(
^Don't eat the mushrooms here ...^
"'Curiouser and curiouser," cried Alice ..."
*************************************************
Food
Our favorite foods have always been the Texas BBQ and BlueBell ice cream. However, I have found a couple more choice items this time round, in the form of a fabulous chocolate mint tea by Harney & Sons, New York, and Indiana Dark Fudge Chocolate Chip Kettlecorn (oh, yeah!) Fortunately, both can be ordered online and shipped worldwide, cuz I'm gonna need to feed this addiction when we get back home!
Texas Manners Revisited
February 2012, back in Texas and still enjoying the southern manners and hospitality found down here. Recently I was standing in line at an AutoZone store about 6 feet behind two guys who were obviously natives of the area. I think the term is rednecks. Anyway, they were chatting away, and one of them turned around and started heading back to get something else. As he passed in front of me he said, "Excuse me, ma'am." Now, he was a good 4 feet away from me when he said it. I've had people bowl me over in Canadian Tire without a word, so once again Southern manners rule!
Another random observation in the same store, the guy who rang me through was also obviously another native of the area, complete with a scruffy beard and fair-sized beer gut. He apologized for the slowness of the computer that morning, to which I replied it was okay, I was just enjoying the music while waiting. To which HE replied, "Ah, Van the Man," recognizing that "Caravan" was playing on the radio! Turned out he was a huge Van Morrison fan, even knew his current touring status. You just never know, do you!
Yankee Manners
Well, we're back in the land of the averted gaze again. It's quite the art, really, when you are passing someone at close quarters, say in a store aisle or on a sidewalk, and they are looking everywhere else but towards you as they pass by, thus avoiding any type of human contact, such as an impersonal greeting of "How y'all doin?"
We noticed it when we got back into California, but once we got to Oregon we found it was pointless to even attempt a greeting. Sad but true.
Did I mention we miss Texas?
Shopping Cart Revelation:
Nowhere in any of the 6 states of the USA that we have been in, have we yet to encounter a retail establishment that makes you put money into their shopping carts the way they all love to do in BC. I love it! No longer do you have to have a quarter or loonie in hand before you can buy groceries. Worse yet is having to go into the store and wait half an hour to get change so you can get one of their stupid carts. It is much simpler to have carts that are free for customers to load up. And I also noticed a lot less pirated shopping carts around the towns, too.
I can't get enough of these eTrade commercials:
Well, we're back in the land of the averted gaze again. It's quite the art, really, when you are passing someone at close quarters, say in a store aisle or on a sidewalk, and they are looking everywhere else but towards you as they pass by, thus avoiding any type of human contact, such as an impersonal greeting of "How y'all doin?"
We noticed it when we got back into California, but once we got to Oregon we found it was pointless to even attempt a greeting. Sad but true.
Did I mention we miss Texas?
Shopping Cart Revelation:
Nowhere in any of the 6 states of the USA that we have been in, have we yet to encounter a retail establishment that makes you put money into their shopping carts the way they all love to do in BC. I love it! No longer do you have to have a quarter or loonie in hand before you can buy groceries. Worse yet is having to go into the store and wait half an hour to get change so you can get one of their stupid carts. It is much simpler to have carts that are free for customers to load up. And I also noticed a lot less pirated shopping carts around the towns, too.
I can't get enough of these eTrade commercials:
Maple leaf in the Mojave
I found this maple leaf laying in the middle of the desert near Yermo, California. Must be a sign from god ...
Arizona, home of open gun laws (also no helmet law for bikers):
It's really weird to walk into a pawn shop here and see a fabulous display of handguns, assault rifles, and other semi-automatic weapons, and be able to walk up to the counter and buy one that day. It's normal for them to have AK-47s, Uzis, and even Tazer kits in their display cases.
Also found an incredible knife store in Sierra Vista, Trapper Jon's. He had thousands of knives crammed into an on-street store, everything from small pen knives to giant swords. Absolutely amazing the selection there. Oh, and he did have a sign at the counter advising that children under 18 had to have parent's permission to purchase items there.
Also saw a sign at the entrance to the active military base at Fort Huachuca, which is in Sierra Vista, advising no loaded firearms are allowed to be brought into the base (go figure), and it had a sign similar to a no-smoking sign, only instead of a cigarette, there was a picture of a handgun with a red circle and line through it. I didn't get a photo of it because I didn't think it would be a good idea for a foreigner to be taking photos of an army base down here, especially since the F-35 Lightning IIs were flying around and they had a big surveillance blimp overhead!
Below: Signs in different entrances to public buildings around Arizona:
(Click on photos for larger size)
************************************************
Any Quentin Tarentino fans? From Dusk till Dawn:
Above: Taken from moving truck so missed the first half of the sign on this strip joint, about 30 miles from Mexican border.
Question: Which came first, the strip joint or the movie? Didn't have time to check around the back of the building, though, but still freaky, very freaky.
Another question: What exactly is the purpose of the bus out front?
Above: Buckeye, Arizona: She's a beaut!
Benson BMXers Walking the dog in the desert the other day and came across a half-dozen teenagers grabbing a lot of air via the whoops they had carved out of the red dusty land with a lot of sweat and bruises. They told me that they would be there all the time except for the fact that school interfered with their penchant for pedaling.
(click on the photos to get a larger image for full effect )
Above: BMXer oblivious to the sun beating down on him
Above: Suspended in midair while attempting a tailspin
Above: Bar spin gone bad
Above: Rider silhouette in the sun
Se Busca InformacionLarge "information wanted" sign (about 8 feet by 6 feet) seen at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on Hwy. 80, about 50 miles north of the Mexican border:
Benson, Arizona: Land of the giantsThe first night we got here, we hit the local Walmart. It wasn't very busy, but I noticed that the three of four men I walked past were all noticeably taller than me, which is weird because I do not notice that "back home." I am talking noticeably taller, as in 6-foot-3 or better, and lean, not leaning towards overweight. Since we've now been here for over a week, I have come to the conclusion that it wasn't an anomoly, and there are a lot of really tall men in Cochise County, and a lot of the women are also as tall or taller than me, too.
Arizona: The land of all-terrain vehicles and highway patrol We have been traveling on Highway 10 for the past few days, and it's not far from the Mexican border -- less than 40 miles in some spots. As soon as we got into Arizona, we noticed immediately that there seems to be at least one or two border patrol, city police, and/or state police vehicles every couple of miles. I guess it takes a lot of police to keep it the land of the free.
The bomber jet planes fly
Fire a shot into the sky
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation"
(Joni Mitchell "Woodstock")
Sitting around in the sunshine yesterday afternoon in Buckeye, we were treated to the sight of at least seven F-16 and F-35 Lightning II
jet fighters, all decked out with missiles attached, practicing maneuvers in the sky above and around us, sometimes seeming only a few stories off the ground. This went on for at least 3 hours, and none of them broke through Mach 1, which I thought was rather sporting of them. I read somewhere that it costs about $5,000 per hour to operate one of these things. Better print up some more money, Washington...
Palm Springs Air Museum
Very impressive air museum featuring World War II planes, almost all of which are in flying condition, plus lots of other displays and a huge library of books about the era, as well as periodicals, journals, and newspapers from that time and later.Indio is fatteningWe are staying in an RV park that is right on the border of Indio and La Quinta. The latter seems to be the newer, upscale side of the tracks, populated with hundreds of gated communities and golf courses. We seem to be spending most of our time in Indio, which is more working-class oriented. I found a Mexican bakery today in Indio. I got a bagful of goodies for $5.35. The sweet breads in the photos are the size of softballs. That half-chocolate/half-vanilla sugar cookie was the size of a piece of Texas toast. And real sugar on everything. Que rico!
 |
| Check out the seashell detail on this sweet bread! |
 |
| All this (and a churro and a sweet bread that didn't make it to the photo) for $5.35! |
More foodSpeaking of eating, I seem to be spending a lot of time writing about food. I haven't mentioned the Ben and Jerry's ice cream. It's $2.50 for a carton at Walmart. The creme brulee flavour is out of this world, and the peach cobbler is insane. Also found another good eatery today -- DelTaco, with 6 tacos for $2.95. And they are tasty, tasty, tasty! Did I mention the dark chocolate Reese's Pieces? The Dollar Store has them for 60 cents a pack. Definitely superior to the milk chocolate version.
Random crapOff topic: Just noticed the text editor for this blog has a strike-through feature.
You are allowed to make U-turns in intersections in California. The left-turn lanes have signs on them indicating you can either turn left or do a complete U-turn around the island and head the other way. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's actually a pretty good idea as it seems to really help traffic flow. Of course, it's not something one can accomplish in a 1-ton Dodge Dually Mega Cab.
Every gas station in California that we stopped at until we got to Indio was owned/operated and staffed by people of East Indian heritage. In Coalinga, one of them read out a section from a newspaper he was reading, sharing with me the information that the world's most expensive apartment was located in Bombay, India, pointing at the words for me to see, unfortunately in a newspaper directly from India and written in what appeared to be Gujurati or one of the other languages used in that country, so I was unable to understand the writing. Another attendant in Bakersfield was excited to see we were from BC, and told me he had been to Surrey and White Rock on a holiday.
Christmas in Palm Springs Hummingbirds are here in the desert right now, and many people have feeders up. I have seen immature rufous, which sets me to wonder if some of them might be the babies that hatched out this summer in the Paxton Valley and were led to my own hummingbird feeders and taught to use them by their mothers before heading south in the middle of August.
Food, food, foodGroceries are still cheaper here. A lot cheaper. Breyer's ice cream is $2.95 for a carton that is $6.00 or better in Kamloops. A jug (yep, a jug with a handle -- can you even get that in Canada?) of Captain Morgan's rum was $12.00, and a 24-pack of Corona beer $21.00. A half-gallon of fresh-made lemonade is $2.00, a butterball turkey 58 cents a pound. That's right, a huge butterball turkey was $12.00. A big tub of potato salad was $4.00, larger than the $8.00 size at Cooper's in Valleyview. The list goes on and on. And food just tastes better here. They make it taste better and they give you more of it. We now have a better understanding of why America is overweight...
Oregon -- home of the professionally-trained gas jockey We had to laugh the first time we went to fuel up the truck and the guy very authoritatively informed us that "it's against the law" for us to put fuel in our own truck, only trained professionals can accomplish this feat. We later learned that apparently the law does not cover diesel purchases, just gasoline, but we didn't feel like arguing and let the pros do it for us. I talked to a lady who lives in Oregon, and she told me that she drove to California last year and stood in front of a gas pump for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get gas into her car! Finally someone took pity on her and showed her the ropes.
No comments:
Post a Comment