Wow, you guys have given this some thought! And this is exactly the sort of insight I was hoping for. Lots to think about.
I am indeed coming from Britain, I live near Bath in Somerset, but I've driven all the way to Kiev in Ukraine, so the other-side-of-the-road thing isn't an issue (before you say we drive on the wrong side, just think which side Andy Devine was sitting, and where George Bancroft sat with the shotgun)The weird thing will be driving a car with an automatic gearbox.
I'm glad to hear that avoiding the interstates is practical- I'd like to see some “real” America, which I won't see rushing from one tourist trap to another. A visitor to Britain might visit London, Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge, and not realise that these are the LaLa bits, and real England is the stuff in between. I guess the US will be the same.
That said, all I know of America
is the famous bits, and what Hollywood has shown me, so I'd like to drive from Tonto through Dry Fork, Apache Wells and Lee's Ferry to Lordsburg, visit Shinbone, Carson City, Hadleyville, and quite possibly Lonesome Dove and Durant, Wyoming too. I'd love to buy breakfast in a diner in some little town, (where hopefully the FBI aren't doing deals with lawyers, and no-one gets shot), see the cover of the Eagles Greatest Hits, visit Al's diner and ride over the mountains south of Duke City.
I do want to see Colorado, but (don't ban me from the forum) I'm not very interested in hunting up traces of the Rio Grande. All those big 20th Century mikados just don't do it for me. As far as railroads go, I'm more drawn to the NPC, SPC, M&SV, but I can't say I really want to visit California. 150 years ago, yes, but not in 2020. I'd rather head for the Pacific north-west. I could well be wrong, and I might miss out, but less chance of Kim Novak chucking herself out the window on the SPC or watching Tippi Hedrin offend the AOS on the NPC.
My heart wants to see everything from the Rio Grande river to Montana, from the Missouri to the Pacific, but in a couple of weeks.....Someone once said you should never meet your heroes, and I feel I'm taking a risk visiting the US-I'm quite fond of the legend, reality could be less than I'd hoped for. “This is the west. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2020 05:32PM by Rosso.
