful clear day under glorious blue Texan skies in Waco. We stayed at the Knights Bridge Suites – probably the only night on our trip that we are not staying at an AirBnB … mainly because of the TV show “Fixer Upper”.

Chip and Joanna Gaines run several businesses in Waco and they have a show flipping houses for people. While they have done lots of good things for the local economy and tourism in Waco, unfortunately it seems that everyone that has had a house flipped has it listed on AirBnB for exorbitant prices – hence the motel.

Like most motels around the USA, the Knights Bridge Suites offers a complimentary continental breakfast, so we decided to partake.

You would expect that the fact there was nobody else in the dining room should have sounded the first warning alarm … but we boldly went ahead anyway.

I had a bowl of raisin bran (yum, fibre!) and MBW had a bowl of instant oats … and then we looked at the coffee machine … and then we looked at the packets of preservatives cleverly shaped like muffins and wrapped in plastic … and we decided to head over to Magnolia for coffee instead.

We packed up The Don and headed over nice and early to beat the crowds … sigh.

The first warning alarm should have been the fact that we were ushered into queue lines and entry was being granted by a Magnolia team member, just a few people at a time.

Now I know how cattle feel when they are being herded onto a truck!

MBW purchased the obligatory cupcake and then we went over to the coffee shop.

More queue lines 🙁

But the coffee was good, my choc chip cookie was delicious AND the size of a dinner plate, and we had a nice chat with Courtney whose house appeared in Season 1 of Fixer Upper. (I’m actually unsure of the significance of having a house in Season 1 and happening to be in the coffee shop, but I sense it is somehow a badge of honour …?)

By the time we’d had coffee, the silo gift shop was open and we thought we’d have a look before the crowds turned up.

They have a special on at Magnolia at the moment where if you spend $75 in one transaction, you get a free coffee mug. We got two coffee mugs and if we had been a little more careful about how we divided up our purchases into lots of $75, we probably could have got a third.

Enough said.

After spending a small fortune contributing to the Chip and Joanna Gaines empire, we thought it was only proper that we use their rest rooms and enjoy their outdoors area.

By this time we were ready to head down to San Antonio via Austin … so we got on the interstate, pointed The Don south, wound him up to 80mph and I set the cruise control.

I know that I had a bit of a rant yesterday about the roads and drivers here, but the interstates are really quite amazing. The entrances and exits are designed in such a way that you rarely need to drop below 80mph to enter, exit, and merge across various roads.

One of the challenges though is that you are often presented with a wide number of lane options, and the GPS instructions are long and confusing … leaving you with not a great deal of time to make an important decision about what lane to be in, when you are doing 80mph and surrounded by other vehicles going much faster than you are …

… so we ended up on an exit that we didn’t want to be on, and in a lane that we didn’t want to be in, and not really sure where we were going. The GPS was having trouble recalculating the route fast enough as we lurched from exit to exit to freeway entrance again …

So I stopped, counted to 5, and did a U-turn to try again.

Remember yesterday I told you about having a dirty big Chevy badge attached to a dirty big radiator grill in my rear view mirror? Well I had exactly the same experience again today … except that the Chevy badge and radiator grill were not in my rear view mirror, but rather right in front of me.

It seems that one of us was going the wrong way up a one-way freeway entrance … and I suspect that it was me because I was the one that seemed to be going a different direction to everyone else 🙁

The GPS was strangely silent on instructions, as I suspect that she knew I was doing something seriously wrong but was not programmed to know what to do about it!

We finally made it to Austin in time for a super-late lunch. The place to have BBQ lunch in Austin TX is Terry Black’s BBQ, and it was goooood!

Now I know what you are thinking – that is a disgusting display of gluttony, and I’d normally agree with you … except it was soooo gooood!

On the plate is brisket, pork ribs, ‘slaw, potato salad, and cornbread. Yum!

I have never seen so much smoked meat being carved up in my life. Seriously, they must smoke that beef by the herd!

We finished lunch, put ourselves back into The Don and started heading onwards to San Antonio. We had a brief stop at Starbucks for caffeine to offset the effects of eating too much, and continued on our way.

I know that I keep banging on about the interstates, but I cannot express enough how unsettling it is to be sitting on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, doing 80mph with trucks beside you (see above), and the GPS giving really complex instructions like “stay in the middle two lanes” when you are on a three lane interstate. Which are the middle two of three lanes?

I know that I also keep banging on about how fast the other cars go. There was one time today on our way between Austin TX and San Antonio TX where I was in the fast lane sitting behind a Ford Mustang and stuck in some slower traffic – we were only doing about 75mph …. when the traffic in front of the Mustang dispersed and he (I assume it was a he) put his foot down and the Mustang took off like it was rocket propelled, and he simply disappeared like a fart in a fan factory.

So anyway we made it to San Antonio and checked into our AirBnB and then went off in search of the river walk in downtown.

I thought that it might be good if we tried talking like Texans to try and blend in more. It’s not that hard, you just keep saying “y’all”, like “are y’all having a good time?”

I thought it was a great idea, but MBW not so much. In fact I think that her exact words were “stop talking like that, you sound stupid.”

Me: “Hey, I’m sorry y’all”.

Anyhow I need to wrap this up as we have a long drive tomorrow from San Antonio TX to Lafayette Louisiana so we have an early start.

Google Maps reckons that’s about a 6.5 hour drive … but I think I can get that down a bit if I get The Don up to 120mph …

Today’s song is an oldie but a goodie and really needs no explanation.

The video clip is not so much a music video, but rather a part of a movie for your enjoyment: Deep in the Heart of Texas (Gene Autry & Smilie Burnette – from Heart of the Rio Grande – 1942)

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Welcome to Texas! It is indeed a beautiful Texas Sunday morning, albeit only 4 degrees C. Warm inside the house, but a bit chilly outside.

Last night we slept at Ben and Amy’s AirBnB in Fort Worth. They weren’t there when we arrived, and we’d crashed by the time they got home, so we finally met Ben this morning as we were getting ready to go.

It’s amazing what 10 plus hours of sleep does for you when you are jet-lagged. We felt almost normal again today.

Yesterday I started to tell you about our hire car. We had ordered a luxury car and when we arrived at the rental place we had the option of four (4) Chrysler 300S vehicles – black, dark grey, silver and maroon.

Now I particularly wanted the black one but it had Florida plates and we won’t be going to Florida, so that just didn’t work for me – that and the fact that the Florida number plate is this flowery design that just didn’t look right on a 300S.

No self-respecting mobster would be seen dead in something with those plates on it – you’d be beaten up by the other gangsters!

We could have chosen the maroon one for obvious reasons, but went with the dark grey one instead – and it has Texas number plates!

It’s the closest thing to a mafia car that I’ve ever had and so it will henceforth be referred to as “The Don”.

Now I know that I discussed this issue in last year’s blog, but driving a left-hand vehicle is not as easy as it seems … and The Don has challenges of its own. For one thing, The Don doesn’t have a gear selector – it has a little knob on the dash that selects the gears and because I’m sitting on the wrong side of the car, the knob turns in the opposite way to what my brain expects it to.

Notwithstanding that you are driving on the wrong side of the road and you actually have to think through what a left-hand turn means (and what lane you are aiming for), your mind starts to play tricks on you because you believe that everything is back-to-front. So when MBW says “turn left in 300m, your brain interprets that as “turn right in 300m” – because you know that everything is the opposite.

The biggest problem is when you pull out of a side street or driveway and every fibre of your being tells you to look right, but you actually look left first.

Don’t even get me started on the road rules! Turn right on red, the four-way stop sign rule where you have to mentally keep track of what order all vehicles arrived at the intersection so that you all depart in the right order. Yikes! And all of this happening while MBW is screaming at me that I’m drifting off the right-hand side of the road!

So we started the morning looking for coffee. While many AirBnB’s will make a Keurig coffee machine available, American’s all seem to like drinking their coffee black, so they don’t provide milk. So we packed the car and went in search of coffee.

Given that it was our first night in the USA and the fact that we were pretty disorganised (= “exhausted”), we had nothing available for breakfast, so I had a few cleansing glasses of cold water instead and we packed the car and set off.

Our quest for coffee was (initially) unsuccessful because we found the Fort Worth Water Gardens first. They are a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the city with a number of different pools and water features.

Now all of the cascading water plus 4 degrees C plus a few glasses of cleansing water PLUS a set of over-achieving kidneys meant that I needed to … well, you know. So we set off in search of The Fort Worth Stockyards – “where the West begins.” They take their cowboy stuff pretty seriously here in Fort Worth TX!

If you’re not wearing cowboy boots (spurs optional), a cowboy hat, and a belt with a big buckle, then you are obviously a tourist.

Just a word of caution to any vegetarians reading along today – it might be time to look away for a while …

The main draw card of The Stockyards is the Texas Longhorn cattle drive. A bunch of cowboys drive a herd of cattle – that would be best served dry-rubbed and smoked IMHO – up the main street of the complex.

You’d want to stay well clear of those horns, as I’d imagine that they could cause you a nasty injury!

MBW also made friends with a cowboy with enviable facial hair …

… then got to sit on a Texas Longhorn (for USD$5.00).

After seeing all of the beef go past, we bought a few souvenirs and decided it was time for lunch. MBW went for the beef brisket stew with cornbread, and me – always the king of the poor choices – had the steak sandwich and fries, not realising that the steak was actually deep-fried.

C’est la vie – I’m just that one step closer to a claim on my trauma insurance 🙁

We needed to get to Waco TX this afternoon, so we found The Don where we had left him, loaded up our purchases and headed off south.

Through a series of skilful manoeuvres supported by Google Maps, we eventually found ourselves on the I-35W South and thought that we had inadvertently become caught up in an attempt by other drivers to break the land speed record.

Seriously, the speed limit on the interstate is 75mph – about 120kph – and there were cars going past me in the fast lane that were at risk of breaking the sound barrier!

I made the mistake at one point of moving left into the fast lane to overtake some ”slower” vehicles, neglecting to check my rear-view mirror for a short period of time – and I looked up to see a dirty big Chevy badge, attached to a dirty big radiator grill, and the whites of the eyes of an unfriendly-looking chap who was sitting right up on my clacker … and I was already doing 80mph!

Which all reminds me of something else – it seems that the Americans have still not discovered imperial measurements despite my comments in last year’s blog.

I discovered that The Don does not have very good fuel economy. It’s only a 3.6l V6 and despite my very best attempts at conserving fuel and being a responsible citizen, the economy kept going up and up – at one point reporting that I was getting better than 80mpg when coasting downhill – and I decided that the on-board computer must be broken.

Then one of the voices inside my head reminded me that when you measure fuel economy in l/100km you are looking for a small number, but in mpg, the bigger the number the better!

We made it safely to Waco TX getting excellent fuel economy after all, and checked into what is probably the only hotel/motel in our travels. All other nights we are staying at AirBnBs.

We then went off exploring Waco, and specifically on a quest to find Magnolia (you need to watch Fixer Upper to understand the significance).

Jetlag started to kick in at around 4.30, so we ducked into Walmart to pick up a few things.

Everything is so cheap at Walmart. How am I supposed to be good with a dozen glazed donuts for $3.42?

That’s about it for the day! We are absolutely loving Texas and heading off to Magnolia Silos in the morning and then down to San Antonio via Austin after that.

One last thing though – just down the road from where we are staying, there is a gun shop (“Fun Guns”) and a taxidermist in a row of shops. Hopefully we will be able to go to the gun shop tomorrow so that I can get some protection … after all it is my constitutional right to bear arms (or is that arm bears … ?)

In any case, if MBW gets angry with me and tells me to go and get stuffed, at least I know where to go …

Finally, for your viewing pleasure here is a link to today’s featured song: Is this the way to Amarillo (Tony Christie).

That version was recorded when Tony Christie was older and wiser. If you really want a chuckle, take a look at the original version 🙂

PS: We are not going to Amarillo (it’s in the opposite direction), and there is no Marie waiting for me there … just to avoid any confusion.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Welcome to day 1 of our trip to the USA … or more correctly , welcome to daaay 1.

Winston Churchill once said that “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”.

I’m not sure what we have failed to learn, but we have just been condemned to repeat Saturday 23 November 2019 … all thanks to that miracle that is the international date line.

We departed Brisbane International airport a little bit later than scheduled, getting airborne at around 11.40am on 23 November.

The flight to LAX was supposed to take about 13 hours, and we actually landed in Los Angeles smack on midnight Brisbane time … and hey presto, local time became 6.00am on 23 November and we started Saturday all over again … which was actually a shame because neither of us got any sleep on the flight over and we weren’t feeling particularly chipper about having to repeat it.

So Saturday 23 November 2019 is a 44 hour day for us. Yay for us!

Hence my reference above to it being daaay 1 … because it’s a long one 🙁

I wanted to start today’s post with a puzzle, but I now realise that I’ve written probably half of the post already, so instead I’m inserting the puzzle into the middle of the post: What do you get if you cross The Beatles with Bruce Springsteen?

I’ll give you the answer to that puzzle shortly.

The excitement for MBW and I all started about 12 hours before we left for the airport this morning (that’s the first time we did “this morning”, not the one we re-started in LA).

I’d had a busy week at work, and MBW had been running around at home all week getting the final washing, packing and cleaning done … and by the time we had quadruple-checked that we had all of the important papers packed, and sufficient underwear to get us through 4 weeks in the USA, we were both pretty knackered.

What to do for dinner?

We weren’t going to cook anything (too tired) and neither of us had the energy to get in the car and pick up some take-away, so we decided to get some Bang Bang Chicken from Birkdale via Uber Eats.

Now even though one of our boys is on first-name basis with the local UE drivers, we have never used the service ourselves … sad, I know. We need to live on the edge more often.

So I tapped the screen of my phone and food was magically delivered to our door. We ate (not exactly the wonderful experience I’d always imagined for our first time Uber Eating), went upstairs and basically collapsed into bed.

Unfortunately neither of us slept particularly well … for me, it felt like my heart was going bang bang all night long. I expect that it was partly the excitement of going on holidays the very next day, but it could equally have been something to do with the Bang Bang Chicken we’d eaten …

Anyhow, the flight from BNE to LAX was uneventful. I understand that the same flight the day prior was a little more exciting, as they lined up for takeoff and then returned to the gate to disembark all passengers due to “mechanical issues”. While inconvenient, it is still probably a better option than having the plane drop out of the sky from 40,000 feet – particularly when there isn’t a great deal of places to land between BNE and LAX – and all passengers were put up in motels for the night.

Friday’s mechanical issues meant that the knock on effect was that our flight was as full as a state school hat rack.

So essentially on the flight we had lunch, watched some movies, were made to have a nap at about 3.00pm Brisbane time, had breakfast at 10.30pm or 4.30am depending on which timezone your watch was set to, and landed uneventfully in LAX at midnight or 6.00am – again depending on how you look at it.

The only movie that I watched was “Yesterday” – the Beatles movie – which was ironic in its own right considering that today was a repeat of yesterday – 23 November.

There was one funny thing that happened on the flight while we were having breakfast though … I started up a more meaningful conversation with our neighbour in seat 23A (who was himself transferred from Friday’s flight to ours on Saturday) and the conversation went something like this:

Me: “So, where are you from?”

23A: “Minnesota. Pretty cold up there. Lots of snow.”

Me: “Pretty hot in Queensland at the moment. Lots of bushfires. What brings you to Queensland?”

23A: “Work. I work for a company than owns and operates grinding and profiling machinery.”

Me (trying to remain interested in the conversation – I was tired, and grinding and profiling aren’t in my top 10 fun conversations): “What sort of things do you grind and profile?”

23A: “Railway tracks. We’ve been working with Queensland Rail and Aurizon over the last two weeks.”

Seriously, what are the odds?

We landed uneventfully in LAX, went through the border security hoops, collected our suitcases, rechecked our suitcases, and then sat and waited for an hour or so until our next flight from LAX to DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth).

We managed to persuade the check-in people to put us in exit row seats, and so we boarded that flight at 9.15am LA time.

My neighbour for this flight – we will just call him 16C – could well have been Snoop Dogg based on his looks, the way that he walked, and how low his jeans were hanging off his backside.

16C then proceeded to claim my armrest and 50% of my legroom, which meant that it was shaping up for an unhappy flight.

Fortunately 16C wasn’t particularly bright, as he soon discovered he was actually 15A, so off he went to annoy someone else. The new Mr 16C was much more of a sharer when it came to armrests and legroom.

We landed at DFW around 2.30pm, collected our hire car (that’s a story for tomorrow), and headed to our AirBnB.

When I was in primary school, I remember learning that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I thought that the same principle would have held for plane travel, so I’m not really sure what was going on with the flight into DFW (see below) when we went on a bit of a detour just south of Amarillo …

After deciding that we were hungry, we found a Texas BBQ joint, and ate ribs with a hot spicy rub on them. That should be fun in a few days as it works its way through my digestive system.

We felt a little out of place at the Railway BBQ place (have you noticed a railway theme in today’s post?) as we were the only ones not wearing boots, a big hat, and talking funny.

At least our fellow diners showed the courtesy not to bring their firearms into the restaurant.

So let me get back to the puzzle: What do you get if you cross The Beatles with Bruce Springsteen?

The Beatles gave us “Back in the USSR”, and Springsteen gave us “Born in the USA”, so I’m guessing that crossing the Beatles with Springsteen might give you “Back in the USA” … and that’s what we are – we’re back!

So let me summarise all of that for you … we did basically nothing important for the last 44 hours including getting any sleep, and that’s what we plan to do right now – let off a few ZZZZZs.

Here is a link to today’s song – sorry it was the best that I could find: “Back in the USSR” (Beatles).

BTW, and just for clarity, we:

• Didn’t fly in from Miami Beach
• Didn’t fly BOAC; but we also
• Didn’t get to bed last night 🙁

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019