United States
Where do you start with the USA! So many visits, so many different locations. It all started way, way back in 1958 with a passage THROUGH the USA en route to the UK nuclear testing on Christmas Island in the middle of the Pacific via New York, San Fransisco, Honolulu (which back then was not even a part of the USA) and back 6 months later via SF again and Chicago. Back then international travel was very much in it`s infancy and for example O`Hare Airport in Chicago comprised a couple of no more than single storey `sheds`. I got spoken to by the local police because having to kill a few hours stopover in NY we decided to have a walk outside (perhaps down into the town?) only to discover that walking was illegal on highways!! Ooopsie. Life moved on and turboprop airliners like the Britannia were replaced by jets and I found myself in a job involving visits to our corporate offices and factories in New York, Wilmington, and Clear Lake City near Houston (which involved a hop from Houston in a tiny commuter jet). I discovered American hospitality and the early shopping malls. I even bought cheaply and have still got a Donna Summer LP on vinyl. Further down the line we started hitting Florida as a family and went back several times to hit the expanding theme parks and found ourselves a nice rental house in a great central location. Add in a couple of trips to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon and routing back home from New Zealand via the west coast and it becomes a bit of a struggle to limit the photo selection to the 36 that my site hosts. And that`s before we even mention just passing through the likes of Miami (on working trips to central America), Boston or Philadelphia (en route to cruise ports). Philadelphia was particularly `interesting` because we changed flights there after a cruise and were the last plane to land before the airport was shut down by a massive snow storm and were trapped there for 2-3 days. Luckily the airline had crew unable to get to Philadelphia so they put us into their accommodation which meant a very grand suite until we were able to fly out again.
When the grandkids were small we had a series of Florida holidays with all that entails but don`t just think of the mouse - there`s also masses of different wildlife to observe. For instance we spotted wild armadillos (did you know that they carry leprosy?!!) close to our rental house and also wild turkeys plus masses of lizards and gekkos. Our most memorable wildlife sighting though was probably after a weekend away on the Gulf Coast. We found a cheap beach front motel at Treasure Island on the outskirts of St Petersburgh and hit the huge open air Sandford flea market. Then we decided to route back to Kissimmi via the freshwater springs at Homosassa wildlife State Park and there we saw many fresh and saltwater fish congregating in the natural spring bowl—large jacks, snapper, snook and others. A unique underwater structure, the Underwater Observatory, allows visitors to “walk underwater” beneath the spring’s surface and watch the various fish and West Indian manatees swim about. These huge docile vegetarian mammals are amazing to see in the flesh and not nearly as scary as the local alligators which sometimes seem to pop up out of nowhere right in the drainage pools in the middle of housing developments in Florida! Or stop golf matches. And then there is the food! Americans do do small - trust me!! And they consume huge amounts of seafood. We rapidly identified the likes of Boston Red Lobster and Boston Lobster Feast (ALL you can eat for a fixed price!!!). Chris really enjoyed opening and dissecting lobsters but not the taste, so we gorged on his efforts along with scallops, clam chowder and a huge number of prawns. One thing that we also spotted - the smaller and darker the restaurant the smaller the portions and more expensive the food. But at the end of the day their buffet meals - like for example the ones in Las Vegas which are designed to get you inside THEIR casino`s doors are great value and offer a huge range of options. Breakfast in Florida is to die for!
Usually on trips to Central America the flight from the UK would land too late to catch the connecting flight so it was necessary to overnight in Miami - not a bad thing anyway as it helped recover from jetlag. This involved finding a hotel near the airport. I rapidly discovered that they had no idea whatsoever what UK sterling traveler`s cheques were or how to deal with them!! And back then I didn`t have a company credit card so had to pay cash in advance to get a bed! It was important to know which parts of Miami were OK to visit - it had/has a large latino population many of whom spoke little or no English. I would grab a taxi downtown to a new shopping mall where I was able to buy software for my recently acquired computer (a Commodore PET with 16K of memory and a 9 inch monochrome screen) on cassette tapes! Also other unique things back there like a candle shop and home telephone shop. Back in the UK there were no choices - you just had the house phone that BT issued you with. How times have changed. I also discovered the joy on American magazines back when there was not a great deal of choice on tech issues in the UK. I read an article about the Hungarian sensational invention - Rubik`s Cube before anyone had seen one back home. And American science fiction mags. A common language (more or less) but so many differences. I was in Philadelphia airport looking round the shopping area and bought something trivial when the lady serving me asked about my accent. "I`m from England." "Noo England?" "No England in Europe!" "Oh gee all that way and you speak English just like we do!!!" Boom.
My western America experiences have largely been limited to three times in San Francisco and a couple of trips to Las Vegas. Both I would do again! San Francisco of course sits on a series of big fault lines was decimated back in 1906 and is waiting for the next big earthquake to strike. There was a fairly robust one in 1989 which brought down some major structures but building standards are a lot better than they were back in 1906. There was one interesting side effect of the 1989 one though. The local sea lion colony which used to live on a roost some distance out of the city all upper and moved onto Pier 39 on Fisherman`s Wharf where we were amazed to see them so happy and ignoring all the tourists and waterfront traffic all around them. You will see just one of a number of pictures we took of them in the slideshow below. Another good find at Fishermans Wharf (for lunch) was Bubba Gump Shrimp Co where we had a `simple` bucket of shrimps for lunch in an unpretentious family restaurant just a stones throw from all the sea lions and gazing out across the water to Alcatraz island and the Golden Gate Bridge. Then back on the trolley up the steep climb to our hotel which was close to Union Square and a fab evening meal at Farallon`s. We stumbled upon it by chance as it has a tiny entrance just off Union Square but we had one of the best meals that we have ever had anywhere. And then there`s Las Vegas - what can you say about it. If you think Orlando is over the top then you ain`t seen nothin! Vegas is on another planet. Amazingly the bus sytem up and down The Strip is quick, cheap and efficient so no need for a rental car or even taxis. Every hotel has a casino and every casino has some speciality to drag you in. The buffer restaurants are cheap as chips and have a huge range of choices (think 90-120 options ). The hotels/casinos are amazing and once you get inside one you struggle o find a way out. On one occasion we had to walk through the MGM Grand from the front entrance on The Strip to the back entrance where the monorail stop was - I paced it out at just over a mile!!. You must travel up to th very top of The Strip to where it all began - Freemont because the free overhead visual light display just has to be seen. Please search some of the videos out on YuoTube and you will understand why. And apart from all this there is also a very special trip that you can make from Vegas airport on a helicopter across to the Grand Canyon (via the Hoover Dam). If you choose the right helicopter company they have limited landing rights from the local native indian tribe to land at the BOTTOM of the canyon. Trust me - it is worth the money. The silence down there compared to the OTT madness of Vegas is an outstanding memory to take home.
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Browse through the picture galleries below relating to this page and you will get a much better idea than just reading my words! Each page has it`s own set of relevant images - where possible taken by us.