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Published: January 17th 2006
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Big waterfall
This is a big waterfall in Yosemite National Park. With a few days spare before being required at our first performance in Las Vegas we thought we'd go on a road trip!! We hired a Jeep Cherokee and took on the Great American Highway Network. With Cookie behind the wheel and me (navigator extraordinaire) behind the map nothing could stop us bar the dire predictions of 10 feet of snow and mud slides from Cookie's San Fran mates. (Apparently, and this is news to me (?!?) Americans are partial to the use of the hyperbole and the closest we came to any sleet was the icy machines at a few of the "gas stations" along the way.
Yosemite is considered by all Americans as a remarkable natural wonder. It's proximity to a few major cities (Fan Fran for example) makes it the most visited national parkland in America. Yosemite Valley is apparently the world's best known example of a glacier-carved canyon. I've got to say that the huge waterfalls that pour into the valley from the sheer cliffs of granite are a sight to behold. I quickly pointed out to the group that if you've seen one amazing waterfall you've seen tem all. Although my attempt at curbing our
Another big waterfall
And to prove the point of the title of this blog entry! run of waterfall gazing was met with distaste from everybody else it didn't curb anyone's enthusiasm for spending a day hiking to one of the falls. In my defense, it was by this stage that I had been sick for a week and my great adage about waterfalls was possibly the first full sentence I had uttered all week so you may understand why I wasn't overwhelmed with joy to be tramping my way through a particularly damp national park. Nevertheless the walk was good and the fall looked remarkably similar to the other six falls we had seen during our time at Yosemite. Unfortunately our time here was short so we didn't get an opportunity to hike to the Giant Sequoia Tree Groves. I would have like to have seen some big trees.
A highlight of this part of the trip was when Ben demonstrated his intense fear of raccoons to us all. Seeing Ben jump round our hotel room balcony screaming "It's a skunk, it's a skunk it's going to squirt me" was such a pleasure tat it was only heightened when we found out that the animal Ben had almost trampled to death in his abject
Jumping for Joy
Did someone say we're leaving Yosemite? fear was in fact a terrified raccoon. I liked it. I liked it a lot more than our neighbours clearly, who made noise complaints about us Apparently Ben's "It's a fucking skunk" song isn't appreciated across all Western cultures.
My time in America so far has led me to wonder a bit about this nation. As most of you know I'm a big fan of America - it's people and it's President. However, the more time I spend here the longer I wonder about the long term viability of a culture which REFUSES to adopt the metric system. The use of ounces, fluid ounces, pounds miles and inches is so counter intuitive tat it defies reality. Talking to April (an American pharmacist) while in Hawaii led me to discover the complex conversions tat people in any scientific professions must undertake to get to standard units. "There are 1.2359 ounces in a kilo and 3.45 billion feet in a kilometre." OK so I didn't bother learning the conversions but you get my drift) - it's as though the more odd the unit can be the more appealing it is. I know that the US is not the only country guilty of this (I think the UK is under some pressure from the EU to reform) but for the love of the god of consumerism please let the metric system reign supreme ASAP!
My only gripe (wow! What a country, only two significant flaws!) is that it is impossible for these poor Americans to loose their pounds if every product on the supermarket shelves is frosted with sugar or has "high fructose corn syrup" added as a major ingredient. Even the wholemeal bread and supposedly healthy muesli is pumped full of sweet corn syrup. It's as though America has a corn industry that needs propping up and do someone in the food industry has decided that adding corn syrup to every product on the market would be a fine way of ensuring corn farmers of America can sleep easily each night. If there is NO healthy, low sugar food on the market then how the hell can these poor people escape the cycle of obesity? Oh, an another thing, when is getting four different types of meat on one plate/sandwich/dessert ever an appealing prospect> Or when making a sandwich is there such an oversupply of pigs in this country that the ham must be placed in a 20 centimetre (oops, sorry, 6 inch) stack?
Anyway, enough of my random wonderings. In the true essence of my schlog I will shortly return to tales of Beyonce and the Middle East peace crisis.
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Starwoman
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Corn Syrup
Patrick - You are right to be very afraid of corn sugar - and multi layered sandwiches - too much of a good thing and you will need return to the sunburnt country via a crane which will have to lift you out of back of the plane!