Like Memphis, only not as warm..

As yet the only place to have rivaled Memphis in the 'BPSM'* index is the city of San Francisco. As well as that though the city offered us a hotel more dubious than Pope Benedict's views on atheism and more fog than you can shake a stick at.

Having taken big hits to the body soul and wallet we all to a man felt the time was right to do something a bit more fresh-airy, with this in mind we trundled off to the Yosemite National Park. We saw a salt lake with more flies on it than made for a nice photo and some really big trees that were disappointingly not redwoods. Still no bears on the horizon. We stopped in a gateway town called Big Pine se saw nothing big nor very many pines. The one restaurant open sold me a pizza that lasted through 5 meals and 3 days.

After Yosemite we stayed a night in Stockton, a town reminiscent of the nicer parts of absolutely nowhere. We range from 60 to 99 percent sure there were gunshots as we drove into town and a trip to the local Denny's left Reid, Mecz and Faloyin more than a little shell-shocked. Owen hid in the room and watched cable televison.

Finally we reach San Francisco and check in to the ricketiest hotel yet complete with a very out of date lift with real iron gates and a door that opens while the whole thing is moving between floors. We check out a couple of parks while we're in SF and the first, the Presido, is the sight of the now infamous Deparkle.

Nobody is saying parallel parking is easy, and not a soul would dare claim that doing it in a hulking great chevrolet makes things any easier, so when TCJ Reid scraped the paint off a parked car outside the Palace of the Fine Arts it was only a surprise that it didnt happen sooner. What followed was a lengthy discussion with a man known only to us as Mr Escobar (no relation) about the relative prices of car bumper repairs on either side of the atlantic that ended - eventually - in a $125 bribe and a "lets say no more about this" handshake.

Click Here For Deparkle Photos

We also went to see the Oakland Raiders playing their special brand of American Football. Described elsewhere as "the compost heap of the NFL" - they're as close as you can get in the colonies to Millwall FC but here hitting the other team is heartily encouraged.

On the last day I visited the San Francisco city library where there were more homeless people washing in the toilets than there were people reading books and a man using a public computer in a bank of 12 freely perusing the content of a number of adult websites. Whilst I was pursuing these high intellectual pleasures L T and D were taking part in a piece of capitalism so finely tuned it makes the Large Hadron Collider look like a toilet tube with lightbulb sellotaped to it, a scheme so Machiavellian it makes Kim Tate look like Zac Dingle. And what is the dastardly tax levied against the trusting nature of the common man on his holidays? Hiring a bike and cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge. All the extortion of an 1920's gangster movie but none of the scenery - because of the bloody fog!

Also in SF - great noodle soup in a thai place near union square, Chinese food in Chinatown (not as good as Manchester's), and an extended argument with a car park attendant over a receipt.
"You never gave us a receipt"
"Yeah you definitely didn't give us a receipt"
"No sir, I gave you a receipt"
Repeat
"Oh wait, does it look like this?"

*Bums Per Square Mile

The car quotes quiz!

So here is the most eagerly awaited set of questions and answers since the Soham police got hold of that rascally Ian Huntley;

Who said these things?

1. Whilst parking...
"get out of my way you dirty, rancid little man"
A. Tom Reid B. Emily Davenport C. Elizabeth Mecz

2. On the road out of Austin...
"I don't want any sympathy, I just want a pain killer"
A. Tom Reid B. Dipo Faloyin C. Emily Davenport

3. On the panoramic scenery of the United States...
"awww! Look at the horse/cow/pony/bunny"
A. Tom Reid B. Elizabeth Mecz C. Emily Davenport

4. On planning a road trip...
"it's all about options guys"
A. Tom Reid B. Emily Davenport C. Dipo Faloyin

5. On the indigenous population...
"I don't know if he was homeless, he was just pretty dirty"
A. Tom Reid B. Dipo Faloyin C. Emily Davenport

6. On other road users...
"stop scratching your bloody head you dickhead
A. Tom Reid B. Thomas Charles Owen C. Elizabeth Mecz

7. On international travel...
"guys, I think I left my passport in Vegas"
A. Tom Reid B. Dipo Faloyin C. Thomas Charles Owen



1.a

Une histoire de Vegas

To borrow a joke from the Simpsons, the chronology of our time in Vegas goes something like this;

Check in to hooters
- scenes missing -
Check in to bellagio
- scenes missing -
Leave Vegas

Somewhere in there featured magicians, topless pools and go-go dancers. Cirque du soleil and Tony the oldest blackjack dealer in the world. $65 losses in poker and $130 rolls at the roulette table. We drank huge quantities of margaritas and formidably strong gin and tonics. We saw the venetian, the rio, the mirage, treasure island and spent a lot of money in bill's gambling hall. We met up with Joe Ridgley and a girl he kidnapped from the camp he worked at and spent 15 minutes in the same room as a man in cap purporting to be Michael Phelps. We didn't ride the New York, New York roller coaster or the thing at the top of the stratosphere. We saw Thai brides and millionaires as well as a healthy collection of pimps and hookers.Nobody got married.

And in the midst of all this we seem to have lost Emily...

Vegas day one

Group Losses - $210.

Would have been $110 but reidy was suckered into playing a hundred dollar spin in the high rollers lounge of Caesars.

couple

Tom Reid loses another piece of identity

We leave Santa Fe bright and early, ready for the 8 hour drive up the country. In the words of Jack Kerouac, we cease to travel East to West and instead - Mystic North. The trip up is relatively uneventful until night falls when, like something from a Robert Browning poem, a bloody great deer jumps in the way of the car. The lumbering mass of the Chevvy comes to a halt just inches from the stupid creature before it gasses it off into the brush from whence it came.

We arrive an hour or so later after a hearty evening meal of pizza hut in a little town called Silverthorne, its like Luton but with mountains. And no airport. We go sleepily and happily to bed.

In the morning we go into town to look at the delightful little town of Steamboat Springs. We see all the same tourist tat rebranded with "Steamboat" instead of Memphis/Nashville/Santa Fe. One thing that strikes us as new though is a collection of paintings on sale in a local gallery window. They depict all the Republican presidents of the 20th century standing around laughing and playing pool, there hasn't been such a disturbing image of the true face of evil committed to canvas since William Blake painted scenes from Dante's Inferno. Except maybe this.

After some light touristing we drive up the side of a mountain to look at the truly stunning Fish Creek Falls, where some absolute fresher has broken her leg and ruins picture taking time for the rest of the visitors. After she of little brain is winched unceremoniously onto the back of a quad bike and shuttled up the hill we go back to enjoying our lunch and the beautiful views.

And now the main event. That evening we spend a night at the rodeo. Words can not express the pure unbridled joy, the mesmerising skill, or the dumbfounding oddness of what we saw. So here's a video.



And as The Great Salad Eating of August 2010 still reverberates around the shared consciousness and the crunch of lettuce leaf is still reverberating in the ears of the world, another hammer blow is struck to Tom Reid's carefully sculpted public image. And the facet of Tara's persona that falls away this time? Whatever bit it is that stops you placing hand on heart and singing the Yank national anthem just because a man in a Stetson tells you to, thats which bit.

Nu Mehico

Santa Fe in New Mexico is probably the most unique and most picturesque of the places we've visited. You could walk down the street and feel as though you're in Greece or Spain but for the Adobe buildings that make up 90% of the city's architecture - they seem to sprawl upwards and outwards as if they were added to time and again over the centuries. They also look like theyre made of fudge. There is a beautiful plaza where a temporary stage has been erected as part of the Indian Arts Festival taking place in the city at the same time as our momentous visit.

It is while sitting in the plaza and enjoying one of the bands on the stage that we experience the most colourful of Santa Fe's residents. A drunk mexican man lying at the foot of one of the trees lining the square is using a plastic crate for a head rest so that he can do two things - pour more booze into his face and maintain a vigilant watch on the goings on in the square. In between tracks he offers constructive criticism to those on the stage. Key themes included,

"GO HOME!"
"Nobody wants you here"
"Hey, You. On the stage. Go HOME!"
"Fucking Tourists, Nobody wants you here!"

Combine any of these in any order and you have a fairly good representation of his rhetoric.

Aside from this our time in Santa Fe is uneventful; we buy some very expensive tapas, visit a very old church and see some very crusty hippies.