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Contrary to popular belief and, according to In-N-Out fans, the drive through was invented well before Ray Crock persuaded the McDonald brothers to sell him the franchise rights to what was to become the most famous (and infamous) fast food place on Earth.
In 1948 Harry Snyder started In-N-Out-Hamburgers in Baldwin Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. The restaurant featured the World’s first two way speakerphone to allow people to order from their car.
Harry Snyder must have seen the future because today Los Angeles seems to be made entirely of roads that lead to other roads and, on rare occasions something worth stopping to look at.
In-N-Out Burger (or often just plain In-N-Out) has a long standing cult following in California (as well as Nevada and a few locations in Arizona and Utah) and may be the only chain that is known across America that is not national. It is certainly one of the most famous chains not to be franchised.
As you can see from the menu above, In-N-Out would not win many prizes for product variety - burgers (three options), fries, milkshakes and soft drinks. That’s it - no chicken, no tuscan-grilled something or other and no latest fads. This menu has been in place for about 50 years.
Having said that, there is a “secret menu” (not so secret these days as its on the web) which includes variations on these options, such as “grilled cheese”, “animal style” and “4X4”.
Talking of double-doubles here’s one:
This is a classic eating arrangement for an In-N-Out burger - in the car. In fact indoor dining is a relatively new concept for In-N-Out and not available in all locations, even today.
One other thing to note about the menu above - behind the menu are two crossed palm trees. Crossed palm trees have been a common theme at In-N-Out locations. This idea was borrowed from Harry Snyder’s favorite film “Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” where palm trees crossed to form a “W” (and the palms make an X in the middle of the W) mark the location of buried treasure.
So after a double-double, why not try a donut for dessert. And if you’re in LA, what better place to try than the Donut Hole, a drive-through with a difference:
As mentioned above, Los Angeles roads do sometimes lead somewhere. So once you’ve had your double-double and donut hole fix, you can either go and lie on the beach (as in Santa Monica in this case):
or go and work out:
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“As I cuddled the porcupine
He said I had none to blame, but me.
Held my heart, deep in hair,
Time to shave, shave it off, it off.
No time for romantic escape,
When your fluffy heart is ready for rape. no!
Off we go...”
When Peter Gabriel wrote the lyrics to track number 7 (or track 1 of side 2 on vinyl) of “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” - “Back In NYC” - he was must have been smoking “happy baccy” of some description.
So like Genesis’ character Rael, in their last album with Peter Gabriel, I’m back in New York City, this time staying right next door to the largest train station in the world (by number of platforms) - Grand Central Station (the correct name for which is Grand Central Terminal).
And what an impressive station it is, with 44 platforms (soon to be 48). By contrast London’s Kings Cross has 11, or 12 if you include platform 9 and three quarters that goes to Hogwarts. And Kings Cross definitely doesn’t look like this, even on its best day:
Tucked away in Grand Central is the Campbell Apartment. This is a bar which was formerly the office of John Williams Campbell, a railroad executive. Back in 1923, he had the 60 ft by 30 ft space renovated at huge cost (the carpet alone was worth $3.5 million in today’s money). Since then it has been renovated twice (as well as being used in between times as a signalman’s office, gun store and small jail).
If you lie down on the $3.5 million carpet in the Campbell Apartment (a likely situation if you have a few drinks there, judging by the strength of my vodka and tonic) you can see the hand-painted timbered ceiling:
No need for Peter Gabriel to smoke anything next time he needs to write so wacky lyrics. Just pop in the Cambell Apartment when he’s back in NYC...
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You can always tell when you are in the country when you get into your hire car and turn on the radio. Someone is usually singing about his wife leaving him in a country and western style (for instance “She Ran Away With the Rodeo Clown”). The more “in the country” you are, the longer it takes to find a station that plays actual music (definition: actual music = rock and or roll).
So after landing at Roanoke’s airport and getting my hire car it took seven changes of station before I heard “Let my Love Open the Door” by Pete Townshend and could stop searching and watch the road. Sadly, reception of this station lasted less than the length of the song and I was forced to search again. And so it went:
“...flushed from the bathroom of your heart...”
“...It’s alright to be a redneck...”
“...a bible and a bus ticket home...”
And then thankfully there was Metallica doing their cover of Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page”. Not only that but 40 miles later (in Lexington) it was still sounding good (note to NT - no “Eye of the Tiger” though). So this was 96.3 WROV - The Rock of Virginia (emphasis on “Rock” of course), my radio station of choice for the week.
Roanoke was originally named “Big Lick” because of the large deposits of salt found there. It was renamed Roanoke (same name as the first English colony in the Americas) 30 or so years later. One of its most famous sights is the Mill Mountain Star, the world’s largest free standing illuminated man-made star (the largest man-made star is in El Paso). The Mill Mountain Star was built to help celebrate the Christmas season back in 1949 and is normally shown (as above) in red, white and blue (In remembrance of the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 it was shown all white). Famous Roanoke residents have included Debbie Reynolds, John Nash (the mathematician from the movie “A Beautiful Mind”) and Mark Chapman (who killed John Lennon).
Just up the road is Lexington (not to be confused with Lexington Kentucky), home of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), the oldest state-run academy in the USA. Its most notable person (to us here in Houston at least) is Sam Houston (he was born just north in Timber Ridge), one time President of Texas and founder of the city that bears his name. Famous civil war leaders Robert E Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson are both buried here, in Lee Chapel and Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery respectively.
This area is full of references to major battles. In between Roanoke and Lexington is the US National D-Day memorial, which will have been busy yesterday, the 65th anniversary of the event. Here’s how it looked last year:
Although this area of the country seems a lot smaller and quieter than Houston (the main road between Roanoke and Virginia is like a small country lane in Houston) it does have one thing that Houston doesn’t have in abundance: Decent Indian Curry. Roanoke’s Taaza restaurant serves Indian food just like its from its native land (I mean Great Britain, not India). I know, because I went three times in one week...
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The year was 1984. The Olympics took place in Los Angeles; Culture Club were singing Karma Chamelon and Prince was singing When Doves Cry; Beverly Hills Cop and Police Academy were on at the movies and the A-Team and Dallas were still on TV; Amadeus won the Oscar for best picture and Tina Turner won the Record of The Year Grammy for "What's Love Got To Do With It?"...
In the world of real important music, Ronnie James Dio (he of Rainbow and Black Sabbath) was taking his solo band on tour to support his “Last in Line” album.
As was the case in those days, Newcastle City Hall was the venue.
Supporting the diminutive Dio were a new band from Seattle called Queensryche.
Here they are, and which mother wouldn’t be proud?
At that time no-one had heard much about them. In fact their only release at the time was an EP with four songs.
Here’s the original advert from Kerrang:
So 25 years later and with four of the original five members still together, Queensryche were back on the road this time headlining to promote their new album “American Soldier”.
No Newcastle City Hall this time; instead we were at Houston’s House of Blues a great venue which was not unlike Newcastle City Hall except:
a.You can drink beer at your seat (and in fact can order beer from your seat)
b.There was an attendant in the toilet to offer you towels and aftershave (more likely to be beaten to death in Newcastle for offering this)
Geoff Tate and the boys put on a great show for over 2 hours with songs from “Rage for Order” (their second album), “American Soldier” and “Empire” (but sadly no “Silent Lucidity”). Special guests included former US military sea rescue specialist and current rapper/rocker AJ Fratto (dressed in full fatigues) and Geoff Tate’s 10 year old daughter Emily both of whom sing on the new album.
A great show and I’m already making plans to see them again in another 25 years...
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Easter doesn’t appear to be a big celebration here in the US. Normally its not much of a holiday for the school kids by UK standards, as they have only Good Friday and Easter Monday off. This year in Houston we are still feeling the effects of Hurricane Ike so Easter Monday is a normal school day, to make up for time lost in September when there was no power.
Another noticeable difference between the UK and US Easter holiday is the lack of large chocolate eggs. You can get chocolate eggs (including imports from the UK) but its clearly not a big thing. What is big, however, are the chocolate bunnies.
And so with at least one day off there was time to go to the beach at Galveston, just 80 or so miles south.
On the way to Galveston, it was only fair to call in and see how the Kemah Boardwalk had recovered from Hurricane Ike. The Boardwalk is an entertainment centre with restaurants and amusements on Galveston Bay. Its owned by Landry’s, a Texas company who also own, amongst other places, The Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas.
Right after the hurricane hit, the Kemah Boardwalk looked like this:
Now, six months later, things are pretty much back to how they were:
But how would Galveston itself look six months on?
Well some places were still closed:
But a few streets further inland from the beach it was as if nothing had happened:
Down on the beach a lot of work had gone into restoring things like this:
To this:
Yes, all those rocks were somehow dredged up and tossed on the beach by the storm surge created by Ike. There has been a massive project ($13.5M, the largest ever undertaken by the Texas General Land Office) to restore and widen beaches by 200 feet using more than one million cubic feet of sand dredged from the east end of the island.
That’s good news for those of us who like to go to the beach...
[Thanks to Captain Oblivious for some of the above pictures]
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Just picking up the telephone directory sized programme for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo makes you realise that this is a very big event.
It turns out that this is the largest event of its kind in the world. Held over 20 days, the event has been running since 1932 and attracts close to 2 million visitors a year.
Many travel to the Houston Rodeo on one of the “trail rides” that end up in Houston just in time for the big parade which opens the event every year.
The first trail ride was started in 1952. Called the Salt Grass, it now gives its name to a chain of steak houses here. The Salt Grass is a fairly modest 85 miles. The longest trail ride, at 216 miles, is the Old Spanish Trail (which gives its name to a road by the Rodeo’s location at Reliant Park).
The Reliant stadium is normally home to the Houston Texans NFL team, and this houses the rodeo events which for us included:
- barrel racing - Which appeared to be the only event women were allowed to take part. This involved riding your horse as fast as possible round three barrels.
- bull riding - Sit on the back of an angry bull and try and stay on for 8 seconds. Not only that, but then you and the bull are scored by judges based on how much bucking goes on and how well you control things.
- tie-down roping - Lasso a calf from your horse, lay it down then tie its legs (any three count) as quickly as you can.
- bareback riding - Not as demonstrated by Coventry’s most famous lady. This is similar to bull riding but with an angry horse instead of a bull.
- team roping - Two riders attempt to catch a steer, one by the head and one by the hind legs, as quickly as possible.
- saddle bronc riding - Like bareback riding but with a saddle. No less easy as the horse is still pretty mad.
- steer wresting - Dive off your horse onto a running 450-750 pound steer (horns included) then wrestle it to the ground.
Steer wrestling, or bulldogging, was invented by Bill Pickett (or possibly a Canadian called John Ware - controversy as always). His technique included biting the steer on the lip although this doesn’t seem to be too popular these days (for cowboy or steer). Pickett was a cowboy entertainer along with Tom Mix, Buffalo Bill and others and was so famous he even had a stamp made with his picture on. Obviously he wasn’t that well known as the first version of the stamp had his brother on them by mistake. This is the corrected version.
Oh, and then there’s the daily event of the calf scramble shown above. 28 boys and girls chase after 14 calves to try and catch one, harness it and drag it back to “the winner’s square”. Those who succeed get a certificate to buy a heifer and have to raise it before bringing it back to the Rodeo the following year to show it.
There’s a live band every night at the rodeo. The first entertainer was Gene Autry, the singing cowboy and star of dozens of westerns. Since Gene Autry, many have played here, including Elvis Presley, but mainly they are of Country & Western extraction.
Our live act was Brooks and Dunn. Despite sounding like an old-fashioned tailor or shoe shop, they have the fifth highest attendance record at the rodeo (at just under 73,000 - This year’s act from Ramon Ayala and Alacranes Musical has the highest at just over 74,000) and 8 platinum or multi-platinum albums.
We managed to make it through “Cowboy Town”, “You Can’t Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl” and “Hillbilly Deluxe” before we had reached our Country & Western allowance for the year.
Once you’ve watched the rodeo events and the live act you can do the carnival. Better still see the carnival from 58 feet in the air on the sky ride like this:
