On Tour in the USA
 

Hi Cellarites,
Let me introduce myself.I'm diminished,and I'm currently touring the U.S (Lower 48 States only) with my better half,Persistence.I was recommended to come here by an old friend who thought that this may be the place to clear up some of the cultural differences and difficulties I'm having in adapting to American life.
We're on a 4-month vacation (currently just shy of 2 weeks in) ,having quit both of our jobs,and are in the process of spending every penny we have in our sacred quest.We figured we'd do this before we got too old to enjoy it.
We're looking for sites of High Weirdness and uncanny happenings (with a sideline in Big Things,),and wondered if The Cellar had any suggestions.We've progressed as far as southern Ohio so far.(Today we visited the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant,WV,tomorrow we move onto the Serpent Mound in Ohio).We're moving east->west,with plenty of north and south in between,much like a drunk trying to find his way home,which isn't too much of a difference from how I move back in the UK.
Any and all advice received with gratitude,upon how to behave in America (Home of Cheese in a Can!Genius!).

welcome!

we did a tour of some of the states when we were young, too. mainly following the grateful dead, and rainbow family tours....

Philadelphia has some interesting things....but, for my money the area around the
4 corners' is the most beautiful.

the grand canyon, brice canyon, zion, mesa verde, etc.

do you want to see sights, or historical things...or party?

http://www.weirdamerica.com/ maybe?

and http://www.roadsideamerica.com/

Touchdown Jesus is a must see for western Ohio.

the Roadside America site is great. try visit a few shoe trees... we've failed in that so far. car henge you know about -also cadillac ranch in amarillo texas if you go that far south....

...yes, amarillo



Wall drug... of course. Rock city.

Which "bible" do you have? for the USA, we like Lonely Planet, although generally we prefer the Rough Guides.

The rail reclassification yard in North platte, Nebraska is interesting, but last time we visited there wer no observation platforms available.

ooh, the tow truck museum in chatanooga is pretty neat-for 10 minutes. some coooool stuff on the old Route 66. we're speed tourists, works for us.

maple syrup on bacon, I'm telling you......

funny that an immigrant brit knows more to see in our country than we do.

funny strange.

I don't think it's that strange... I've never done any of the major tourist attractions even in my own city. Plus, the beestmonster clan likes to roadtrip.

We've probably been to more states than you, too. ;). When you emmigrate without much warning, it makes you sit up and take notice. who knew how long we'd be here. we decided to make the most of it plus the "Great American Roadtrip" was made for us. We're traveller types anyway.

How many guides to the US do you own? I don't have any guides to the UK, that's where to find the off-the-beaten path stuff.

ftr, I think we're nearing 40 states now.

I need to go see touchdown jesus now.

sorry, my shift key is sulking tonight

oh and ..of course, if you get over here, there's the Motown museum -stad in the original recording studio. And Greenfield Village which has the original firestone Farm, Edison's laboratory, Wright brothers bike shop, Ford workshop......

I'll shut up now.

so....was it you that referred this dwellar,. monnie?

me? no, I'm sure this one's sane. ish. well maybe. mmm ... 5th?

Welcome the the Cellar, and the USA, diminished. :D
Oh, and hi to Persistence, too.

As you enter each state you should see signs for "Welcome Centers". They usually have tons of free brochures on the attractions in that state.
Keep an eye out for signs and billboards advertising local things to see, too

How are you traveling? I assume you're driving or cycling, but staying in motels? hostels? camping? Ask the locals where you stay, what's interesting in the area.

Have fun and report back what you find, please.

:lol:

ooh yeah, those places also have mini newspaper things with "coupons" in for deals on motels in the local area. sometimes these can get you a better price.

Thankyou,all for your kind welcomes.

Looking at those two sites Tiki posted,it seems we've totally underestimated the task at hand,and there's far more weirdness than we ever anticipated.And Touchdown Jesus is now a major must for us,I remember now reading about that a while ago.

We've largely been working from the Rough Guide,but we've also got 'Road Trip USA' packed somewhere,although it hasnt surfaced amongst my bag of pants yet...

We're Motelling it,as far as accomodation goes,with our favourite being Super 8's so far (reasonable price,dependable wifi,decent breakfasts), although the staff do find our accents either alarming or unfathomable:) I get Persistence to translate for me,usually,as she's much better spoken than I.Charmingly,we've been misidentified as first Canadians,then Irish...I'm waiting to be asked if I'm Autralian next so I can get the whole hat-trick.Geordie (NE England,around Newcastle-upon-Tyne) accents are pretty difficult even for fellow English to understand.

We're a little to old to party (for extended periods,at least) so we're settling for sights and historic stuff.And what is it with American Beer?It must be much more calorie-rich than what I'm used to.It bloats me up something terrible..lol ;)

Easton, PA has the Crayola Crayon museum, and the Pez Candy Dispenser Museum. (Disclaimer: I've never been to either one.)

If you are still in that area, you are pretty close to the Blenko blown glass factory in Milton WV. It has an observation deck where you can watch the Blenko guys blowing glass all day long. It's very interesting. I highly recommend it if you haven't left the area yet.

http://www.blenkoglass.com/blenkocow...torscenter.htm

There are two Touchdown Jesuseseseses.

Gotta post my thanks to Tiki once again,for showing me those websites.We were visiting the World's Largest Horseshoe Crab in Blanchester,and spoke to one of the guys we found painting it,he ran off and rang his Pastor (the crab is part of a church garden) who came running to see the two strange folks from England who had come to admire his crustacean.We spent a pleasant hour chatting and being shown around his church.Apparently we're now the current record-holders for those who have travelled furtherest to see it. We're not especially religious types ourselves,but we are polite,and it was nice to stop and shoot the breeze.I'd have never found such a thing without those websites,so thanks once again Tiki :) Ohio must be the friendliest State we've encountered so far.


Oh yes,and Touchdown Jesus is remarkable,well worth a visit if anyone finds themselves around Monroe (OH),pull into the church he's out in front of,(for some reason they have a very large parking lot),and you can get pretty close.Watch out for the Geese as you approach tho,they're stroppy.

Apologies to Glatt...we'd spent 3-4 days in WV,it was starting to get a bit oppressive.

By the way,are there any actual real live Raccoons is the U.S,or do they just appear spontaneously dead on the roadsides?They're by far the most common roadkill we see.

go to any campground. wait until midnight, and take the trash to the dumpster.

be careful....they will bite your ass right off.

If you raise your arms up to scare Floridian raccoons away, odds are they will raise their arms right back. And you will run, because they are bigger than house cats and have creepy hands.

Touchdown Jesus bred with a racoon?

Attachment 23462
We call ours "The Church of the Holy Touchdown." La Canada Flintridge, CA.

Hey my buddy lives in La Canada Flintridge!

Do you know some guy named Brady?

... who was bringing up three boys on his own?

I did go to high school with a Brady F.

No he moved there later.

he got rich

Hiya Diminished (and Persistence!) I have no advice to offer I'm afraid; but a hearty welcome to the Cellar ... which is chock full of enough weirdness to keep anyone occupied for weeks :P

Well slap us sideways, they were with us all afternoon and evening and we never thought to get a photo. Now you have to come back tomorrow, guys.....

Diminished and I were at school together for one year back when we were 12/13/something like that, but he and P are so cool, it felt like we'd all known each other for a lot longer than that.

[diminished]
This is a result of an ongoing competition between them and the poultry population.

beest just remembered the Mitchell Corn Palace in South Dakota to add to your list of weirdness. And -as we discussed last night but also mentioning here in case other travellers use this thread- you should probably try and take in a rodeo in Nebraska.

is that still around? I saw it when i was a kid, and loved it. But I heard it had burned down.

It has? aw. we saw it about 7 years ago

Hmmm, seems to be still going....

Nebraska burned down? OMG!

Corn Palace.

I just googled it. I saw it in 75 and it burned down in 79, but they rebuilt it in 81. I guess the press only reports fires, and not rebuilding. So I never heard it was rebuilt. Awesome place. I recommend it.

Naw. After a year of living in Newcastle, I could understand a strong Geordie accent as long the speaker was sober and talking slow.

If you get to Montana you can't miss our world famous Buffalo Jumps.

ah.

Well we just waved them off as they are heading for the upper peninsula. We took a pic, but I forgot to check I had permission to post, so you'll just have to wait a little longer....

Deffo got my permission to post that pic m8,and thanks once again for a great weekend.You and yours were the perfect hosts,and all your neighborhood (look at me adapting to the local spellings) friends were great.You took us in,and got us drunk,which is the epitome of hospitality,as far as we're concerned.We were so enchanted,it took us about 30 minutes to adapt to being back on the road and make it away:)
Due to circumstances beyond our control,we only got as far as Holland today.Alarming lights began to flash on the dashboard,and I had to find free wifi and search quickly for solutions with a rapidly draining battery,it all turned out to be a storm in a teacup,but when you concentrate that into the crucible of a car's front seat,things get...tense..lol.Cigarettes and a nap have calmed things down now.
Monster and Co. have given us shedloads of information,enough to keep Persistence the mileage junkie very busy for the next week.We've had to mail out another version of the route we're following to the folks back home (the 4th so far,and warned them that a 5th is probably not too far behind it),and every detour adds more possibilities from other Cellarites.Thankyou all for your input :blush:

and lol@ Perry Winkle....we still tend to talk like we're nailing each word we say onto the listeners forehead :D

I'm going to visit monnie.....:guinness:

heehee. I'll get to work on that pic. Holland is full of.... windmills, tulips and clogs. and tourists. Really. Not much of the wacky baccy, though. Or the liberal attitude. :lol:

.... btw, did you risk the cruise control yet? :lol:

We're waiting until tomorrow to try that,after today's mechanical non-crisis.Persistence thinks she's got it sussed,but we need clear and open roads to try it,in case of catastrophic failage.

oooh look, here we all are.....
 

Hey folks. :welcome:

Looks like you're all having fun. What a cool thread!

Persistence likes cruise control :D
And Lake Michigan is...I want to use the word 'awesome',but its very overused these days,but there it is.Awesome.And big.And cold.Which was great,as we'd just climbed and descended the massive sand dune outside of Saugatuck to get there.We did the very British thing of stripping off our socks and boots and having a paddle.Only wish I'd had a deckchair and a white hankie to put on my head and knot at the 4 corners.

Did you find the chain ferry thing?

We did,but it was closed,it only seems to run weekends at the minute.There was a number pinned to a noticeboard to ring,but it seemed a bit churlish to drag someone out for $2.We got a few snaps of it tho.Mount Baldhead and the lake were far more interesting,and took up a lot more of our time,the climb back up from the beach almost killed me.
I must mention,we got some damned fine Ice-Cream down in the town too,which has a lot of nice shops and galleries.
Persistence is badgering me to mention that she scrawled our names onto the railings at the top of the Mt.,and that we found a scraffito informing us that 'Kelse made an excersise video that you will never see'.We were unsure as how to act upon this information,but thought you may all like to know. :D

Sand dunes, beach ....bit of a busman's holiday today then? :lol:

btw, we need pics so far. upload and post IMMEDIATELY.

Top tip: When you've got your boots tied around your neck by the laces,do NOT bend down quickly whilst walking.Oh,how we laughed as we searched amongst the sand for a lens from my glasses and the tiny tiny screw that holds it in place.

the lens, not good, the screw -replaceable at most dollar stores :)


unless there's a metric size thing going on.....

Pics coming up,think I've managed to get them down to reasonable sizes.

Christian Crustacean
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/4392/p1000373t.jpg

Touchdown Jesus
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/6520/p1000394f.jpg

Saugatuck Chain Ferry
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2758/p1000425.jpg

As close as I got to finding the Mothman
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/6115/p1000441r.jpg

'Big Temptation',an Art we found on the streets of Saugatuck
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2812/p1000428l.jpg

Halfway up Mt.Baldhead
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1231/p1000431j.jpg

'One man and his log',shores of Lake Michigan
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8528/p1000440nne.jpg

excellent.

I love Saugatuck! This is a great thread thanks for sharing your road trip with us!