Dodgy Coke in the 1700s

Twice before I’ve been to Richmond but never to the famous Colonial Williamsburg. This has to be remedied. Of course it has to be a stinking hot day when we make the trip. This searing heatwave has pretty much followed us across the USA since South Dakota. We tough it out.

The oddest thing happens when we arrive at the Williamsburg Visitor Centre to buy our tickets for the day. A sportily-dressed Chinese-American couple approaches us and asks if we will be part of their tour group. They need 15 and have only 13. Two more and they can obtain a discount price. We will be part of their discount price if we join their group. No strings attached. We never have to see them again. How about it? Hmm. OK. So the woman, who turns out to be a New York banker, liaises tour tickets while we chat to her partner who turns out to be a New York pathologist. She gives us the tickets. We never see them again. We have saved $40.

Williamsburg is not too crowded on this hot week day. This is good.

We are no sooner off the shuttle bus and through the gates than someone fires a musket very near at hand. Boom! I am ten feet in the air.

It is part of the shtick. There is a learn-to-fire a musket shack. Not a very useful art, if you ask me.

We are surrounded by 18th Century ticky tack. They call it the market place.They have stalls selling lovely period straw hats. $35. They are selling cookery books and vanilla pods…

But not modern day drinks.

We are feeling as dry as a dingo’s dick and need to hydrate if we are to walk this quite considerable recreated town.

We try another period shop. No drinks.

We see a sign. How odd. Drinks around the back.

We go around the back of an historic building and into a lovely little courtyard crammed with picket fences and beautifully-groomed hedges. We spot, on the far side, a tiny outhouse within which are two huge modern drinks vending machines. One has just water and the other assorted fizzy drinks plus water. The one with water has an Out Of Order notice pinned to it. We put a credit card in the other machine and try for water. No go. Try again. No go. Puzzle for a while. Try again. It must be out of water. Diet Coke, then. Hey presto. A bottle rolls out. But it is only a third full. It is sealed and cold and straight from the machine. But it is only a third full. Weird. Perhaps the machine is rebelling against being an anachronism in a period town.

I take the drink to another period shop where a woman talking in quaint olde worlde English is selling quilting materials. When she sees the bottle and hears my story, she dissolves into hysteria. So sorry I find this funny but isn’t it funny, she says, completely dropping her 18th Century character.

Clearly, not a lot of funny things happen in Williamsburg.

When she has composed herself, she produces an anachronistic telephone from under the counter and calls the ticketing store where she subsequently directs me to receive a refund.

And indeed, a woman in period costume and talking in period style, takes the dud bottle and gives me some proper modern money. No, they don’t sell drinks in there. But I can go next door to the tavern. There, a man in period costume, talking in period style, takes my modern money and hands over an

ice-cold bottle of modern water. Now we can look at the living museum which is Colonial Williamsburg, the Revolutionary City, once the capital of Virginia and loyal to the British Crown.

It is not what I had expected. It is such expansive real estate. The main road is so terribly wide. It seems strangely sparse. Horses with carts are standing about. Some clop slowly up the street.

It’s how it was. The Americans do these things very lovingly and carefully before they make a fortune out of them.

This recreated town is extremely proud of its historical integrity - to the point that its blacksmith shop makes all the nails and locks

and bars and rails and assorted metalworks exactly as was done in the early days and these things are used in the restoration and maintenance of the property.

We visit said blacksmith shop which has smoke soaring from its chimney and watch heavy work going on. It is a working enterprise. A red-headed girl in period garb tells us all about it as we watch the smith pulling red-hot iron from the fire and beating it to form.

We see the carpentry shop,too. It is the same story. The workers in there

are artisans proudly practising the techniques of their forefathers.

We visit the grand old courthouse. It provides a bit of a sit-down while we listen to a costumed woman give colourful descriptions of criminal justice of the time. The stocks are just outside where people were pinned in by their heads. For good measure they used to nail criminals’ ears to the wood while they were in there. Bruce is fascinated by this piece of new information. We need to look at those stocks very carefully.

We walk slowly in the heat. The kitchen garden is extensive. It is wonderful. It sells all sorts of period equipment as well as heritage seeds.

Walking down one handsome street, we meet a woman

who seems to be rallying folk for a talk. We join in and find ourselves sitting upon benches in a garden, hearing all about an important townsman and his lovely house. Once we have heard his story, rattled off in the mode of a guide who has told this story too many times before, we are invited to inspect his lovely old house. And his lovely formal gardens. It is, of course, lovely.

Oh, and look, there is the slave house. And slaves were allowed to have their own little gardens. Lovely?

We walk on, past pleasant buildings. Not everything is living demonstration space. But this one is. It is the Governor’s Palace.

A young performer in period garb gives us his all. He knows his stuff and he has panache. We move from room to room learning of the grand life of the privileged in this grand old mansion, in the recreated era inhabited by Lord Dunmore. As we move into the grand ballroom with its paintings of king and consort, our guide executes a sweeping formal bow from the waist and suggests his surprise that we all have not done so in respect to the British Crown. We are tutored in formal bows of the period and we do the right thing. This lavish ballroom is painted a vivid shade of erk green, which apparently was the chic colour of the day and was believed to stimulate the appetite. The room also is carpeted, hand-made carpets being ever so prestigious at the time, says the guide.

The erk green clearly has conveyed its message. We are hungry. We repair to Chowning’s Tavern in the main street where a woman in period garb takes our name and tells us we have 15 minutes to wait for a table. We sit and watch the world go by - well, the tourists. They are a mixed bunch. Mainly American.

We are led to a table upstairs in this handsome old inn building. Everything is rustic, especially the stairs. Signs warn you how rustic they are. Take care.

Waiters in period garb take our orders from a period-style menu. Astonished to find them on the menu, I choose pasties. Bruce orders Brunswick stew.

A young girl in period garb comes in and plays old tunes on the fiddle. She will do any requests of popular 18th century songs, she says. Silence from the diners. She plays on.

The food is terrific.

Now we head off for the Capitol building, the most important building in the town, the head of law and government. A splendid edifice it is of beautiful decorative brick work.

The original was destroyed by fire. This is a painstaking recreation.

Our tour guide appears to be a fairly mundane, dumpy woman unflattered by her ill-fitting period garb. And then she starts to talk. She turns out to be a wonderfully well-informed teacher who knows how to engage attention. She leads us through the processes of government in a series of handsome great chambers and finishes with a mock trial in which she selects the children in the group and gives them roles to play, thus ensuring that they are thoroughly involved and learning. It is charming and edifying. We adore this guide and the experience in general.

But we are feeling just a bit spent in the heat. It is a bigger town than one had imagined. We have done a lot of walking.

The day is no longer young.

We meander back, stopping at little mock shops, talking to the odd costume performer on the job as local colour. Oh, look, a post office. We go in. It not only sells cards but it postmarks them and dispatches them. Yes, please. My grandies are covering the fridge in the postcards I send from this epic road trip. They will love these.

And then it is back on the shuttle bus which takes us all around the modern, working, residential town of Williamsburg for pleasant good measure as we head back to the vast souvenirs hub of the visitor centre and the carpark.

Oh, and don’t we appreciate the air conditioning when we get there.

My gosh, it's Oshkosh

Six weeks now. The olive green Rogue, loaded

to the gunwales with “stuff”, is the one constant thing in our roaming world.

The landscape ever changes, even when it doesn’t.

As we purr into Wisconsin, we are still amid lush rolling farmland with corn, corn and more corn.

I find myself using the word “lush” a lot. Lushness prevails. These are rich, productive realms. Rural Wisconsin is just gorgeous. Streams, woodlands.

It is field and farms, darling barns and silos, silos, silos.

Every farm has its own silo.

Wisconsin is the great cheese state of the USA. At sporting events, Wisconsin people proudly wear absurdly ugly yellow giant faux cheese chunk hats and call themselves “Cheeseheads”. Truly.

We start seeing cheeseries.

We pause in Osseo for lunch. It is not much of a town.

But it has Moe’s Diner which makes up for everything. Out there on the landscape it sits as a classic American diner. It's huge sign brags that it is "almost world famous:.

Inside it is the whole experience - the red-topped bar stools, shining tubular steel, laminex table tops. Interestingly, I note the use of little diamonds of carpet on the wall as a decor feature.

We order proper diner food from the proper diner waitress, who is all good cheer. The food is absurdly ample. Bruce has meatloaf and mash. I have a fried chicken sandwich which comes with a mountain of the most exquisite french fried potatoes. Of course, one cannot and must not eat mountains of chips, however yummy. Of course I leave most of them on the plate just as I have seen everyone doing all over America. Restaurants are hooked on oversupply of french fries. I’ve been noting the mountains of leftovers in cafes, restaurants and diners across the country. Incalculable millions of tatties are being turfed. The country is swamped with homeless people asking for money for food and restaurants are throwing out ton upon ton of potatoes.

As we pass towns with odd names, it entertains us to moot how to say them in the Americans’ fractured French. St Croix is pronounced Saint Croy. Wonder how they say Menomonie. What a dire name for a town. I wouldn’t like that as my address.

We’re off Interstate 90 and on the lovely, easy country road called 10.

Shiny milk trucks. More corn and now some forests,

accompanied by roadside watering holes such as Lady Lumberjack’s Restaurant and Saloon, the Speakeasy Saloon…

We pass Neilsville, a neat little town with lots of car dealerships and even a car show. More green and luxuriant countryside with bars and round-topped silos.

We find a cheeserie and swing in to do the right cheesy Wisconsin thing. There’s an immense range of cheeses from parmesans to cheddar curds, We buy a caraway cheddar which turns out to be sublime.

Maple syrup Is on sale down the road.

A tiny town called Chili.

More miles of agriculture and dear little towns with homes and barns and Lutheran churches.

Ponds and livestock.

A settlement called Rudolph. We note they don’t post the populations in Wisconsin.

Ron Paul, the Libertarian former presidential candidate, is on the radio advertising freeze dryers to preserve your food for long storage - up to 20 years, he touts. This razzes us up a lot. How far can a presidential candidate fall? Advertising goods for survivalists?

We are so amused that, oops. We miss a turn.

Now there’s a huge a building with an elephant outside it - in back yonder Wisconsin? How exotic. It turns out to be a taxidermy store.

We cross the Tomorrow River. Then cross it again. And then again.

From taxidermy to the Bard.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace

from day to day…”

And then a roadside sign: “Fudge and Free Wine - Turn Now.”

What an hilarious combination. A complete turn-off. We don’t turn.

Lots more prosperous farming land. We cross the Rat River.

The sun is shining and the corn shimmers and glints in the fields.

And here comes Oshkosh, population 60,083.

Yikes, and lots of them dead. There is a cemetery lining one side of the road into town

and it goes on and on and on. An on!

This is a massive cemetery. Welcome to Oshkosh.

The town itself is quaint and olde-worlde, a little bit camel coloured, crumbly and down at heel, but characterful.

We will be staying in the Best Western Riverside Hotel.

I’ve booked a river view room and when I say I hope it

has a lovely view, the receptionist tells me that it is only a partial view. But I booked a river view. Not all river views are the same, she says. Huh? That is bait and switch. I booked a river view. Well, the river view rooms are taken and we can’t move people, she says with more than a bit of attitude. I am not impressed.

So the room has a view of the river across the expanses of parking station and buildings. It is a partial

view. But it is a view and it is also a big sky view over the carpark. In itself, it is a nice room.

We chug out for an exploratory walk, crossing the bridge, walking the length of the town’s main street, admiring the urban art and listening to the glorious mournful cries of the herring gulls which are wheeling proprietorially about the town.

There’s a funny old cinema called Time, looking as if time forgot it. There are some gorgeous old buildings. There is some striking urban art. There are lots of bars.

There is a shoe shop displaying Cher’s strident lime second-hand platform shoes. And Christine Aguilera’s red stilettos. And John Travolta’s black boots. They don’t seem to be for sale. Just there.

I want Oshkosh postcards. Or something bearing that famous name.

I pop into a couple of what I think are likely shops to sell Oshkosh postcards and maybe even an Oshkosh baseball cap. They look at me as if I am mad. No. No one has anything like that.

I check the hotel’s efficiency store. Oshkosh? No. We have Green Bay Packers things, though.

Epic fail.

We take a photo at the town’s information sign in the main street. Even there the name is not prominent.

But, hang on. Look at the sewage plates underfoot! Gorgeous. I photograph them as my official Oshkosh souvenir.

The hotel is perched right on the edge of the river with a fabulous restaurant both indoors and out on a riverside patio. We score a rock star table for two on the waterline and settle down with a glass of wine to watch Oshkosh at work and play. Luxurious speedboats putter in to tie up at little docks along the river path. Tanned couples, fit and rich-looking, disembark and merge into the restaurant and bar crowd around us.

Boats cruise to and fro. Bridges open for them. The Oshkosh sheriff is out there on a motorboat. We watch him picking up a boat and issuing a ticket right there in front of us on the water. We wonder why and ask a chap sitting beside us. “Making a wake,” says the man who turns out to be one of the local boat owners.

In the morning, after a stormy night, and a hearty breakfast, we resume my quest for Oshkosh memorabilia. I’ve become a bit fixated by the weird dearth of it. One of the girls on reception says that Walmart sells Oshkosh souvenirs. Off we go. I forage and inquire and find a couple of outsize t-shirts but no postcards let alone caps. We try a big service station. No. Nobody had ever asked for Oshkosh cards before. But Walgreens may. We try Walgreens. No, but we have t-shirts for the big air show.

We give up.

It’s time to hit the road.

But first, we investigate the massive military carpark we have seen across the river. A dense lineup of armoured cars and trucks and tanks. It turns out that, while Oshkosh no longer makes the children’s clothes for which it was once to famous, it now is the country’s leading manufacturer of defence vehicles. And here they are.

Good for you, Oshkosh.

The Badlands!

"The Badlands”. It sounds so sinister.

Gunslingers come to mind. Fugitives with festering shootout wounds. All the dramas and suspense of a bleak and brutal wild west saga.

It’s easily endorsed by the reaction you get when you say you’re going to the Badlands of South Dakota. It’s invariably a gasp.

Now I learn that they gasp with envy.

The Badlands is absolutely spectacular.

It is one of America’s great natural wonders.

For Aussies, it is America’s answer to the Breakaways and the Painted Desert.

It is called the Badlands because is is not arable land. It is a vast mass of fragile eroded peaks and valleys.

It is really layers and layers of sediment, glorious in the history it

has preserved and can show off, but absolutely of no agricultural potential. It was deeply disappointing to the early American pioneers; of course, not so to the indigenous Indian tribes. For them it is a marvel of sacred land.

And today, it has achieved that sort of status for the American people.

It is a marvel and people come to marvel. They come in droves.

They are really nice people. The American people we encounter out on the roads being tourists in their own country seem uniformly to be intelligent, curious, polite, friendly and just downright beaut.

We are lucky. The day we arrive at the Badlands National Park is one of those perfect days which precede a

storm.

Like so many things in America, the Badlands experience is all very sleekly organised.

The roads and good and there are lots of designated lookouts. Lots.

There are lots of people at the each lookout and everyone looks out for each other very politely. There is plenty of room, after all.

Everyone is just in awe of what they are seeing.

I take photographs. Everyone is snapping madly. Selfie sticks are out by the score.

But nothing truly captures the perspective, the

sense of pure perilousness of the Badlands.

Bruce describes them rather nicely as “a parfait of banded coloured soils placed in scoops upon the landscape”.

We drive along the curving road, stopping frequently. We realise that we are on a high plateau and The Badlands are below us - vertiginously! It is really quite hairy.

While some of the viewing points are constructed lookouts, many are just walks onto the upper levels with

gullies just veering away down the sides, steep and nubbly and soft.

Erosion has made some fascinating sculptural shapes.

In some parts where the road winds in between the formations instead of above them, they rise in pinnacles and spires. Gaudi-esque, one could almost say. Glorious works of art.

We just do the proper thing. We drive. We stop. We walk onto the

dramatic promontories following the trodden earth carefully. It is amazing people have not fallen down the deep and precipitous ravines to either side. Amazing. There are no guard rails or anything to warn visitors. The American national park people have not defiled the drama of the landscape but allowed danger to be part of the experience.

Sometimes the road comes alarmingly close to a canyon. I mean, suddenly it is there out the

window. One wonders, with the powers of erosion, when the road will fall into the canyon. Not today, whew. We roll onwards.

We stop to walk The Fossil Trail, a meandering boardwalk which describes the fossil history found in the Badlands and represents the assorted fossils in superb bronze facsimiles on the information boards. It explains the geological timeline - and one can look at the formations’ striations and literally see time.

Oh yes, the Badlands are really good.

Mt Rushmore, the mighty

Nothing prepares one for Mt Rushmore.

Not all the photos or documentaries. Not even North By Northwest with Cary Grant dangling from Washington’s nose.

It is a stunning rock formation which seems to glow with the finesse of the faces looking down from it.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Grand, wise, good faces. Huge. High and huge. Sixty feet high. Noses 20 ft long. Eyes 11 feet wide.

Beneath the sculptures the rubble waste cascades down the hillside like an avalanche. Rocks were not just jackhammered to make these images;

they were dynamited. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, even blasted one completed face off of the cliff - because it did not meet his aims. The project involved some 400 workers and took from 1927 - 1941.

It towers there in a magnificent landscape. Other peaks have similar boulder formations and one can imagine how they could inspire an artist to create a major work.

As we stand and gaze, clouds move across the sky and we see the sculptures in changing light. The clouds bring a different and even sharper perspective.

Oh, they are mighty.

They are serene as they gaze out across the

mountain landscape to infinity.

They imbue the world beneath with a sense of its smallness.

Of course, the sculptures have created a bit of a tourism industry.

A grand avenue has been erected where people can walk to a viewing area. It has been constructed of granite and marble and given an arch and an honour guard of the flags of all the United States of America. This gives an added sense of respect and gravitas.

Its grandeur hints a little at great

archeological sites like Ephesus and Olympia.

Of course it swarms with visitors, most of them Americans exploring their own land with curiosity and pride.

There are official information centres and souvenir shops up there, too.

But down the mountain, the real tourism industry has made its merry explosions.

There are two whole villages of ticky-tacky shops, cafes, and bars. They are set out rather as one would find in a wild west movie set.

Since there are only so many Mt Rushmore souvenirs people can buy, the shops sell souvenirs of almost everything. There’s even a

Christmas Tree shop tucked in there selling Chrissy kitsch.

There’s an old period hotel and lots more recent accommodation. There are rides and activities for the kiddies.

There are serious cultural museums, waxworks, wood sculpture yards, gold panning….something for everyone. This is America, after all.

I love it all.

Except, perhaps, for the religious exploitation which takes us rather by surprise.

At the memorial there is an evangelical pod set up on the grand avenue beneath the sculptures. A grey-haired man in a dark suit sits under an umbrella amid acolytes and promotional paraphernalia suggesting that the Bible could tell us something about all this. Bruce is unusually irritated by the bad taste of this display in this place which is about nation, art, and human endeavour.

He actually pauses and gives the missionary some feedback. “Mt Rushmore is not the place to be advertising your religion. I’m of a mind to open an atheist stand right opposite you to tell people my view,” he declares. The missionary does not respond.

Worse was to come when we spied a huge sign carved out on a large wall beneath a large development just down the valley. It was a URL, “whatisthis4.com". Bruce looked it up. Oh, no. A massive missionary centre devoted to sending people en masse out to shine their light to people of other faiths? What the?

In the shadow of those wise old men of American history, those men who believed in secular government, education, and progress?

Extraordinary arrogance.

For Ritzer. For poorer.

The open road. The big sky.

It is a bright blue sky dotted with puffs of cloud. It’s about 90 degsF. We’re zooming east across Washington state through a gently undulating landscape.Out the window are golden acres of hay, hillsides of blue-green saltbush-like shrubs and lots of phone towers.

We need coffee.

At last, a truck strop.

Good grief, it is also a flyspeck town called Ritzville.

Look, and there is The Ritz, right there on the dusty roadside.

In we go.

Oh Ritz, poor Ritz. You have seen better days.

The Ritz has a neon sign in the window blinking “Open” but no sign of customers. There are some roadside fast food outlets. They look quiet, too.

We follow signs to the Historic District.

The houses are mixed, some abandoned and some tended. There’s a sleek golf course and a playground with kids hurtling down a water slide and into a pool.

Down the road it’s all very quiet. Almost deserted.

Beside a railway line stand massive yellow green silos.

There’s an utterly derelict building which proclaims itself as a Festival centre. Its use by date must have been half a century ago, so sway-backed and peeling it is.

I doubt it is worth restoring. A sight of grand days of the arts, once upon a time. One could weep. What happened?

The main street of this historic district has a quaint olde worlde charm. But it is all very, very quiet. Where are the people?

But, look at the grocery store. What a wonderful name for a shop. The last word in cheerful hope. Please come in. Someone?

We cruise around a little more. Ritzville is somewhere between a going concern and a ghost town.

Broad streets. Empty buildings. A Ritz Theatre? It is brightly painted.

It is definitely an agricultural rail town and it is out of season. Everyone, obviously, is at the little pool. There the little town sits beside the truck-rushing highway, its strident “Ritz” sign begging for attention from atop its giant pole.

If anyone stops, they will be able to buy fireworks. There’s a sort-of tent displaying July 4 fireworks with very patriotic names.

Artillery Combo Pack. First Strike. Undefeated. Heroes. Seal Team - Day Parachute. A lot of signs just say TNT. There’s a truck and a trailer beside the tent. The merchant must be having a snooze.

And, oh, yes. They certainly can get a coffee.

It turns out to be an excellent stop for coffee.

Incongruously, A tiny espresso stand sits there in the wilds of a deserted carpark. Inside, a vivacious young girl makes an excellent coffee in a neatly cluttered little world of muffins and cookies and coffee flavourings.

All alone in there, she is the hidden soul of unRitzy Ritzville.

Road Rage

Driving out of lovely Seattle. We’re stocked up with good driving music, Rad Trads and all. Yet I have this masochistic compulsion to be ear-bashed by American conservative radio jocks.

What’s my problem?

I guess I just love being gobsmacked.

So, we’re hissing along the multi-lane highway in the grey rain amid towering trucks and shonky lane-weavers. Everyone’s going too fast for the wet conditions. It’s tense driving.

Even the landscape is glum. Just endless dreary commercial outlets, retail which seems to go on for ever.

So I add insult to the misery.

The local AM radio.

The radio ads are for KeepAndBearArms.com

Today’s redneck seems to be Lars Larsen. But they all sound the same. Gravel-voiced and angry.

“The little left-wing boy Jews are the most brainwashed crazy people,” crackles the wireless.

“President Obama is President Oblivious.

“You know he uses weirdos from Harvard. Their days are numbered.”

“Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump…”

“Hillary supports Jihadis…”

“The CIA is our enemy. They’re traitors. They have sold out to radical Islam. They are trying to shut up the conservatives…"

Didn’t I hear this all before?

Oh, that must have been the last time I turned the radio on.

More ads:

ABH, the clothing brand for Christian warriors.

The last word in fashionable survivalist outfits from KatieArmor.com.

Special deal on steel products for your church.

Sometimes America can be overwhelmingly extreme.

What a contrast is this ranting madness to the erudite and accomplished Americans I know, to the vivid theatre people, writers, craftspeople…

Change the station and it is more hate radio under another name.

They dare to call it news radio but the news reports are peremptory.

Gotta get back to the tirade.

Luckily, the sun has come out.

The landscape has opened up as broad valleys of small working farms with barns. Rugged cinder cone mountains line the horizon. The world is lush and green.

Heavens above, and there is a HOUSE ahead of us on the road.

Two sections of a new wooden home - cut right down the middle - on two huge trailers, with advance and rear cars with flashing lights. All of them going 70 mph, which is about 115kph - and driven by women.

I take snaps out the window.

There are signs to Skagit Valley. Lovely name, I don’t think.

It seems to consist of massive, and I mean massive, outlet malls and tucked in behind them rows of mini storage units.

Good mix.

One can overshop on outlet bargains and then stash the excess in a mini storage unit.

Another lovely name. Chuckanut.

It seems to specialise in RVs. There are breathtaking acres of caravans and mobile homes. And the biggest US flag I ever saw. The height of a two-storey house. Wow. Why?

Then, abruptly, the landscape returns to pretty farmland valleys girded by sumptuous green mountains.

It is all a bit aesthetically schizophrenic, really.

I turn on some music.