Look it up.. It’s welsh. The next paragraph should give it away though or if you own the Gruff Rhys album you are all nodding your smug heads thinking ‘I wondered when he was going to do this’.

This is all I’ve done for the past week. Along straight never-ending roads with the stereotypical vanishing point, I have dodged exploded tire debris, road kill, hitchhikers (no way, I’ve seen 'The Hitcher' with Rutger Hauer although now being remade with Sean Bean) and i've done well not to be enticed by signs that say ‘World’s biggest’, ‘The one and only’, ‘Abstinence.com’ and ‘Gun Shop’.

I’ve had to make some pretty important decisions over the past week. With only 11 days left to get back to New Jersey from Las Vegas, I had to decide what I was going to leave out. I also had to decide which Elvis fridge magnet to get my parents. Anyway, being sensible for a minute, there was no way I was going to get to all the places on my list and so the following places have had to be deleted from the inventory: Tucson, Waco, Dallas, New Orleans, Athens and Montgomery. I’ve now made up time and I’m coasting through Tennessee, ready to start heading North through Virginia and Maryland to Washington D. C. before checking out Philadelphia and then setting to the task of cleaning the Van before I give it back.

Now it’s time for the highlights and lowlights of the last week. I’ve promised myself that after my last mammoth blog, this one is going to be short.

1) Las Vegas
Ever get that feeling that you are being watched?
You have to go to Las Vegas, don’t you? It really is a site to be seen. Apparently, If you lay all the silicone in Las Vegas out in one long line, it will reach to the moon and back. I’m not making it up. Well, I am making it up but then the Luxor hotel definitely cannot be seen from Space but the people at the Luxor Hotel tell everybody that it can be.
Anyway, I lost. I didn’t win but then I never had any expectations of actually winning anything but then I did only bet $50 on a blackjack table and that took all of ten minutes to lose.
Anyway, there’s plenty to do besides gambling as Martin and I found out. We went to see the Violent Femmes play a storming set at the Hard Rock Café (it’s always refreshing to see a band that don’t take themselves seriously) and we frequented lots of the Casinos and free shows that they put on for people. It is the most incredible place to people watch. It still amazes me now to think about how miserable everyone looked, even in the All You Can Eat Buffets. Now there was a sight to be seen! People piling all sorts of food on to their plates like there is no tomorrow and like it’s going out of fashion. We even termed a new phrase ‘Buffet Envy’. This simply means the condition of not being able to take your eyes off other peoples plate’s because there is the slight chance that they have something you have not seen yet. I watched one guy eat from two plates of Savoury food at once, he then noticed the queue building up at the Entrance and in a blind panic, rushed over to the dessert table and piled as many cakes as possible onto another plate. That’s the thing about All You Can Eat, you can go back and fill your plate up again and again but people don’t seem to grasp this very simple notion preferring to pile everything on top at once because of the very slim chance that the restaurant was going to run out. No wonder everyone looked miserable if they all had indigestion and heartburn.
Anyway, Las Vegas is not to be missed. It is the capital of entertainment and over-indulgence (green golf courses in the desert - How much water does that take?). You can also gamble too but remember that the city wasn’t built by making everyone a winner.
Anyway, we had a great time.. Not sure if I’d go back though.

2) Grand Canyon
I’ve done some amazing things over the last 3 months. Walked on a Glacier, Drove up to Mount St Helens, met a bear face to face, met people that predict geyser eruptions as a hobby, I didn’t lose my temper when the keys got locked in the Van and I watched a man comically try and put his reading glasses on over his sunglasses and not being able to work out why they won’t stay on. None of these aforementioned things come close to seeing the Grand Canyon. It really is as if some huge hand has ripped the ground apart. From every angle and viewing point, there was something different and unique in the make up of the place and I‘m sure it looks different throughout the day depending on the direction of the sunlight. I won’t say anymore. After hours spent fiddling around with my camera, I did manage to take some photos that will hopefully explain what I mean in a much simpler and less drawn-out way.

3) Hunt - Arkansas
This was an interesting small town I passed through. It was more of a ghost town now with boarded up shops, ramshackle houses, broken down cars and it even had bullet holes through the road signs. I decided to stop to take some photos (if my camera was in the mood today). As soon as I pulled up and got out my van, two mullet-wearing men came out of opposite ramshackle trailer-type houses, stood at their makeshift gates and proceeded to glare at me until I got back in my van and left. They had probably waited 20 years for a moment like this. I passed through the other side and about 5 minutes later came through another small Ghost town but this time there was some commotion going on. Two big trucks had had a head-on crash on the same side of the road. The sheriff directed me round the wreckage (in case I couldn’t see it) and the drivers, who both appeared fine, stood there scratching their heads as if to say “Now, how did that happen?”

4) Memphis - Graceland
Ok, Graceland. Home of Elvis Presley. Now, I’m going to admit to you that I’ve never really been a fan of this man’s music. In fact, before now I’ve actually likened him to a bit of a Robbie Williams or Pop Idol type character (More entertainer than musician) but I now actually have an appreciation of his voice and for his humanitarian and charity work. I will however always think that having seatbelts made out of 24 karat gold on his own private jet was a bit much and I will always be glad that he was the only man to popularise the jumpsuit as a fashion statement. In fact, after the tour, you will never want to see another jumpsuit for as long as you live. There was a barely a mention about his painkiller addiction or his other eccentricities (one sentence to be exact) but I did come out of the tour liking the man for who he was and what he did (apart from flying to Denver just to eat a peanut butter sandwich). I felt sorry for the staff for having to listen to Elvis music on repeat every day and I thought 7 separate Elvis gift shops in the complex was a bit much.
I also thought the décor of Graceland was disgusting but then it was the 70’s and if Elvis were alive today (or is he?) then I’m sure it would be more tastefully decorated and he would also want to forget about those jumpsuits he wore rather than having them on display.

5) BBC world service
I promised myself before this trip that I wouldn’t at any point try and tune into it but I gave in 2 days ago. I managed to pick it up on the car radio for over an hour and it was heavenly, comforting and moving hearing the news read out to me in the Queens English. An hour later, after a news section on up and coming Bradford, the dulcet tones faded into white noise and then before long the channel was taken over by yet another country music radio station.
For God’s sake you would think I was in the Arctic or something?

6) I can now only get my camera working if I deliberately enter the wrong shutter speed and exposure and these idiotic settings change every time I take a photo. It’s a little time-consuming and quite odd too and I really have to ‘want’ to take a photo now before starting this long, laborious process.

That’s it.. After all that, it’s not much shorter than the last one..

Will I make it back to New York by Friday 10th August? Well, you’ll have to tune in next week to find out.

Well, the answer to that burning question from last week is… Yes.. I made it back in one piece (and so did the van!). I’m back in New York, in the same hotel where I started this blog from. It feels bizarre being in a City and a place I already know. I dropped my bags off and went for Sushi in the restaurant next door and as I sat there, I got flashbacks from my trip and from my previous stay in New York. It was so strange to feel nostalgic for the first time in 3 months and especially about my trip when it hasn‘t even finished yet. It wasn’t until now that I have had time to think back to what I’ve done.

Ok.. There will be more conclusions, top 10’s, things I would have done differently, etc, etc in my next blog. Here is the last week’s highlights. It’s the longest blog so far so you might want to get a cup of tea before you carry on reading. It should prove quite interesting though.


1) White House Security check

I was astounded by the security surrounding the White House. I wandered round to the south side and took a couple of pictures of the characteristic view of the building and spoke to a security guard. I asked him “Is security always this tight or is something special happening today?” He smiled and said “Oh no, it’s always like this, ever since the Oklahoma bombing”. “Wow! It seems a little bit much, don’t you think?”.. He laughed and gave me a big smile but didn’t reply. We exchanged some pleasantries and I was on my way.
I walked back towards Pennsylvania Avenue, through the security checking area and across the road. I turned round to take a couple of pictures and before you could say ‘freedom’ I was flanked either side by two police officers. “Where ya from?” said one. “London, England” I replied. he looked at my rucksack and my camera and then said “Would you mind coming with us to the security booth?”.. WOW! I thought.. How exciting! I didn’t say this, of course, I just replied “No not at all Officer”. they walked me back across the road and I was disappointed to find out that the security booth they had mentioned was in fact just a portacabin. I was expecting a huge soundproof, bombproof, lead lined, titanium strengthened room with doors you can only open with retina scans. I then imagined walking into a room full of TV screens all showing a close-up picture of me, circled in red with the words ‘Target aquired’ flashing on the screen. In fact, there were just two other guards in the building watching a few TV screens and I couldn’t see myself on them. One of them asked me the usual customs-like questions like how long I had been in the country and where else I had been whilst the other two checked my bag and my camera. The next question was “So you’re a professional photographer?”, “Erm, no.. I’m just a tourist” was the answer I gave, but they obviously chose to completely ignore this because their next question was “Who do you work for?”. I again, explained that I was simply a tourist and told them what I normally did for a living when I wasn’t a tourist. They then asked to see my passport and any other Identification, I gave this to them along with my driving licence which they scrutinised whilst looking me up and down and then one of them wrote something down (my whole life is now completely screwed). Their next question was “So why are you wearing the beard?”.. “Oh, because I’ve been living in the back of a van, I’ve not had time to have a shave, I’m waiting until I get home now”… - It wasn’t until after the incident that I realised how ludicrous the line of questioning was getting which is why I answered them sensibly but then I did promise myself that if, by some small chance I actually ended up in a situation like this then I wouldn’t be my normal self (i.e. smartarse), I would play the stupid tourist. I was secretly desperate to ask the question “Ever taken a bullet?” but I kept it shut.
After the questioning had finished, I then got a long lecture along the lines of, “It’s not illegal to take pictures of anything in the United States but if you take too many pictures of something then you are going to raise suspicion and draw attention to yourself. I explained that the reason I was taking so many pictures was because my camera wasn’t working properly and I then showed him what I meant by taking a photo (they all jumped up as if I’d just pulled out a gun) and showed them the error message. “Ahhh, Err 99” one of them said in a way that implied that he knew what it meant. I chose not to ask him. They escorted me back outside, asked me where I was going next and then sent me on my merry way. After I had some breakfast and I walked up to the Museum of Air and space, I looked behind and noticed that one of the officers had actually taken the trouble of following me here. I smiled at him and he sneered back.

2) Concepcion Picciotto

Concepcion or Connie to her friends was originally from Spain, At the age of 21 she emigrated to the USA, found a job as a secretary in New York, married a businessman, gave birth to a daughter and was ready to live happily ever after. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out like that. After a messy divorce, she spent years fighting for the custody of her daughter but her case never came to court. She resorted to moving to Washington so she could protest her case outside the White House until someone took more notice of her plight. At some point, she turned from protesting her own case to protesting against the presidential regime in general for supporting Nuclear weapons, for it’s support of Israel and ignoring the Palestinian struggle and more recently the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Vietnam Veterans that have suffered from the after-affects of Agent Orange. She arrived in 1981 at the age of 43 and now 26 years later she is still there, 24 hours a day opposite the White House with her posters and leaflets. Her face is weather-beaten, her teeth have nearly all fallen out and she wears a helmet underneath her wig for protection as people have a tendency to throw missiles at her. She survives on hand-outs from well-wishers (there are some) and she’s allowed to use the bathroom at a local burger bar where the employees are sympathetic to her beliefs and her cause. Anyway, I had a chat with her which is where I learnt all of this. I must admit I expected to be talking to a mad woman but I was surprised to find out that she was quite the opposite. She’s up to date with all current affairs (she reads the newspapers every day and has a filing system for all news-worthy items) and believes that it doesn’t matter who is in the White House, nothing will change unless the nation as a whole, takes a stand and demands change in Foreign policy by taking to the streets in the form of a revolution. I had nothing but admiration for this woman for giving up everything she had to protest for on behalf of people less fortunate than us but fear that there won’t be any change in her lifetime. People may disagree with their Country’s foreign policy (apart from those ones with the Car-stickers) but there aren’t many people willing to compromise their very comfortable position in life to make a difference.
We chatted for over 30 minutes until she pointed out that more police had turned up to watch her (there was normally always 2 in a car, watching this frail woman) because she’d been chatting to me for quite a while. We shook hands, I gave her a donation, wished her luck and told her to take care. I smiled at the police officers as I walked past, and they sneered back at me.

4) Three mile island

Near the town of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is a Nuclear power plant called Three Mile Island. In 1972 one of it’s reactors nearly went into meltdown which would in turn have caused a catastrophe that could have been bigger and more damaging than Chernobyl. Miraculously disaster was averted and the American government spent years playing down the fears of the local people and the rest of the world that they were close to wiping out the eastern seaboard with a deadly blast of radiation. The clean up of the reactor finished in 1993 but it still remains closed and isolated as of today.
As I was passing through the area on my way to another disaster area, I thought I’d go and have a little look so I could mark off another strange place I’d been to on my travels. The closer you got to the plant, the less affluent the towns got. The area was full of disused warehouses, mills and railways. The area obviously used to be a real centre of industry. I wonder if it was just the changing of the times that caused all these businesses to close down and move to other areas or if it had anything to do with a little nuclear accident?

5) Centralia - Trouble in t’mine?

Centralia was a prosperous Mining town in Pennsylvania. 2,000 people lived here and were employed by the local coal mine. The Landfill site, cleverly positioned in a disused mine pit, was regularly set on fire so as to discreetly dispose of the town’s litter problem. One day in 1962, the rubbish was again routinely set on fire but this time the fire ignited a piece of coal from the mine pit, and this in turn set fire to more coal from the mine until, the mine itself could be described as a blazing inferno. Attempts to put the fire out were unsuccessful. Some bright spark even had the idea of boring holes down into the mine so they could get a good look at it, not realising that they feeding the fire with oxygen and thus making it a lot worse. Anyway, to cut a long story short, no one could put the fire out and so everyone chose to ignore it. It burned for the rest of the 60’s, and the 70’s and then in 1979 the petrol station owner checked the temperature of the Petrol in his tanks and found it to be at 77.8°C (172°F)! Then in 1981, the ground literally opened up and swallowed a 12 year old boy who was saved at the last minute from an agonising death. It was at some point around this time, that Congress decided that they should probably do something about this. The solution was to relocate everyone from the Town and then let the fire run it’s course which is estimated to be at least another 200 years. As of last week, the town still had 9 residents who refused to move. You wouldn’t know it was there if it wasn’t for the sign saying ‘underground mine fire’ at a point where the road abruptly turns at a right angle due to the fact that the original road has been sectioned off because it has melted and smoke is billowing out of the cracks and sinkholes. Anyway, I threw caution to the wind, parked the van up and went for a wander along the old road. It was the most eerie thing I’ve ever done. There wasn’t much of the old town left, I would guess most of it got demolished so as not to feed the fire but there were plenty of concrete steps leading up to non-existent houses and rusting fire-hydrants poking out through the long grass, as well as graffiti on the roads welcoming visitors to the gateway to hell. I walked all the way through to the strangely well kept cemetery where there were a few houses still standing where the 9 residents obviously lived. I was pleased to encounter some other ‘tourists‘; A man and his 3 kids. He lived in the northern part of the state and he had chosen today to come and find that place with the smoke coming out of the ground (forget Disneyland kids! - I’ve got a better idea!). His 7 year old son couldn’t get over the fact that I was English and asked me such endearing questions such as “Do you have Coal in England” (I said a simple ‘yes’ and chose not to mention the 80’s mine closures and strikes), “Do you have Trains in England?” (again, I said yes but this could also have led to another very topical discussion point) and my favourite question on the whole trip so far “Don’t you have razors in England?”. He handed me a piece of coal and told me to show this to anyone who didn’t believe that I had come to Centralia. I didn’t want to tell him that most people would look at me as if I was a complete weirdo if I told them I went to the States and chose to go to an underground mine fire rather than Universal studios.

6) Philadelphia

Philadelphia would have been easy to navigate round but it turned out there was a lot of construction going on and so I‘d find pathways and roads I‘d wandered down to be shut off. It was like having one of those dreams where you are in a maze and you can always see the exit, or know where it is but you can never seem to get to it. It was also originally the capital of the United States and it certainly did more for diplomacy than Washington did (see point 1).
Anyway, the first stop on my visit was the Mutter Museum. This museum is unlike any other I’ve been to in my life. To be fair, in a lot of ways it’s like a freak show with it’s collection of medical oddities, wax models, foetal Siamese twins and even the remains of a woman whose fat strangely turned to soap when she passed on (don’t ask, no one knows). It was originally set up for medical research and education but it was generally full of non-medical types gawping at such things like the skeleton of an 8 foot tall man next to the skeleton of a dwarf.
I also wanted to do a quick survey whilst I was here. I went to the steps of the Museum of Art immortalised in a certain film and counted how many people run up the steps and start shadow boxing in five minutes and how many of these people go into the Museum of Art. I counted 38 people running up those steps. 38! I’m not going to tell you how many went into the museum of art, you can probably take a wild punch in the dark (see what I did there?) at the figure, but am I alone in thinking that it’s scandalous to think that a fictional character from an ‘ok’ movie has had more of a cultural impact on the world than Picasso, Rodin, Duchamp, Dali and Cezanne? Maybe I need to watch Rocky again.

7) Leonardo, New Jersey, Kwik-e-Mart

This was the last place I visited in my Van before I took it to it’s last campsite and then had to clean the green bastard by hand. Some of you eagle-eyed people may have recognised the shop in the picture above. Have another look. Have you seen it before? Sure? Oh well. This shop is where a guy called Kevin Smith used to work when he was in High School. Kevin wanted to be a writer and director and one day he hit upon this idea for his first film centred around a person who, on his day off, has to go into work at the Kwik-e-Mart and then hilarity ensued. The owner of the shop gave Kevin permission to film in the shop overnight and.. Well the rest is now history. The film ‘Clerks’ is probably in my all time top 10 films and not to be rude, Kevin Smith hasn’t really come close to bettering this film in the 15 years since Clerks made his name. I recognised the place instantly as it looked exactly the same as it did in the film. I walked in and again, the place looked eerily familiar; The fridges, the Counter, the coffee maker and even the signs on the doors. To tell you the truth there wasn’t anything I really wanted to buy from the shop because, well, it didn’t seem all that nice but I went to the back fridge and got a bottle of water and took it to the counter. I smiled at the Clerk and struggling to find anything original to say I spurted out “wow, I can’t believe this place is exactly the same as it was in Clerks”.. He looked at me and said “Oh, have you come here because of that film?” He then showed me a poster that the actors had all signed. It was the poster to the inferior sequel, Clerks II. “Have you got anything from the original film?”.. “Original? Oh, I’ve not seen that one. It’s in black and white isn’t it??” He said screwing up his nose. I don’t know… Some people.

Oh, and the photo section has been updated to include Nevada right through to New Jersey - It‘s big but it‘s the last album although I’ll add the Ghostbuster’s HQ when I find it tomorrow.