here we go

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I begin this journal somewhere north east of Lord Howe Island. We have just had what is euphemistically described as a snack – chilli chicken and rice, green salad with vinaigrette, cheese and bikie and a TIM TAM. The lovely Hawaiian airlines stewardesses’ each with industrial quantities of frangipanis in their hair, have come along and collected the scraps and our serving tray, their plastic gloved hands a testament to risk management 101.

We head for Hawaii and thence on to Seattle, Vancouver, Alaska and thence to the east, a trip 12 months in the planning. It wasn’t meant to be this way. It was supposed to be central Europe: Croatia, Slovak Republic, a possible return to Greece and Turkey. Liz remarked in passing that she would like to do an Alaskan cruise, to experience a dog sled ride. And so the trip began.

This is our first time flying East. We fly in reverse to Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm. Hopefully our trip is uneventful.

I have a love hate relationship with America. The country of Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, FDR and Martin Luther King is also the country of Aaron Burr, the Ku Klux Clan, Jim Crow laws and George Dubya. For every Gettysburg address, every New Deal, every I Have a Dream, there is a Joe Hill, a Sacco and Vanzetti, an Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, a Hollywood Ten and Fox News 24 hours a day.



There is no time to discuss or debate what is right what is wrong for our people,

the time has run out for all those who wait with bent limbs and minds that are feeble.

Orphans of Wealth – Don McLean



Hopefully we will get to see firsthand this land of massive contradictions and this slip twixt the rhetoric and the practice.

When i went to get some greenbacks yesterday the woman at the foreign exchange counter commented on the fact that i was getting so many $1 bills. “Tipping” she deadpanned. “I didn’t bother if i wasn’t going back to the same place.” We are fortunate indeed to live in a country where although it is paltry, we have a minimum wage which at least allows people to eke out some kind of existence free from starvation. In the US the minimum wage is as low as $6/hr. People who work at Walmart earn so little they are eligible for food stamps.



Oh yes and we treat ‘em like tramps as we sell them food stamps

This thriving and prosperous nation



So tipping is not optional for us. We will tip because if we don’t people starve.

We begin in Alaska, the inside passage, Denali National Park, Anchorage (anchored down in Anchorage). From there we fly to Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto and Niagara Falls – Slowly I turned step by step...(look it up). From there it’s on to Boston, New York Baltimore and Washington (with a side trip to Gettysburg. We take in ball games in Boston and NY and the Book of Mormon on Broadway.

From Washington it’s downtown Billings Montana and Custer’s last stand, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and then Las Vegas and Death Valley before San Fransisco, Hawaii and home.

I hope this blog informs and entertains and perhaps even provides some insight. In any event it will chronicle our experience.



And a child is crying, he’s hungry and cold, life has been sold,

his young face looks old, it’s the face of America .... dying.



Update

we are now in Waikiki. having spent 45 minutes waiting to be finger printed and photographed i am now very skeptical of the claim that what drives America is its commitment to efficiency. One might have thought that the tourist info booth might be open on a Saturday as well and that the shuttle bus people might have some signs. But hey let's not quibble about details. Let's quibble instead about the seats on Hawaiian airlines, the most uncomfortable seats we have ever sat in and, according to people we met on the shuttle, the worst in their experience too. F for fail for a long haul carrier whose major responsibility is to look after and preserve the integrity of its passenger's posterior. After all on what is in effect a glorified cigar shaped hermetically sealed bus, the posterior should be THE main priority of the carrier.

Liz dozed. I got about 20 minutes sleep.

Energised and uplifted by a new video from Dave and Jess of Penny "talking". she will be so changed by the time we get back.

We walked along Waikiki beach and, despairing that a Jamon Baguette was out of the question settled for a burger and fries. Bad luck if you didn't like overly sweet BBQ sauce. First time ever i've been asked how i would like my beef patty cooked: rare, medium or well done.

Tomorrow it's on to Seattle. Am Looking forward to catching up with old mate Eddie Vedder.

So until i next report from somewhere in North America, in the words of John Wayne: “yo-oh!”

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