American diversity

I set off early this morning, thinking 300 odd miles would be a slog. As it happens, the highways were fairly empty and I made the grandly titled “Lake Hasavu City” by early afternoon. The journey from San Diego had it all and it clearly demonstrated the huge amount of diversity in the environmental surrounds, in an incredibly short time span. This morning, I left the beautiful suburbs of San Diego, a city blessed with beaches, marinas and surrounded with hills, thus enabling the San Diegans to make use of the water, beach or hills all year round really. It is now the end of October and the weather is still in the upper 20s. I can’t see it really getting cold in these parts, and the climate allows for outdoor sports all year round.

So I set off from San Diego and after a little more than 30 minutes in, and the highway is cutting through the hills that are the foothills to the Rockies. San Diego and it’s environs seemed to have a lot of military zones (I stumbled into a Naval base yesterday and had to perform a hasty u-turn, which I managed without overly upsetting the marine on guard duty) and looking at the map the Navy bases and US Marine training ground, cover large tracts of Southern California. Luckily there’s enough space to go round and it set the mind racing when I saw another DIPS warning sign this morning. I spent ages figuring it out in the car, speculating on loads of combinations of Department of International? Inland? Interstate / Protection ? Protectorate / Security? State. I worked it out later and a free pint if you too can work it out before you get to the end of the blog.

The mountain scenery was amazing and there were some awesome colours as the sun rose above the horizon, facing me as I drove due east. Initially just the silhouette of the mountain contours before a series of brown, grey and a beautiful red landscape emerged under a blue sky. At times the rocks looked lunar like, as the vegetation struggled to assert itself in solid grey boulders. After the beauty of the Rockies came the yellowish sand dunes near Glamis, where hundreds of RVs (Big White Recreation Vehicles) were parked up and the inhabitants were busy dune bashing in their buggies and ATVs. Next came miles of classic desert with a series of highland lakes, that make you wonder why they haven’t evaporated, given the lack of vegetation all around. I should have studied harder at Geology, but water features were never my strong point.

But I can now see why American’s don’t travel. The answer is, they do travel, just that they choose to travel within the USA. The number of RVs I have seen, on the road, parked at the various beauty spots, parked up in the many camping sites and the huge number of RV storages sites, is incredible. These beasts are omnipresent and it is clear that the RV is a very popular vehicle here in the states. Looking at the house adverts, parking for RV is as essential to the American house buyer as a garden is to the British one. The RV is used as a mobile home and attached I have seen many cars (they tow them), motorbikes, jetskis and boats. The RV allows the American to visit the great outdoors and visit it, they do. The sheer size of America, the diverse and accessible range of outdoor activities and the all year round climate mean that everything you could ever want in terms of the outdoors, is right here, and it’s not far from a freeway, so you can stay in your RV, mod cons and all, whilst accessing it.

So it is with the Lake Hasavu City, a City on a Lake that is easily accessible to boats and jetskis . But Lake Hasavu City is also famous for one other thing, something that allows the British visitor to be rather smug, even more smug than usual in fact. Yes, this is the City where you will find London Bridge, as paid for, shipped and rebuilt in 1971 by the locals, as a tourist attraction. According to my teacher at Primary school, and all we all know teachers are never wrong, the numpties apparently thought they were getting Tower Bridge, but they bought the wrong one! So it was with a great big smile and my England hat proudly worn that I strolled around the surrounds. Amazingly there was no reference to the fact that they bought the wrong one, something I would think would make it even more of a tourist attraction.

Ok, so now that I have dissed a whole nation due to one silly mistake (I wonder when they realised though, surely they got all the bits out and noticed they didn’t seem to have any moving parts?) , I’d better hold my hand up to being a prime numnut myself. It was only after seeing a third sign for the DIPS area that I noticed that the road seemed a bit up and down, and so it was. “Hidden dips” would be more appropriate but the yanks just plank a sign that shouts “DIPS” at you! Come on admit it, I’m not the only numnut am I?