Atlanta, GA

In the South, vowels are lengthened interminably, and syllables subdivide with gay abandon. Yesterday a checkout girl said to me 'Well, hello there' and made it into a full-blown piece of iambic pentameter.

And on the topic of American speech - is everyone aware that it's now mandatory here to put absolutely everything into the future tense? For example, when you check into a hostel, the spiel goes as follows: 'So...you're gonna go up to the second floor, and you're gonna turn right, and you're gonna be in dorm 3 [I suppose this is all literally correct] ...and there's gonna be a shared bathroom at the end of the corridor [meaning there isn't one now?!] ...and your bill's gonna be $75 [OK, so I'll pay later]...which you have to pay now, sir [oops]"

No doubt it won't be long before this makes its way across the Atlantic. Perhaps such usage merely reflects the influence of Schrodinger; the receptionist is implicitly contending that such things as bathrooms cannot be truly said to exist until they are perceived.

First port of call in Atlanta was an appointment at the office of the British Consulate-General, to get an emergency travel document to replace my passport, which I lost in Indianapolis. Yes indeed. I didn't mention it at the time, partly because I'm a firm believer in the stiff upper lip, treating those two impostors just the same, beneath the thingummies of what-d'you-call-it, etc. But mainly because I don't like to burden the blog with my misfortunes unless they have comedy value, and this one didn't. I have no idea how I came to lose the passport: I only know that I unwittingly achieved a smooth and seamless transition from having it to not having it.

Anyway it's all sorted now, with no harm done other than me being relieved of £172.50 by Her Majesty's Foreign & Commonwealth Office (£100 for the emergency travel document and £72.50 for the replacement passport when I get home). As a foreign national without a passport, boarding my plane to Atlanta at Indianapolis necessitated a rather heavier degree of physical intimacy than usual between me and the guy with the plastic gloves. There was a pat on each buttock, an inside-of-belt-line forage, and also some cupping. But no prostate exam. I can hardly complain.

As for Atlanta itself...meh. Lovely AirBnB house, though. I shall miss those dogs.

Atlanta by day, from the top of the Westin Hotel

 

Atlanta by night, on a long exposure

When I lived in Edinburgh, I used to laugh at Chinese tourists taking photos of the Elephant Café
(where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter books).
Now here I am, taking pictures of the house where Margaret Mitchell wrote 'Gone With The Wind'.
And I haven't even read the bloody thing. It only goes to show, doesn't it.

Edd vs Food #46

Mediterranean stromboli, artistically photographed by me at the Pizza Joint, 
125 Richland Avenue West, Aiken SC.

Chicken, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, mozzarella, Romano cheese, and a side of marinara.

How come I got to age 40 without trying stromboli, or even knowing what it was?

All a bit dough-heavy for me though.

The dogs of AirBnB:
Bentley (l) and Winter (r)

Charleston, SC

And so begins Part Two of this adventure. It's nice to be back in the Deep South. See picture for my temporary abode: it contains my AirBnB hostess Colleen (friendly Southern hospitality), her elderly dog (sleepy indifference), and three cats (lofty disdain).

I flew Delta from Indianapolis to Atlanta. (Indianapolis Airport has immediately become my favourite airport in the whole world. It's only got one terminal; it's clean, bright, spacious and airy; everything's easy to find; and there are almost no queues at all. Surreal, but heavenly.) After the plane I took a Greyhound and now I'm here in Charleston, South Carolina. It's only a couple of hours' drive from Savannah, Georgia, where I passed a pleasant few days a couple of years ago. The two places are pretty similar really: low-key, genteel, old-fashioned and expensive. South Carolina is pronounced by the locals as "South Ca'lina", in much the same way that "Sunderland" is generally abbreviated to "Sun'land".

I wouldn't last a day here in the sweltering height of summer. Thankfully the temperatures now are only in the 70s and it's not too humid. I can just about manage long-ish walks. There is an abundance of colonial-era architecture, or at least neo-colonial, and there are almost no major chains visible downtown: there's one single Subway, and that's about it.

Can't help but observe that Charleston takes the prize for the most expensive plain black coffee of my life to date ($4.50). That's all very well for the rich preppy Ivy League WASP types who make up most of the tourists here, but impoverished bohemian backpackers like me can't stick around for too long. Another Greyhound looms.

My AirBnB

Not my AirBnB

Ditto

Broad Street

The Arthur Ravenel Jr bridge, which connects Charleston to Mount Pleasant.
I don't know why they call the place 'Mount'. It's as flat as a fart.

USS Yorktown, a decommissioned US navy aircraft carrier.
It's moored permanently in the Cooper River as a floating museum.

Edd vs Food #45
'Santa Fe chicken' wrap at the Brown Dog Deli, 40 Broad Street, Charleston.
Applewood-smoked bacon, roasted corn, guacamole, tomatoes, lettuce...
Red onions, black beans, cilantro, sour cream, monterey jack, roasted chicken...
Tortilla strips and chipotle dressing in a jalapeno-cheddar wrap.
Potato salad (featuring crispy bacon) on the side.

Indianapolis, IN

Indianapolis is a wholly unremarkable place, and I haven't got anything interesting to report, other than the following:

a) I went round the track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As in off of the Indy 500.
b) I saw an ongoing Black Lives Matter protest. With actual African-American participants, as opposed to nitwit white English trustafarian types.

So we have two new additions to the famed List Of Things Which I've Done And You Probably Haven't, Not That Either Of Us Cares. For example, that picture on my last blog where I ate a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kentucky. I don't even like KFC. Never have.

Anyway. Token photos - and a video - are below. Bye for now!

Downtown Indy

By the canal

Edd vs Food #44
'Mediterranean' pizza at Bazbeaux, 329 Massachusetts Avenue, Indianapolis.
The base is tomato and cheese (provolone / mozzarella / Pecorino romano).
Extra toppings are chorizo, pepperoni, feta cheese, spinach and house roasted red pepper.
No particular local significance. I just really fancied a pizza.
It was yummy.

Going round the Indy 500 racetrack. Obviously I'm doing the filming, not the driving.

Cincinnati, OH

I rode a Greyhound here after taking the rental car back to Pittsburgh. As we approached Cincinnati, a young black woman in the back seat was carrying on a steamy telephone conversation with her significant other. Clearly her phone had a poor signal because she kept repeating herself, and speaking ever more loudly and slowly, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everybody else could hear the whole thing. Indeed it got to the point that the whole of the rest of the bus was plunged into an awkward silence. We all listened, eyes wide and facing squarely front, while she repeated herself one barked word at a time in a steely deep-fried Southern twang. "Baby. I. Can't. Wait. To. Touch. You. And. Taste. You. What? Say what? WHAT? I said, BABY! I! CAN'T! WAIT!..." And so on.

I got off the bus at Cincinnati, but I think she was going all the way south, so to speak.

Cincinnatus was a Roman leader in the 5th century BC who was famed for renouncing the supreme office, after a string of military victories, in order to return to his farm. George Washington followed his example in 1797 and voluntarily gave up the US presidency after two terms, once the survival of the republic was assured. The two-term limit was observed informally for nearly 150 years, until the exigencies of World War Two prompted Franklin Delano Roosevelt to go all the way to a fourth term. This in turn prompted the 22nd Amendment, eventually ratified in 1951, which enshrined the two-term limit into law. And now, 65 years later, the 22nd Amendment has prevented Barack Obama from running for a third term which he probably would have won, and we have The Donald instead. It only goes to show, doesn't it? Indeed there was recently a half-hearted campaign for 'Repeal The 22nd', to which Trump supporters responded with 'Repeal The 19th'. The 19th is the one that gave women the vote.

Anyway, Cincinnati is named after Cincinnatus. (Welcome to my blog, where It's Fun To Find Out.) It's quite a nice place; it's one of those mid-sized cities that's big enough to have an impressive skyline, but small enough that you can wander around and be the only tourist in sight. One revealing comment from a local is that Cincinnati is often used in movies as the stereotypical unremarkable American city. If a character is introduced as being from DC then they're probably a politician; somebody from LA will be in movies; somebody from Texas will be an oilman. Introduce a character from Cincinnati and you have a blank slate.

Personally I will always remember Cincinnati as the place where I watched the 2016 presidential election, and I will always remember the Roebling Suspension Bridge as the place from which I contemplated throwing myself into the Ohio River as I walked home after the result became apparent. The river marks the state line: Cincinnati is in Ohio but my AirBnB is in Kentucky. These two are the 15th and 16th states I've visited so far on this trip, and there's a few more to go yet.

Downtown Cincinnati.
From the top floor observation deck of the 45-storey Carew Tower

This photo is taken from the far end of the right-hand bridge in the photo above

Cincinnati by night from the Kentucky side

Wall mural at West Court Street

Ban this filth

Edd vs Fast Food #13
Kentucky Fried Chicken
In Kentucky!!
Yay!!

Edd vs Food #43
Cincinnati chilli at Skyline
The most disappointing piece of 'local speciality cuisine' I've tried since chicken Parmo.
Basically it's grated cheese, over tinned chili, over tinned spaghetti.
I used to get served better meals than this at Hill View Junior School.

USA

Atlantic City, NJ

I've had a big long driving tour down the east coast. Day One was lunch in Rhode Island and a night in Connecticut. Day Two's drive took me to Atlantic City, which is exactly how you'd expect it to be: in other words, it's like somebody picked up Las Vegas and dropped it on top of Skegness. I think I'd find it intolerable at the height of the party season, but right now it's almost totally deserted, so I quite enjoyed my stroll up and down that boardwalk. (And not just because my big posh 18th-floor ocean-view hotel room cost me less than I paid for the Motel 6 fleapit in Connecticut the night before.)

Then south again, to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. On December 7th, 1787, the US constitution was ratified by the original 13 states. The guy from Delaware put his hand up to be the first one to sign. And thus it comes to pass that, 230 years later, Delaware licence plates proudly proclaim 'The First State'. As state mottos go, it's pretty poor compared to New Hampshire's, which is 'Live Free Or Die'.

West into Maryland and the Virginias. With my 'amateur history geek' hat on, I visited Antietam, the site of the bloodiest day in the American Civil War - and indeed in the whole of American military history. I also saw Harpers Ferry, another key Civil War battleground, and the place where John Brown's abortive slave-revolt insurrection arguably served as as the catalyst for the Civil War to begin with. That episode was memorably retold, with substantial embellishments, in a book I recently read called 'Flashman and the Angel of the Lord'. If you've never read George McDonald Fraser's Flashman books then you should give them a try. There are twelve of them and most good public libraries will have at least one in stock. They're historically informative, riotously funny, and grossly offensive. What's not to like?

This journey has given me plenty to watch out for along the way, not least the roadkill - an adult deer leaves a very big splat. Also did you know it's literally illegal to fill up your own car with petrol in New Jersey? You have to let the attendants do it. Also did you know that if you ask Google Maps to take you from Connecticut to New Jersey while avoiding toll roads, the route takes in downtown Manhattan? That was an interesting drive.

And I got pulled over by an unmarked police car on the freeway, after a slightly-too-gradual deceleration from a 65mph fast lane into a 25mph toll plaza. Not being blessed with either a winning smile or an impressive cleavage, I just gave the guy my best good-heavens-officer-I'm-so-frightfully-sorry act, the Englishman abroad and all that. He sent me on my way. It's a good job he wasn't around when I was testing out that Camaro V8 in the California desert last year...

Atlantic City.
This is the Showboat hotel and casino, where I spent a surreal but relaxing night.

The Atlantic City boardwalk, guarded by squirrels

 

Today, a few bits of property here and there.
Tomorrow...the whole country?
God help us all.

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

Antietam, Maryland

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

There are lots of rich people in Rehoboth Beach and they have some novel ways of letting it show.
Like having a postbox that's an exact scale replica of the house.

Shopping in the free world...
At Walmart.

Edd vs Food #42
Bob Evans
Unlike Denny's and Arby's and Wendy's, here we have a diner with a surname.
This is country fried steak with gravy. (Over here, gravy isn't always brown).
Plus coleslaw, mash, bread rolls and coffee.
It's not bad at all, but I prefer the slightly seedier vibe of Denny's.