http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaMgb0JMTeo play this while reading the blog, its the soundtrack to my day! (Don't bother with the video. Don't know who the bloke is, but the song is good! That and it is played incessently on every radio station here).
Well, Ma and Pa will be setting off for the 'States shortly, good luck to them! (Landing in Las Vegas, on July 4th. PMSL. It won't be busy. Much. "We're not in Kansas anymore Toto" - still can't figure out which one is Toto hmmmm when I reach a conclusion I'll let you know).
Driven the 270 plus miles from El Paso to Tucson, Arizona today, and changed yet another time zone, thats -8 hours now. It suprised even me! Got here at 13:30 instead of 14:30! My stomach has to wait that extra hour for tea - again! (To be fair, its that fat, it could wait a whole lifetime and not need any more tea).
As I arrived here at roughly 13:30, I was going to check out Sabino Canyon, but unfortunately rain stopped play. Yes those dastardly thunderstorms are following me around... Its still 99F out there, according to the Tahoe (and that's always right). 105F in Las Vegas and sunny for the moment, and 78 in Flagstaff - the next stop. Yes the Tahoe went to those two places and reported back. Its pretty good like that. Two nights in Flagstaff, tomorrow, Sunday and a trip to the Grand Canyon with any luck. Rain or Shine. Then to Vegas, via Route 66 Monday.
The gas here is like dishwater. Put some "regular" in the Tahoe, and it drank that in no time. It sort of looked up and me from under those big dopey eyes and said "Yeh? And? Y'all be wantin' to give me something decent to drink an' I'll take my time". For those that don't know, it goes like this: There are 3 grades of gas available. 87 Regular, 89 Plus, and 91 Super Unleaded (sometimes I've seen it as high as 93. lol. 93). Bear in mind our regular unleaded is 95. Our Super is 97 / 98 / 99. No wonder the Tahoe only gets 18mpg on it! And it performs like a giant dog. With three legs. Been putting 89 in, but had to go for the 87 at a smaller station along the way. 89 is noticeably better - but still pretty rubbish. The Boxster has a hissy fit if I put even 97 in it (it likes Tesco 99); don't think it would bother starting on anything as low as 87! "Du Idiot! Das ist nicht gut genug! Die Qualität ist nutzlos!"
During the drive over, the landscape changed as I entered Arizona, and become more mountainous and with large sandstone bolders everywhere, making the plains of New Mexico look positively boring in comparison. And they were. The thunderstorms are impressive too; due to the scale of the environment, you can see them coming for miles. They have big dark low clouds (pretty much like British thunderstorms but with bigger, American clouds) and like a funnel below them of haze - which of course is the big, American, rain. As they pass over the mountain tops, they light up the scenery below with the lightening. Its impressive, American lighten- ok, so you get the idea. They are good to watch, ok?
The American June bugs don't half make a racket. They sit in the big American trees - ok I'll stop with the American biggness now. You all wonder why things are bigger here, though - this country is VAST things have to be big, even the thunder and rain; otherwise it simply wouldn't get noticed in the vastness of it all, and its a vastness you have to experience to understand, you simply can't experience that in England - so the June bugs sit in the trees chirping away with their wings or whatever. They sound like crickets, only its a constant racket, and is a faster (bigger, Amer- ok ok) chirping. Chirpchirpchirpchirpchirpchirp - kind of like that. Its weird too, because the sound doesn't really carry very far. So you can hear it a few metres from the tree, and it gets louder and louder as you walk under the tree, in fact almost deafening - then gets softer as you walk away. Considering its volume under the tree, and that of a couple of metres away. Weird.
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I think I have probably soaked up too much heat / Country and Western / American enthusiasm for life or drowned myself in Bud Light over the last week and a bit, but I wanted to make a point of saying something else too:
My blog is supposed to be about an intelligent, witty, intelligent, stylish, vibrant, (did I mention intelligent?) and slightly sarcastic take on life as I find it in America. My favourite country on Earth. And so to continue. Tomorrow. With guns. And big trucks. And Country music.
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