September 2008 Archives

After a bumpy flight from the USA (where I gripped onto the seat in front of me for dear life, whilst the other passengers clung valiantly onto their glasses of dinner wine), along with a touch of food poisoning from the in-flight 'meals', we finally set foot on British soil again.

Damp. Grey. Miserable. And, of course, raining. Post-holiday blues hit us like a sledgehammer attached to a speeding truck. I would have cried, but I didn't have the strength.

We waited an hour for our 'courtesy' bus back to the hotel where we'd left our car. It started straight away, and Hubs drove on the right side of the road almost immediately.

We set off. It was a terrible journey. The roads around London were busy and frantic. Then there was a downpour and everything came to a virtual standstill. More traffic. Nothing like the long, empty roads of Arizona (sigh).

A mere hour from home, Hubs had to pull into a service station because of chronic jet-lag. He could barely see straight he was so tired. We both fell asleep in the car for a long time. When we woke up, the car wouldn't start. Hubs had left the lights on.

He yelled, "Get out and push!" in a semi-conscious but quite forceful way. I was a bit taken aback because (a) Hubs never yells, and (b) I don't do car pushing.

Despite (b), I found myself at the back of the car pushing against it with everything I had, which admittedly wasn't a lot, not with jet-lag and food poisoning. I was heaving and gasping and thrusting and... er, straining. The car suddenly stopped. Hubs had put on the brakes.

"Why have you slammed on the brakes?" I cried.

And Hubs replied (and get this), "Did you not see that car coming?"

"No!" I hollered back, "Because I'm facing the ground shoving a ton of berluddy metal across the sodding tarmac! I didn't realise I had to watch for traffic at the same berluddy time!"

It was then that I stomped off into the service station for some Coke or Red Bull or Speed tablets, anything to keep us awake. Behind me I heard Hubs marching over to some rugby players and bawling, "Bloody fell asleep with the lights on, can you give us a push?"

They did, quite impressively in fact, and off we set again. Only because the battery was flat, it affected our sat nav system, which was programmed to take us to the boarding kennels to pick our dog up.

"Pretty sure we shouldn't be heading towards Coventry," Hubs kept saying, but on we carried.

Eventually realising that Coventry is nowhere near the kennels, Hubs turned around and went back down the same motorway for 80 odd miles.

I rang the kennels: "We're going to be late!" I cried.

"Pick him up tomorrow," they insisted.

We wouldn't get our dog back until tomorrow!

We eventually made it home at 5.30pm, seven hours after we'd landed.

Nice to be back (not!)

I'm sure normality will return at some point, just as soon as I figured out what 'normal' is (there was certainly no sign of it before we went on holiday) and when I've dug myself out of the pile of washing.

Meantime, this song pretty much says it all...

(A Naïve Brit's Guide to an American Road Trip)

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: There the rest of the time.

...because its too flippin' hot to think!

Every single day in Arizona I keep saying "That was the best day ever!" But Thursday really was the best day.

Thursday we hit the road, man, headin' off t'Monument Valley (I think I'm mixing my accents there, American meets Yorkshire and has a fight over vowels... Yorkshire wins hands down for sheer volume).

We set off just after 7am local time wearing t-shirt and shorts with the car top down. Nearly froze to death. Made Hubs stop by moaning a lot about hyperthermia and how difficult it would be to ship my body home, and he put the lid on the car and tossed me a jacket... and a tourist fatality was narrowly averted.

Monument Valley, wow. I mean, wow. I mean, WOW! We drove into a town called Mexican Hat where, to Hubs immense relief, they sold beer (Kayenta, where we were staying, is within a Navajo Indian reservation so no alcohol is sold there - Hubs almost burst into tears when he found out).

We were going to drive a hundred miles or so through the valley, then stop and come back to view it all from a different angle, but we ended up carrying on to a town called Blanding.

Blanding was lovely, just how you'd imagine a typical American town. We popped into a deli to grab some goodies, then set off to find a scenic place to eat lunch, which ain't that hard in Monument Valley. Met up with a couple from Ireland at the side of the road and 'shot the breeze' with them awhile... you meet people wherever you go and share travel tips and anecdotes, I luuurve road trips.

I was trigger happy with the camera and just kept taking photos left, right and centre - everything was just so photogenic. I was feverishly snapping staggering rock formations on the left side of the road when Hubs drawled, "I'd quite like to see where I'm going if it's all the same to you." I was holding the camera and my arm right in front of his face. "Sometimes," he added, tutting, "You're just such a woman."

He still has the bruise.

On the way back we stopped at an 'historic monument' in Bluff, which was rather interesting; how Mormons first arrived and struggled to settle in the middle of nowhere. There were black and white photographs of some rather miserable people, but then if you've travelled for weeks across arid and bumpy desert I guess you'd look like that.

We turned into the Navajo Reservation in MV, primarily to get an ice cream because I was sweating my socks off and screaming for one like a stroppy toddler. There was a road leading down from the visitors area and you could see cars driving down the dusty track towards more towering formations. Hubs hummed and huffed a bit, muttering about low car clearance and rental insurance, but I forced him to go have a look - it would be an adventure I cried.

Had I been driving, I'd have given up at the first hairpin bend, got out the car and sulked until some man came to save me. Fortunately, Hubs was driving, and he did an excellent job.

"Its just like rally driving isn't it," I cried, weak with relief that I wasn't behind the wheel as we bounced along the rugged track.

"Rally driving is faster," said Hubs, navigating over a rut big enough to hide an elephant or two.

"Slow motion rally driving then."

I'm so glad we made the effort. It was the best view, the best place, exactly how we'd imagined Monument Valley to be. You could drive right next to the rock formations and marvel at the sheer immensity of it all. It was amazing, I was awestruck. I gaped up at this solid, sheer wall of towering rock and was rendered speechless. It was an incredible moment.

There were some dodgy moments across a dried up river bed and some deep ruts, but our convertible did us proud. We drove behind huge 4 x 4 monsters that were pottering along like fairy cakes. I mean, isn't that what they were built for, off road driving like this? Tsk.

It was a hell of a day. Monument Valley was astonishing with knobs on.

It was a sensory overload.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday (unless I'm on holiday, in which case it'll probably be late).

Brummie Blogs: There rest of time (unless I'm in the Arizona mountains and can't find WiFi, telephone or radio reception).

So we were in this bar, Harrah's on the Las Vegas Strip, partaking of dollar bottles of beer, when in walks this bloke. Six foot four, huge, handsome and wearing a Stetson. There was a moment when my entire body went limp and my brain started screaming A cowboy! A cowboy! in a really hysterical way.

He came and stood next to us at the bar and Hubs, being a yakky Yorkshireman, started talking to him. His opening line was, "My wife told all her friends she was going to kiss the first real cowboy she saw." The cowboy looked a little startled, as well he might, and said we'd have to ask his wife.

His wife was lovely (she liked AbFab, ya can't go far wrong with anyone who likes AbFab). We shared a few drinks as The Cowboy and Hubs discovered they both liked country music and western films, and even Elvis came over to say hello. No, really, Elvis. I touched Elvis (and he didn't mind... well I think he was drunk, but even so).

We went for chicken wings in Hooters with the cowboy and his wife, and then to Dixies, a country and western bar with a live band.

I don't dance. I never dance. I just sit in a corner somewhere tapping my foot in a really meaningful way, or sometimes there's shoulder shaking involved if the music's of the shoulder shaking variety, but there's never any actual dancing involved. But there I danced, it was that kind of place. I was also, of course, a bit bladdered and a lot jet-lagged.

A word here about jet lag. It's crap. C-R-A-P. You're either awake or crashing into a coma, there's no in-between bit, no warning, you just flop and hope you don't kill yourself. My face looks like it's been squeezed out like a dishcloth and thrown from a great distance back onto my cheekbones. It's a terrible, terrible thang.

What isn't terrible over here in Big Country is the weather. Sun, heat and blue skies. Oh bliss. It did throw a thunderstorm as we passed through a place called Chloride - 'the ghost town that refuses to die' - which just increased my paranoia that the sky wants to kill us (having been struck by the sparky stuff a couple of months ago), but other than that it's glorious.

We're out of Vegas now and on our 10 day road trip. The scenery is breathtaking, the people incredibly friendly, and everything is just so big. We're loving it. We've even Gone Native (or 'Gone Country' for all you Alan Jackson fans out there), driving around in our convertible with the top down, wearing Stetsons and listening to country music.

"Where y'from?" people ask us.

"Birmingham," we say.

"Alabama?"

"No, England."

"Uh huh."

We are giving serious consideration to not coming home.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: Rest of week

...not sure if I'll come back again.

As you read this I will (hopefully) be quite high up in the sky on my way to some fabulous location where its warm and sunny and not raining.

After the monsoons that defined our Great British Summer, the criteria for this year's holiday was: Where is it dry? A desert was the obvious choice, and whilst Hubs quite fancied the idea of doing Lawrence of Arabia on a camel across the Sahara or the Gobi, I preferred some place that wasn't likely to kill us. I wanted more Thelma and Louise than Ice Cold in Alex.

So... Arizona. Las Vegas. Grand Canyon. Monument Valley. The works.

I booked everything online months ago - flights, hotels, car hire. It took a whole day of deep research and frantic surfing as I obsessively hunted down the best bargains. No stone was left unturned in the quest for the Perfect Holiday.

We packed on Sunday for our escape on Monday. Hubs and I can't pack together because we bicker a bit and then a lot, and then strops are thrown, swiftly followed by objects. He likes to gather everything together and pack neatly, I tend to throw stuff in an overarm way from the wardrobe to the suitcase. He likes to think carefully about what he's taking, I just take everything.

He takes one book, I like a choice of at least five. We had to pay for overweight suitcases on our last holiday - when Hubs discovered I'd stashed seven hardbacks he was not best pleased.

"Yer just tekin one this time," he said firmly (because he talks like that, being a Yorkshireman and all).

"Yeah, sure." I said, "No problem." The Complete Works of Jackie Collins comes with wheels and a handle.

Suitcase packed - well not so much packed at held shut with bungee straps - I checked we had all the relevant emails and e-tickets. Flight, car, hotels, travel insurance. Travel insurance?

Pretty sure I'd arranged some, I distinctly remember having a sleepless night about whether or not I should pay extra to have 'Hijack' insurance. I mean, if you're on a plane that's been hijacked, would your first thought be 'Not to worry, we're insured'?

I went through 1,549 emails looking for holiday insurance, to no avail. I'd forgotten to get it.

Bugger.

Haven't booked any hotels for our 10 day road trip either, we're winging it, which is either a brilliant plan or a mistake of epic proportions. I'll let you know next week (they'll have WiFi in Death Valley won't they?)

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: There rest of week.

I was more than a little excited to read that David Duchovny - the hunk of X-Files and Californication fame - has been admitted to 'rehab' for sex addiction (excited because I'm clearly not getting out enough). I've already sent the email reading Dear David, I live at...

Firstly, in my best Peter Kay impersonation, sex addict? Sex? Addict? Is that when a weary wife tells her rampant husband (because lets face it, it's mostly men isn't it), "Get that thing away from me, you're always after it you are, you need to book yourself into therapy for sex addiction"?

Does that not give wives carte blanche to drag their lustful husbands to the nearest rehab clinic, throw him through the doors (if they can manouvre him through the doorway) and go home to a mug of cocoa and a good book for a few days respite?

Or viewed another way, will men the world over throw up their hands in glee and cry, "I can't help it, I'm a sex addict!", absolving themselves of all responsibility for humping the secretary, the cleaner and a rather stunned gardener who just happened to bend over at the wrong time, all before lunch?

People around the country, around the world, are thinking 'Oh I'd better not make a pass tonight, they might have me committed.'

And if everyone who likes sex to whatever extent were 'cured', population numbers would drop and mankind would, presumably, start to look a bit berluddy miserable.

How, exactly, do you treat sex addiction?

Apparently, 'sufferers' receive psychotherapy ("You vill not look at de vomen! You vill not bonk de vomen!") and group meetings ("I like sex." "Yeah, me too." "And me.")

They're also given anti-depressants which apparently decrease libido - so you'd have no sex drive, but you wouldn't feel that bad about it. There's no mention of bromide, which seems a bit remiss.

At what point, exactly, would you be considered to be a sex addict? Is three times a week deemed too much? And who is to say it's too much?

Is the government, at this very moment, drawing up new legislation and preparing to send out inspectors to raid bedrooms at any time of the night or day? ("We understand you've bonked four times this week, that's six points on your licence and an increase in your council tax. Would you mind putting that thing away, sir.")

And if Big Brother is watching, wouldn't he be laughing his socks off most of the time? I mean, face it, we're not all film or porn stars, most of us look like we're playing Twister on our backs, yelling things like "Argh! My arm!" or "I can't feel my leg!"

They say it's a bit like alcohol addiction ("Bonk before dinner, darling?"), but if you had a choice between all the addictions - be it nicotine, alcohol, drugs, Mahjong - wouldn't sex be the one you'd choose? "Hello, my name is Brian and I'm a sex addict," would certainly make for entertaining conversation and give you no end of street cred.

As Mr Duchovny enters the clinic for treatment (wailing They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no! NO!), women everywhere will shake their heads and mutter, "Tsk, men!"

Men will no doubt group-hug in a really manly way and cry, "Go on my son!"

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: There rest of week