L'amérique!

Vous aurez remarque que j'ai arrete de traduire mes articles en francais a chaque fois... Je vous recommande d'utiliser Google Translate:\

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdocte-gaby.travellerspoint.com&sl=en&tl=fr

Le lien ci-dessus devrait fonctionner meme lorsque je poste de nouveaux articles.

Yesterday after posting, I looked for a campground to pitch the tent. The GPS found "Pinerock Camp" near Prescott. It's actually more a campground for "RV" (Recreational Vehicles) and it was actually closed and empty... Mike, who runs the place with his wife Cindy, was nice enough to offer me hospitality anyway and showed me where I could pitch the tent.

It was the first time I didn't pitch the tent on grass... a bit trickier but it worked -- thankfully it wasn't too windy or stormy during the night!

Hmm pasta... and as long as there is some beer, the moral is up!

The night was a bit chilly, though. I think it was something like 1,500 meters above sea level (to check), and Mike was telling me they had some snow just a couple of days ago!

This morning I had breakfast with Mike and we chatted a bit about his career changes and what brought him from NewYork and Chicago to Arizona.

After that I took the very winding road towards Jerome, where most turns are limited to 20 mph...!

Jerome used to be a real sin city during the gold rush. It then became the biggest ghost city of America. Now it's home to a lot of artists who expose their wares in posh galleries. It's actually a town I could visit by foot. The street were tiny and not organised in blocks for once, mostly because the town tries to hard to clutch onto the steep slope of the mountain.

That was much better than what I had in Phoenix. Bleu cheese & Bacon burger, at the Mile High Inn.

There was also an old "ghost" mine, but I saw one already and I didn't feel like camping in the area, so I just took a picture from a dirt road above and decided to hit the road to Sedona instead.

On the way, the gasoline light went on and I pulled over in a station. I had to figure out what fuel my car ran on...! There was little indication on the car itself. The people of the stations (including a customer) were very helpful (and amused by my not-knowing). It turns out no cars here use Diesel. Except the biggest cars that are in fact qualified of "trucks". The car didn't break down, so they must have been right!

It's funny how it works. You have either to pay by card, or to pay in advance. It's a bit difficult to know in advance how much you're going to need! The lady estimated $25 and she was spot on. Once you've paid, you have to lift the plastic bit in which the hose is stowed when unused, otherwise the damn thing wouldn't work at all. Then there's a system where you can block the handle so that the gas keeps coming out even if you don't press the handle anymore.

Now I'm in Sedona.

I long for a campground with a view. Somewhere I could settle for a few days, and just hike and generally take it easy. Watch the sun set. Watch the sun rise. Gaze at the stars. Relax. My life has been so hectic recently, what with deciding to move out of my place (which I did in 8 days, from the decision to the house being empty & clean) and then squat at a crazy saxophonist's place (no offense :-P).

I just long for some time off, with not much to worry about. No GPS. No "where am I going to sleep tonight?" Etc.

I'm hoping to find this in Sedona. I want to settle for a few days and there are a lot of scenic hiking trails here.

It's gonna do me a lot of good.

PS: many thanks to all of you who write comments (here or on FaceBook) or send me emails. I don't really take the time to answer them, but they're great!

I've been in the US only a few days and I've already dialled 911! Not for me, though.

It happened this morning, as I was driving from Wickenburg to Prescott. Since I left Phoenix yesterday, the desert has been pretty flat. On the road to Prescott, however, it starts to climb onto what I think is the colorado plateau.

The road starts to get really torteous. Half-way up the climb, I saw a motorbike laid down on the side of the road, and the biker standing near the railing. It looked like he had just fallen off his bike. The guy was a bit confused. Without hesitating long I pulled over and asked from a distance if he was alright. He still had his helmet and he was alone, which I found a bit odd. I was a bit scared to be honest. I couldn't help thinking that maybe it was some sort of scam to get the tourist to stop and then someone else would come out of nowhere and take my money. So my reflex was to call 911. When I know that someone is coming, then I can get close to the guy and see if I could help.

I'm not used to call for emergency, so I had to explain very vaguely the situation to 3 or 4 persons over the phone. By that time, another guy had pulled over with a truck, assessed the situation and very calmly started to get cones out of his truck to secure the roadside. He then checked the guy out with me and only then called 911, giving informations such as "He is coherent", etc. That made me think I need to get on a first-aid training!

Pretty soon an ambulance arrived. Then fire men. Then police men. All in all, there came something like 6 vehicles all with sirens and blinking lights! I thought it was a bit overkill.

The biker is safe. I think he might have a dismantled/broken shoulder. :-( But he's alive and well. It turned out he stopped to take pictures a bit further down, which is why his mates where not with him. But they soon came back. They all thanked me for stopping. I didn't feel very useful though, to be honest! I'll think about this first-aid training.

Yesterday, I left Phoenix and drove in the desert up to Wickenburg, a small gold mining town.

A few miles away, there's an old abandonned "ghost" gold mine called the Vulture Mine. There I met with Gayle and Gordon, a couple of friends that kind of guided me around.

Gordon used to be a pilot in the military and I believe he is now retired. Arizona´s weather is great for pilots as it allows them to fly so many days a year. He loves old places like for example the Vulture Mine and the city of Jerome which I´ll see tomorrow. It was very interested listening to his slow American voice as he explained things about the mine, cactus, rattlesnakes, etc...

Gayle is a very enthusiastic person. She used to play piano and sing blues in clubs, before selling credit cards to movie stars (including Jon Voight, Angelina Jolie´s dad, which reminded me of an episode of Jerry Seinfeld...!), and then taking an early retirement. It was a lot of fun to hang out with both of them.

After the mine, we went back to Wickenburg to have a drink in one of the ¨Salloon¨. We talked a bit about the US. Cars, cities, religion and guns, amongst other things.

Then I found a campground to pitch the tent before dark. It was very near a very busy road. I have no idea why, but big huge trucks have this habit of honking for like a second or two several times in a row. I´ll have to find out what for, because it sure was annoying.

Then as you know I headed to Prescott. There, I visited the Sharlot Hall Museum. It's a bit funny how proud they are to still have the original Governor's "Mansion" (a big log cabin, in fact), something like 130 years after it's been built. A 130-years-old building doesn't really qualify as very old in Europe, but here in the West, that's the oldest thing they've got! It's starting to change, but until recently, they mostly had the same attitude I read the Chinese have about old things: "we don't need that, it's old, take it down and build new things instead".

PS: I've just understood why I was having difficulties with the quotes and apostrophe in this post: my keyboard was set to Spanish!

[Desole! Pas de version francaise aujourd'hui! Utilisez Google Translate! :-P]

Last night I went to bed at 21:00 and I got up this morning at 7:00! Jetlag'd, moi? I don't think so!

I got everything I needed yesterday, including a great adventure hat.

The GPS is an absolute life-savior. It's not only a very detailed map and a very patient copilot, it is also the Yellow Pages! I can pretty much find anything now.

I'm starting to get used to the car and driving in the US. This is really car kingdom here. Every thing is far. I found natural to drive from a parking lot on one side of a street to a parking lot on the other side (slight exageration). The streets are really wide. Most often 3 or 4 lanes each way. The cars are big. I've never seen so many pick-ups and SUVs! Pedestrians look like an anomaly. Outside very commercial areas, it gives the feeling that no one's really out there. No life. Everything is so sparse, it feels like it doesn't have the critical mass to start crystallising history. Just keep cruising. (uh oh, I'd better change subject, I'm getting philosophical).

Driving through Phoenix reminds me a lot of playing Grand Theft Auto. Mostly because of the number of pick-up trucks. I've even seen a black 4-wheel drive just like the one in Back to the Future!

The fact that every big chunks of the city seems to be divided into either commercial, industrial or residential areas makes me think of the game Sim City. I remember finding the concept odd when I first played. This is so different to European cities.

Automatic cars have some interesting features. One is what they call "Overdrive". I like the name because it makes me think of the opening scene of "Back to the Future". It simply means the car will tend to use a higher gear to save fuel. In a manual car, you'd have much more control on that.

You also have the opposite possibility, where the car will maximise the engine braking.

Another feature I love is "speed control". The car will maintain the speed your going at without you having to bother with the gas pedal. Very nice to relax on a long trip. You can then adjust the speed by pressing buttons on the wheel. This feels so much like playing a video game, it's unbelievable!

Sometimes it's difficult to realise you have to stop. Streets are straight for miles here. When you suddenly see a red light, and you stop accelerating, the car doesn't slow down that much (because it's an automatic). Then you have to add to that the fact that the traffic lights are situated *after* the junction. It is a big deal because the typical street is twice 3 or 4 lanes, so you actually have to stop some 20 meters *before* the lights. Compared to Europe, this takes some getting used to.

A nice feature is that in some place, you can turn right when the light is red, provided you stop first (and give way).

On big roads (easily 5 lanes), the lane the most on the left is only allowed to cars carrying more than one person. Which means I can't use it, boohoohoo!

Oh, and one was thing that is cracking me up: my car has a built-in compass! It tells me if I'm headed North, South, East or West! I don't really use it because of the GPS, but it's very useful, seeing as most streets are aligned with the cardinal points.

People in shops are very friendly. I was in Safeway (like a small Tesco or Carrefour grocery store), minding my own business. I crossed the path of an employee, and he just stopped, greeted me and asked me how things were going. This never happened to me before. Not in the UK, not in France.

I've read and heard before that Americans tend to be more enthusiastic. Or at least they look like they are. It can be hard to tell what they really think of you -- that's usually pretty easy with Europeans.

Right, now I'm getting out of Phoenix and into the desert. I've already driven almost an hour and I'm still not out of here!

10 Apr. Healthy lunch at Heathrow.
Sain miam-miam a l'aeroport.

In the hotel. 19:52, but it feels like 3:52. 8 hours of difference.
A l'hotel. 8 heures de decalage horaire!

I can't believe it's raining! They say it does happen from time to time. Shocking!
Il pleut! Ils me disent que ca arrive parfois. Quel scandale!

American breakfast. (ah well...)
Petit dej americain. (bof)

Check out my ride!
Vise un peu ma bagnole!

American lunch. (I prefer Japanese food, to be honest)
Dejeuner americain (je prefere la bouffe japonaise!)

Everything is huge here.
Tout est enorme ici.

My car (second on the left) hardly looks out of place...
Ma voiture (deuxieme en partant de la gauche) ne deparait pas...

A couple of quickies:

So when you press the "lock" button on the car key the first time, it locks the car silently. It doesn't flash the hazard lights for instance, like I'm used to. But then if you press it again, it actions the horn! That really surprised the hell out of me the first time. That also means that busy parking lots are usually not really quiet places.

Internet access here is so expensive. $12 an hour (in Fedex Kinko's). Three years ago, I paid 1 euro the hour in Dublin. What a rip off.

Rapidement:

Quand tu presses le bouton "verrouiller" sur la clef de la voiture, ca verrouille silencieusement. Les clignotants ne clignotent pas pour confirmer, comme j'ai l'habitude. Quand tu presses encore, ca actionne le klaxon! Ca m'a vraiment surpris la premiere fois. J'ai eu l'impression de me faire engueuler par ma bagnole! Entre autres, ca veut aussi dire que les parkings ne sont en general pas ideals pour la sieste...

Internet est super cher ici. $12 pour une heure. Il y a 3 ans, je me souviens payer 1 euro l'heure a Dublin.