New Mexico Part 3: There's Something A Bit Weird About Roswell

Roswell in a nutshell.

I was on the bus from Albuquerque after narrowly avoiding an abduction by my cabbie, heading to the place where the Dusty Southwest meets the Dirty South. I believe that the true South begins on Interstate 380 in New Mexico. Any place south of Soccorro in New Mexico or Arizona is cause for concern, although once you've travelled as far east as the Texas/Oklahoma border, it doesn't matter how far north you are, you're still in the South, a territory ruled by a fearsome entity known only as the Lord-ah Jeezurhs. I knew we were in trouble when I looked at the New Mexico map and saw towns with names such as 'Truth or Consequences', 'Carlsbad' and 'Loving'.

There's not much to say about the actual bus ride, seeing as I was unconscious for the vast majority of it. A nearly-empty bus of mostly Hispanic guys with a few white boys scattered in the seats meant that I didn't have to share, and the view outside the window was dusty, flat and dull - much like the foreheadless parts of Arizona. So I resumed my epic quest to find the most comfortable sleeping position on two Greyhound seats and I think I've got it. Armrest up, window seat slightly back, as many jackets/scarves/soft bags as you can squish against the window to use as a pillow, legs diagonal across the two seats so you can stretch out as close to the aisle as you can get, arms curled up to your neck, head facing the window. It's not the Ritz, but with this method you don't wake up with your extremities flopping retardedly about, deprived of proper circulation. Of course, the best spot is right up the back near the W.C. - gross if you've got an upchucker riding with you, but most Greyhounds have *three* seats in the back, so you can lie straight across them.

We hit Roswell in the late afternoon and as we were pulling into town, I thanked my lucky stars that I was only here overnight. All I saw out the window were streets with no footpaths, a military academy and fast food chains everywhere. On the main road near my hotel there was quite literally a KFC next to an Arby's next to a Wendy's next to a Sonic, next to a Dairy Queen near the McDonald's. I may have buggered up the exact order but I can guarantee that they are all in walking distance of one another. There was also a small strip mall nearby with a drive thru Starbucks across the parking lot from a drive thru pharmacy, with a drive thru ATM around the corner. I am not joking when I say that I saw a guy in a pickup drive across a fricking parking lot to get from the drive thru (I am getting so sick of writing the not-word 'thru' all the time) 'bucks to the pharmacy. Sigh.

It didn't take long before I proved my intelligence was at the same level as your average alien encountering Joe. I got off the bus, called a cab from the public phone, told them the address of the hotel and waited. Now, the Greyhound station in Roswell is even smaller than the one in Santa Fe, it is quite literally a tiny tin shed in the middle of nowhere with three people (myself, a Hispanic guy and one of the white guys from my bus) sitting around waiting for transport and two others behind the counter. It was in this tiny tin shed in the middle of nowhere that I experienced one of those strange, serendipitous occurrences (that only ever seem to happen in the most innocuous of places). Three women and two men enter and take a seat in the station. One of the women opens her mouth and this brazen, rough yet oh so familiar accent comes tumbling out. She's an Australian. All four of her companions are Aussies as well, from Queensland. They're going in the opposite direction to myself with their final destination being Las Vegas. We share travel experiences and remark how odd it is to find Australians in Roswell of all places. Their bus arrives after about fifteen minutes, we all wish each other luck on our travels and they depart.

I'm still waiting on my cab to arrive, getting agitated when I notice that the public phone is ringing. Being the last one to use it, I pick it up and it's the cab company. They'd been calling for fifteen minutes because they couldn't find the hotel I had named in town. After some confusion, they decide to send someone around in five minutes. My cabbie arrives and she has no idea where the Springhill Suites are. I go digging about in my luggage trying to find my hotel confirmation and upon locating it, discover that I'd given them the name of my Memphis hotel instead of my Roswell hotel. What's even better is that from outside the bus station, I can see my hotel. It's 200 metres away. My wonderful cab driver realises that I've had a bitch of a day and sympathetically offers me a ride to the hotel, free of charge ("So you won't have to drag your heavy bags over"). I arrive at my hotel less than a minute later wearing my very best Dunce cap and dragging my tail between my legs. Sighh.

After the cab debacle I walked everywhere in Roswell. I was the only one who did so, even though the centre of town was only a mile away from everywhere else. The very centre of town is where all the alien-related garbage lies (all three blocks of it in the main st). You'll find the Cover-Up Cafe, the Crash Down cafe (yes shitty television fans, it really exists), the UFO Museum and Research Centre, a McDonald's that looks like a flying saucer and tackiest of all, alien shaped street lamps that glow green at night. Sighhh.

Unfortunately everything was shut as it was past 5 p.m, and the combination of not eating much on the bus and walking around Roswell in the heat made me realise I was starving. Roswell has no restaurants in the downtown that are open for dinner and if they do, then I clearly missed them. So I walked back towards my hotel with people harrassing me from inside the cars, curious as to why I was using my legs for walking (such a novel concept in this part of the world). One of the few restaurants in town was a bar and grill a few blocks in the opposite direction, devoid of gourmet delights but at least it was better than a Sonic cheeseburger deal. At about 10pm I was nowhere near sleep, so I decided to do as the Roswellians did and tried the Seppo version of Wendy's for the first time. As repulsed as I am by American fast food chains I have to say, Wendy's Chocolate Frosties are amazing.

The next morning I went back to the tin shed in order to board my bus for Texas. As I'm waiting, I hear another eerily familiar accent addressing me "Hey, excuse me...you're Australian right?" Wouldn't you know it, it's one of the white boys from my Albuquerque bus the day before. He was also the same white boy (his name sadly escapes me) who was inside the bus terminal when the other five Australians appeared, had overheard our conversation and was about to get on the same bus, as we were both heading towards Amarillo.

So there were no real aliens in Roswell, but on one bizarre afternoon in a tiny tin shed in the Middle of Nowhere there were seven (little) Australians. Yeah. There's something a bit weird about Roswell.

A Note From The Road - Vegas to Albuquerque

There's a woman and her two brats in front of me in the queue at the gates to get the hell out of Hell. The daughter is fairly undisturbed, despite the fact that she is toddler age, but I can already tell that the son is going to make my next twelve hours on the bus my penance for not giving in to the various temptations of Sin City. He will not stop moving around. My patience is wearing thinner than usual, as not only am I still trying to gather my ramshackle shreds of sanity together after my experiences of Vegas, but there's a tell-tale catch in my throat and I know something is festering in my chest cavity. It's not a good situation from the outset.

And wouldn't you know it, it gets worse.

I'm somewhere in the backdeserts of Nowhere, Arizona en route to Flagstaff. The bastard spawn is sitting directly in front of me. The girl, quiet though she was at the beginning, has been screaming at random intervals throughout the trip and the boy is giving his long-suffering mother grief by hassling the yelling girl. That catch has developed into a full blown sore throat, I'm red hot from fever and white hot with rage. Worse still, we've picked up a drunk. He's been hollering from the back of the bus since Henderson, NV and the bus driver's protests do nothing, because he doesn't speak a work of English and the driver isn't fluent in imbecile. We get held up as he gets kicked off the bus. That's my favourite part of Greyhound's policy - you cause trouble, you get packed off at the next stop and left there to sober up and wait for the next form of transport to shoot through and rescue you. The stop the drunk is stranded at won't see a bus for the next TEN HOURS and there's nothing around except for tumbleweed and skin cancer.

At the next stop, a guy gets on the bus and he has NO FOREHEAD. A huge chunk is missing from the top of his head. It's concave. His nose is grizzled, his hair is barely hanging onto his tightly-skinned skull and oh my god, if this was a film I'd be dead in an hour's time after he hijacks the bus and drives it off a cliff. And he's one of the more attractive patrons.

Some many hours later, I've managed to get a good two hours worth of rest and I'm gradually feeling worse as the minutes progress. The kid in front of me keeps looking back in my direction and every so often he shoots me a cheeky look, but there's also a note of concern in his eyes. As the sunlight fades and we near Albuquerque, his mother and sister fast asleep nearby, he works his tiny hand through the gap so that it reaches beyond the head rest and over into my side where my hand is resting against the window and the little fucker grabs hold. He looks about as tired as I feel, and we sit holding hands on and off for the rest of the bus ride. To this day it remains one of the most heart-warming and innocent gestures I've ever received from another human being.

Damn kids.

As we step off the bus a storm erupts around us, the stifling heat from the day erased by the downpour. The air instantly felt fresher. I waved goodbye to my little buddy and mouthed a thank you. I don't think he understood.

The Great Utah Road Trip July 3rd - 8th, Part 2: Freaks and Geeks in Salt Lake City

Well, in those days Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah...but unlike Utah, it was eventually made liveable. - Professor Farnsworth, Futurama.

I've decided this entry is going to be mostly comprised of lists, because I could rant about Utah until the cows come home and if I don't restrict myself somehow, it's going to expand to the point of literary explosion. My old university essays will start to feel threatened and we certainly can't have that, they're inferior enough as it is.

Pretty much every SLC local, every American, every living creature has asked me the following question at the very mention of our little road trip: why did I stay in Salt Lake City, hell, why travel to Utah at all? Salt Lake City was an experiment to see if I could survive the whole 'going it alone' approach to travel the way I had planned. Start off with the very worst (she wrote, with trepidation...) and by doing so, become accustomed to the joys of unlimited freedom and the potential pitfalls of loneliness, getting hopelessly lost and, most of all, my own incredible stupidity which tends to rear its ugly head whenever I'm thurst into the infamiliar. I'm pleased to say that the experiment succeeded (meaning I'm still alive and writing this entry in Portland).

I'm less pleased to say that Utah was pretty much exactly what I expected: Red State Hell. Lots of chains, lots of dodgy people, too much heat and too little sense. I will say a few things in Utah's defense (before I start working for the prosecution) - the people who aren't dodgy are quite friendly. People will often greet you in the street which was a shock to the system after coming here from Sydney. There were some random surprises: as I was wandering around one afternoon, I turned a corner and found a concert/festival that wasn't full of tabernacle music. Also the Life After Death exhibit at the Salt Lake Art Center was pretty good (loved the works of Neo Rauch), unfortunately it was the only exhibit.

The following places I have listed are not in any particular order of importance. I thought I should mention that before the 'WTF, you're listing a Catholic Church first?' comments begin.

Top 5 Favourite Places In Salt Lake City/Utah (I did have some, you know).

1. The Cathedral of the Madeleine 331 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City

Yeah I know, I know...I went to the Mormon heartland and was nearly converted to Catholicism. It doesn't matter which creed you follow, if you're in Salt Lake and you're dying from heat exhaustion, or just need to escape...go to church. I'm not religious at all, thanks to three and a half years of studying the subject at university, yet I found this to be the most peaceful and beautiful place in Salt Lake City. It is deliciously cool inside the Cathedral and there are murals covering the walls and ceiling, the likes of which kick the ass of some of the more famous cathedrals in Europe. After a few moments of sitting in the pews, taking in the violent splendour of the Stations of the Cross, I found myself in the chapel, lighting a candle. As soon as I did, this cool breeze floated through the room. Again, let me specify that I am not religious, but I was v. grateful for that coincidental occurrence.

2. The British Pantry, 652 SW Temple, Salt Lake City

Say hello to the lovely ladies at The Pantry if you're in the area. If you're not in the area, make time for tea and scones and go here. The British Pantry was my favourite spot for brunch in SLC because it was ridiculously cheap ($4 for a huge pot of Scottish Breakfast tea and two scones with fresh chantilly cream and jam, what a steal), and the staff were just gorgeous. I spent half an hour talking to them because they refused to let me drag my bag around in the oppressive midday heat.

3. Hogle Zoo, 2600 East Sunnyside Avenue, Salt Lake City
Yeah, I'm a sucker for cute, caged animals. Go check out the zoo's adorable Sand Cat and the Arabian Wildcat who, despite its name, looks like it belongs in a Victorian manor, with a pink bow around its neck. The black bears were fun to watch...the more sedentary of the two was quite happy to lie around in the baking hot sun (I'm going to guess it was a she, since she reminded me of myself) but the other bear would spend half its time pacing around the enclosure and the other half walking over to the lazy bear and butting its head against her back, trying to stir her into action only to receive a bite on the snout in return. Hogle is also home to three of my favourite animal species: the African elephant. Dari the megalomaniacal matriarch, Misha the clever subordinate who stores food in her tusks so she can get her share of the spoils and Christie, the baby (relatively speaking, she's only a year younger than me). The only problem I had with Hogle is that the most rambunctious animals are not the spider monkeys, nor are they the showoff giraffes. It's the children. Howling, screaming, crying kids. Everywhere. Christ.

4. Esther's Cafe, 30 East 300 South, Salt Lake City

On my last day alone in Salt Lake City, I was making a fast getaway from a creepy Salt Lake Stalker on a bicycle and I needed somewhere to disappear into. Quickly. It was also around dinner time, so I bolted into the first place that looked open, hoping to kill a couple of birds with one stone. That place was Esther's. What a stroke of luck. It's a cheap looking joint made for take away and initially I didn't have much confidence in the food. Before I could turn on my heel and make for the exit, I found out they had homemade clam chowder as the soup du jour. Something I'd never had before and was aching to try. So, I decided to take a chance on the little diner that could. Add a bit of green tabasco and the result is exquisite. Either that, or I was really hungry. Friday is clam chowder day at Esther's, so do yourself a favour and have the friendly people behind the counter look after you for an hour or two. There are free refills (well, there would be if the one serving wasn't so filling) and it's cheap and cheerful.

5. The Bonneville Salt Flats.

They filmed part of Pirates 3 here (think of the bit where Jack is in Davy Jones' Locker, talking to a few hundred replicants of himself) and once you step out onto the texturally incorrect salt surface, you can see why. The landscape is eerie, all white and blinding when the sun is out and all you can see is this huge expanse of nothingness. Much like, you know, the rest of Utah. Take the I-80 on the way to Nevada and you'll be driving right next to it. Bring those sunglasses.

Top 5 Worst Things About Salt Lake/Utah.

1. Salt Lake Stalkers

By the time the others had come back from camping, I was at the end of my tether. I'd come to Utah with certain expectations about the place, the main expectation being that it's full of Mormons who are a pretty harmless, if stupid, bunch of people. That expectation turned out to be correct, however, I'd failed to prepare myself for the rest of the population who are not Mormon and although they're harmless, they're irritating in the extreme. Dodgy men infest Salt Lake City at every time of the day and night (I refused to go outside my hostel after 9pm for this reason) and if you're a young woman on your own, they will target you. It doesn't matter if you refuse to acknowledge their presence (believe me, I tried), they've got bicycles and they will circle you. And follow you. And ask ridiculous questions, especially if you have an accent. The problem is, if you throw a rock in the spokes and they fall off their bike and get hit by a car...then you look like the bad guy. So instead I had to grin and bear it and try to lose them as quickly as possible. This is difficult, because Salt Lake City isn't exactly the liveliest of towns and the streets are close to empty, even in peak hour.

2. Mormons

Only ye with enough faith to tithe 10% of your total income may enter here.

Except for their taste in architecture, it's a well-known fact that I hate Mormons. The history of the Mormon religion is an adventure into the ridiculous, the two leaders and their merry band of idiots were so disliked amongst the general populace of wherever they went that they had to go all the way to a barely inhabitable place like Utah in order to set up shop, they wear ridiculous underthings and they wake people up on Saturday mornings in an attempt to spread the stupid around. Plus, who willingly goes to church for three hours?

It's also a fact that I am not a particularly tolerant person and that one of my favourite things to do when I am approached by a person I recognise to be an idiot is to question them relentlessly and to make them as uncomfortable as possible. Wandering around Temple Square was a difficult experience for me, mainly because I wasn't able to wipe the smirk off my face the entire time. Temple Square is the main tourist attraction in Utah and the main objective of the thousands of missionaries there is convert you, so it's very difficult to just wander aimlessly around the place, people want to take you on tours or if you're not on a tour and you're on your own for too long, they come over for a chat before the independent thoughts have a chance to begin. The hilarious thing about the missionaries in Temple Square is that they make sure to have the rookies come over to you, so they can harp on about all that 'loving one's family' crap and they can avoid talking about, for example, how the Book Of Mormon sets up a huge case for racial genocide. I was firing question after question at this one girl about the simplest things and she was turning a nice shade of lobster red in the face from the exertion caused by thinking. I know, I'm a needlessly cruel little wench and possibly a bride of Satan. But they're idiots.

3. The Weather

Utah is hotter than Hades. Hot and dry, which is better than hot and humid but a damn sight more expensive, thanks to all the bottles of water one has to buy. Potential travellers to the area (snort) beware - it is impossible to walk a few metres in the heat of a Salt Lake summer without a 'sip' (re: massive, gulping chug) of water. There's little change between night and day, if you don't count the light and the best time to go running around is in the early morning, before the sun has had its first few fags and isn't yet hot enough fry you to a crisp. The only brief period where the heat wasn't as intense was during a sudden wind/dust storm which descended upon me after I'd been walking around for four hours straight trying to find something interesting to look at (the Sugar House District is not urban, nor is it hip...it's suburbia. The SLC guide book tells filthy lies!) and it was exactly what I didn't need. You will be sunburnt, so take sunscreen and even if you have the complexion of a 'fair English rose' like myself, you will probably get something of a tan (Praise be to the Christ and the Prophets! It's a miracle!!). Also, if you don't own a pair of sunglasses and you go to Utah, then you're a bloody idiot. Get the hell off my blog.

4. Hostel Patrons

I really liked my hostel. The Camelot is in a really inconvenient location (quite a ways out of the main centre, in a particularly dodgy district) but the rooms are deliciously cool, even during the day and they're decently furnished, clean and comfortable. I scored a private room (hallelujah!) and I wasn't bothered by anyone barging in at some ungodly hour of the morning (re: 11 a.m) trying to tidy it. There was one problem though: the other people staying there were freaks. There was one guy who, every night from 9 to 11 without fail, would be watching a Star Wars film. The Hayden Christensen films. Ughhhhh. I'm not a huge fan of Star Wars, mainly because geeks tend to make oh-so-hilarious jokes after they find out my last name ("Why, no, I'm not related to Luke Skywalker...") and I hate how George Lucas temporarily destroyed Natalie Portman's stellar acting talent (Christensen never had any talent to begin with). There was another asshole who, when I was blundering around trying to work out the crazy check-in system, was doing his best to be as unhelpful as possible when I inquired about the workings of the hostel. I never had direct contact with anyone else but for a while I'm pretty sure I was the only woman, the rest being an assortment of older, morbidly obese guys with severe cases of plumber's crack. Gross. And the Camelot claims to attract a 'more discerning clientele'...

5. Billboard Moralising

This wasn't limited to Utah. It's everywhere, even in Washington. Billboards in America can be hilarious at times. Check this one out. Other interesting signs along the way included an ad which listed how much bacteria is exchanged during a kiss (at the bottom it revealed itself to be a Toyota ad, wtf) and a church sign - 'Don't be too open-minded or your brain might fall out.' Hmm. Start talking before they start thinking...

My main qualm with SLC was the fact that there was bugger all to do there...I was there for a mere three days and was struggling to find something to divert my attention by the third day and I'm fairly easily amused. I ended up having to go to the mall. It could've been worse though. Imagine if my hostel didn't have free wi-fi?! Or worse still, what if I'd been wandering around the desert in the heat and dust and the burnination, like my friends?

Discography.

A whole bunch of songs will be forever connected to the Salt Lake City/Utah in my mind. You want to know what I was listening to on the way? Download the following:

Journey - Don't Stop Believing

Oh my god, Steve Perry. If I ever meet you in person, you will be thrown into the Pit of Doom. Kosta and Jon's endless repetitions of this song (I missed a whole chunk of renditions, thankfully) meant that Journey have now become something of a personal joke between the Red State Road Trippin' Seven.

Viva Voce - Get Your Blood Sucked Out
Sufjan Stevens - In The Devil's Territory
Elvis Presley - Hound Dog
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
The Arcade Fire (Mormon music!) - Keep The Car Running

The Great Utah Road Trip July 3rd - 8th, Part 1: Where To Find The Coldest Beer in Boise.

I know, I know, technically I travelled to Seattle first but I barely had time to adjust to the time difference, let alone the Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest grid before I was whisked away to the Red States. That and I'm still in Seattle at the moment, so I'd much rather do a write up once I've had the full SeaTac experience (Viva Sea-Tac!).

We set off for Utah on the afternoon of the 3rd, seven of us in two cars, Percy and Karl. Everyone tended to hate Karl for his complete inability to accelerate up hills but his unco-operative behaviour reminded me so much of Feste, my moody Beastiva that I quite liked him. Of course, I say this because I didn't drive...the concept of driving on the right hand side of the road doesn't freak me out but I'd be bloody dangerous in action...I'm damned if I know which way to look whenever I cross the road as a pedestrian, can you imagine me trying to do a left hand turn in a car?

Anyway, Karl came equipped with Satellite Radio, which is a lot like Cable TV in that it's the most awesome thing you've ever seen and oh my god you'll never ever get sick of this...and then after an hour, you discover that just because there's a lot of selection, that's no guarantee of quality. There was a channel dedicated to the 1950s which I quite liked, there was an all Elvis, all the time station and they even had Patrick Wolf on Left-Of-Centre but aside from that...too many Christian channels, way too much country (one channel dedicated to country is too much) and not enough rockin'.

Then there was the scenery on the road. We crossed five states during the course of our road trip - Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Nevada (in order of appearance). Washington is interesting for a while because it's quite mountainous and green and foresty and Oregon's a bit like that too but then you get to Idaho. Oh my god, Idaho, not even SatRad and endless rounds of Taboo can save you. Parts of that state reminded me of crossing the Nullabor(e) because it's all just one big expanse of deserty nothingness where no one can hear you scream. The small towns we came across within and on the way to Idaho are similar to the little spits of civilisation you see on the way to Western Australia, except there are terrible burger chains and Wal-Marts where the filthy pubs and Target Country stores should be and not as many American men (or women for that matter) go around sporting big beards such as the kind you'd see sprouting on folks in Olary.

I couldn't (and still can not) get past the amount of burger chains here. It's not just McDonalds and KFC any more...there are tens, possibly hundreds of cloned buildings with big, gaudy logos springing up in every town and as with SatRad, the more selection you have, the lesser the quality. My beef (so to speak) is not so much the quantity of these places (well, ok, it is a large part of it), but rather the fact that I don't believe that anyone should invest any sort of interest in food that takes longer to eat than it does to cook. Particularly if it takes a minute to serve up a burger, and two minutes to scoff it. It's just wrong.

We spent most of the afternoon and a few of the a.m hours on the road to Boise, the capital city. Compared to the rest of Idaho, Boise is a quaint little town with shady avenues, lots of green spaces near the river and, if the free publications are to be believed, damn cold beer at the local P.F Chang's. There's a souvenir store called Taters (oh god). There are cinemas which screen three year old Australian films. There's the Capitol building, which looks exactly the same as every other Capitol building ever, and a parking lot that looks like a giant diving board. That's really about it. That being said, I actually didn't mind Boise...the shade gave us respite from the heat, the city looked well-planned with its broad streets and its walkability (that's totally a word) and, after endless 'same, same, different name' small towns with their rows of Wendy's, Arby's and other chains with apostrophes, it was a relief to see a building over three stories high.

The next day was full of Idaho. I've complained about Idaho enough for you to get the picture I saw out of the window. Thank god for music, sweet music, as napping vertically proved near-impossible...sleeping horizontally was difficult enough for me, who had not quite become accustomed to the time zone change and was on constant doses of Nyquil thanks to the flu which will not die. Travellers tip #1: Don't take sleeping pills, no matter how strong the temptation. I found that although I slept at night, I also wanted to sleep during the day, which made me even more of a pain in the ass to be around. That and they screw with so much more than just your sleeping capacity.

zzzzzzzzzz.....

We eventually arrived in the state of Utah in the early afternoon and you could instantly sense the change...by the choice of roadside advertising. There's not enough city in Idaho to warrant many eyesores on the side of the road but Utah was a different story. The closer we got to Salt Lake, the more distractions there were and they were hilarious. One particular ad stated the following: "You exchange 500+ different types of bacteria when kissing.' I can't remember the exact number. What was it supposed to be advertising? Sexually transmitted disease? Oral hygeine products? Wrong.

Toyota.

Yeah, the car company.

Jesus christ. You know you're in a Red State when...

Salt Lake City is one of those places that looks quite beautiful from a distance. A great deal of the buildings are tall and white, it is surrounded by mountains and, like Boise, it's quite well organised in terms of the layout. After my functioning brain cell kicked in and I figured out the North/South, East/West, numbered street system, it was really easy. After coming from Australia, where all the streets are named and not numbered, it takes a while to get used to addresses like 200 S West Temple. On our first day when we were all strolling around finding a place to eat, Salt Lake looked so clean. Sterile, really. Like a dentist's office. I soon found out it wasn't the case but that first day in Salt Lake was a trip.

I forgot to mention, that day was also the 4th. It was way more subdued than I thought it would be, perhaps it was because we were in Utah or perhaps it was because we missed the main celebrations but it was so...nothing much. In Australia there are rabid patriots everywhere, with flags attached to cars and green and gold face paint and all that embarrassing rubbish that mostly occurs on the 26th of January, or at sporting events. I didn't see a single flag on anyone's car in Salt Lake. Most people didn't even wish us a happy 4th of July. My friends and I were almost poking fun of the whole concept, but that's probably because my little group was comprised of 2 Australians, 4 Canadians and 1 Canadian/American. Oh another trip for Salt Lake travellers: don't sit on the grass in Utah. I woke up the next morning covered in red scratches thanks to the itchy grassy knoll we were celebrating on and I know I wasn't the only one.

The next day saw me transferred to The Camelot Hostel on the very edge of the Downtown area
whilst my friends went camping in the National Parks. I'm a fan of keeping clean and well-groomed and although I like communing with nature on the odd occasion, two days without a shower is an unthinkable concept. So I opted to remain a city slicker in order to prepare myself for the two long months where I'd be a stranger in a strange land. Oh the tales I will tell...

Visit Utah! We have Super Wal-Marts!

So, my accommodation is almost completely sorted out for my entire U.S.A trip. It's been a long, drawn-out process with moments of panic ("Christ, these crazy Elvis fans book well in advance don't they?"), moments of ecstasy ("That is the most awesome bed and breakfast I've ever seen!") moments of sadness ("Oh crap, it's in Arkansas") and moments...of disbelief.

That was in my confirmation email from the hostel in Salt Lake City, Utah. You know you're in trouble when you're visiting a city which has the library and a Super Wal-Mart listed as the main attractions. I love the sound of my hostel though (free internet is always a drawcard), on the reservation site it claims 'We take credit card holders only for a more select clientele' and 'Felons need NOT apply' (do parking tickets count?).

I think I'll tell them I dyed my hair red and black for a dare...