Today we awoke to thunder, lightning, and torrential rain. Why does this always happen on flying day? And to top it off, it was a long weekend in Auckland.

Sooo… our flight wasn’t until 9.45pm, but we left Hamilton at 2pm, expecting a 3 hour hold-up on the motorway. Despite the weather and the long weekend, there were no hold-ups and we arrived in Auckland 1.5 hours later.

Thankfully we were able to check in early, so we found a quiet spot in the business class lounge.

We had a couple of drinks, and a bite to eat, then played a couple of hands of Monopoly deal.

Two hours later, the lounge got very busy, and we were joined by a couple of cool dudes. They pulled out their brand spanking new Monopoly deal, and placed it next to our scummy, dated, well used pack.

Next thing we’re playing a game together using their ‘dubious’ rules, and I just needed to point out that I won.

Anyway, we’re still sitting here… waiting… waiting…

S

We left Kingman this morning to drive back to Los Angeles for our flight. Normally it’s a 5 hour drive, but LA traffic can easily turn it into a 10 hour drive. So we left at 8am, just to be sure.

As it turns out, there was no traffic, and we got back at 1pm. Our flight isn’t until 10.30pm. So we headed down to Manhattan beach and had a stroll along the waterfront and out onto the pier.

We are now in the business class lounge (6 hours early) enjoying a beer.

We managed to get upgraded to business class again, and it made the check-in process so easy. We were fast-tracked through security and were able to check in early.

How did we manage to get upgraded to business class again? Well, AirNz has a one-up bidding system, where you can bid to get upgraded. When I was changing our flights, I asked two different AirNz staff members whether I could still do a one-up upgrade, and they both said it was too late, that if had to be booked 7 days in advance.

So I decided to try it online myself, but I didn’t have enough air-points to bid the minimum, as I had just used my points to renew Koru membership.

But I decided to go ahead and bid the minimum anyway. Next thing I know, our airpoints from London-LA are being added to our account. This doesn’t usually happen until we’ve flown all the way home. I said to Mike, I bet they’re going to upgrade us. Sure enough, they did. Woohoo.

Today the highlight was standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona, it was such a fine sight to see.

It’s my fault for complaining about the heat. This morning it chucked it down with rain and thunderstorms and the temperature dropped 36 degrees to 13 degrees and we had to put the heater on in the car. Then it cleared and the temperature was back up and it was humid as hell.

I’ve also found out my phone has been listening to my conversations . I’d asked Mike whatever had happened to Boy George. Next thing, Boy George is cropping up in an advert on Facebook.

Then another time I asked Mike if there was a Wal-Mart near by. Next thing Google sends a message to my phone showing me the nearest one. FREAKY!

I’ve now disabled microphone settings for all my apps except Skype, and it hasn’t happened since.

Road Kill Update:

We saw an armadillo! That brought on another bout of ‘Show me the way to Armadillo”

So we continue to drive.

Today we sang our way through Amarillo, except Marie didn’t wait for us, the cow.

But, we did see some Cadillacs planted in the ground in the middle of nowhere. Apparently it was done by an artist from San Francisco in the 70s. Now people are encouraged to add their own art.

There are cans of spray paint lying around, that you can use to add your touch. Some people offered me a can, but the wind was blowing so hard, I feared getting covered in it. So I just looked.

We are so sick of the food here, none of it is real. The food is either too salty, or too sweet. The hotel breakfasts are made from some sort of artificial, or powdered egg, and tastes disgusting. Even what appears to be ‘fresh’ fruit has added sugar.

The breakfast usually comes with some sort of processed spicy ham which immediately bloats my stomach.

This morning, however, my eyes lit up when I saw bacon. I love American bacon, So tasty and crispy. That is, if it’s cooked fresh. The hotel bacon tasted like salty cardboard. I’d seen some pre-cooked bacon in the supermarket, sitting on the shelves. It was probably that crap.

So I’m looking forward to coming home to some healthy eating.

Thursday 30th August

It’s been between 38 and 40 degrees every day since we’ve been here, and with the high humidity, it’s just been too hot to do anything during the day. So we drive in the comfort of our air-conditioned car.

We stopped off at a town called Millington, just outside of Memphis.Originally we didn’t think it was worth a detour, but then I found they had a winery there.

We drove up to the Old Millington Winery, which was a small place in the middle of nowhere. A old man with no teeth sat on the front porch with his dog.

As we got out of the car he said, ‘y’all have come a long way.’

Yikes, how did he know we were from NZ just by looking at us.

Turns out he’d seen the Californian plates on our car and assumed that was where we were from.

Anyway, the lady who served us was very nice. They have free wine tastings so we tried a red wine and a port, both were delicious. The only other wines they sold were sweet whites, and we figured we wouldn’t like them.

The lady told us about a man from Australia who had emailed a few years back, wanting a box shipped out based on the name only, (his last name was Millington). I was pretty sure this was my brother John, as he told me about that he tried to buy wine from here a while ago.

Anyway, the lady packaged up a few bottles for us, and even threw in a free Old Millington branded wine glass. Totally worth a visit.

Greensburg, Kentucky

It was just a two hour drive from Nashville to Greensburg, Kentucky, where we spent a couple of days catching up with Ro and Larry, (Mikes sister and brother-in-law) and Mel (Mike’s niece,)

Greensburg is a quaint little town with a river running through it. We stayed in a cabin on the river. It was a convenient location, but I thought it smelled of wee, and Mike thought it smelled of wet dog. Both smells were pretty gross.

It was good catching up though. It had been ten years since we last visited, so we’ll try and not leave it as long next time. Now that we know we can fly direct to Nashville from London, it is much easier.

Historic courthouse in Greensburg.

Today seemed to just be a driving day. We saw a racoon roadkill and possibly a road runner.

We are now in Arkansas. We tried to buy beer at the supermarket back in Texas but the wouldn’t let us. You can’t buy beer before 12 noon on a Sunday. Texas law!

We ate bbq again for dinner, this time brisket and mac and cheese.

I forgot to mention yesterday how we got hit by a mini twister. It just came out of nowhere and thumped into us. I thought Mike had hit something. No damage thankfully but the front panel had popped out a bit. Mike just popped it back in.

Today we spent the morning looking around San Antonio. We visited the Alamo, which is a historic place from when Texas got indepedence from Mexico.

We wandered along some more of the riverwalk, which goes for miles. Neat city.

We continued our drive across Texas. We visited a mammoth site at Waco. This was pretty neat. It was an excavation site with mammoth bones from 50000 years ago.

We stopped for the night is Hillsboro, just short of Dallas. We decided to try a Texas smokehouse for dinner. I found a place online that had good reviews.

We arrived at a tin shed in the middle of nowhere. We ummed and aahed as to whether we should go in or not, and decided to take a chance.

We were by far the skinniest people in there. I ordered pulled pork, spicy noodles and salad. Mike had a three meat burger.

While we waited we watched some of the patrons leaving with their doggie bags. Meal sizes in america are huge and we could well have shared a meal.

As it turns out, we were glad we didn’t share as we both scoffed the lot. Even the lady who had served us was surprised.

It was a different experience.

Monday afternoon we arrived in Nashville and as we drove down the main street, music from live bands pumpedout from every bar.

We chose one of the cheaper hotels and were glad we did as it was amazing. We got a massive suite which had been recently renovated, and it was only a short stroll to the main street. And they even put out free nachos at 4.30pm.

We went out and hit the pubs. We tried to avoid the bands playing country music, but we somehow stumbled into one. The main singer was wearing a cowboy and cowboy boots, and that should have been a giveaway, but we went in anyway.

During a break, he came around to introduce himself and asked if we’d like to request a song. I asked if he could play the theme song to Rawhide. He said he didn’t know it.

I said, ‘sure you do, it’s from the Blues brothers movie.’

He said, ‘Nope, never heard of it,’ then stormed off in a huff. I perhaps should have realised that the Blues Brothers movie takes the piss out of cowboys and their music.

Still, we avoided the country music for the rest of the night and had great fun.

One of the bands singled us out and asked where we were from.

‘New Zealand,’ we both said proudly.

‘Virginia?’ she said.

‘No, we’re from New Zealand.’

‘Hey everyone, these guys are from Virginia,’ she announced to the crowd.

Us, louder this time, ‘No, we’re from New Zealand?’

‘What’s that?’ she said.

‘We’re from New Zealand, it’s a small island off the coast of Australia!’

‘Oh, you really are from New Zealand. Haha, Everyone, these guys are from New Zealand,’

<bored sigh from the crowd>

A great night and a town I will definitely go back to. But next time I’m gonna say I’m from England.

Van Horn to San Antonio, Texas

Today was another long drive across Texas with not a lot in between. It is a bit like road tripping across Australia but with more traffic.

One of the highlights on the long and uninteresting drive, was the different types of roadkill on the roads. Today we say a coyote and a couple of skunks. There were also some small furry things but we weren’t sure what they were.

We arrived at our hotel in San Antonio at 4pm, and were greeted with complimentary marhgaritas. Yum tum.

San Antonio is a neat city with a riverwalk lined with restaurants. We had dinner at a wonderful Mexican restaurant, the best food in America yet, and possibly the best Mexican.