View from the Empire State

Well, a good long run round the perimiter of Central Park this moring has perked me up completely, and Dan and me spent the day enjoying Manhattan on foot. Much of Broadway has been pedestriansed from Central Park down to Madison Square, and a cycle path has been built. With the free deckchairs and tables with umbrellas, it has quite a continental feel.

Tonight it's the Empire State and a stroll along the Hudson.

The endless journey has ended where we started in New York. While I was looking forward to getting here, I find that the Road has spoiled it to some extent. Manhattan seems expensive and lacking in soul – after a month of being in the US, the short-tempered and paranoid New Yorkers hold no charm for me. I got a more electric vibe from downtown Baltimore -- which reminded me, in its crazy family-oriented waterside nightlife of Tel Aviv’s Tayelet. Charleston, Georgia had more class.

Yes, New York has me feeling flat. Maybe after a good run in Central Park tomorrow I’ll remember why I still say, unthinkingly, New York is my favourite US city. Maybe because I’m thinking of the impending Visa bill, or of dealing with life without Mish when I get back. Maybe. Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe its because I’m not in Kansas any more.

Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

Kansas

Getting Lost with Dan and Kate

Sad old Vegas

Bryce Canyon

The shimmering US-70 in Arizona curves and dips suddenly to reveal a huge, ancient saguaro cactus flanking the road like an alien monster hitch-hiker. I glance over at Dan. Behind his sunglasses, his eyelids are heavy, but no, he’s not asleep. Neither is he dozing. Like me, he’s merely “zoning” on the road and the infinite perspective.

I remember, I could be instantly calmed down by a trip in my parents’ car. Growing up, I loved everything about car rides: The hum of the engine, the gentle swaying and vibration, the entertainment of the slowly changing view from behind the safety of the window. Then, as now, I would prefer it if there were no talking, no radio: Only the purring engine should provide the sound track for a car trip.

Above all else, I loved the mystery of the unknown just around the next corner. Getting Lost, I’d call it. “Let’s Get Lost,” I’d ask Dad. And he’d take me on the little streets around where we lived. He’d come to a junction and say to me “Which Way? Which Way do we go now?” And I’d say, “Left”. And he’d say “Are you sure?” and I’d say, “No, I mean right. Let’s go right.” And we’d go right.

Back home in England, there are no infinite perspectives to zone on. The motorways are crowded and people drive fast. The country roads are narrow, and twist and turn like garden mazes, flanked by wildflowers and high lush hedgerows, which afford little view of the cosy green and gold countryside. Cruise control is unusable, except at night on the motorways. I drive a lot in England, to and from music gigs. Often the venues for these gigs are in the most beautiful spots in the country: fine stately homes set in gorgeous landscaped gardens, which have been leased out for nouveau riche weddings by their impecunious squires.

Driving home after a long and tiring gig in Somerset a year or so ago I found myself disorientated and lost. Mile after mile of tiny twisting lanes took me even further from the main road I was trying to get to. I was sleepy and my neck hurt. Finding myself returning to the same spot after an hour, I stopped the car, got out and screamed oaths at the top of my voice, cursing my life, my job, but above all, the jolly little country lane which as far as I could tell had not one side-turning, running in a continuous, endless, inescapable loop.

The next day I caved and bought a Tom Tom satnav, something each of the other band members had done long ago. I deliberately chose one that had U.S. maps as well as British and European ones, because I had long been planning a big Road Trip across the United States. It comes with a number of voices, the default being Kate, a nice, soothing kind of voice, calm but ever so slightly reprimanding when I miss a turn-off. Well-spoken.

And now here we are, me and Dan, four thousand miles into that long-planned Road Trip, somewhere in the inhuman heat of Arizona. Not Lost, though, because we have Kate with us. Like Dan, Kate is basically taciturn, speaking only when she has something important to say.

The outer journey mirrors the inner one: The pilgrim progresses, back where he started, back to the Home not the same as the one he left, because the returning traveller is not the same as departing one.

When Dan and I return home, it will be different, because when we left Mish was there, and when we return she’ll be gone.

“After two miles, take the exit left, towards Phoenix.” Kate stirs me out of the reverie. Good thing one of us knows where we’re going.

Beautiful Colorado

Dan and I spent the last few days being with family in Los Angeles, Dan with my nephew, and me with my brother. L.A. is its usual self, with its vacuously cheerful blue skies. Dan and I gravitate to the tourist places with a European scale, where walking and people-watching are possible.

Spent Saturday driving across Western Texas on I10, ending up in El Paso. What a dump! Anyway I was so tired I didn't really care. Dan snapped me comatose on the bed after the 600 mile drive. We did stop for a burrito breakfast in a great Mexican eating place in a small town a few miles off the main road though. The walls were adorned with pictures of the founder, who started the place in 1929.

Yesterday was a better drive, mainly because we left the Interstate. Had a great time driving trough Tonto national park, where thousands of saguaro catcus grow on the hillsides.

Ended the day in Phoenix, AZ, staying at its oldest hotel . They had a pool party in the the 100 degree heat. We were the only hotel guests there, everyone else was local young people. Sofas and strange aging punks. Weird atmosphere altogether, made weirder by the furnace-like heat of the night.

Day one of Texas. We ended the 500 mile day in Austin. The part we stayed in is right by the University, and is very reminiscent of Berkeley, CA, with the same mixture of students, old hippies, psycho burn-outs, falafel places, cafes, etc. But the intense heat (over 40 during the day, well over 30 dgrees at night) gives the place a slow, dreamlike quality.

We're staying in The Star of Texas, a nice old bed and breakfast,

apparently favoured by visiting professors at the University; a Victorian house with a porch and rocking chair in front. The're a nice breeze from the slowly spinning fan in our high-ceilinged bedroom -- but we also have a discreet aircon in the floor.

Arrived New Orleans around noon. I left Dan to chill in the Motel room while I reccy-ed the French Quarter in the sweltering heat. Ate a great lunch of fresh oysters and shrimp po-boy in the famous Acme Oyster House.

In the evening Dan and me took a lovely paddle-boat ride on the Mississippi. After we got off the boat, the town was coming alive with jazz music, but we were both too tired and sticky to party.

From what I've been told, New Orleans is a very rough and mean city outside the tourist areas, and I can believe it -- almost a Neapolitan feel in some streets.

The "dead" guy in the photo is actually asleep, passed out from the sticky pre-thunderstorm heat. It looks like he fell asleep in mid-dial on his phone.

Due to a HAL-like malfunction in Kate, our SatNav, we've ended up having to stay tonight in a Holiday Inn Express in the middle of nowhere, somewhere North-East of Tallahassee, FL.

We've spent the last couple of days in the Carolinas and in Georgia. Yesterday visited the charming, crumbling but extremely up-market Charleston. We stayed overnight in Savannah. Today we spent a few hours taking a boat trip in the wonderfully-named Okefenokee Swamp, a mind-numbingly huge, truly prehistoric and dream-like ramified maze of alligator-laden, insect-infested brackish water channels. The photos we took did not do it justice, so I include only one.

Georgia is a wonderful state, hot, sweaty and slow.

We're not stopping in Florida on our trip, which to me has a pretty unpleasant redneck feel after Georgia. Of course we won't see Miami or the Everglades, but so what.

We got some real Southern Hospitality to go along with our pancakes, sausage and biscuits, from the gang at Hog'N'Bones in Waycross, GA. Also some snazzy free tee shirts!

I took the video after stopping for a break on a little side-road early this morning. I loved the birdsong and the lush foliage.

After a disturbed night at the motel, (graduation day revellers in the next room), we managed to get going at six a.m. Drove through North Carolina, enjoying the lush greenery, ending up at the delightfully tacky Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.

Drove through six states today -- New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and ending the day crossing the incredible Chesapeake Bridge to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where the photos here were taken.

Of all the places I've visted in the U.S. (a lot of places!) Virginia struck me as unusually well racially integrated. Plenty of mixed race couples to be seen.

Spent a brilliant day yesterday with Vered and Trish. Walked along the High Line, an arial greenway that was a disused elevated railway. The photo with the little girl shows one of the more bizarre features, a "movie theatre" where the screen is actually a window overlooking the street below.

Up early again this morning, ran across Queensboro bridge at dawn, accompanied by the roaring early morning traffic.