A passenger's life

It’s a mild day. Clouds are flimsy. The sky is blue with a positive spirited.

I’ve just had a glorious swim and sun in the impeccable Country Inn by Carlson here at Ocean Springs, Mississippi. We’ve packed the car with our mountain of road trip luggage. We have the packing thing down to a fine art now. Dovetailed teamwork.

We’re happy and relaxed.

Until we get out on the highway.

Oh madness. Trucks rule the road, jockeying in and out in devil-may-care manoeuvres to get ahead of each other. There’s a manic mood out here. American commerce on the roads is overwhelming.

And there are overpasses and overpasses. It’s hard driving. Thank dog it is not a long drive to New Orleans.

Bruce keeps a steady speed. He’s been driving the olive green Rogue for 10,000 miles now. He loves it to bits. And he loves the driving, so long as it is not for more than about 3-4 hours a day. That is how he has plotted the route; short hops and lots of discovery time.

I am happy being a passenger. I drove the car a bit in north Georgia, just to get a feel for the it in case there is ever need of backup. But I have never been comfortable driving on the wrong side of the road, let alone in the aggressive furies of these trucks and ratbags on the great Interstate routes. So I sit and look at the world, try not to get nervous, take my notes, try to grab fleeting impossible photographs through windows, hand out snacks when required… And I marvel at things.

Today, passing the tall pine-scrub and the swampy Biloxi River, I become fascinated by the growth of the roadside billboards. I swear they have been getting taller and taller. There’s a big M for McDonalds out there on top of a long, long pole and it looms as high as a phone tower. Yep, we can see it. It would take the record were it not for the Shell sign which also has a huge pole. Bigger? Yes. It is silly. It is out of proportion. That huge, high pole and that tiny shell logo perched on top. What were they thinking?

Such are the profundities contemplated by the epic road trip passenger.

There are many mysteries and oddities which will forever remain unexplained out there on the roadsides.

We’re humming along at 70 mph on Interstate 10 along the Gulf coast.

Tall, scruffy trees and lowlands scrub line the road. We pass a massive outlet mall out there in the middle of nowhere. Shopping as a destination, I suppose. Signs point to Long Beach and Christian.

Good grief, that is an outsized petrol station, bright yellow and decorated with red hearts, splayed in massive arms of petrol pump drive throughs. Maybe 20 or 30 of them. Why is it here? Like the outlet mall, it seems to be stranded extravagantly in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a Godot flood of thirsty traffic.

More billboards on steroids. Even bigger and taller than the last lot. They are advertising resorts, brewery tours, casinos, bayou buggies, fast foods…

Some of them, nearer to the towns, are fatties, not just pillars but major productions with platforms enabling workers to be up there changing the message.

Signs point to Diamondhead and Picayune.

It’s swampy out there now, ginger brown grasses, curves of water.

Shacks and homes are out there and pontoons and boats sit on the water.

Alligator country, says Bruce.

More of those lovely skinny roadside trees, then more low scrub, then more swamp. More leggy pines, more low pine scrub. We’re passing through broad swampy lowlands abundant with a lush mixture of trees. It is really quite gorgeous.

Wow. There’s a NASA sign out here amid the swamps. Stennis Space Centre. HQ of Naval Oceanography Control. Astounding. It’s the largest rocket testing facility in the country, actually, says Bruce.

We hum over the swamp on a long high bridge and, hey presto, here’s the Louisiana border. Exits lead to Hattiesburg and Baton Rouge.

More flatlands, oh so grassy flat. And a burst of commerce. Good grief. That must be the longest stretch of car yards I’ve ever seen. Bayou Country announces a sign.

Oh, that’s what these beautiful swamps are. Of course.

Here comes Lake Ponchartrain and a magnificent bridge.

This is the small bridge. The massive 24-mile concrete bridge is over there in the distance crossing the widest part of the lake. And there’s another bridge just for trains.

America’s fantastic infrastructure, says Bruce; at least it used to be.

We’re going south on 510 now past Chalmette and Little Woods. There’s a NASA Chalmette sign and a sign to Chalmette Battlefield. War of 1812, says Bruce; the Poms got skinned.

The traffic is a bit of a war, too. Oh, my, they are fearless speeders.

We drive under great rusted overpasses and find the rushing cement road now adorned with a median strip planting of palmettos and crepe myrtles. We are coming in through the outer burbs of New Orleans. Big, sedate houses.

The speed limit is signposted at 60mph. Can’t the drivers read? Cars are zapping past and weaving from lane to lane at absurd speed.

The road crosses canals, many green with algae. We pass through what look like comfortable suburbs. Manic drivers pass us.

Are these America’s worst drivers?

Over an industrial bridge, canals, the sea… There’s mimosa blooming…and here’s the city on the skyline. In we go.

Hello New Orleans.

Dollywood - at last

Pigeon Forge. What a wonderful name for a town. We’re here to visit Dollywood. I am utterly unashamed of the fact that I have long wanted to visit Dollywood and that I think Dolly Parton is just a, well, a Dolly. I’ve loved the very idea of Dollywood albeit I was never quite sure how it manifested itself. So, we have traversed the glorious Blue Ridge Mountains into sweet Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains to find out. It has been a fascinating drive.

Until the traffic jams. It takes a tedious forever to get a mile through the town to our hotel. Jam, gridlock, backup, impasse, whatever. It is all of them. In this little Tennessee town. It is the Labor Day long weekend. It is one of the biggest family holiday weekends on the US calendar. And we have come to one of the most popular US family holiday locations on this weekend. It was not quite in our plans.

We are crawling past a mile of crass commercial kitsch: theme hotels, family entertainment enterprises and donut joints when my Google Maps speaks up. Out of the blue, in a sweet Aussie voice, she tells us that there is a way to beat the traffic. If we just turn off here and follow these winding back roads… We do as she suggests. It is a wonderful backstreet drive. And suddenly we are at our hotel. We love you Google Siri.

The Clarion Inn is just full of families. Oh, my. All of Pigeon Forge is packed. We load our mountainous luggage onto a hotel trolly. Bruce just loves these things. He now has his own litany of hotel likes and dislikes. Dislikes: valets, porters, offsite parking, paid WiFi. Likes: Being in control, easy parking, free breakfasts, fast internet.

The Clarion Inn is set in the middle of a great big carpark. Pretty it ain’t.

But fun it is. The view from our little balcony is of the madness of Pigeon Forge. For instance, there is a huge ferris wheel which, by night is a delight of ever-changing coloured lights and foreground to a nightly fireworks display. There are the illuminated carriages which live in our carpark and great grey horses, Sir Charles and Lady Diana, who come out at dusk to pull them through the streets giving people a romantic heritage carriage ride though the, um, traffic. We get to know a bit about this carriage business, chatting to the boss lady, Peggy. She’s from Georgia with one of those full Southern drawls. Don’t I remind you of Paula Deane, she laughs. Oh, the TV chef with all the butter. Yes.

Peggy has all the gossip. Yes, Dolly comes to town regularly. She has all these wonderful accommodations for tourists but she has never slept in any of them. She’s got a mansion in Brentwood. You always know when she is at Dollywood because her big, black SUV has a special park out the front. She doesn’t own it now, you know. She has only 10 per cent. But that brings in a million a week. Not bad, eh. She does own the water park.

We decide that, traffic being what it is, we will walk wherever we can. Firstly, it is to the supermarket to get drink supplies and pain killers. I have acquired a wicked neck ache. We’ve been scoping out restaurants in the area and I am not thrilled by the chains around us, so to speak. But there, just one street behind the hotel and tucked in a particularly nondescript row of offices, is Fusion Cafe Asian Grill. Bless. What’s more, this quaint little family business in its long room, darkened by wooden venetians to disguise the glorious carpark view outside, offers Malaysian fare as well as Chinese and Japanese. It has been so long. This becomes “our” restaurant in Pigeon Forge.

No one could say that Pigeon Forge is beautiful. It is set amid the spectacular Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, some of the most sumptuously glorious mountains in the world, but it is really just one big, dusty, garish family playground which has built up rapaciously around the enterprises of Dolly Parton. She has a hand in a few of the attractions, according to the billboards. There is a Dolly waterpark as well as Dollywood. And there are lots of wild-west and country-music dinner shows. There's even a Biblical Times dinner show.

We skipped it.

Dolly’s love of funfairs has spawned mini copy cats which enable families go on fun-park crawls up and down the main drag. They can ride zip-lines and mini rollercoasters, dodgems and mini drag cars. The can be lifted aloft on tethered hot air balloons. They can play mini golf and arcade games. And they can eat waffles, donuts, fried chicken, and ice-cream from a thousand outlets. Our fellow hotel guests with a squillion excited kids in tow, are here to do it all, especially the eating. There are some prodigious people here.

Our hotel receptionist tips Bruce off about the locals’ way to get to Dollywood so, when we whisk off it is with absolute ease right to the gate. We booked our tickets for Dollywood online, selecting Preferred Parking as an add-on. Anyone who ever intends to go there should follow suit. It makes a significant difference in the amount of hoofing and waiting. Instead of depending on shuttles from distant and massive carparks, one gets to park right by the main gate and stroll on in. The day is hot, hot, hot, so we are deliriously glad of our good choice of the parking option.

There’s a thorough security check at the gate. Bags scrupulously examined by good-natured guards. The first thing one notices in Dollywood

is how nice everyone is. They are all downright Tennessee friendly. A lot of the staff seems to have come from central casting - handsome, silver-haired gentlemen and weathered mountain grannies. The second thing you notice in Dollywood is all the images of Dolly Parton. She beams from all over the place. Music is piped. The atmosphere is set. Bright, warm, convivial, cheery - Dolly.

We’ve been told that if there is only one thing one does in Dollywood, it must be to eat a the cinnamon bread. One can smell the cinnamon in the air as soon as one enters the park.

But straight ahead of us is a music museum so we make it first port of call. It is a shrine to

country and western and gospel stars of the region. There is an animatronic quartet singing a capella; so unnervingly lifelike that one is stopped in one’s tracks on a double-take.

Outside there are merchandise shops and ice-cream shops and people swarming around. It is very colourful and cheerful. There are fewer children than one anticipated but lots of ample olds instead. Some of them are so ample that they move their mighty girths around on gophers, much like the ones

Walmart supplies for its obese clientele. They all seem to clutch large drinks containers. The Dolly souvenir special.

Here’s our first theatre. Come on in, says the granny at the door. The show has just started. It is a concert performance by the Kingdom Heirs. Great name. The auditorium is vast and almost full. We find aisle seats towards the back. People seem in quite a reverie. They are in some ways a tough looking, older crowd, mountain folk maybe, and many of the couples seem very openly and sweetly affectionate towards each other.

Caressing of shoulders, twirling of hair. I’m not used to seeing that as part of audience behaviour - and I’ve seen a lot of audiences. But these are religious people and this is a gospel group. They are country and western gospel rock, I think. They are very good. The vocal harmonies are exquisitely arranged and balanced and the bass singer has the most remarkable deep profundo bass we have ever heard. We sit in pleasure in the cool theatre for quite a long time - until, suddenly, the baritone MC breaks out into a Bible-quoting sermon which shows no sign of stopping. We tiptoe out, back into the hot Dolly day.

It’s time to hunt out the famous cinnamon buns. We follow our noses to an airy cafe where

several of Dolly’s central-casting helpers are serving a queue of people cakes and cookies and, yes, the famous cinnamon buns. Bruce orders us cups of tea and a bun each. Naughty Bruce. They are big buns. They are oven-fresh, their generous layers of icing still soft and delicate. With their deep swirls of cinnamon and light yeastiness, they are out of this world. We are both swooning, gazing at each other in guilty rapture. Looking at the fat

people outside and suddenly understanding how this could happen to them in the land of such sweet indulgences. It’s OK, says Bruce. We never do this. And we haven’t had lunch. This is lunch. It is not too bad. No, it is a definition of bliss. We eschew the six-pack cinnamon bun takeaway specials and the you-can’t-eat-just-one sign and waddle out on a sugar high.

Dollywood is immense. There are signposts and diverging paths. We check out the big display maps but still wander with more laid-back curiosity than purpose. Just letting it happen. There is a stream and a little bridge. There is as much prettiness as there is show and commerce. We come upon the Dolly dress shop where they brag that one can have Dolly clothes but in real

sizes. Dolly, of course, is petite. I cruise around and see if I want to be Dolly. No. Those ruffles and cinch skirts are not for me.

There’s a Dolly Life Story Museum and a 1950s theme cafe complete with period cars and petrol pumps. And there is another theatre. The big show is about to start. Perfect. We’re among the very last in and the smiling usher directs us to the front row - which has been kept for the disabled. What luck.

This is a stage show telling the story of Dolly’s life in music. It has a band on stage and six or so performers who, we’re told, are not blood to Dolly but they are considered family nonetheless. We are all family here in Dollywood

says the compere. So the performers are introduced as cousins and siblings. Dolly appears on a big screen at the back of the stage. This, it turns out, is a multimedia production and the live performers switch, swap and interact with big Dolly on the screen. It is a sophisticated and snappy production. Several of the male performers are in the

Kenny Rogers mould. Handsome. Long plaits, beards. Country-western long coats. Central casting again. The women are mixed. One looks like a gnarled elderly Dolly with a mass of long, blonde hair. Another is immensely ample. They are a terrific crew and they turn on some Dolly classics both in chorus with onscreen Dolly and as individual numbers. It’s a long, slick, thoroughly entertaining, warm-hearted show.

Out into the hot day again, we explore more of the avenues of Dollywood - past the most immense wooden roller coaster, past water flumes and crazy pseudo-rapids boat rides. There’s an old country store, more stages which are setting up for shows, more food areas selling hot dogs and pulled pork, donuts, and shakes. There are dress-up photo spots and zip-lines and more rides and more stages. Young performers are doing a

tribute show. We pause and listen for a while. There’s a craftsman in period gear making cowboy belts. Something new is around every bend.

We are now hot, tired, and thoroughly happy with the Dollywood experience. We have found it charming, innocent, good-natured - very Dolly. We are ready to call it a day. But, oh, where are we? This network of meandering paths and

diverse distractions has us quite lost. We’ve walked for miles. We go in the direction we think is towards the exit but it is not. We hover around the big mill and waterwheel. We are totally bamboozled. Finally I ask the man who looks like he's been here longest. It turns out we have gone in exactly the wrong direction. Go back and under the rail bridge and then fork right after Grandma’s store, he says.

We follow instructions and walk, and walk. There’s the rail bridge. Oh, no, it’s another sort of overpass. Which rail bridge? Keep going. Why didn’t we get a map? My, it’s hot. Aha! That must be a rail bridge. Of course. There’s Grandma.

Now, if we take this branch to the right. Eventually, eventually, back past the giddy perfumes of cinnamon and sugar, we find the exit gate.

It was a lovely day.

The strange state of American politics

Don’t ask.

America’s traditional Republicans don’t want to talk about it.

They just can’t process it.

Donald Trump.

The Trump phenomenon is a jaw-dropping political steamroller.

The American media seems to have become a Trump marketing machine. Some radio stations and TV networks talk of nothing else, 24 hours a day. Truly. If they run out of spokespeople, they interview each other about him.

When newscasts and current affairs shows trumpet “breaking news”, one might expect it to be some story about, well, news. Almost without fail right now, it will be some piece of Trump trivia. A tweet, perhaps.

If he hasn’t done anything today, they will be analysing what he did yesterday. The Trump machine is pumping it out non stop. It is as astounding as it is terrifying. Trump believes in repetition. He is quoted as saying that if you repeat it long enough, it will become true.

This is an old right-wing strategy, of course and it has been working against Hillary Clinton for years. So Americans now are trained to repeat the same phrases about her. Untrustworthy. Email server. Benghazi. Clinton Foundation.

But, while the Republicans have lots of snipes against the Democratic presidential nominee, words seem to catch in their throats when they are asked about Donald Trump.

Nervous laughter is a common response.

Oh, what you must be thinking about our country, they say.

I never thought I could feel sorry for Republicans, but these people are in pain. Their political ground has been ripped from under them. They are conservatives but they are not ratbags or extremists. They are educated, hard-working people. That Trump has turned out to be their main man has taken them rather by surprise. Embarrassment, even.

While he thunders and dominates the media, he seems to have thrust a huge portion of the American population into uncharacteristic reticence.

They don’t want to talk about him. They don’t know how they will vote.

They will start by referring to Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings. They definitely don’t want to vote for that woman. But…

They can’t dredge up any reasons they may vote for Trump.

They are in denial.

An elegant African American gentlemen with whom I was engaged in conversation in Richmond did a spectacular sidestep when I tried to gauge his feelings about Trump and the election. The most I could squeeze out of him was “he is an interesting man”.

Driving through New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Tennessee, it has been Trump signs on the roadsides. Not a single Hillary sign. The last one I saw was in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Commenting on this to a hospitality worker in Roanoke, a charming arty town in western Virginia, I was assured that it was not really as one sided as it looks. But the man, a “resting” actor, spoke in conspiratorial whispers. He actually looked over his shoulder as he spoke.

I’ve really tried to bring up the election issue with people I meet.

If they are solid Republicans, and they all have been in our travels through these states, they still can’t find praise for Trump. One woman responded to my curiosity with an attack on Obama.

The most common line which has been created and endlessly marketed by the media, is that America is suffering the “two most disliked candidates of all time”.

There has been so much attack on Hillary Clinton that I think people now are afraid to be seen supporting her.

But no matter how hard the media thrusts him down their throats, they can’t come around to Trump.The don’t like him. Yet, he is the man their party has given them.

These articulate and outspoken people have been muted.

America is profoundly uncomfortable.

Tears for Abraham Lincoln

But, how was the play, Mrs Lincoln?

Suddenly that is simply not funny. Not when one is at Ford's Theatre.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is one of those vile tragedies which galls people today almost as much as it appalled them 151 years ago.

Today the place where he was killed having a nice night out with his wife, a civilized evening of good theatre, is a strange Washington shrine.

It was in the Ford's Theatre that actor John Wilkes Booth did the heinous act on April 14, 1865. Oh, what a piece of hideous theatre did he perform.

Lincoln, a cultured man for whom theatre was one of life’s joys, was escaping from the immense stress which the American Civil War had placed upon him.

He had done his best to give guidance and support to a conflict which clearly caused him pain - a battle between fellow countrymen over not just constitutional imperative but the institution of slavery. There is a lot of complex politics betwixt and between the drivers of this most awful of all wars and I am not the person to articulate them all in the space of a mere travel blog. Historians and a vast realm of Civil War experts have analysed and documented this context for the past 150 years. There are enough books on the Civil War to fill a library. All I have to add, in the great scheme of things, is my tears. All wars are unconscionable. This most heartbreakingly so.

However, there were heroes in this war and above all, there was Abraham Lincoln and his clear-eyed view of how things should be. So, as this awful war rode into its fourth year of bloodshed and privation, seeing the writing on the wall and having the opposing generals in his purview, he was to recommend that the end, when it came, be dignified.

This he decreed just two weeks before his death, as the war was approaching its end. He barely survived the formal end of the war.

The South was still swarming with raggle taggle soldiers finding their way home.

The Ford Theatre is not prepossessing from the outside. It is pretty bland. The historic entrance is extremely understated.

And we can’t see inside the auditorium on the steamy, hot day we visit because it is still a working theatre and a new production is in rehearsal.

We are directed downstairs to the museum

which tells the story of Lincoln and his assassination.

But first we must have tickets to gain access.

The tickets are free but you have to have one.

The museum is run by America’s National Park Service and so, oddly, it is manned by rangers.

This is a superbly designed narrative museum.

The stories of the conspirators are clearly told and compartmentalised but linked together as one moves around.

The lighting is masterful, some of it atmospheric, some aesthetic and come conservationist. There are life-sized models of the people of the day so one can put oneself among them, or away from them as the sentiment dictates.

The profile of Lincoln is clearly presented. Even the play he was attending, Our American Cousin.

And, oh my heavens, there is the gun which killed him. Just sitting there behind a piece of glass. The actual gun. It seems so small.

And, oh, there in that dark display case are the very clothes he was wearing.

And a blood stained pillow.

I did not expect to see this.

It is desperately immediate. Intimate.

Here too are Mrs Lincoln’s opera glasses and the bunting which draped the Lincolns’ box in the theatre. There is the rip in the bunting where the athletic Booth caught his spur while leaping down to the stage, causing him to fall badly and break his leg.

And here is Arthur Doyle, a park ranger guide who is one of the world’s great experts in this tragedy. He answers our questions and adds immense depth to the story.

They carried Lincoln across the road for treatment.

Our free tickets also include admission to this place.

We trot over the road into the Peterson House where, amid all the drama and panic of the day, the paralysed president was laid upon the bed in a back bedroom.

But Lincoln had been shot in the back of the head.

He could not be saved.

The house has never been the same. It is another shrine, another museum run by the National Park Service and it, too,

has well-informed rangers giving life and colour to the history.

We encounter a particularly vivid story-teller, a park ranger with theatrical flair. He regales us with tales of the terrible fates of all those involved. Booth had a Dr. Mudd set his leg and went on the run but was shot a week or so later. Everyone touched by the assassination seemed to go mad or come to some awful end according to the ranger.

The Peterson house has three floors and we toddle around all of them looking at yet more well-presented documentation and exhibits.

Perhaps the most spectacular display is the most current. It grows pretty much by the day.

In the Peterson house they have arrayed it as a massive spiral rising over all three floors; all of the books written about Abraham Lincoln. Thousands of them. Towering metres of them. The New York Times estimated 15,000 books to have been written about the 16th President. And the output shows no sign of stopping.

Wonders and wackos in Washington DC

Secret Service with “Secret Service” emblazoned on their uniforms?

How secret is that?

Thus starts my visit to the White House with unexpected mirth.

It’s a day in Washington for me with husband Bruce and stepdaughter, Cathy.

I’ve been here before. I’ve done art museums and the Air and Space Museum but never ventured to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And here it is - that famous and handsome white edifice set back across the lawns behind the iron rails. And Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House is a broad expanse of open dirt road. Yes, a dirt road.

Ye olde presidential dirt road.

People group at the railings gazing at the White House. There’s an epidemic of selfies.

The public Secret Service guys watch them.

The police presence is extremely high. I see guns. Dogs. Police cars.

Fair enough. People have in the past tried to scale the fence and run amok.

Of course, once one has seen the White House sitting there being the White House, that is pretty much it.

One can’t get a tour without having approached one’s member of Congress and we plain forgot to do that. We three are just outsiders.

We do the right thing. We pose for photos.

Then my attention is attracted by an old woman sitting under an umbrella in the middle of the road, knitting. Yes, knitting.

This is not what I expected. Bloody hell, This old bird is knitting the Pentagon’s budget priorities. Of course she is. It’s a massive rug spread out over her knees and all around her and she’s adding to it. The temperature is about 1 million degrees with added humidity but there she sits with sun shade and ginormous woolen rug, diligently knitting the USA's defence spending.

People seem to avoid her. The police leave her alone.

I, of course, have a chat. She says there were others in her peace campaign but her friend who used to make her stand for peace sitting over there has died and she is it these days, the only one of her ilk. Oh, apart from those people by that tent over there.

Sure enough, there is a makeshift tent over there and some men standing about with placards. They look bored and hot. No one seems to take notice of them, either.

Then a women strikes up from the other side of the road. She has brought her own amplifier and mike and she is making a speech in a shrill, grating voice. For heaven’s sake. She is running for President. This woman is campaigning. Move over Hillary Clinton. This is Melody Crombie. She is reading a speech from her iPhone. But holding the microphone and the iPhone is not an easy task and she is reading very badly. It is hard to make sense of her. No one is taking any notice. I try to listen but in her jerky delivery it is meaningless polly-babble. Then she starts on about God. I’m gone.

I’ve found the anti-gun lobby. Now these are really brave people.

Not that they are really anti-gun. Well, they would be. But that is an unpopular position. They are pro smart-gun technology and are telling the NRA to step up. To that end, they are holding rather naif placards in luminous colours.

I engage them in conversation, of course saying that there are fewer gun accidents if there are fewer guns.

Oh, another smug Australian, they say.

Seems I am not the first.

Police are thick on the ground in Washington DC and police sirens are frequent in the air but they are not chasing crooks or dealing with emergencies but providing security for VIP cars and buses. Washington is VIP central.

Accommodating many of those VIPs since 1850 has been the Willard Hotel. It’s now an Intercontinental. It is just the grandest and most beautiful posh old hotel.

I come upon it by accident.

We have been hoofing around for some time with me trying to find a letter box in which to post postcards home to the grandies. The lack of post boxes is a worry, reflecting all those reports on the slow death of the postal system. I am trying to keep it alive single-handed with my regular flurries of cards. But it is a hot day and frustration is mounting so, seeing a hotel entrance, I figure I can dash in and beg a friendly bellman to take mercy upon a traveller and pop my cards in with

the hotel mail. Well, the hotel door is its rear door leading down a vast arcade-like corridor. Thick carpet, rich red tones, chandeliers...

The reception area is at the front of the hotel, at the far end of the corridor.

And I find myself in one of the world’s beautiful old hotel lobbies. Not just beautiful, but significant.

It is a short walk to the White House so world leaders and all manner of VIPs stay here.

Popular legend has it that this is the hotel where President Ulysses E. Grant’s visits for a gregarious brandy and cigar were some times blighted by opportunistic people in the lobby petitioning him for favours for their assorted causes. It is said that he came to refer to them as “those damn lobbyists”. And thus was the term lobbyist coined from that very lobby where the bellman cheerfully took my mail and whisked it off to the antipodes.

Chancing upon the Trump legacy in Atlantic City.

We’re so sad to leave New York City that we leave it one day early.

Doh.

We're suffering our first disaster on this epic road trip. It is the great peril of retirement. We often don’t know what day it is.

In this case, we have juggled dates and moved from our original schedule - and then forgotten that we have done it.

Doh, again.

We do not discover our error until lunchtime - following a lovely swim at

the Gansevoort’s gorgeous rooftop pool and a pleasant drive through the Sopranos' territory of New Jersey, marshes, and oil refineries.

It’s very flat land.

As we drive past Newark Airport, planes seem to be landing on roads right beside us. Well, they are. It is just that their roads are called runways.

South West planes are painted purple, red and orange. Aerial chic or aviation garish? Such are the profundities one ponders on the road.

As we rumble through a landscape of heavy industry, the NJ motto of The Garden State seems odd. But the marshes are green and pretty and when we get onto the seven-lane Garden State Parkway, well, this is the best road in the world. If it is not, it is my favourite road in the world. It is so smooth and leafy, sleek and forest-lined. Superbly maintained. It has no trucks.

We stop at one of those massive service areas for lunch. This is not a nice one. It has burgers and hot dogs and fried chicken, junk food rampant in confusing queues. We pick up cheap and nasty hamburgers and Bruce rings his old Yale roommate, Jim in Philadelphia, to liaise our imminent meeting in Cape May.

Except that, as Jim points out, it is not imminent. It is tomorrow.

We go into a flurry of damage control.

That’s why the room staff at the Gansevoort were cleaning the room when we came down from the pool. We were not on the departure list for another day. Oh, that lovely room is still ours. Is it too far to go back?

No going back, says Bruce.

Let’s have an adventure instead.

Let’s go to Atlantic City.

I whiz into my Expedia App and see what I can find for tonight.

Look, Bruce, this old golf resort looks romantic. Shall we? Two seconds later, Expedia whizzes a confirmation into my phone and off we go.

Sucking Strepsils as we drive. We’ve managed to bring that ubiquitous New York cough with us as a souvenir.

We pay tolls to very cheerful cashiers. It would seem to be an awful job yet they are so perky. We ponder this as we drive through fascinating pine forests. They are the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

We remember scenes of them in The Sopranos.

Swamps and ponds. A sign to Little Egg Harbor.

Flat open land and a big horizon. A vast expanse. Yellow and green marshland. I love it.

We turn off to Galloway and find ourselves in big, green burbs.

And then we are at the Stockton Seaview Hotel which is set beside a golf course amid the marshes. It has a sweeping drive. It is very old-time resort grand.

Middle aged valets fall on us as we drive up and insist on unloading the luggage even when I am saying I’d rather wait until we’ve checked in. Prescient, as it turns out.

Across a vast expanse of lavish olde world lobby, I find the Reception desk and Heather who gives me the bad news. They don’t have the booking. It has not come through. I give them the Expedia reservation confirmation number.

Heather, the receptionist, says that Expedia has not sent it. No. It is not there. No, there is nothing she can do. And she won’t give us a different room because Expedia is pre-paid. Hmm. After much humming around, she promises to phone as soon as they have the room.

We have to leave the luggage with the valets.

We head off to kill time waiting for the call. We take a road to see the sea.

It turns into a rough, pot-holed dirt road through reeds to a little marshy boat ramp and a nice view of Atlantic City across the water. I get out of the car to take a photo. A couple of desultory seagulls are hanging out there, along with a lot of vicious biting flies. I get back in the car.

We decide to take the plunge and drive into Atlantic City itself.

The road is appalling. There are

great windmills and several spectacular buildings, a glorious golden round one called Bongok. Billboards all along the road proclaim the Trump Taj Mahal. Lucie Arnaz is promoted in concert. Lucille Ball’s daughter. How interesting.

There’s a huge white elephant on the road into Atlantic City. Another promotion for the Trump joint. It towers on the horizon.

We drive through some scruffy backstreets looking for the famous boardwalk.

Now we’re passing the entrance to the Taj Mahal. And, what’s this? Industrial action? It is surrounded by strikers, all in red shirts and waving placards declaring that they are being denied their proper work conditions.

Well, this is a big red flag to an old journo bull.

Finding a street carpark, we head off the meet the strikers.

It is meltingly hot.

Many of them are sitting on a low wall while others take turns at the active picketing. I sit

down with the most articulate of them. A lovely African American fellow who worked in one of the casino’s restaurants as a baker. He told of cut hours, no holidays, overwork, underpay, insecure conditions with no contracts. The casino does not belong to Trump any more. It was sold off after bankruptcy. But he did give contracts to his workers.

The strikers ask us to report on what things are like inside the casino. Since we are going in there for a snoop anyway, we agree.

It is fairly quiet inside. But, oh, so huge and glittering. I never saw so many chandeliers. I never saw such big chandeliers.

A few croupiers are at tables. But there are scores and scores of tables. So much gambling real estate. And, oh, the slot machines!

Pokies….acres of them. I mean acres. Very few people playing them. It is like a winking, blinking, bright electric wilderness.

We walk seemingly for miles inside the casino, exploring the upstairs arcades and the restaurants. The upstairs corridor is like a long, carpeted street, so long and hollow that a lonely security guard is patrolling it by Segway.

There are restaurants with big Closed signs. There's a theatre. Of course, that is where Lucie Arnaz will perform. Dark now, of course. She is not billed for months yet. Finally, we potter out and report in to the strikers. They say Tuesdays are usually slow, anyway.

And we move on to take a walk on the famous Atlantic City boardwalk.

It is ghastly hot.

It is not too busy. There are lots of ticky tack shops. One after another, packed side by side.

Usually, I love ticky tack. I am a sucker for kitsch and seaside souvenirs. I am looking for a tank top.

I find not a solitary thing I would want to buy. Bruce sits in the sun while I make little forays. There are surly Indian shopkeepers at the rear

of each store. Their prices are very high and their stock is very inferior. I see a plaintive sign above one shop “American owned” and I realise that these miles of commerce are the new face of the Atlantic City boardwalk.

We return to the car and drive through the Atlantic City suburbs, which are fascinating. They extend out into another township called Ventnor. Flowering trees. Topiary.

Flags. They’re lavish homes and holiday houses reaching beyond opulence into the realms of palatial. Grotesquely fanciful. Over some immeasurable top. Oh, look into that one with the vast bay window. There’s a grand piano. The furniture is all gilded. Move over Louis XIV.

We drive down some side streets to the water and find that the marvellous boardwalk is still going. It goes all the way from Atlantic City along the coast. How superb. The beach is all swept and smooth. The sand it coarse and dirty and very, very hot. People are down near the water’s edge. I have to feel the water. Bruce does not.

The hotel still has not called. Hours have passed. We are tired and a big woggy. We really want home comforts. I call the hotel. No, no news. Nothing from Expedia. They are supposed to be sending a fax but they don’t have it. Perhaps I would like to call Expedia. This is all very odd. Expedia has been very efficient in the past. On a number of occasions I have had the impression that hotels do not like it very much and do not give its customers the best treatment, but Expedia, along with booking.com, have been exemplary. A fine service for the traveller.

I try to call. I get through to an Australian number and am presented with a lot of options to key in. I realise that the confirmation number is in the phone and I am on the phone. I hang up to access the number. Then I ring the hotel number by mistake and speak to a man who says Heather has gone home and, yes, he has the booking and the room is ready.

Relief.

We hurtle back to the hotel.

It is a very faded grandeur old thing. The lobbies are expansive and one has to cross several to reach the reception desk. We check in and the valet brings our luggage and escorts us to the room - which is a long way. This place is immense.

No, he can’t take the loaded luggage trolley into the room. He has to unload in the hall and bring everything in piece by piece. There is a lot of it, since the overkeen valets had zealously unloaded everything from the car.

This is quite a performance. I note that the room smells very musty and that the beds are a bit dishevelled.

Looks like someone was sitting there, says the valet as he disappears down the hall. Er, yes. And there is stuff in the bins. And the soap is unwrapped.

I call reception.

We’ll send the maid. Do you want to swap.

Look at all the luggage, mutters Bruce. Too hard. The maid arrives and flurries around sprucing the room.

The room otherwise is OK. It is a decent two double bed room. Not much of a view.

But it is just one night.

We make the most of it.

It does smell musty, though. I spray with Fabreeze and Lysol airfresh.

I travel with an armoury of fragrances since I have an annoyingly sensitive sense of smell. It runs in my mother’s bloodline with our super-smeller schnozzles affectionately known from her family name as “Hutton buttons”.

We have booked a table downstairs, thinking with all the sporty seniors we see going to and fro in the lobbies that we will need a reservation. When we get down, the grand dining room is a sea of beautifully-set tables, but it is not in use. We are directed to the bar grill where an older wait person is loudly apologising to a diner for serving him an undercooked burger. Hmm.

A beautiful young African American girl shows us to a corner table where we have a good view of the room. I order a dry martini. It has been a jangling day.

We watch the older waiter thundering about the place. Shades of Fawlty Towers. He was not born for this job. He is loud and anxious. Our lovely laid-back girl, on the other hand, might well have another job. She tends to us in sporadic cheerful visits from somewhere behind the scenes. The food is pretty good and we are enjoying the theatre of this high-ceilinged wood-pannelled room. There are wonderful old 1940s menus from the hotel’s heydays on the wall. Grand old days when a lobster thermidor cost $4 and Eastern Diamondback turtle was featured on the menu. We imagine the elegant New Yorkers converging here on rich and chic sporting vacations, dressing expensively for every activity. The downstairs dining rooms, lobbies, parlours seem drenched in redolent spirit.

We go naughty and order the chef’s dessert assortment and swoon for a while. Lovely. The waitress has vanished again. The old chap is thumping dangerously about with trays and serving tables, a teatowel over his shoulder.

It has been such a pleasant sojourn that I am quite taken-aback in rediscovering the musty smell of our room.

Bruce is not worried by it. It’s not dangerous, Sa. It is just damp. It is not mould. You’ll get used to it. It is way too hard to change rooms now.

He just wants to hit the pit. He is out like a light in minutes.

I do more air spraying and stay up watching TV and writing. Ugh, that smell.

I get into the bed and try to snuggle up. Something is wrong. I can’t warm the feet. They feel clammy. Damp? Oh, this bed is somehow just cold and strangely moist. The musty smell seems to be coming from under it. I get my travel quilt and sarong and make myself a bed on top of the bed. Ugh, that smell. The New York cough stirs up to meet it.

It is the night from hell. At about 3am, in desperation I take an emergency sleeping pill.

Thank heavens the morning is sunny and the hotel has a wonderful old swimming pool.

Sun and swim cures all things, raises the spirits. We enjoy the faded grandeur of the hotel once again and loll about for as long as we can before succumbing to the compulsory services of the hotel’s pushy old valet. It is a full service hotel, he explains. We do everything for you.

I tell the reception desk that the room they allocated to us is uninhabitable and they need to strip it and renovate. They seem indifferent.

Well, says Bruce, you can’t say it wasn’t an adventure.