Kate's Thoughts III

Is bigger better?

Our motto for the United States with the kids was ‘everything is bigger’. This was more so exaggerated having just flown in from Vietnam. Where you can fit a family of 5 on one scooter. In the US it seems you need a minivan for more than two people. When I mean everything is bigger, I mean everything. The roads in LA rarely went below three lanes, four was normal, five was better. Small cars were rare. Our Tesla Model 3 was like a toy car compared to most things on the road. Matt and I shared meals when eating out, the portion sizes were huge and easily covered us two in one. Supermarkets are super sized with multiple entrances, multiple amenities, admitting it’s really three shops in one. Shampoo in hotels is a 500ml bottle of dove stuck to the wall. A “shake” is a litre of milk and ice-cream. Houses, hotels, motels, library’s all huge. Even the toilet rolls are bigger! I got the feeling no one walks anywhere, except from their giant car to the giant supermarket where they parked a mile away from the entrance because the shop and car park were so huge. I went to a “houseparty” and someone was put out by the walk to the end of their drive to collect the mail. The menus at most diners are huge (think Schitt's Creek) offering breakfast, lunch and dinner options 24/7, I dread to think what Gordan Ramsey would think of it. I even felt small, coming from Vietnam where I was a giant, it felt strange walking around and not being one of the tallest.

So is bigger better? I’m not convinced, yes the houses were great and really lovely to have so much room compared to our Sydney home, but I also don’t want to have to get a golf buggy to go get my mail at the end of the driveway.

Tesla’s

For those not reading Matt’s main blog (it’s a bit dry - I know, I type it up for him), we drove a Tesla from LA to New York ~5,000 miles. This is a car that can only manage ~260 miles before needing to be charged. Matt had researched if it was possible, are there enough chargers on our route etc. Apart from the slight false start with the charging issue at Baker, it worked fine and we were able to easily work it around our plans. “Superchargers” are incredibly common in the US and the navigation system in the Tesla is very smart. I thought my mum was pretty clever, navigating us around the UK with a OS map, writing on the map if we found a good ‘lay-by’, working out where we should stop on route. The Tesla does it all, you type in your end destination and it tells you: route to take, where to stop to charge, how long to charge, how many chargers there are at the stop, how many are in use currently, what % of battery you will be at when you get to your destination, what % of battery you will be at if you did a return trip. Super clever and super easy.

Travelling with kids means stopping every few hours anyway. I’ll admit some of the supercharges are at random locations (usually tucked behind a normal petrol station or by a motel) but generally close to the main highways to make the stop quick. Often we’d drop the kids and one parent at a small play area nearby, then the other would go and charge, which at most would take 40 minutes. Other Electric Vehicle charges could be used for the Tesla, but they take ~7hrs to fully charge, not practical if trying to drive long distances in one day, but fine for charging overnight. Sometimes one of us would pop out in the evening to charge it up ready for the next day, which seemed like a treat when on the road 24/7 with the kids. I’m converted and would happily switch to an electric car permanently.

Matt disappearing in the mornings

People have asked if I mind Matt disappearing to do walks on his own exploring and leaving me. And the answer is not really, for a few reasons. He’s an early riser and I don’t want to go exploring at 5:30am. Someone needs to stay with the kids (you need to be a very brave person to wake the kids that early for a walk). And the final reason is I’m a “panda” - we both read a travel book written by a family that moved to France for a year from Australia. The wife declared herself a panda as preferred to potter around a familiar home environment, which described myself nicely. I only tend to mind if he wakes one of the kids when leaving as they then moan at me about Dad being annoying for the next hour until he returns.

Diet on the road

Eating out everyday, every meal is quite frankly exhausting and bank breaking in the US. Before the road trip we bought some plates and a cool bag so we could at least try to have some simple food. Make some sandwiches / wraps on the go, have cereal if breakfast was not included etc. We’d buy fruit and some salad bits so we could eat something fresh. Outside of that we struggled to get anything fresh or healthy.

Don’t get me started on trying to convince the kids that one bowl of cornflakes at a buffet breakfast that has multiple courses is a good use of the “free” meal. And of course 20 minutes after leaving said breakfast someone who quote “couldn’t eat another cornflake if I tried” is hungry.

So we’ve basically eaten way too much breakfast (adults only), a wrap for lunch, multiple peanut butter sandwiches (kids snacks) and half a burger and chips for dinner. If the breakfast was really good we might just have some crackers or pot noodles for dinner. And that’s on repeat for over 10 weeks. Luckily I don’t think any of us have bloated out or equally faded away, but I’m not sure we’ve managed 5 fruit and veg a week let alone a day.

Billboards / Advertising

These are hilarious. You have to see them to believe them with their cheesy headshot and comb over blown up so the entire 8 lane highway can get a clear view of “Bob ‘the bulldog’ Mason” who always wins and leaves no injured person behind. It’s creepy seeing their greedy faces on a large scale, when they don’t have faces for billboards. The distraction/ alone must cause some accidents - maybe that’s another way they generate business. “Someone’s to blame, let me find out who”. “Been injured, need some money, let me help you”. “Don’t let them get away with it, I’ll claim anything”.

Safety

At one point I thought we were in an episode of The Wire, with a number of people hanging out on ‘their’ corners, walking up to car windows. Trying to explain to the kids that it would be best if we didn’t stare or ask questions about why they are hanging about on the street in front of them obviously fell on deaf ears, but thankfully we survived. 

Apart from that we generally felt safe. There were a lot of homeless people especially in New York, some shouting or talking to anyone that showed the slightest interest. But I still felt safe enough walking about with the kids even as it was starting to get dark. I walked back from Kathleen’s hotel room alone after 10pm and was aware I was walking alone in central New York and mindful I wasn’t distracted on my phone. Especially having seen someone grab someone’s mobile out of their hands whilst crossing our hotel street in broad daylight.

I was definitely aware that anyone could be carrying a gun, this thought had not occurred to me in Thailand or Vietnam. Only in the US where you hear of so many shootings. But it didn’t put us off exploring America and we survived to tell the tale.

A friend of ours mentioned the ‘Boris’ bikes equivalent in the US are safe to use especially in New York as every driver is so nervous they could be liable for millions they give all cyclists the right of way no matter what. We probably took that message slightly too far, balancing the kids on a mudguard on the back with no foot holds to help them stay on or helmets in case they did come off.

Disposables

Argh for some reason any motel where breakfast was included was on paper / plastic disposable plates, bowls, cutlery, and cups. What a huge waste, especially when most people sought a new plate every helping and for locals that was a lot of plates! Unsure if they always used disposables or Covid made them use disposables and they haven’t switched back. But seriously a huge impact on the environment and something that could easily be switched.

It was also rare a hotel offered a recycling bin in the hotel rooms or even in the lobby area. We found it was the newer hotels with a younger vibe that had recycling available, otherwise no sign of where to dispose of all the kids' school work and wine bottles needed to complete said schoolwork.

Scenery

National Parks are a must see! When Matt mentioned he planned to go to four, I was thinking that’s easily 3 too many. However, I was proven wrong. The invention of the Junior Ranger was ingenious and entertained our kids long enough at each park to keep them engaged and wanting to see more. Each park we went to had its own wow factor / drawcard. And in the case of National Parks bigger is really better and the US does bigger on a whole other scale. Pictures will definitely not do them justice, so you will have to just go yourself to believe it. The Annual Park Pass was well worth the money with each park well managed, lots of helpful rangers giving out maps and advice, visitor centres with videos explaining why the park is the way it is. Hop on hop off buses taking you to the best vantage points. Huge amounts of well maintained trails for various levels of abilities. Once we started a trail in the Grand Canyon we were only doing the first 10 minutes to get a few evening photos and met someone on the way back up who’d been walking for 8hrs on the same path. We quickly turned around given the kids had already eaten through our emergency snack supply of carrot sticks. All of the National Parks (Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce and Arches) were incredible and well worth a visit if you love the outdoors, bush walks, scenery etc. even from inside the car / bus still lots you are able to see.

From LA through to Denver the scenery on the drives was amazing. In my head I figured it would be fairly boring with not much around (that was after Denver), but through the national parks and everything in between the rock formations / trees / wildlife / groundcovers was all stunning to experience. You could see for miles and make out the next mountain you were either going to drive around, up or through. I have to say we stopped at some random places to charge up or eat some peanut butter sandwiches whilst on the road, but we (Matt every time) found something interesting for us to visit or see. Even if it was the formerly largest Spur in the world, worth a peak. And I never thought we’d go to so many libraries, especially those where we knew we couldn’t borrow any books, we just went in so the kids could be in their comfort zone for 30 mins and enjoy a ‘normal’ activity we’d do in Lilyfield at the weekend.

Water

Unsure if this will divide people like rinsing dishes before loading the dishwasher or if it will be a slam dunk like the three second rule (everyone believes in that right). But is it ‘OK’ to drink water from a bathroom sink tap in a hotel / motel? I’m not talking about boiling the water first, just drinking it straight from the tap. Matt’s theory is, they wouldn't put glasses in the bathroom next to the sink if they didn’t want you to drink the tap water. I’m thinking I’ll drink it if it looks like water and not cloudy lemon juice or brown rust juice. And I’m also thinking Bob the bulldog Mason will win me a shed load of money if I did get sick drinking the tap water. I’ll be honest though even in my own home I’m a little sceptical about drinking the water from bathroom sink taps. Is it a different pipe / source to the kitchen? Surely not. But in a motel there is no kitchen tap, just bathroom taps. I’m not a water snob (honestly) and was happily drinking motel bathroom tap water if it looked like water, but the reaction from some people when I said I did this makes me think I’m the minority and quickly changed my story to just Matt did this. If anyone reads this and knows I am in serious danger of poisoning myself and the family please message me.