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If someone suggests a trip to Wichita Falls, don’t assume you’re going to Kansas. Wichita Falls is in the far north of Texas, close (15 miles) to the border with Oklahoma.
Wichita Falls is famous for five things:
-The birthplace of Phyllis Coates, the first actress to play Lois Lane
-The home of the band Bowling for Soup
-A waterfall
-The annual Hotter n Hell 100 bike ride
and, most importantly:
-Being hot
It might also be the inspiration for “Wichita Lineman” by Glen Campbell. It was written by Jimmy Webb from Elk City, OK (141 miles from Wichita Falls) but then again he might have meant the one in Kansas (274 miles from Elk City).
This year saw the 30th anniversary of the Hotter ‘n’ Hell 100 ride and 12,000 people descended upon this small town to take part. Weather was forecast to be typically hot:
Not Death Valley temperatures but not pleasant if you are trying to do any form of activity (like, for instance breathing or standing up).
This year it was so hot that the organizers started the event an hour earlier. So at 6am we started in the dark:
The organizers provide frequent rest stops and between them they serve up 15,000 gallons of fluids to competitors. One popular fluid option is pickle juice:
Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is. But with 10 times the electrolytes of an energy drink this is a good option on a blistering hot day (even if it does taste awful).
Another option to keep cool was at the mile 90 rest stop:
But all the official rest stops pale in comparison to what you find as you turn the bend with 4 miles to go:
Yes indeed. Free beer and sausage:
Just what you need after 98 miles. Wait, 98 miles and 4 to go. But it’s 100 miles, right? Well no, obviously 100 wasn’t painful enough so the organizers made it 102 miles.
Thankfully those last 4 miles go very quickly when you have a beer and sausage in your jersey pocket.
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Provincetown (or P-Town to those in the know) is on the tip of Cape Cod and is the most popular gay vacation destination on the East Coast of the USA. If you weren’t sure a quick look around the shops will help clarify things:
The Fudge Factory
Seamen’s Bank
Board Stiff
The Squealing Pig (presumably catering for those from West Virginia)
Spank The Monkey
Good old Finbarr Saunders from Viz is well known for his double entendres and would have a gay old time in P-Town.
The “oldest gay bar in the USA” - The Atlantic House (original part built in 1798) - is located in P-Town.
Conveniently for Finbarr, the Atlantic House is located up a back passage:
Fnarr! Fnarr!
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For those of you that thought Philadelphia was famous only for Cheesesteaks, an old bell, Rocky and that Tom Hanks movie with the song by Bruce Springsteen then you should know about Rita’s.
Although not that old in comparison to the Liberty Bell (1752 for the bell, 1984 for Rita’s) it has become something of a local speciality (so much so that a local will probably want to take you straight there from the airport before doing anything else!).
I can only attest to the Italian Ice (which tastes a lot like ice from other parts of the world) but am looking forward to trying the frozen custard next time.
It’s worth including a photo of the famous Liberty Bell, if only to point out that it cracked on it’s first ringing. How’s that for product failure? (Note, the present crack is from later - as it was twice recast).
But then maybe it wouldn’t be so famous if it wasn’t cracked?
I’d like to say I managed to make it to Pat’s King of Steaks (or Geno’s) for a real Philly Cheesesteak (I’d probably go to Pat’s, because they claim to have invented this sandwich), but I didn’t. If I did I would probably go for the Whiz Wit:
In case it wasn’t already obvious the key ingredients to a cheesesteak are steak and cheese. In addition you get onions and peppers, all fried up and served on a bread roll. This is not something for the healthy conscious, or anyone with heart problems (but is good for those thinking of trying heart problems).
In Pat’s you get to choose what you want (by saying “wit”).
The Whiz Wit comes with Cheese Whiz, a type of cheese unlikely to be found in the cheese connoisseur's larder and almost certainly free from all natural ingredients.
Finally, no discussion of Philadelphia would be complete without reference to the city’s famous mayor:
Yes, Michael Nutter is still the mayor (see here for a previous reference) proving that, like Albert Pujols of the St Louis Cardinals does, a silly name need not be an inhibitor to personal success. It must make for interesting discussions on polling day though: “I’m voting for the Nutter” - something normally only heard in London when Boris Johnson is standing for election.
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Peter Sellers will tell you that Balham is the Gateway to the South, but he never mentioned that St Louis is the Gateway to the West. More specifically an inverted catenary structure known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is that Gateway.
At 630 ft high and only 17 feet wide at the top, this is not a monument for those afraid of heights or small spaces. To reach the top you must travel in a capsule slightly larger than a handbag.
Once at the top, if you can overcome claustrophobia and acrophobia, there are some impressive views, like this of the Busch stadium, home of the St Louis Cardinals:
The St Louis Cardinals, are a very good baseball team (but then compared to the Houston Astros, who isn’t?). It may be that they will be remembered more for their most famous player - number 5 - Albert Pujols. If ever there was a last name you needed to pronounce carefully, that must be it.
Talking of pronunciation, the Louis in St Louis is pronounced as in Jerry Lee rather than Armstrong, which is very relevant because it was Lewis (as in Meriwether) and Clark (as in William) who were sent by Thomas Jefferson into the West to chart the new territory. The Arch (designed in the 1940s and built in the 1960s) is near the starting point for their two year expedition back in 1804.
St Louis is full of interesting places and history (Forest Park is the location of the 1904 Worlds’ Fair where it is claimed that both Ice Cream and Iced Tea were invented) and is the birthplace of many famous people. In the Loop (an area full of restaurants and the location of the St Louis Walk of Fame) there are many tributes to the locals. Here’s one to Chuck Berry:
This being a line from Maybelline (yes, it’s spelled correctly) of course. The Walk of Fame is similar to that on Hollywood Boulevard, with stars in the sidewalk commemorating famous St Louisans.
Here’s one I didn’t expect to find: TS Eliot. Born in St Louis 1888 (but became a British citizen at 39 saying "My mind may be American but my heart is British.")!
Back to Chuck Berry, he still plays in St Louis, once a month at a restaurant in the Loop called Blueberry Hill:
The burgers are highly recommended, but make sure you’re hungry because you will want to try more than one.
To wash it all down, cross the road to Fitz’s where you can try their Root Beer (or Grape, Orange or other sodas). There are tours of the actual bottling plant and they sell food too so you might want to plan your trip(s) appropriately as having more than three burgers at one meal time may be considered excessive by some.
Finally, if you really want to wind down in St Lous, pop over to Euclid Street and find the Mediterranean Cafe where you can enjoy a Turkish coffee to go with your hookah (free of illegal substances, I hasten to add):
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f you read the rules for the Showboat movie theater you’d undoubtedly be confused. For example:
-Please do not sit on top of your vehicle
-No outside cooking
-Speed limit is 5mph
-Do not spin your tires
-No barefeet
And, my personal favorite:
-Please do not throw rocks
Clearly we are at the drive-in.
A few years ago if you’d said “At the Drive-in” I would respond with “The Mars Volta”, the two being bands featuring both Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López. It would be unlikely that you’d be suggesting we go to an actual drive-in movie theater, since their heyday had been and gone. In the 70s, the advent of VHS video, high property taxes and greedy developers saw to it that a tradition as American as Prom Night, 4th July fireworks and fake IDs was no more.
Thankfully the Drive-in movie theater has seen a small revival in some parts of the country. Even better, one relatively new Drive-in theater is located in Hockley, just to our west. Opened in 2006, the Showboat Theater is named after a 50s drive-in from Houston.
Like all drive-ins, you find a spot (the challenge being to turn up early enough to get close to the front but then have something to do whilst waiting for it to get dark so the movies can start), choose your screen (most have more than one - Showboat has two, each showing two movies) and tune in your radio to pick up the sound.
Having been before, the lesson we learned is to take your own chairs. Sitting in the car is not an ideal way to watch a movie, despite the raised areas designed to raise up your front wheels to get a better view. These bumps were conceived, amongst many other details, by Richard Hollingshead of New Jersey. The inventor of the drive-in concept, Hollingshead opened the first drive-in movie theater in 1933.
Anyway, as we have learned, this is a much more agreeable seating (or as per your preference - lying) position:
One of the things you can do whilst waiting for it to go dark is have something to eat. All drive-ins have a restaurant or concession stand of some sort.
This is the restaurant from the 50s Showboat Theater.
It’s unlikely that today’s menu is any different to that served back in the 50s: hot dogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers and corndogs - all with a side of fries, with or without chili and cheese.
Drive-in movies are incredibly good value for money - at Showboat you get two current movies for $5 (cash only!). The only problem is that the first movie starts after dark, which is not until almost 9pm. So in order to sit through the second one and get your full value for money you have to stay until around 1am. Being a native of one of the most frugal areas of the UK, leaving before the end just feels like being cheated but it was Pirates of the Caribbean Part 29, so I didn’t feel too bad.
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Being originally from Sunderland it was reassuring to find that one of the most popular dishes in Montreal consists of chips, gravy and cheese (curds). Now if only there was a Chinese curry sauce version too (possibly with a side of stotty cake) I think Montreal would be immediately twinned with the former leading shipbuilding town in the world.
The origin of Poutine is, as usual, uncertain but it appears that the dish became commonly know in the 1950s in Quebec. The origin of the name is even more uncertain. French-Canadian for “mushy mess” seems to be the most commonly agreed definition. It is now so popular that even McDonalds sells a version of it.
If you don’t fancy having you entire Recommended Daily Intake in one meal, then you can always try something else. Quebec (and therefore Montreal) has a slight geographic confusion and believes it is part of France so one thing you can get anywhere is a crepe:
You can get anything in a crepe. For instance, how about one of these: scrambled egg, cheese and ham; chocolate; thyme and marscapone cheese? There didn’t seem to be anyone offering a poutine crepe though - perhaps a gap in the market?
No trip to Montreal for someone from Great Britain can be considered complete without a visit to the Olympic swimming pool:
This is of course the venue for the 1976 Olympic Games where David Wilkie won the gold medal in the 200m breaststroke in a world record time (2:15:11), beating John Hencken of the USA. Wilkie also took the silver in the 100m breaststroke (1:03:43) just behind Hencken. It’s worth remembering how impressive these times were. No swim hats or goggles and excessive facial hair were very much in play in those days and yet Wilkie’s time stood for 6 years! Interestingly the man who beat the record (Victor Davis) came from Canada (but not from Montreal although he did sadly die in a car accident in a Montreal suburb in 1989).
I was unable to find any evidence that Wilkie’s time was achieved on a diet of Poutine...