Road Trip Diaries

Well, last night’s plan was to enjoy a full evening’s American television. We didn’t find very much. I think it’s the "mid season" mocked by the Simpsons.

On a current events programme on MSNBC, they were talking about the London bombings. Apparently:

• The British have "finally woken up to the fact that evil lives next door"
• The reason "British lawmakers" haven’t been harassing the Muslim community up until now is that they "form a significant voting block"

Nice that someone has such insight into foreign affairs.

We watched the tail end of a stand-up comedy show called "Mind of Mendiaz". Mr Mendiaz is hispanic. Maybe being in an ethnic minority is what makes it OK for him to make racist jokes (in this case, about Iraqis). Afterwards, South Park made jokes about Jews and fat kids, among other things. But that’s OK because South Park is actually funny and intelligent.

We woke up pretty early, and drove to nearby Lee, for breakfast at Joe’s Diner. The diner is well known as the inspiration for a Norman Rockwell painting. It’s pretty archetypal, and fed us well. Air con would have been nice, but would have lacked period authenticity I suppose…

Prepared for the day, we drove on up US-7, then headed West on US-20. We were back on ground covered by the Road Trip USA book. We stopped at Hancock Shaker Village to be educated.

The Shakers originated in Bury, where Debbie comes from, but the museum just referred to Manchester. The museum does mention once in passing that Shaker founder Mother Ann Lee believed herself to be the second coming of Christ, but tended to skirt around the issue most of the time..

I found it hard to believe that the Shakers’ society could last for any time when celibacy was part of the deal — but I realised mid way through the visit that this was just the same as monks or nuns. The only difference is that males and females were kept apart by convention rather than walls.

We had sandwiches at the Shaker museum for lunch, then set off along US-20. US-20 will take us all the way to Portland; we’d better get used to it.

The route took us through the middle of Albany. I had expected Albany to be a small town — it’s the state capital of New York, but we’ve been through plenty of small state capitals. As we drew nearer, however, skyscrapers loomed over us.

It looked pretty horrible, but as we got closer, we caught glimpses of nicer buildings: something gothic, reminiscent of classic Manhattan towers, which turns out to be the state building, and an impressive looking church or cathedral, as well as a mysterious and enormous boat shaped thing suspended over the freeways.

We didn’t stop in Albany. We drove through in fits and starts punctuated by traffic lights.

Coming out of Albany, it began to rain. We didn’t see any heavy rain, but we found wet roads so the rain must have been ahead of us. I was a fraction of a second late noticing a red light, and had to brake heavily. There was much squealing of tyres, the traction control engaged, and we finally came to a stop inches from the car in front. A lucky escape!

We came off US-20 and drove a few more miles to Howe Caverns. It’s a cave. We took a tour town the cave, which involved a bit of a walk, admiring some rock formations, that kind of thing. The highlights of the tour included a boat ride along a (naturally) flooded tunnel , and a walk through narrow, winding twisty turny passages all alike.

On returning to the ground, we discovered that it had been raining heavily while we were underground. The stream running through the caves was likely to rise as a result. Depending on how high it rises, they have to stop running boat rides (because the wharf is underwater) or even cancel all tours.

With time ticking by, we decided to stay at the motel right next to the caves. There is a fantastic view across the valley, from our window. Comprehensively trapped, tourists that we are, by the tourist trap that is Howe Caverns, we also had dinner at their restaurant.

Tomorrow we plan to visit nearby Secret Caverns is allegedly an altogether gaudier operation than Howe Caverns with its gift shop and 100% safety record. Secret Caverns allegedly has "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" above the entrance. Secret Caverns puts bright folksy billboards next to the road junction for Howe Caverns saying (I paraphrase) "Don’t go here, we’re cheaper and better".  This I have to see.

The rain has caught up with us, and there is a thunderstorm going on outside.

Big Brother: the housemates are having a conversation with the Davina figure. It’s eviction night, but there was no public vote. The evictee is not greeted by a baying crowd. There is no attempt to glam it up with eviction night costumes. All wrong. What’s more, nobody involved appears even vaguely enthusiastic about proceedings, as Davina and especially Dermot are. It sucks. No wonder nobody watches it.

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