Madrid, Spain

Cheating slightly here, because I did technically finish my American road trip and fly home, but I only stayed one night in the UK before heading out again - to my old haunting ground of Madrid, for five nights of fiestas and tapas and cervezas (and on one occasion a taco bell), with my mate Neale. 

My holidays for this year are now definitively over. But what a nice way to sign off. I pledge solemnly that my 2023 travel blog will not involve either the USA or Spain; indeed, if the pound falls any further, then the 15-year anniversary blog of los viajes de Edd may end up coming to you from a campsite in Skegness. Nonetheless, have a great rest of 2022 in the meantime. Adios.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin (revisited)

As I write, the pound sterling has just sunk to $1.14, its lowest level since Marty McFly first jumped into the DeLorean. This, plus burgeoning inflation, plus the war, means that compared with earlier American travels I'm paying double or more for everything: car rental, petrol, motels, AirBnBs, beer, food. This is all first world problems, of course. But I do miss the good old days of getting two dollars to the quid. You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

There haven't been many big cities on this trip, but of those I've visited, Milwaukee was the best by a mile. So it was a no-brainer to come back here for a brief spell of leisure before flying home. It's full of good breweries & taprooms, and it's easily accessible via Chicago. Accordingly it's an ideal place for a lads' holiday, and I look forward to discussing this with the lads once I'm back.

The way I've mixed city & country on this trip has given me a vivid picture of the divisions in American society. Big cities are full of tattooed and pierced social justice warrior types riding electric scooters; rural areas are full of sports-loving God-country-family types driving pickup trucks and Harleys. The two groups don't mix well. I have to say that, given the choice between a vegan nut roast with the former or a barbecue with the latter, I'd load up on beer & sausages every time. Although I'd have to keep my mouth firmly shut when it came to God, abortion, gun control or universal healthcare...

But I can never be too hard on our Stateside cousins. It's more than 100 years since they took over the mantle of global leadership from us, and despite everything they hold it still; and I'm in no hurry for them to give it up, if only because when they do, it'll be the Chinese Communist Party that takes the reins. Centuries from now, when the history of the USA is written, there will be much talk of Decline and Fall. But I firmly believe that we are not quite yet in the Fall, and we should be thankful for it. Again, you don't know what you've got til it's gone.

One more blog to go and you won't guess where from. Unless of course you already know.

I can't be the only hungry expat Brit to see this font & colour scheme and think...
....sausage rolls!

Edd vs Food #111
Healthy eating...
Feta carrot tartine at Centraal, 2306 S Kinnickinnic Ave, Milwaukee
Garam masala carrot purée, crumbled feta, caramelized walnuts, balsamic vinegar, grilled sourdough

Edd vs Food #112
Unhealthy eating.
'Hodge Podge' at Benelux, 346 N Broadway, Milwaukee
Melted cheddar, bacon, sausage, fried egg, potatoes, chorizo cream gravy, pico de gallo

Edd vs Food #113
Somali goat platter at the Blue Star Cafe, 1619 North Farwell Avenue, Milwaukee 

My UK-USA plug adaptor (left) looks vaguely like a 'Scream' mask.
The USA sockets (right) look vaguely like they're frightened by it.

Google map of the places I've visited in the USA.
Doesn't include gas stations and coffee breaks.
Time to address other countries, starting in 2023.

Arkansas

There are 50 states in the United States. Hawaii is an island (several islands in fact) in the Pacific; Alaska sits on the far side of Canada. The other 48 are all in one big lump and are generally referred to as the 'contiguous' or 'conterminous' states. They're sometimes called the 'lower' 48, but this is a bit misleading as it dates from before the statehood of Hawaii, which is 'lower' than any of them.

I've never been to Hawaii or Alaska, but after my fleeting visit to Arkansas I can now say that over the past fourteen years I've set foot in every single one of the contiguous 48. Reaching this milestone was, rather trainspotterishly, one of the main reasons for making this trip. I am so proud of myself. 

This blog will of course get to Hawaii and Alaska at some point, make no mistake about that. Undoubtedly I'll also come back over here in future years for shorter trips, like social occasions and perhaps the odd hiking holiday. But there will be no more blogging from the contiguous 48. My appetite for long-distance American road trips is now quite definitively exhausted, and I must find new worlds to conquer. Ideally, worlds in a more convenient time zone for watching Test cricket matches that begin at 11am BST. And worlds with a more favourable exchange rate to the pound sterling. 

Speaking of the pound, it's always a bit strange to have to come home and re-acquaint myself with the old familiar British coins after a month or two of nickels and dimes and quarters. This time it'll be considerably more strange to find that some of those British coins have a new portrait on one side of them. (I take it you've all heard the news by now.) I wish His Majesty the very best of luck in his new job. I'll need a new job myself pretty soon, but in the meantime I still have a couple more updates to come before going home.

Waterfall at Tanyard Creek, Bella Vista, Arkansas

Woolly mammoth at the Museum of Native American History in Bentonville.
Did I mistake this mammuthus primigenius for a mammut americanum?
I guess I mastodon.

Another exhibit at the Museum of Native American History.
Even traditional native societies were not immune from the scourge of the man-bag.

This is how we roll.
This is also, from time to time, how we sleep.

Only in America (part one):
It's OK to go shopping while armed, provided that you hide your gun.

Edd vs Food #109
Southern fried chicken with gravy & mash
Hiwasse Diner, 13548 W State Highway 72, Hiwasse, Arkansas
Only in America (part two):
You order gravy and they ask you what colour.

Edd vs Food #110
Chicken & bacon ranch in a garlic wrap with french fries
B List Burger Bar, 1721 Forest Hills Boulevard, Bella Vista, Arkansas
Only in America (part three):
Wraps like this. They're never quite as good anywhere else. They just aren't.

Kansas

Kansas is tornado country, and this is tornado season, and I was childishly hoping I might get to see one. But it didn't happen. Speaking of tornados, I did my homework on the 'Wizard Of Oz' before driving out here. It was all filmed in California. Dorothy's hometown, fictional or otherwise, is never named. Nothing to actually see here in Kansas, apart from an opportunistic museum near Topeka, the state capital, which I didn't bother with. I suppose the Oz theme might at least have provided me with a witty tagline with which to close out this year's travels, ie, "there's no place like home". But I'm not going home just yet.

I got to indulge my inner cretin by going to Dodge, purely so that I could get the hell out of it, ha ha. The main attraction there is the Boot Hill Museum, built on the site of the original main street, full of whisky saloons and other Wild West-themed exhibits. It's all rather stupid and pointless, but fun with it. See pictures below for the stupidest and pointlessest bits.

Elsewhere, I popped into Wichita, which has two pop music connections: 'Wichita Lineman' by Glen Campbell, and a brief mention in 'Seven Nation Army' by the White Stripes. And can I think of anything else interesting to say about Kansas? Can I heck. It looks like how you imagine it: flat, huge, full of farmland and not much else. Still, it's another new state visited, and I shall enlarge upon this theme in my next blog.

Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park
This is pretty much the only bit of actual scenery in Kansas.
Everything else is just fields.

Am I the only one who didn't know this???
At the Boot Hill Museum in Dodge City.

I'm appalled by this regressive attitude towards gender stereotypes.
Having only two options invalidates the lived experiences of non-binary people.
Solidarity with cowtheys and cowthems all over the world.

Wild West gunfight re-enactment at Boot Hill Museum.
Those are real guns, but they're firing blanks.
I'm pleased to say that Alec Baldwin was not involved.

Dick Liquor. Say it out loud. On second thoughts, don't.
This was in a little town called Chanute, Kansas. I did buy some beers here...
I didn't just stand outside doing a Beavis & Butthead impression. Honest.

Edd vs Food #108
Chicken Boss Burrito at Taco John's
I don't think I've reviewed a fast food chain in a while?
Better than Taco Bell, but not as good as Chipotle, and priced accordingly.
In Taco John's, the crunchy things on the right are called 'potato olés' rather than 'tater tots'.

Nebraska

"At the age of thirty-five one needs to go to the Moon, or some such place, to recapture some of the excitement with which one first landed at Calais." That was Evelyn Waugh in 1945, writing the foreword to 'When The Going Was Good', a compendium of his pre-war travel writing. The book is now out of print, because it's mostly Waugh's unexpurgated observations on the appearance and habits of the natives while travelling through Africa and South America.

I picked up a second-hand copy in Omaha, just by chance. Omaha is an unfashionable city in a mostly rural state, but the bookshop in question was still comfortably bigger and better-stocked with serious books than anything I've ever encountered in England. There's life in the republic yet.

Anyway, Waugh had a point, and recapturing excitement is especially hard in a place like Nebraska. There's not a whole lot going on. The only things I knew about Nebraska beforehand were a) it's the title of a Bruce Springsteen album, to which I've never listened, and b) in 'Big Bang Theory', the character Penny is from Nebraska, because it's a subtle way of showing that she's from...nowhere.

Some valuable travel advice, if you ever find yourself driving past Lincoln, Nebraska: keep driving. Omaha is nice though. I stayed in a fairly funky suburb called Dundee which was full of nice eateries and general leafy pleasantness. Then I picked up another rental car, and took off. Out in the wide open spaces - and by heck there are plenty of them - one finds interesting natural rock formations, one of which is pictured. And also there's CarHenge. It's a thing. Again, see picture.

I've got the car for a little while yet. Nebraska isn't the only big flat pile of nothing around here. Stay tuned for more quiveringly exciting updates from me.

Downtown Omaha

Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Omaha
No particular significance - I just like the way the photo came out.

Smoking and morbid obesity are both absolutely fine and don't let anybody tell you otherwise

Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln

CarHenge
It's a full-scale Stonehenge replica. All these cars are real, including the upright ones.
Some people just have too much time on their hands.

Chimney Rock

Edd vs Food #107
eCreamery, 5001 Underwood Avenue, Dundee, Omaha
Ice cream sandwich (identical cookie underneath) with sprinkles

Des Moines, Iowa

"I come from Des Moines," Bill Bryson once wrote. "Somebody had to."

It's actually quite a nice city, and I can imagine that living here would be perfectly pleasant. But I'm struggling to think of anything interesting to tell you about it. Fortunately I timed my visit (unwittingly) to coincide with the one notable event that actually happens here, which is the annual Iowa State Fair, a celebration of Iowa's huge farming industry and also a must-do for any presidential candidate in an election year. This is a mid-term year, but nonetheless former VP (and undeclared candidate for 2024) Mike Pence showed up at the fair a couple of days after I did.

There was a stall selling edible crickets. Yes, as in the insects. They're full of protein, apparently, and farming them produces a carbon footprint many times lower than traditional sources of meat. I opted not to indulge. But they were advertised as a 'Gateway Bug' (gateway drug, geddit?) and that won my personal Pun Of The Fair contest, comfortably beating the 'Southpork Ranch' and a cow-based exhibit called the 'Mooseum'.

English is not my AirBnB hostess's first language and this has given me an opportunity to practice my slightly rusty Spanish. Obviously the USA has millions of people of Mexican descent and indeed birth, but I'm reluctant to open conversations in Spanish in case it comes across like I'm assuming they can't speak English. There's also the fact that Mexican accents are quite tricky to get used to. Most of the tuition I've had in England has been from Colombians, who are much easier to understand. This is why I generally root for Team Escobar when watching episodes of 'Narcos' on YouTube. 

By the way, both of the letter 'S's in the name Des Moines are silent, and it's "deh-moyn" not "day-moyn". So now you know.

Downtown Des Moines

Cattle on show at the Iowa State Fair

This is not an Edd vs Food.
Even for a human dustbin like me, the thought of actually eating a Pork Picnic was just too much.

Let's call him....Sean

Caught in a thunderstorm downtown. Hurrah for public pianos.
Especially ones on which all of the keys work and are in tune.

Signs like this are ubiquitous in the more prosperous American suburbs.
All very worthy, although 'no human being is illegal' is somewhat vacuous.
If that were true, we wouldn't lock our front doors at night. But we do.

Edd vs Food #106
Poutine at El Bait Shop, 200 SW 2nd St, Des Moines, IA.
Poutine is a Canadian dish: basically meat, potatoes, cheese, and gravy.
This one was very generous with the tater tots, but distinctly stingy with the cheese curds.

South Dakota

I had the rental car for a week and I did 1800 miles in total. Slept in the car three nights out of seven. Why not, after all? The weather is plenty warm enough and it's more secure than a tent. Saves a bit of money too. 

Here's a Google Street View of one place where I bedded down in splendid isolation. It was a cloudless night and, once the moon dipped below the horizon, the stars came out in very great numbers indeed. Somehow the sky just seems bigger here. At one point I contemplated putting my blanket on top of the car roof and sleeping in the open air; but the coyotes were howling in the distance, and some of the insects were as big as pigeons. I stayed in the car.

My time in South Dakota coincided with the 2022 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the world's largest event of its kind. Harleys thronged the highways. In this state, as in quite a few others, there's no compulsory requirement to wear crash helmets. You see people riding half-ton motorbikes at 80mph, wearing nothing but T-shirts and shorts and sandals, and maybe a bandana, while 18-wheeler trucks thunder by at close range in both directions. It boggles the mind even before you consider that these people won't get free healthcare if they crash.

I saw thousands of solo male riders, and hundreds of male riders carrying their ladyfriends on the back, and a few dozen solo female riders; but the one thing I've never seen in all my days, the Black Swan and Abominable Snowman and Loch Ness Monster of motorcycling, is a female rider carrying her manfriend on the back. Something to ponder there.

On a vaguely similar note, when I went to Mount Rushmore, it was perhaps predictable that the crowd there would be almost exclusively white. I saw only one African American and that was a lady with a white partner. I suppose you can't expect black Americans to be too enthusiastic about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom, y'know, owned slaves. 

Personally I preferred the scenery in the surrounding Black Hills (irony unintended) with their lush forests. The Mount Rushmore carvings themselves are rather like the Statue of Liberty: you've known all your life what it looks like, and then when you finally get to see the thing, it looks like you expected it to look, and it's a case of 'well, there it is'. So you take a photo or two and then you leave. Box ticked. I try not to invest too much time in this kind of thing.

For me the highlight of the week was Badlands National Park, one of the most spectacular places I've ever seen, which is - if you'll excuse the immodesty - really saying something. See pictures below.

View from outside my cabin at dusk.
At the South Dakota / Wyoming border, near a town called - irony of ironies - Newcastle.

Mount Rushmore, obviously

Wind Cave National Park. This is the roof of one of the caves.
I did a 90-minute underground walking tour and banged my head several times.

Pleasant little hike in Badlands National Park.
However, one has to keep one's eyes open.
(Zoom in on the middle of the picture...)

Badlands National Park
Every layer of rock represents ten million years or so.

Badlands again

Badlands panorama

In Mount Vernon, SD (pop: 461)
The greatest AirBnB of my life to date.
My hosts were out for the night so I had this house to myself, plus this dog for company.
Forty quid!

Edd vs Food #105
Chicken & bacon ranch mac'n'cheese with spring onions and garlic toast
Shenanigans, 1903 S Ellis Road, Sioux Falls, SD

North Dakota

After Minneapolis I got back on the bus and headed up to Fargo. The only thing I knew about Fargo before arriving was the 1996 film of that name, which I hadn't even seen. I watched it on my first night in town and so "I saw Fargo in Fargo" is now a statement with which I will be annoying people for decades to come. Those of you who've seen the film may be interested to know that the woodchipper - THE WOODCHIPPER - has pride of place in Fargo's tourist information centre. See picture. 

Other than the woodchipper, there isn't really much of interest in Fargo. So I picked up a rental car and headed out into the wide open spaces, which in North Dakota are very wide and very open indeed. You can drive for hours and hours without seeing a major city or even a major intersection. Gas (as in petrol) prices have come down slightly of late: on average this week I've been paying $3.90 per US gallon, which works out at about £1.26 a litre. It's pretty good compared to back in the UK, but the American public are still up in arms about how expensive it is.

Annoyingly, after several days of uninterrupted blazing sunshine amid the strip malls and parking lots of Fargo, the weather turned overcast as soon as I got out into the countryside. Nonetheless at Theodore Roosevelt National Park I had a pleasant little hike, which was briefly interrupted by a bison parking itself on the trail ahead of me. Bison are placid creatures, and of course they're herbivores, so they represent very little danger provided that you keep your distance. Unfortunately this particular bison was steadfastly refusing to move, and it was paying me uncomfortably close attention. There was nobody else around, and no alternative path back to my car. 

So I went off the path and skirted round the top of a little cliff-edge to the east: the drop-off of the cliff wasn't steep enough to be dangerous to me, but it was just about steep enough for a charging bison to go tumbling down and not come back up, provided I could get out of the way quickly enough. That was the idea, anyway. Fortunately I didn't get charged and so my matador skills were not tested.

All this excitement will continue in the next blog, and there are no prizes for guessing which US state comes next after North Dakota.

Downtown Fargo

From the film "Fargo"...
the woodchipper.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, seen from Sperati Point

Bison are totally mellow around cars but they get antsy around pedestrians (see blog).
So I stayed in the car for this picture.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park again.
Note the crappy weather.

Medora, ND
This is a wall in the gents toilet in the souvenir shop / grocery store.
Naturally I am unable to confirm if the ladies toilet was similarly decorated.

In Fargo - another cosy quiet suburban AirBnB

Edd vs Food #104
Big Brother Burrito from the Taco Bros truck in downtown Fargo.
Lovely bit of honesty on their menu: "All Chicken Contains Pork"