Twelve days and four pounds later

Twelve days and four extra pounds later I am truly enjoying America. I flew from Rapid City to Denver, a mere 500 miles out of my way in a twin propeller plane those seats 15 people. When they started the first engine the plane shook like a smoker with a bad cough, but when the second engine started, the ¡§smoker¡¨ fell to his knees but once the engines were going at maximum revs, the plane stop shaking. So we trundled down the runway and off we flew. It was a pleasant flight until the landing, were it just felt like the pilot pulled up the handbrake and the plane casually dropped, I nearly swear he only did that to save on fuel. From Denver I caught an uneventful flight to Cleveland.

Anti Bush

As it was it Memorial (a bank holiday that remembers all veterans and military personal who died and fought for the USA) weekend Martin and Mary took me up to watch a small parade in town call Newbury. The parade had jeeps, police cars and fire engines in it. But the best thing was as the vehicles passed they threw candy out of them for the kids. There is no better entertainment in the world, than watching sugar crazed kids dodging traffic to get more candy :-). So after the parade there was brief service in the Graveyard where flags of all the different military sections were raised to Taps and a six gun salute. So from there it was back to a barbecue, where it was quarter pound beef burgers, hot dogs and brownies. The brownies were delicious chocolate cake, with bits of chocolate and caramel in the in, so sweet you would nearly go blind but worth it. The only things better than Brownies were Mary¡¦s banana pie (a cream, toffee and banana) and raspberry kisses (filo pastry and raspberry sauce).

Cleveland Rock n Roll Hall

So the next day I bought my car from Bob Serpentini - An American Son Of A Gun and proud of it Goddammit Yehaaw! So the ads on TV claim. Despite the fact that the used car lot had the word ¡§Serpent¡¨ in it and owned by an American ¡V Italian, I had a good feeling about the place. Larry the salesman had two gold crowns and all of his incisors were gold topped but hey I trusted him fº.Hell one of the four gold sovereign rings on his fingers were worth more than sticker price (listed for $1,500 got it for $1,250) on the car. The car is a 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass with 3.3 litre V6 engine, nippy to say the least. It is in good nick but the air conditioning is as my friend Martin describes as a ¡§2 to 60¡¨ system i.e. you wind down two windows and drive at sixty miles an hours, which is effective. I have fun driving around including on the freeways which is never as crowded as the M50.So if I have trouble free driving for the next month the car will have easily paid for itself. The dealer also gave me to temporary registration numbers so I do not have the register the car before I sell it again, which saved me $50 in obtaining an Ohio driving permits and is legal apparently :-)

Information Stickers :-)

The two main attractions in Cleveland was the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame, where I had nice lady in her sixties telling me how much a gentleman ¡§The Edge¡¨ was when she meet him. The exhibits are good and you can easily squander the day reading bands biographies and listening to their music. The other main attraction that I saw was the Great Lake Science Museum, which had excellent interactive displays for physics. The main exhibit at the moment is they have cadavers preserved using polymers so you can all parts of the body. I tell you the male bladder is twice the size of the female but that still do not answer why women travel in pairs to the jacks.

My 'New" Car

On Saturday night Martin took me to a NASCAR race, which was good fun. I am not saying that there were a lot of rednecks there but it was the first time in the US that my teeth were better than anyone else :-)

So all is that left for me to say is thanks to Danny, Martin and Mary and for all the help and hospitality, which was great.