Tag Archives: usa

Alabama Problem

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Crossing MississippiI went to America again and had lots of fun there. I guess there is no surprise here. It was quite a few weeks ago but since then I’m still battling my laziness to come up with more blog posts. But don’t you worry, some of them might be coming quite soon.

In the meantime, in a rare moment of mobilisation, I decided to create a map of my American experiences up to date. The results of my effort is this awesome map showing all the places I have visited during my travels since 2001. And it was quite an effort as I had to place more than 200 markers indicating cities, towns and villages as well as natural and man made attractions which I got under my belt. Being a geek I even marked all the airports I used during my trips, including their IATA (International Air Transport Association) codes. I’m actually quite proud of my map.

However as a side effect of this whole mapmaking exercise I realised that I might be a bit of a cheat. Let me explain.

Do you remember how some time ago, after stopping in Rhode Island, I claimed that I have visited all the lower 48 states? Well, there is a bit of a problem. If you look at my map you might realize that Montana and Alabama look devoid of the markers. I can probably get away with Montana as if you look closely you can spot lonely marker in West Yellowstone, a small town just outside of Yellowstone National Park, located in a small bit of Montana wedged between Wyoming and Idaho. I definitely stopped there for a few hours and I even remember chatting with a Subway franchise owner about his experiences with employing Eastern European students during the summers.West Yellowstone

If my claim of visiting Montana is a bit of a stretch then Alabama is a huge problem. I definitely drove across its gulf panhandle during my first transcontinental journey in 2001 as we followed the I-10 back then. But I don’t really think we stopped there. Well, we might have briefly stopped for a loo but even that is dubious. Besides, stopping for a gas or a toilet break doesn’t really count according to my own rules. It seems that if I want to be honest with myself I have to remove Alabama from my list of visited states.

Am I disappointed? Maybe a bit, but on the other hand I now have an excuse to visit the Southern USA again. I even started peeking at maps looking for ideas about driving around Alabama. There is a slight problem however with finding guidebooks as it seems that there is very little written about the Yellowhammer State (as it is sometimes called). In fact I had the same problem before going to Mississippi. Both states are not really well covered by guidebooks. Neither of them gets more than a few pages in guidebooks covering the whole USA. I understand that it is a big country and that it is difficult to cover all the 50 states in detail in one book (especially if we don’t want the book to be the size of Titanic) but I struggle to understand the lack of specific guidebooks. Maybe not necessarily for Alabama alone but at least for the whole Deep South. I know from my professional experience that there is an interest (at least among the Brits) but somehow all the big publishers ignore the region. I’m not sure if Lonely Planet will really sell more guidebooks to Vanuatu, Rarotonga or East Timor or Bradt for Sierra Leone or Sudan, than they would for the Deep South.

But all this will only make planning my future trip to Alabama more interesting. Maybe when I come back I should offer a helping hand to LP or Rough Guide?

2014 Southern RouteAnyway, my next US trip will not be any time soon as I promised my girlfriend that for our next holiday we’ll go somewhere else. And honestly I have to agree that I can’t drag her there all the time. As we know life is all full of compromises. But Alabama is definitely hanging out there as a possible option when I have some spare holiday to use.

In the meantime I promise stories from my latest trip which was of course full of big destinations and popular attractions as well as some lesser, or even absolute niche sites.

 

American Reading: History

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book collection verticalEven when I’m not travelling to America I continue reading books on that subject. Today I would like to share with you three fascinating titles about the early colonial history of America. The first two especially are close to my interests as they investigate in depth early British – American links.

So, the first book I would like to mention is Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World by Nick Bunker. It describes in great detail the crucial events of the late 16th and early 17th centuries which lead to the establishment of the Plymouth Plantation by the “pilgrims”. Actually, this book is as much about British history as it is about American. In fact it probably tells us more about Britain and Europe in those years than about America. The book concentrates on the Puritan movement which developed at that time and which flourished in a few regions of England from where the majority of the influential pilgrims came from. Bunker concentrates on Nottinghamshire and some parts of Sussex. He also describes the political and religious situation in Britain in those years as well as the European wars, politics and economy (which all contributed to establishing New Plymouth). This book is well researched and investigates many different angles to an otherwise well known but often simplified and stereotypical story of the pilgrims. There is for example a great chapter describing puritans exiled in Leiden which provides great insight into Dutch history and British – Dutch links.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Some reviews on various websites are a bit critical, especially about the author describing lots of detailed facts and not linking them as well as he could or, on the other hand, stretching some links too far. For a non-historian like myself (though with a great interest in history) this criticism is too harsh. Also, living in London I really enjoyed all the small facts and links to the whole history to London, like mentioning inns and churches where Puritans met in the City, or streets where prominent backers of the whole colonial enterprise lived.

The second book I want to write about today is Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire by Dan Snow. It describes events almost exactly 150 years later than the first book. By then the British and French colonies in America were well established and had started playing a major role in those countries’ history. They were no more peripheral outposts but places crucial to the development of the great colonial empires. As the title implies the book concentrates on the battle of Quebec in 1759 in which British forces defeated the French and took over North America. As with the aforementioned story of the pilgrims this is another detailed and well researched book focusing on a relatively narrow subject. It describes the British military machine of that time (including many technical aspects of the Royal Navy and British Army) and colonial societies, but it concentrates on this one particular military campaign. There are a lot of references to diaries and letters by British and French officers (especially the British commander general James Wolfe) which gives the book quite a personal feel. As a geographer I also enjoyed the detailed descriptions of local topography and wider geography and how it influenced those historic events. The author describes for example how tides on the St Lawrence river influenced manoeuvring by the navy or how the steep slopes on the both banks of the river limited landing possibilities. Overall this book is a great read for a history buff like me.

Now, what I also really enjoyed is how these books connect to my travels. A couple of years ago I managed to visit Plymouth, Massachusetts, where pilgrims established their settlement and the last year I visited Westerham, Kent, where general Wolfe was borne and where he lived in house which is nowadays called Quebec House (more about the visit here). Now I would definitely like to visit Quebec to see the places described in the second book. However, that has to wait as I just came back from another of my US adventures and need to replenish my budget.

And that’s where I have to mention the third book I wanted to write about today: The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans by Lawrence N. Powell. Yes, you guessed it. It is yet another detailed historical book concentrating on a fairly narrow subject. But don’t worry, it’s not as narrow as the previous two. Basically it is a history of the first 100 years of New Orleans. And what a fascinating history it is. For a start the city is located in the wrong place. Literarily. Its founder, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, ignored orders from France and established it in a less than ideal site (with limited commercial or agricultural merit, founded on unstable soil, and subject to heat, disease, floods, torrential rain, and hurricanes) in a place where he had some properties and personal interests. As you can see corruption is not a new phenomenon. The book covers the period starting from founding of New Orleans in 1718 and ending in 1815 by when the city is already under control of the young United States. In that span it switched from French to Spanish hands (1763), was burned and flooded a few times, moved back under French control (1801), before being taken over by the Americans and fighting off the British. All this is interesting in itself but the best aspect of the book are the parts where the author describes its geographical, demographic and social background.

New Orleans has developed distinct ethic and cultural mix and source of this mix is in those first 100 years. It always had a large slave population but under French, and especially Spanish, rule that society developed in a distinctively different way to other parts of the American south. Part of the reasons were the different cultural attitudes of French and Spanish to race that was distinctly different to the Anglo-Saxon attitude . Also, the Spanish slave code was “more progressive” (if we can ever call it that) compared to anything the English, or even the French, society ever came up with. All this made New Orleans a city like no other.

The book is at times quite heavy in details. For example the author describes the legal nuances of French and Spanish law (especially regarding the slave codes) as well as lists plenty of names of local dignitaries. But all those details really help to understand why New Orleans developed the way it did. And besides, for me the more detailed the book the better, I simply hate simplified histories.

So, that’s it for now. All three books are well worth a read. If you only have time or patience for one of them start from the one most relevant to your interests. Oh, and as soon as I read something good I promise to share it with you again. In the meantime there will be more travel stories coming, including of course the fabulous New Orleans.Bourbon Bar

 

Heart of the American Southwest

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Lush Monument ValleyThis part of the country is as iconic as it gets. Probably most people on the planet have seen images of it either in books or in countless movies, especially the classic westerns. You must have seen them too.

I had visited this region just a few years ago so it was interesting to be back.

You might ask why come back? Well, it is a bit complicated. First, I wanted to show my girlfriend (who is an archaeologist) some of the sites associated with the ancient American cultures, namely the Ancestral Puebloans’ ruins in Mesa Verde National Park. But I also like to come back to some places in general. Somehow while revisiting a particular location I do notice more things. I guess the reason for that is the fact that when you arrive at some very exciting destination for the first time it is easy to be overwhelmed and distracted. It is simply too difficult to take it all in. Somehow, a repeated visit is usually less frenetic, calmer, and it simply lets you notice more. It also allows you to see things in different conditions, for example in different weather.

And that’s precisely what I experienced when we arrived at the famous Monument Valley. Two years ago during my previous trip the weather conditions were challenging, to say the least. It was rainy, it was windy and visibility was not too great. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I still loved every moment of the experience, it was just different. This year the weather was perfect. Warm, but not too hot, with beautiful sunshine. We also managed to arrive at Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park at the perfect time of day, in the late afternoon not too long before the sunset.Monument Valley

The park is run by the Navajo Nation and welcomes you with an absolutely enormous visitor centre, containing restaurants, gift shops, hotel and a small museum. Don’t linger there too long as it is not really that interesting and it is overrun by tourists from all the tour buses which you will pass on your way there. Give them a wide berth and head straight for the trail. There are viewing terraces right next to the visitor centre but they are full of people with sophisticated cameras mounted on enormous tripods who are trying to take the perfect shot. Hardly any of them walk off the pavement so you will most likely have the trail to yourself. The Wildcat Trail is the only self-guided trail in the park and it runs for 3.2 miles around the West Mitten Butte at approximately 5400 feet elevation. It may take anywhere from 1.5 to 2.0 hours to walk the whole loop. We only walked part of it but it still allowed us to experience the changing vistas as well as get close to the desert environment. And we only saw one more couple on the entire walk. I would highly recommend this hike.

There is a scenic drive but it requires navigating some seriously rough dirt road which is not recommended for regular cars. It is also a definite no-no for any rental vehicle like ours. Alternatively you can experience the park with a native guides, either in 4×4 or on horseback.

From the park we headed north along the US Hwy163, precisely the route I drove in 2011, just the opposite way. It is a truly spectacular drive, one of the American classics, and we drove it at the absolute best time of the day, just before the sunset.Classic Vista

We were thinking about spending the night in some cheap motel in the town of Cortez (another place I have visited before) which is a convenient base for the Mesa Verde. We were still quite a few miles away from it when we spotted the bright lights of the Ute Mountain Casino. As we were getting tired after a long and exciting day we decided to check it out. And it was a great idea.

Ute Mountain CasinoI have to say that the place was one of the best deals during our whole trip. We paid only about $50 for a spacious and nicely appointed room. From my experience similar rooms in non-casino locations would cost probably twice as much, if not more. Once we made ourselves comfy in our room we immediately went back to reception and extended our stay for another night. Basically we decided to make the Ute casino our base and to come back the following night, after visiting the Mesa Verde National Park.

This is one of the parks which concentrates more on historical sights than on the natural ones. I mean the landscape is still spectacular but the real draw here are the ruins of ancient settlements in the canyons rather than cliffs or the canyons themselves. Our itinerary closely resembled my own one from two years previously. We joined the ranger led tours of the Cliff Palace and the Balcony House, precisely as I did two years previously. You can read more about it in my old blog entry here.Balcony House

However here I have to complain about the quality of the guides/rangers. It was nowhere near to those I experienced in 2011. Back then I was really impressed with the eloquent, funny, lively and knowledgeable old rangers. This year we got two university students which were in fact only part time rangers for the summer. Don’t take me wrong, they were lovely but as guides they were hopeless. I don’t want to boast but I have a feeling that I could have run this tour better if I had read a chapter or two from some basic history book. They provided very little information but they were also really unprofessional. They couldn’t control the time and pace of their tours, spending too much time getting stuck in some, not really important, place while trying to catch up later and speeding way too much along the really interesting and impressive bits. At some point I thought I was going to say something but I didn’t want to be rude. I was reminded of why I don’t like guided tours in general. They can be a real hit or miss. Unfortunately in Mesa Verde it is the only way to see the best sites.

Canyon De ChellyAfter a second night in our favourite Ute Mountain Casino, Hotel & Resort we headed south towards the Canyon the Chelly. By now the US government was in total shut-down and the national parks were closed. However we were hoping that Canyon de Chelly National Monument will be open as it is run by the National Park Service but owned by the Navajo Nation. And we were lucky. The visitor centre was indeed closed but the scenic rim drives (which are also access roads for the Navajo families living inside the park) were open. Even better, the only public trail which leads down to the canyon floor was also open. It is called the White House Trail and it descends 600 feet (200m) from the parking area to the White House Ruins. It is a great walk which runs next to some steep drop-offs where it has been carved into the sandstone. If you are afraid of heights, beware! The trail also passes through two fairly short tunnels. Views from the trail are spectacular and the natural sculpturing of the sandstone is also unique and fun to look at.

The bottom of the canyon has quite lush vegetation, even at the end of a long summer. It is due to underground water flowing there even when the river bed is bone dry, like during our visit. Normally the area around the ruins is quite crowded with all the Navajo-run tours as well as Navajo sellers offering their jewellery and other wares. However when we got there it was all quiet and empty. During our stay only one 4×4 arrived with one noisy family. Luckily they took a few pictures and disappeared almost as soon as they arrived. Perfect. I can safely say that Canyon de Chelly was definitely one of the highlights of our trip across the American Southwest.Canyon de Chelly White House Ruins

It is fascinating region well worth repeated visits. It doesn’t matter if it is your first, or second, or even tenth visit, I’m sure you will have fun and find some new fascinating angles to the sites you know as well as discover plenty of new stuff. Places like that are the perfect answer for all those folks who ask me if I’m not getting bored after travelling to the US so much. How can I get bored? Are you kidding me?