Americana

average-sized american car .... backing in to a park!


M&Ms anyone?


main road of silverton




i've often said in the past that the only problem with visiting america is that americans live there.
may have been a tad harsh considering i had never been to mainland USA before!
it certainly is a strange place tho....

everything is huge - especially the cars.
driving out of denver on the first day i saw 50 4WDs/SUVs before i saw a single sedan.
i think the only sedans are rental cars.
people who would drive sedans in australia drive SUVs here.
and people who would drive 4WDs drive huge trucks.
even the quad bikes are huge - the size of a small car in europe.

its not law here for motorcyclists to wear helmets.
natural selection i guess!

colorado is tshirt central.
every tourist town has at least 4 tshirt shops.
saw one that said "take it out and play with it" and for some reason thought it wouold suit tim.
it had a quad bike pictured on the front.
instead i decided to send tim back some elk jerky.
if it makes it thru customs should be there next week :)

saw a mcdonalds with a single arch.

saw an add in the paper for people who read to your dog.
which isnt strange when u get here and realise that dogs are actually people.
see lots of them in the national park - are allowed there!!
and in restaurants etc...

entrees are appetizers, mains are entrees and deserts are huuuuuge!
and if milk is cream and petrol called gas then what do they call cream and gas??

saw some cooked bacon at the shop the other day.
just need to heat it up i guess.
finally found some ice-coffee milk (as opposed to ice-coffee or ice-tea) and it has as much sugar in it as coke!

a few funny things from the conference...
water apparently weighs 8 pounds per gallon.
i always thougt it was 1kg per litre.
dunno what a quart or pint is yet!

there was a paper presented on erectile dysfunction in the backcountry.
unfortunate term used but i guess the aussie term 'bush' is almost as bad.

funniest thing was when someone was giving us a talk on water disinfection in the 3rd world they showed us a marvellous invention.
although it needed power it could boil 2 litres at a time and even had an automatic 'off' when the water was boiled.
....yes it was a kettle!!
all the americans looked in amazement.
us aussies just laughed then took a photo of us with it after the talk.
too funny.

never ask an american where the dunny is - they will look at u strangely.