Category: Musings

The USA marks fall in a big way and the extended celebration of halloween occupies a significant portion of this season.

In the UK autumn/fall is a holding season. It is the blank space between summer holidays and Christmas that is very briefly punctuated with Halloween and a few days later on 5th Nov, Guy Fawkes. This 3 month vacuum of cooling temperatures and darkening days is maddeningly filled with the insidious selling of premature Christmas-iness.

A UK Halloween mostly boils down to one evening. A few pumpkin lanterns. A costume party or two. Taking the kids trick-or-treating to a few neighbourhood homes.

For those not in the know, Guy Fawkes night marks the anniversary of the foiling of a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5th Nov 1605. Fawkes was one of the co-conspirators, confessed to the crime and sentenced to death. Interestingly he fell off the hangman’s scaffolding platform and broke his neck before he could be executed.  He was still subjected to a bit of post mortem mutilation, just for good measure. The night is celebrated by making an effigy of a man (or Guy), perching him atop a bonfire before setting fire to it, followed by a fireworks display. A bit macabre if you think about it too closely.

In the USA it seems like Fall is the most anticipated and celebrated season of the whole year. Porches are decorated, often in September, with pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, straw scarecrows, leaf garlands, lights, ghosts, skeletons, cobwebs, giant spiders, ghouls, and witches. Lawns are bedecked with large illuminated inflatable decorations. TV advertising is for a ‘pumpkin flavoured’ version of everything. Homes are filled with pumpkin themed hand towels, serviettes, wall hangings and scatter cushions. These months are appreciated to the full with people enjoying a respite from often unbearable summer heat before the harsh cold of winter arrives. In the northeast especially the trees put on a spectacular display of reds and browns before they lose their leaves and the whole region basks in the glory of ‘ The Colors’.  The hype and expectation of Fall and Halloween fends off the ‘Christmas creep’, and I haven’t even mentioned Thanksgiving yet! I love it. Especially as I hate thinking about Christmas until December has begun.

Halloween itself if a true phenomenon.  Costumes are planned months and months in advance. There are costume hire shops that will do the vast majority of their business at this time of year. Parties abound, for grown ups and children alike. Trick or treating is a science of strategy and performance. No pumpkin is safe. Nowhere does Halloween like the USA.

Nick and I will be in New Orleans for Halloween. I suspect it will be bonkers.

Now what shall we wear?

 

The Last Post: An Epilogue

We left the USA on the 5th of October, exactly 180 days after we arrived, having used the full allowance of days that we were allowed to stay in the country. We had left no provision for delays or last minute travel changes so were glad to take off from Boston airport as planned, with no hitches and no special attention from immigration. We should be allowed back.

We spent 10 days at the start of the trip sorting stuff out and 2 days at the end in a hotel in Boston, so in the end we had 168 days on the road. This sounds like an incredible amount of time and at the beginning of the trip it stretched in front of us like a Montanan highway, endless. We set off with no real plans except an entry into a half marathon in Connecticut on the 30th Sept (more about that later), our departure date from Boston on 5th Oct and a resolve not to go further south than the halfway fold on our fold-out map of the USA. We made up our route en route and meandered across the northern part of the country in a fairly leisurely and random way. The closer to summer holidays we got, the busier it was and the more forward planning we had to do. Somehow it wasn’t quite as much fun to be more organised. As for life in general, the closer to the end we got, the faster it went and all of a sudden it was all over.

The USA is the king of all road-trip countries. It is the land of the combustion engine with long wide straight roads, space to park and manoeuvre, places to easily stop and get a drink, a meal and have a pee, and there are fuel stops aplenty, even for our thirsty beast. Distances between towns are large enough to feel like an achievement without feeling like a wilderness expedition and the landscape is epic and ever changing.  Our first day we drove about 250 miles and quickly realised that this was too many. After this we resolved to do 150 miles maximum per day, and not every day. We had the luxury of time.

For a good part of our travels, save for a few Canadians, we were the only non-Americans to be seen or heard. Many people were astounded that we had ended up in their little corner of the world, most were confused by the combination of Washington State licence plates, English accents and a New Zealand home and we were picked as being Australian more than once. We took it well. We met countless amazingly friendly and interesting people, we never felt out of our depth or in any danger at all and the only non-policeman that we saw with a firearm was a parking warden. (Bizarrely, this was in the most gentile and civilised of small affluent towns on the shore of Lake Superior in Michigan. He was carrying a taser too. Just how bad do the parking disputes get in Harbor Springs????) We were slightly different from the two main groups of people on the road in an RV. The largest group are the retirees. Many live in their rigs full time and drift north in the summer and south in the winter. The other group are the summer vacationers. The ‘recreators’.  We were happy to be living like the retirees with the energy of the vacationers and knew that made us very, very lucky.

America is also the land of ‘Eating Out’. It took some self discipline not to succumb to the temptations of frequent meals in restaurants, diners and bars. The ‘but-we’re-on-holiday’ mentality had to be curbed, lest we ended up the size of houses. We tried to offset the burgers and beer with biking and hiking, but alas, the plan of training for a half marathon did not come to fruition. Nick (not a runner, at all, ever before) did make a really good effort to start training, but developed a hurty knee. And I, well I developed a lack of moral fibre. The thought was admirable, but the execution was harder than imagined. Difficult to plan running routes in constantly unknown places. That’s my excuse anyway. Some weight has been gained, but nothing that a New Zealand summer of sport, salads and sobriety can’t cure. (Yeah, right…)

Living together 24/7, in a tiny space for an extended period of time was surprisingly easy. No space for sulking. Nowhere to storm off to. We had occasional niggles, usually when hungry and looking for somewhere to get lunch, but our marriage weathered those teacup storms and I think we should be all good for another few years.

Here are some of our road-trip statistics:

States visited: 20 (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut)

Miles travelled: 8530

Gallons of fuel used: 974

Dollars spent on fuel: $2477

Nights spent in camper: 156

Number of different campsites: 55

Cumulative scrabble scores: Nick 4300, Sara 3943

Cans of IPA drunk: close to 46700

Packets of crisps eaten: 6743 probably

Number of quarters fed into laundrette machines: nigh on 25433

Number of Walmart stores visited: 20 at least

Corners negotiated in North Dakota: nearly 7

Car museums/collections viewed: 5

Garrulous Trump supporting nuns met: 1 (You were a highlight, Sister Maria!)

 

So what next?

We are now in the UK, catching up with our families before we head back to New Zealand via a few nights in Hong Kong.  We will move back into our beautiful home, reclaim our cars from their guardians and enjoy another summer. I will do some locum GP work and either love or loathe it. Time will tell. We will catch up with friends and find it hard to live the abstemious healthy lifestyle that we have promised ourselves. But most of all, we will dream of our return to the USA and our next adventure.

Big Dave and Tin Can will rest until next September when we will liberate them and plan to follow the Appalachian Mountains down to the Deep South, hopefully arriving as the heat wanes and the hurricane have passed through.  I suspect that the Washington licence plates may be even more out of place down there.

The blog will be put on hold until we set off again. Thank you all for following and commenting, and I hope that you have enjoyed reading it.  If you would like me to let you know when I start posting again next year then please send me a comment or an email to sarahampson72@icloud.com

Bye Y’All!

 

We have noted a few things about the behaviour of the American Folk during our travels. These are complete sweeping generalisations of course,  and are intended to be taken in the fluffy light-hearted spirit in which they are meant.

1. Americans recreate. This is a lesser known verb associated with the action of partaking in recreation. They recreate, and they recreate hard. With vim and vigour. Due to their woefully poor annual leave allowance, they recreate mainly in short sharp spurts at weekends. They drive hundreds of miles, with wagons, trailers, tents, kids, dogs, bikes, boats and kayaks. They CAMP. This involves arriving late, setting up epic sites, often with strings of fairy lights, floor matting, seating for 30. They get up early, cram in multiple daily activities and then stay up late around a campfire. (See no. 2) Then they de-camp and drive home again. It’s exhausting to watch. But also dangerous to get in the way.
2. Americans do not mumble. They are taught at an early age to project their voices. They can confuse the volume of voice needed for normal communication with those people with whom you are sitting around a campfire/ in a diner/ in a shop, with that volume used for attracting attention from a search party when they have been lost in the woods for 2 days. We have coined the phrase ‘lost in the woods voice’ to describe the decibel level of these conversations.
3. Americans are incredibly courteous drivers. As previously mentioned, they pull out wide to pass you even if you are in a designated cycle lane. They will stop on a main road to let you cross in the complete absence of a designated crossing. There will be much waving and gesturing at 4 way stop signs to let us go first, even if it is not really our turn. They don’t really tailgate, or seem to get inpatient at not being able to overtake.
4. Americans cannot be ‘quipped’ at. Throw-away humorous comments hit them and slide off. Often they don’t even hear them because they are not expecting an off-the-cuff witticism, other times they just look bemused. Sometimes I think they don’t understand our accent. You can see the grey matter trying to process the words…Is that English? (Yes, the original version, thank you) They are literal people. Our sarcasm and irony is not welcome here. Shame, as that is the back-stop of our communication technique.
5. Americans often do not make eye contact with you as you walk past. Some of this, I think, is because they are busy and distracted with the ‘recreating’ thing. Some of it is the ‘stranger-danger’ thing. Who knows which weirdos are armed and which are bumbling, sarcastic, overly friendly British-Kiwi tourists.
6. Americans have a serious addition to white crystallised substances: namely salt and sugar. Everything is either incredibly sweet, or overly salty. Bread is more like cake. Baked beans are so sugary they should be served as a dessert. On slices of toasted cake.
7. Americans don’t walk anywhere that they can drive. Even the hiking, running, cycling type of Americans with very functional legs and normal BMIs will jump in the car to go to the restaurant around the corner. They have a distinct demarkation between walking (or hiking) as a recreational activity, and walking as a (silly) form of transport. We have seen families load up into a car to drive the 0.2 miles to a trailhead car park in order to do a 5 mile hike. Our readiness to walk or cycle places that have perfectly good road access and car parking is another thing that bemuses the Americans about us.

Those are my thoughts. Apologies to my American friends!

Over the past week or so, it has become apparent that ‘The Beast’ (Working title) has found its forever name.

Some of you may be aware that in December Nick became the very proud owner of a small white sports car which was named ‘Dave’ in memory of his Dad, David.

I am sure that David, always a petrol-head himself, would be proud to know that now he has 2 fine gas-guzzlers named for him.

The Beast has become known as ‘Big Dave’.

And now, Lloyd, you are the keeper and protector, occasional driver and chief polisher of ‘Little Dave’.

Big Dave is running well (touch wood). He has an 8.1L petrol V8. He is nearly 22ft long, with an 8ft bed and weighs about 3.5 tons. He’s a fine spot for a picnic, for wildlife spotting and a very comfortable place to be whilst cruising the highways. He carries the Tin Can (approx 2 tons) with aplomb. He’s managing somewhere between 8.9 mpg (Nick-leadfoot-Hampson) and 10 mpg (Sara-featherfoot-Hampson) when hauling and a planet-saving 13.9 mpg when unloaded.

He is a beast.