Home Impressions

Home: where one is treated the best and complain the most.

One can’t go home.

 

After months in a home that sways in the wind sleeping in a double bed that didn’t rock when I rolled over was a revelation.  Having someone else cook meals and do my laundry was certainly a luxury.  Be careful what you ask for.  I’d hinted about a brush to wash my RV and soap my brother-in-law would recommend and it arrived on my birthday but I wasn’t expecting to get the RV scrubbed from stem to stern with a polish job bumper to bumper including the roof.  Applying polish to a 22-ft, 8 foot high vehicle is no minor matter.  I was told I should do the four wheels on my own time.  My brother-in-law also took the kinks out of my bike rack, did some fibreglass repairs, and helped me with a few other niggling repairs and adjusted my bike.  Having a mechanic/handyman in the family is a useful fringe benefit. 

 

I don’t wish to sound blasé and world weary but after 35,000 KM certain trends seem to fall into place.  It is remarkable how many people who live next door to landmarks others have travelled half way round the world to view have never seen them.  This is equally true of urban sophisticates and rustic peasants.  I have long-since lost count of the number of places boasting the world’s best beach, covered bridge, tallest or longest whatever.  Shediac, New Brunswick is the Lobster Capital of the world, Austin Texas the  Music Capital of the world, Long Beach Oregon has the world’s longest beach no one can swim.  Famous people or legends seem to get around.  Alexander Graham Bell for example invented the telephone in the US and in Cape Breton Nova Scotia and Brantford Ontario.  Paul Bunyan dug the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence but there’s a statue of him and Blue Babe along the US Pacific Coast and he’s claimed by the East Coast as well. I hadn’t expected to find a 300 foot statue of Davy Crockett in the middle of the Texas Desert. 

 

There’s only one right way to pronounce words, name a plant or animal, cook a food, or perform certain tasks.  Across Canada, for example there are at least a dozen plants referred to as Mayflowers.  In the US South tea comes iced in a tall glass with lemon slices; coffee?, forget it.  In places where the temperature regularly tops 100º F don’t expect to find chocolate bars which melt at 80º F.  With my Germanic background I don’t feel comfortable saying you’all or effecting a southern drawl and have my pronunciation of place names regularly corrected.  Don’t go camping in an Arroyo—a dry stream bed—it may become a raging torrent due to thunderstorm activity hundreds of miles away in the mountains.  I was recently informed by a local with a Scottish brogue thick as porridge that she did not have an accent.  I was taken aback when my Aunt sliced my entire pound of bacon in half and heated her frying pan on a red hot burner before she put it in the pan.  Her pan is too small for a full slice of bacon and thin so over high heat bacon might well stick.  Therefore she believes  you have to heat the pan before you start the bacon.  A large well-seasoned cast iron frying pan works best if you start the bacon slowly in a cold pan. 

 

Chicken-fried steak has nothing to do with chicken and comes deep-fried in batter smothered in milk gravy.  What passes for hot salsa on the west coast wouldn’t even rate as mild pasta sauce in Texas.  Anyone for prickly pear salad?  Fried rattlesnake?  Rapi-pie?  Poutine—gravy, BBQ Sauce, and cheese curds on French Fries.  Hodge Podge?  Canadians wear out their kidneys attempting to get a buzz off most American Beer.  In some provinces it would be too low in alcohol content to legally rate as beer and patrons would accuse the barkeep of watering down his draft. Anyone for possum, squirrel, grits?  Grits to me seemed like watery cream of wheat. Biscuit and chicken gravy?

 

Along the East Coast a black flag indicates a hurricane is on the way.  Coastal areas have signs marking the storm surge levels, evacuation routes, and public shelters. At least they generally get fairly good advance warning.  In the Mid-West if the sky turns greenish-purple and the siren goes off you have five minutes or less to make it to your storm cellar or the lowest or most protected area in your home before the tornado hits.  On the west coast tsunami warning signs mark evacuation routes to high ground.  If the tsunami siren starts undulating make tracks for safe ground.  Unfortunately science has yet to perfect a method of predicting earthquakes in other than geologic time-frames.  California highways are shut down when there are major rain showers—they are not built to shed water.  In Seattle and Vancouver snow brings all traffic to a standstill—no one has snow tires and the municipalities have no ploughs.  On the west coast expensive homes are built in areas prone to brush fires, land slides, and coastal erosion; Miami is built on a sand bar.  In the Rocky Mountains no stopping signs mark areas prone to avalanches and land slides.

 

In Florida one is cautioned to beware of plunging into a fire-ant colony and not to feed the crocodiles.  In Texas turning over rocks or logs is likely to disturb a scorpion and walking past tall grass calls for care lest it be inhabited by a rattler.  If you camp and leave your boots out it’s wise to tap them out before putting them on to dislodge potential tarantulas or scorpions inside.  In Texas and New Mexico look fast because as Wiley E Coyote will tell you Roadrunners are quick.  In Saskatchewan and Manitoba Greater Prairie Chickens, a large bird over a foot tall will freeze in the middle of the road and refuse to move believing this makes them invisible.  One didn’t move until I nudged him with my bumper—I wonder why they’re endangered.  In bear and mountain lion country make lots of noise and don’t fall behind or strike out ahead of the pack.  If you encounter a bear back away slowly and do not establish eye contact—remember, black bears are excellent climbers.  It charged make lots of noise and as a last option play dead and protect your vitals.  For cat encounters one is advised to look at big as possible and to charge first.  If attacked fight back aggressively.  Don’t hike alone, in their territory these animals consider us prey. 

 

The world may be a dangerous place but man is still the most dangerous creature in it and highway traffic the most dangerous place to be.  Seeing a full-page spread on the ten most wanted in the Coastal News in Southern California was hardly an inducement to become a tourist.  Learning that in LA a policeman is killed weekly makes one wonder why anyone would answer a full page ad placed in the local tourist brochures.  Graffiti, vandalism, theft, and gang activity mar too many urban areas and the cliché about billboards blocking a view of the natural wonders they would advertise is all too real.  Despite these concerns common sense is still one’s best protection and a locked vehicle one’s best defence. At home or abroad don’t leave valuables in plain sight.