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 other American landscape.

We can’t escape it.

There is an election on in the USA?

Why have I not mentioned this more in this blog?

Well, it is a travel blog.

But yes, perhaps it is time to mention it since it colours the country and much of one’s experience.

Bruce is worried about my political outspokenness. He urges me to say nothing. So, I am being really discreet.

But I want to weep or scream much of the time.

Turn on the radio and there is Trump. He is the subject of adoration with the right wing hate radio jocks and the subject of agonisingly “unbiased” analysis on the thoughtful PBS network. There is a sense of trepidation in anyone who is not praising and justifying the Trump factor. I feel that people are afraid to speak out.

They know they will be subject to a steamrolling.

His campaign is revved up and he blankets the country’s media, despite the fact that his publicity machine is a Twitter feed and personal phone calls to Fox and jocks. It is, indeed, a steamroller phenomenon.

By comparison, there is rarely any coverage from the Clinton camp but a lot of invective from the Republican camp about the Clinton camp. The Republicans run with a system of repetition. Say something enough and it is believed. Hillary is a criminal. The FBI may not think so, but the American public is being convinced by an unrelenting barrage of bully rhetoric that she is.

And there they are on TV, baying for blood.

To an outsider, this is chilling. This is a very disturbing time.

The country has forgotten that Trump is a megalomaniacal reality TV star and he speaks without notes because he never says anything other than how great he is.

Driving through the American mid-west, I have seen no support for Hillary at all. Not a single garden poster. I’ve seen a few for Bernie Sanders. And I have seen quite a few more for Trump, including some big, clumsy home-made signs at the roadside.

I have not met any Democrats.

Or, if I have, they have not admitted it.

But, I was talking to a Philadelphia fellow the other day in Milwaukee and he said: “Don’t be fooled by the media. Most Americans are not that interested in politics.”

Poster

We are here!

We’re 3000 miles in and settled

into quite a routine.

The luggage is more rationalised but is nonetheless fairly hefty.

We carry a mini kitchen - a chiller basket with our Bloody Mary makings and our morning milk and another basket with knife and cutting board, pickles and limes, chilli sauce, wine glasses etc.

Then we have a snacks bag, of course. Americans are expert with

snack food. Oh, Chex Mix, I love you. We also have our suitcases. One stays in the car and holds things we don’t need.

We have purchased cloth overnight bags, one each, to make the luggage more contained. I also have two pillows and a patchwork quilt. Bruce has two favourite cotton blankets.

They are fallbacks when hotels don’t suit our patterns. Bruce sleeps with

light covers and I sleep with lots. We have a bag which contains shoes we are not wearing. It stays in the car.

And we have coats and shirts we leave hanging in the car. Oh, and of course, we have my computer bag with all the cords and books.

There is a rhythm to our travel.

We do a couple of days driving and a couple of days resting.

On travel days, we try not to drive for more than 4 hours. And we take regular breaks to explore and find places to explore and to stop for lunch.

This week we happened upon Gillette which is a pretty gritty little town in among coal mining and

coal-seam gas operations. Little oil rigs plug away in the landscape outside the town. There’s a massive open cut coal mine exposing a great black band. Endless trains heave slowly across the landscape, some of which reminds one of Broken Hill. Signs such as "Good Food. Cold Beer. Live Bait” tell a lot about the lifestyle.

The elevation is 4700ft.

But in the main street as one comes into Gillette, outside the newspaper office, is one of the most striking pieces of urban art I’ve seen. It is a rock, paper, scissors sculpture.

Our quest in Gillette is a cup of coffee and a pee.

We spot a cafe next to an art framer’s shop.

What a lovely find.

They have never made a macchiato before but they easily follow the simple recipe and, with the lovely coffee they are using, make a glorious specimen. Utterly refreshing.

The other occupants of the cafe are a four well-groomed women intently involved in knitting. The local knitting circle.

What a contrast to that rather harsh old mining town spirit outside.

On the door of the coffee shop also is a message.

A few hours and many miles later, we stop for lunch in a town called Sturgis.

This South Dakota town is famous for an annual motorbike festival which attracts hundreds of thousands of bikers. The reason they flock to Sturgis is because helmets are not compulsory in South Dakota - just as in New Hampshire which brags the immense Laconia bikers' festival for the same reason.

Sturgis is much smaller than Laconia and when the bikers are not there, it is very small. But it is entirely biker ready at all times. It has come to live the biker life.

It has biker promos and biker

shops and biker saloons and even biker lawyers. True story. The most prominent advertising in the town is for Jack Daniels and for a motorcycling lawyer. He has banners right across the streets and dangling from light posts. Shades of Better Call Saul.

The people generally are tattooed and pierced. They are of the biker ilk. They look a bit scary really. Some wear cowboy hats. Lots are wearing black.

Well, when I say lots, there are not too many people around at all.

We potter around looking for somewhere acceptable to eat. Not a lot of options. So we brave Bob’s Family Restaurant which looks pretty dodgy. Inside it is very blue with low ceiling and fans.

All sorts of rough dudes are sitting around at tables. An immense man in an Uncle Sam suspenders belt sits alone at a table in the middle. An old chap in cowboy hat is at a table in a wheelchair. Everyone is really, really, really quiet. They don’t look like soto voce types but they are murmuring so softly, it is eerie.

The only lively voice is that of the

waitress who is very spirited and down-home and is tending to all the tables alone. The kitchen is somewhere behind a black curtain.

We order iced tea and salads. Very quietly.

Everyone else is ordering burgers which come with mountains of fries.

The food is lovely. Phew.

Hotels have changed. We tend to stick to a few favoured chains - ones with really good wifi, pools and parking. Generally they are most satisfactory and we grab luggage trolleys and rumble in with our gear.

The interesting change is that almost all hotels now cater for animals. There are dogs everywhere, dog exercise areas and special rates for dog accommodation. I just saw two dogs with balls in their mouths trotting through the breakfast room. America is very, very laid back about doggy travellers.

Then there are children. American hotels are gearing themselves for child occupancy. They are here in swarms. One sees them checking in with their parents, each pulling their own little suitcase. The last hotel had a magnificent under-cover waterpark for children, separate to a large pool for adults. This hotel, Clubhouse Inn and Suites, to my chagrin, has a pool just for children with water slides and umbrella waterfalls. It is very popular. The pool is only 2 - 3ft deep. Nothing in the world will get me in there with all those ankle-biters.

Better luck next stop.

I heart Montana

The big sky country.

I’ve wanted to see it for ever. Now, I pinch myself. This is it.

And, it is everything I have seen and read about it, except that it is tactile and immediate.

Montana is beautiful.

It is historic frontier country. It is the massive Rocky Mountains and the wide open spaces, all rolled into one massive piece of geography.

Luckily for her who has a passionate aversion to winding vertiginous mountain roads, the explorers Lewis and Clark traversed through Montana and they used rivers to guide them through the vast ranges. America’s road-builders also have used the rivers.

The result is some not too terrifying and utterly beautiful roads following the Clark Fork.

Oh, the gorgeous changing landscape.

One can just sit in the car sighing "aaah".

The river, wide and winding, shallow and flat with broad pebble bases and beaches, with lush little islands and little tributaries tinted yellow with green weed and algae. The water so bright and clean, rushing and darting and swirling over rocks, then spreading peacefully in places, rarely very deep at this time of the year.

The people use it a lot. They raft and fish and canoe. One spots fly fishermen here, a canoe there, kids playing there…

In Missoula where the river narrows a bit and rushes around an island, I saw them surfing. Yes, surfboards.

Young people throwing their surfboards into the rapids and then jumping in and riding them on the spot in the swirling torrent of rapid. Truly. I took photos.

They must be the world’s most inland surfers, the kids of Missoula.

Missoula is a university town spread across one of those perfect Rocky Mountain valleys. The mountains rise, peeking snow-spotted peaks in the distance, all around the town. As seems to be a fashion, a big M has been marked on one of the steep slopes above the town. It stands for the University of Montana. The kids of a local catholic school have copied and put an L on another hill. Naughty, I say.

We stay at a LaQuinta on the edge of town. They’re reliable, quality traveller accommodation and we like them. They always have a pool, a guest laundry and an excellent all-included breakfast, as well as good beds and fast, free wireless Internet. This one is beside a wonderful fast-running gurgling stream - another source of mountain water running into the river and then off eventually to the Pacific ocean.

Missoula is a town with a slightly arty bent. It has an old historic section of town with some splendid architecture and a controversy raging over its preservation. It has a big theatre called The Wilma. It has stunning bookshops. It has an Insectorium which we visit (of course) to see spiders and stick insects and even this charming tobacco caterpillar.

It has the most adorable public ashtray I have ever seen - beautified by a bed of flowers, right there on the pavement of the main street.

Oh, and it has parking meters. They don’t charge much but, oh my, they must have cost a lot. Missoula is so far ahead in the city parking business it just ain’t true. And goodbye parking inspectors. The ticket machine is part of a computer network. You have to tell it your number plate and pay by credit card. $2 for 2 hours, as it happens. No ticket. We wait and worry about no ticket until a local comes along and tells us that tickets are yesterday.

Today, the parking authorities know exactly how long you have been there. It’s on the computer record. For ever. “Smart parking,” I love it, swoons Bruce.

The Missoula food front? Hmm. One night we dine at a Mexican which is my idea of hell and another at a Japanese steak house which is the full knife-juggling cliche with average food made interesting by the young sports jocks who shared our table. One was an NFL player and another a former basketball player who now participated in the TV American Gladiator show. Fit? You betcha.

Out of Missoula the road curves through mountains growing less lush. On one side, they are simply coated with dense pine trees and on the other, the trees are thin. They just dapple the slopes.

There is so much wilderness. It is daunting. Endless impenetrable virgin landscape full of bears and elk and moose and wolves.

A park ranger was killed here this very week. He was riding his bike through a forest trail and surprised a grizzly bear which knocked him off the bike and mauled him to death. A ranger, no less!

And between the ranges of mighty mountains are one after another broad, open valleys. This is where the ranchers are with their cattle and horses. Lovely salubrious farms - and some a bit on the scruffy side. Farmers have a habit across the world of not throwing things out just in case… And America has this transportable home and trailer thing. I wonder if anyone has ever counted how many there are.They certainly can be a blight on an beautiful landscape.

We pause at Coeur d’Alene where a resort town has grown around a great freshwater lake. We drive past an odd plethora of thrift shops and then suddenly are at a big, showy hotel beside which is a vast acreage of moored power boats, all under cover. There are seaplanes on the lake, too. Oh, this is big money. We walk a stunning floating pier erected all the way around the marina - one spot elevated to allow the boat access. But the thing we like best about Coeur d’Alene is its name.

Back on the 90, heading east.

As we bypass a flyspeck town called Clinton, the Rockies start showcasing themselves as real rockies - massive rocks and boulders. The pine trees still grow, sometimes right on top where some crevice has allowed topsoil to settle. They perch on veritable rock faces. In every possible chink, there grows a tree.

And then another valley, rimmed by those beautiful blue mountains, big horizons.

I could go on and on. The landscape does, ever changing, never boring, always just sheer lovely wonder.

I am so glad we are here.

We have run out of the Clark Fork. It turned into a trickle. Next we see the Jefferson River - and now the Gallatin.

Oh, and we just passed a sign pointing to a town called Three Forks - “Montana’s favourite small town”.

And a goods train a mile long - the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line.

We also passed the Continental Divide. From now on, the rivers are running east to the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic.

And we are heading to Big Sky, Montana.

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.

Beware the online travel bookings deluge

I have a cautionary traveller's tale to tell - about the pitfalls of online booking and a woman called Pooneh Maghrebian who saved the day.

Once upon a time it would have been a seasoned travel agent who would have found us this fabulous hotel looking across the sparkling harbour waters to the prettiest, prettiest vista of pastel coloured night lights from the city of Vancouver, Canada.

These days, it is DIY travel.

Sitting up late into the night in my Adelaide bedroom, I surfed through the hotels of this city and honed in on this one.

It really captured my imagination and my fancy.

It was away from the centre of the city and had car parking and views. I have not been to Vancouver so I was operating on logic, economy and the online reviews left by other travellers.

I booked a harbour view room.

Or, I thought I did.

Now, there are a lot of travel booking sites vying for one’s attention. They seem to be multiplying.

I’m a long-time Expedia user but I also like booking.com, TripAdvisor and Travelocity.

Sometimes, I use the club membership of hotel chains I particularly like.

As one who wrote that long-running Internet column, Net Adventures, in The Advertiser, I am habituated to comparison shopping and reviewing. I may dare to say I have some expertise in it. So it is not like me to cock up.

Then again, we all can do it.

We must watch warily the pop-ups and challenges of new sites these days. It’s a rapacious market out there. And I, clearly, had taken my eye off the ball.

So, I made my booking for this Pinnacle on the Pier Hotel in Vancouver.

The confirmation pinged into my email. Ta da.

Done deal.

I cleared the screen and began a new search to book for the next city.

We are on a 6-month road trip around north America. There are a lot of places to book.

Months later, on arrival at the hotel, I was assigned a room at the back of the property. A room without a view.

I reeled in shock.

That can’t be right. I had specifically sought a room with a harbour view.

Views are my thing. I am writing a travel blog. I have come to see Vancouver. Why on earth would I choose not to?

This was the preference which came through to the hotel, the receptionist, Poonah, explained.

This is what I had booked.

No, no, no. Impossible. I clearly recall looking through the hotel images, comparing the prices on offer and booking “harbour view”.

I have had that “harbour view” in mind’s eye throughout my travels and had been anticipating it eagerly.

And here I was with a backstreets view.

Well, they call it a “mountain view” and there is a glorious tree-flanked green mountain backdrop out there. Mainly, however, the rear rooms look upon the facade of the neighbouring high rise. Lovely rooms, I hasten to say. Impeccable. Spacious. Beautifully equipped. The Pinnacle on the Pier is a classy hotel.

And its location is even better than my anticipations - on the north shore of the harbour looking back towards Vancouver city across an endlessly changing vista of busy shipping activity.

Why was my booking not the booking I had made?

Well, my booking records which I wanted to show to Reception were, of course, in the computer which was still in the luggage in the car.

Receptionist, Poonah, had a printout, however.

And there it was. “Standard room”.

It had come to the hotel through a UK web agency, she explained.

UK?

Yes, UK, as in England.

We won’t get into Brexit.

To cut a long story short, somewhere in the depths of the night in Adelaide, I had veered from my usual online booking pattern. I thought the booking confirmations had come via hotel chain.

I did not double check.

I was very lucky. Pooneh, assistant guest services manager, was on the reception desk at the Pinnacle when I responded in dismay. I had, interestingly, made another booking to extend our stay here. I had made it through the hotel chain itself, assuming I was continuing on the same transaction. It was specific - “Harbour View”.

Poonah was here to see these two bookings, to spot the confusions and to make things right.

She saw that we were moved to a room with a view. It is the most wonderful room in the hotel.

She solved the problems and made a very happy customer. She ensured praise and five star reviews for her employer.

And her intelligence, friendliness, willingness to solve a problem and go the extra mile, has enhanced the way this travel blogger sees and depicts the city of Vancouver .

She’s a credit to Canada, as well as to the Pinnacle.

Lessons from this tale:

Do not hurry your online bookings.

Double check the confirmations.

A bit of baggage, just in cases.

In just a few days, our luggage has exploded.

Well, we did arrive having packed light. And we did need to get a whole lot of things for the six-months on the road.

Things like V8 juice in bulk and vodka and Worcestershire sauce and tabasco and limes for the making of Bloody Marys. And glasses from which to drink them. Really important things.

And a a chiller bag and travelling mugs and throw rugs and extra pillows and discount rack warm jackets for the nights…

But here is our luggage arriving at the Sofitel in the depths of the night (I should have used a flash).

And here, just a few days later in the bright morning light, we depart with enthusiastic evidence of America's great consumer culture.

Route 66 and All That

This was one of the mooted titles for this blog. I popped it up on Facebook and, the next thing I knew there was a party of crowd-sourcing brilliance. Many were the plays on my nickname, Sa.

USa, US Sa Today, Sa Wars, the Sa Spangled Banner, US2U. The Grits, Nomad's Land, Travels with Auntie Sam, US and Me. States of Mind, SAmerica, Blogaroo....

They were and are brilliant.

Sa Trek stood out. Just the ticket for a travel blog about a road trip around the USA.

For this I thank that eminent Gentleman of the Press, Don Riddell, and the inimitable Lee Gawain Wellwood.

And that top PR brain, Chris Rann who was very fertile on the suggestions front. And those myriad journos, artyfarties and beaut bods who populate my Friends world on FB.

Thankyou all - and I hope you'll be along for the ride.

Watch this space.