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Lower 48

ottobre 2018 - maggio 2024
Un’avventura a tempo indeterminato di Rosscoe Leggi altro
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  • 27impronte
  • 1paesi
  • 2.062giorni
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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    1
    11
    Giorno 17

    Mount Rushmore and Minuteman

    24 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    How mad or ambitious you would have to be to decide to take up the position of sculpting four heads of some very familiar presidents out of a mountain.
    The over achiever Gutzon Borglum gave it a go and didn’t do too bad a job either considering he used jackhammers and dynamite.
    Jackhammers you would feel fairly comfortable with on that scale but dynamite, I’de worry you would end up with president no nose.
    Anyone who remembers cracker night will remember the preceding weeks before and the unpredictability of the attempts that were made blowing up stuff with bungers, even on that small scale nothing went to plan, many of us still bear the scars.
    So we’re impressed, to be able get a likeness on that scale and make sure the four presidents have all their facial features where they should be is remarkable, there is no half an ear or a cracked eyeball lying halfway down the mountain.

    These founding fathers could never imagine they nearly got their rock heads blown off by rockets a number of times but if you read the list of the near misses at the Minuteman Missile Historic Site that is what could have happened.
    It was clever stuff. One instance was someone put in a training tape of a nuclear attack and every idiot who had their finger on the button thought it was for real.
    Another time the Russians early warning system told them the Americans had launched a nuclear attack but luckily that day someone with brains was on duty and delayed retaliation.
    He was later highly awarded and at one time he was a guest of the United States where they did a tour of the Minuteman Silos for him, there’s proof Americans don’t get irony. Instead they should have shown him Mount Rushmore and said “there still there because of you”.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    1
    111
    Giorno 19

    Little house (RV) on the Prairie

    26 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ☀️ 4 °C

    I take it back, Americans do get irony.
    The Nebraska sign also reads Home Of Arbor Day, this must either be humour, wishful thinking or total delusion.
    We drove a few days through Nebraska and barely saw a twig sticking above the grasses although to be fair this may have been our fault as most of our concentration was on keeping the RV from being blown sideways off the road.

    For those who prefer a short blog, you are in luck, there are only so many ways you can describe a windswept prairie but we will have a bit of a go anyway.
    There was a long road stretching into the distance, it disappeared over many horizons, looking to the left we saw a lot of grass, looking to the right we saw a lot of grass too.

    But then we came to something very interesting.
    Rhonda brought her own sugar over because last time we were in the US she said the stuff here tasted funny, unpalatable as well, I wouldn’t know I don’t touch the stuff so I just thought she was being weird as usual.
    But it seems she had her reasons because driving into a town, Scotts Bluff, we saw mountains of what looked like round rocks, huge piles of them stacked up everywhere.
    These were all around a complex very similar to our sugar mills and the reason for that is that it was a sugar beet mill.
    The smell in the air was similar to what you get out of our cane mills though not as sweet or aromatic. It was like a bad batch was cooking or some farmers poor dogs had got mixed up in the machinery as he was cutting the cane.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    21
    Giorno 19

    Souvenir Shopping

    26 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    It’s good to visit the political backbone of a country, to see where the real decisions are made so we skipped Washington and headed straight to the NRA Centre in New Mexico.
    This group panders to no one, they are real straight shooters so to speak and don’t let any one challenge their constitutional rights. That’s the second amendment.

    There is a fabulous museum housed in their building and even if you aren’t a gunophile the weapons on display dating back over a hundred years are pure works of art and genius so first admire them then you can poke your flower down the barrel.

    Every one in this building is “packing” some have holsters on though the kid stacking shelves like you would get at Woolworths Supermarket had his stuck in the belt of his pants, obviously on $6 an hour.
    They had a throw out table of specials too where you could get a bargain on all the stale old bullets and stuff, probably past their use by date... quick shoot someone now so they aren’t wasted.

    We were given a little souvenir bag by the nice, and they were really nice people. It contained a NRA pen, a NRA leather key ring and a bullet in a small black bag with a drawstring.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    1
    2111
    Giorno 19

    American Graffiti 2

    26 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    Dear Diary,

    8:30 am: Today iz voting day so weez gets in early making sure Royal Quint gets re-elected cause weez want our Probated Judge to be a “good o’l boy”

    9:30 am: That vote’ins hard work so weez went and got us a Dr Peppers at the candy store.

    10:30 am: Damn it! spent too much at that candy store so we’s takes our selves to that First National Bank and gets us some of that there money.

    11:00 am: Youzz nose what them bank fellas tellz us... weez has to have one of them big city folks type bank accounts to gets us some of that money.

    11:15 am: Guess weez gunna have ta sell off some of our shooting irons seen’s them bank folks are so darn ornery.

    11:45 am: Darn it cant folks read American, theyz parked one of them darn rice grinders in our all American parkin spots... spose theyz caint speek American seenz theyz ridin foreign bikes theyz speekin foreign too.

    12:00 noon: Lunch time, guess we’ll mosey on down to Dusty’s and get us a feed. I never nose, is Dustys the name of the place or iz that describing hiz steaks?    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    2
    1111
    Giorno 20

    Taos Pueblo

    27 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    Through the back blocks of South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico the majority of the houses we saw are built from pine and chipboard with a tar paper roof and none of them seem like they have anymore than a few years left in them.
    Whenever you see footage of a tornado going through the United States showing toothpick splinters that were once houses flying through the air it appears that, that tornado is one powerful sucker. Maybe so but it’s more likely the houses had the same structural integrity as the cardboard box your white goods came in.

    The opposite of these buildings is the Taos Pueblos. This place of mud brick structures has been standing for over a thousand years.
    It’s built in a beautiful setting and a river runs through the settlement providing their water.
    This river starts as a spring up in the mountains that fills a lake, that overflows and that is where their river comes from.
    The descendants of the original people still live there, this is not a theme park.
    Their mountains are logged and they were forbidden to visit their spring and lake for about 65 years.
    Visiting these places was very important to them, it was the basis of their spiritual beliefs which is the basis for their lives. After being done over since European settlement they have since regained a lot of what they originally owned.

    What the anglos did though was nothing compared to what the Spaniards did before them, their treatment of these people was horrendous. It has been one long history of hideous abuse so to meet these friendly welcoming people was a surprise because if I was in their shoes I’de be throwing rocks and hurling abuse at anyone who came near the place.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    1
    Giorno 21

    Easy Rider

    28 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C

    In 1969 the cult film and iconic road movie Easy Rider was released staring, producing and probably financed by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper.
    Jack Nicholson had a start to his career with this movie as did Dennis Hopper because previously I think the only thing he had was a small role in Giant with James Dean.

    Wikipedia would probably go me over the accuracy of this but it’s the best I can do now off the top of my head as we have no internet connection here at a Arizona truck stop on Intestate 40 (part of old Route 66), probably one of the busiest highways in the country.
    It was either stay here or in a Casino or Walmart car park but we were being pushed along the highway at over 80 miles per hour, it was either do that speed or get run into, as we saw earlier had happened so by the time we spotted Walmarts or the Casinos they were just a blur as we sped by.

    Anyway back to Easy Rider.
    Peter had the looks plus his old man Henry and sister Jane’s famous name so he was a natural to play the character Captain America.
    Dennis was far less known and without the college football looks but I reckon far more interesting and a much better actor as well. He went on to play roles in movies like Blue Velvet and Apocalypse Now, what Peter went on to do, I don’t know.

    Dennis was, after being a drunk and drug addict, a very good artist and art collector too and had a love of native culture and their spiritual beliefs so moved to Taos in New Mexico.
    He died in 2010 and requested a native burial in Taos.
    It just so happens that the graveyard was about a kilometre from where we were staying.

    The movie Easy Rider had a huge lifestyle influence because of a love of bikes, especially choppers and road trips since I was old enough to hold out my thumb.
    At the moment where we are staying it could be said that it was a bad influence but the whine of truck tyres and engines screaming down the highway makes you a little itchy to get out there again and be pushed down that road... as one of the songs from the brilliant movie soundtrack goes... “to some other town”.

    So though we aren’t celebrity sluts and we were so close to Dennis Hopper’s grave we had to see after his brilliant career just where he lay.
    It was surprising, no Marilyn Munro splendour or Jim Morrison’s Paris grave. It’s in amongst old houses, crappy fences and someone living in a derelict caravan with rubbish blowing around.
    There are no signs to the cemetery and the whole place is pretty run down.
    Seeing the film that launched his career is about searching for the real America it seems like the perfect setting for him to be buried in.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    1
    Giorno 21

    More Adobes

    28 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    If you can create a silk purse out of a pig’s ear then churches out of mud are the architectural equivalent.
    Long before any Nimbin hippie had a crack at an adobe abode ancient people were slapping this stuff around to create their own little mud cottage with a picket fence.

    Imagine Bunnings a few thousand years ago, you’d walk in and say “excuse me, can you help me, what isle is the mud in?”...” oh, that will be isles one to twenty six sir”.
    And you wouldn’t be walking around going tut tut... I remember when we manufactured all our own mud now we have all these cheap imports from China.

    Cheap imports never last and this church proves it. It was built using local people with local materials a few years before Captain Cook got a farewell from some other locals at Botany Bay, thinking that is probably the last we’ll see of them.

    There is a small graveyard enclosed in the church grounds and the dates on some of these headstones go way back to its earliest times. The descendants of the original builders still maintain the building and graveyard and like the crudeness of the materials used their epitaphs are not all that refined.
    My favourite reads...IN MEMORIA DE AGAPITA LOPEZ DEAD MARCH 5 1935

    There are a few possibilities with this headstone. One is they were dearly loved but this was erected by an unschooled person. Or two, someone needed an accurate marker to piss on.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    1211
    Giorno 22

    Back in Arizona

    29 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ 🌙 3 °C

    This is an attempt to find something else good about Arizona besides the Grand Canyon.
    With my first ever trip here back in my twenties I had gun pulled on me in Phoenix so I’ve maintained a fairly low opinion of the place ever since then but you can’t let one bad experience taint your opinion so I’m back to give it another go.

    Unfortunately it hasn’t gone too well the second or third time either.
    Clearly avoiding Phoenix we made the effort to exit the interstate to try out a few other towns only to find staying in truck stops metres from the highway has more appeal.

    Probably the best one is just over the state border. As well as a truck stop, named Speedies Truck Stop is has the Indian Arts and Crafts Centre where they sell pretty much everything which is good for tourists as you want to take home something special to remember the place by.
    Now having a good look around I thought this is the place for me though I ran into a little trouble with what I wanted to buy.

    If you look at the photo of this tourist trap the signs on the store clearly read STORE WIDE CLEARANCE and EVERY MUST GO so I took them at their word and said I want to purchase the yellow horse on top of the building and being a hard bargainer I wanted a pair of sunglasses thrown in too, for the horse not me.

    Sadly the yellow horse purchase didn’t go well though I look on the whole experience as an educational one, instead of my horse I gained extensive knowledge of some very colourful Indian language.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    22113
    Giorno 22

    Route 66

    29 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    In my early twenties when I was traveling the US and meeting gun toting crazies heading towards Alaska or wandering the streets of Phoenix Arizona Route 66 hadn’t quite reached the legendary status it has now and a lot more of it still existed then so I feel fortunate to have traveled a good part of it before the extinction of most of the original route happened.

    Now days every second person you meet and their pet budgie wants to travel Route 66, it’s one of those bucket list dreams people have.
    I’ve pointed out that it doesn’t really exist any more, its been carved up by interstate highways so there are only a few intermittent sections left and the businesses along these parts milk it to death.
    This is a good thing though because in places they have left a lot of the old stuff there like the motels that haven’t changed since the sixties, probably the sheets haven’t either.

    There are a lot of old fool bikers out here too on those few remaining segments they are trying to relive that era. The open road, the freedom, the wind in their hair... if they had any or what they had just got blown off.
    Now they can finally afford that Harley and all the leather gear to go with it, trouble is it all looks just a little too new, the bike, with no real street cred, the new leathers squeaking when they walk or maybe thats just their bones making the noise.

    But we can’t have a go, us smug bastards in our luxury RV, road tripping America with all the comforts of home compared to years ago when I mostly hitched or splurged on a Greyhound bus then booked into the cheapest hotel in the worst part of town, thats if you could afford one, if not you slepted by the road. We didn’t realise we were living a Jack Kerouac novel for real.

    Jack’s mate, the poet Alan Ginsberg also lived that life and many years later he tried to relive it all so as to rediscover the America they once new.
    He got a train to the outskirts of New York and stood hitchhiking for about 5 hours in the rain. No one picked him up, so totally drenched he caught the train back home.
    The experience didn’t go to waste though, it gave him plenty of material to write about, especially the loss and decline of America. Personally I don’t think you need get totally soaked holding you thumb out and get puddle splashed to become enlightened about that.

    Now with life on a shoestring a distant memory we sit back as this V8 monster regularly cruises at 85 miles per hour, thats a lot of kilometres and at this speed we reached the Painted Desert Inn one of the original stops on Route 66 and one of the first fast food restaurant chains in America.
    It was started by a Mr Fred Harvey because he was sick of getting bad food when traveling.

    So then you set up a fast food chain to get healthy food, imagine... ”hey boy get some meat on ya bones, you’ll looking a mite poorly... here eat this tub a lard, if ya dig deep enough ya might just find ya’self a few fries but the real nutritions in that there lard”.

    I think old Fred has a lot to answer for, he’s inspired a whole food culture and each town entrance is plastered with their signs. So many you have no idea of the name of a town so instead you say “yeah I came along Highway 40 through Popeyes then on to Crispy Creams, took a left at Dunkin Donuts to Arbies All You Can Eat then a right at Puffy Pizza then straight down the highway to Extra Big Footlongs so now here we are we’ve finally arrived at destination, Fat Arse Waddleville”.    Leggi altro

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  • ViaggiatoreLower 48
    1122
    Giorno 22

    More good stuff in Arizona

    29 ottobre 2018, Stati Uniti ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Just when you worked hard to dislike a place so much it keeps throwing up stuff to make you warm a little bit more towards it.
    Now unless you hug one of these just a little too hard so you have to spend the next five weeks picking out spikes from most parts of your anatomy then there’s nothing more cuddly than the Organ Pipe Cactus.

    These beautiful species have decided to make their home in Arizona and that raggedy arsed State is all the better for it. Combine these with the Grand Canyon and five star accomodation (please see wigwam pic) and you have to admit your original opinion of the place could be wrong.

    While I’m on a love fest about Arizona I have to mention the prices of things especially fuels like gas (petrol) and propane (gas). They are really cheap, almost half the prices compared to that over the border, over populated, over taxing, over rated, delusional State better know as California.

    Now I’m in the mood to go off on a rant about California but I’ve learned my lesson with Arizona and if I come out swinging it can come back and land some pretty heavy haymakers like the Sequoia National Park, Death Valley National Park and Joshua Tree National Park which should be coming up next.

    But I still think Jed Clampet should have stayed at home.    Leggi altro

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