Day 85 - The Penultimate Day

After getting up, did some tidying up on my Roadtrippers App, which has plotted our journey back & forth across the United States of America. It is very easy to quickly forget all the places you have visited & the things that you have done. When it is plotted out on a map we have been everywhere.....nearly.

Our travels lend themself perfectly to the Song of the Day (Please listen to it, it is a great great song).

After lots of reminiscing of our adventures on this trip, we hit the beach for a final time. We found our usual spot & didn’t really move, other than to have the occasional wee in the sea. The dolphins very kindly passed by twice, but too far off shore to photo.

Jackie & I did discuss what we are looking forward to when we get home. Jackie pretty much everything, me - Bovril, a decent cup of tea & our forthcoming trip to Ireland.

I could carry on, if the immigration laws allow us, but Jackie will be particularly glad not to be stuck in a car most days & live out of a rucksack that needs to be repacked virtually every day. As I said to Jackie this trip was not supposed to be a holiday, it was a road trip, adventure, cultural experience, whatever you want to call it, but definitely not a holiday!

I have promised that when we go on our planned world travels, we will have a lot more rest days & we won’t drive everywhere!

Whilst reflecting on our trip, I have to say that on the whole the Americans have been lovely towards us, they can’t get enough of that British accent, particularly in the less touristy destinations. The younger generation of Americans are certainly polite, they appear to much more respect the older generation & daily they called me “Sir”. This might sound a bit rich, but there isn’t a drinking culture in America, so we didn’t witness loutish behaviour. Neither was there any visible graffiti & rarely any litter, which I think is down to their strong sense of community spirit & national pride.

We have felt safe pretty much everywhere, even El Paso, which I slated at the time. I certainly never felt that someone was looking for the opportunity to mug or car-jack us, even their beggars were submissive.

The only guns we saw were on the belts of law enforcement officers. We didn’t meet anybody who overtly was a fan of Trump. Quite a few people we met were keen to slag him off! Maybe that’s what they thought we wanted to hear.

America is great for a road trip, because petrol is cheap, but still varies vastly from State to State. The cheapest we found it was in Texas at $2.09 a gallon & the most expensive was in California at $4.89. Still ridiculously cheap compared to the UK.

On the downside, food wise, everything is still beige. Vegetables rarely feature on a restaurant menu & salads are smothered in a sauce. The portions are way to big, resulting in Jackie & I regularly sharing meals. And I don’t share!

The other downers are the current Pound Sterling v US Dollar exchange rate is appalling. There are lots of hidden taxes, the tipping system is getting out of control (pay your waitresses more) so they don’t expect a minimum tip of 15% & the roads are dreadful, especially if you are driving a car with a low front bumper, like a VW Beetle!

The other thing that really bugs me when travelling around America is that literally everything is ‘Historic’ & pretty much everything else is ‘World Famous’ or the ‘World’s Biggest’ etc etc.

Rant over, we left the beach at 5.30pm, emptied the remainder of our stuff out of the boot of Doodle & commenced our packing. Well I would have done, but Jackie needs the laptop which has to be packed 1st in my rucksack. Instead, I sorted out my souvenir tickets & brochures etc then sat down with my blog.

Meanwhile, Jackie packed, then went down to clean the car! We still have the drama of returning the car to Enterprise & deciding our best plan for damage limitation.

After showering & sitting on the balcony with a beer, we have tentatively come up with our Top 10 places we have visited on this trip :-

The Rodeo
Yosemite NP
Dollywood
Memphis
Nashville
New Orleans
Graceland
Tucson Air & Space Museum
Arches NP
Tombstone

The list could easily continue for ages......

Dinner was back at the Crest Tavern & after everything I said before we went out, we were sat at the bar & a couple were having a heated discussion with the lone woman sat next to me, who was praising the economy under a Trump government. When the woman left the couple were furious about her views.

Jackie & I shared Nachos with ground beef. Not as good as Jackie’s, too much cheese, but it was a satisfactory last meal. Washed down with our usual, a pint of Yuengling. Nice!

Back at the hotel we had a final drink on the balcony & called it a night.

Song of the Day - I’ve Been Everywhere by Johnny Cash.Read more