Squeezy

Such a squished-in little building,
right in the heart of Sydney.
Built in 1886.
Any smaller and I would've smuggled it home in my suitcase.

Little green men

I was going to write only: "This is the coolest house in Florida" ...but then I fell down the Google rabbit-hole ("ufo house pensacola" did the trick) and found all kinds of fascinating bits and pieces about this spaceship we saw on our beach holiday.

According to Prefabcosm and Roadside America, this is one of the "Futuro" dwellings designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1968, initially for use as a ski-cabin or holiday home. The ideal was of a new era, a space-age, where everybody would have more leisure time to spend on holidays away from home.

Built by the Finnish company Oy Polykem Ab, the Futuro house was completely furnished and could accommodate eight people. It had a single bedroom, bathroom, U-shaped kitchen area, separate dining area, a curved 23-foot couch and a central fireplace that doubled as a grill. It was constructed entirely out of reinforced plastic, a new, light and inexpensive material back then. The plan was to mass-produce it, so it would be cheap enough to house all people around the earth. Mobile living was seen as the new possibility for the future – people could now take their moveable home with them wherever they went, and live like modern nomads.

Unfortunately the 1973 oil crisis spoiled all these plans. Prices of plastic raised production costs too high to be profitable. Only 96 Futuro houses were ever built. Besides the 48 made in Finland, at least 48 more were manufactured abroad on license.

This one at Pensacola Beach is said to have been lowered on to its "launch pad" by helicopter. If you look closely at the windows in the top photo, you can see the little alien face peeping out.

{I took these photos out the window of a moving car zipping along Pensacola Beach, hence the "omg-I've-just-seen-a-UFO!!" crookedy-ness. Authentic, no?}

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Friends in far places

No one else has ever taken a "picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge" quite like this.

That's half my head on the left there, and about a third of photographer-extraordinaire-Jodie's head there on the right. And in the background you can see exactly none of the Harbour Bridge, which we were aiming to highlight. Nice.

The one below is a bit better – lacks the pizazz our faces would've lent to the scene (!) but it's a sort of moody view across the rooftops of The Rocks towards the Opera House. Jodie took me to The Rocks, a piece of history I've wanted to visit ever since I read Playing Beattie Bow when I was twelve.

But I'm getting this all back to front, really.

Jodie, of Meringue fame, is a friend-I'd-never-met despite a good year or more of almost daily emails. We fixed the never-met bit over drinks one night with Stuart, my childhood next-door neighbour and sometime partner-in-crime, and his work mate Paul.

I should mention that Jodie drove up to Sydney from Melbourne, and that Jodie and Stuart and Paul know each other through Facebook, and that I had never met Paul and hadn't seen Stuart in at least 15 years. It all gets a bit involved, really.

Anyway, to get such unprecedented freedom (more than two hours! at night!) I left the kids with poor mum at the hotel, and Kickbaby yelled for a solid hour. He has his preferences, and I am one of them.

The next morning Jodie and I had a Very Important International Business Meeting with Simone Walsh at Bill's. I don't have a picture of that. Simone said almost before we sat down There will be no pictures and I must have been feeling especially acquiescent that morning, because my ever-ready camera stayed in my purse. I regret that now.

I've got no excuse for not taking any pictures of Jodie and me at The Rocks or down on the harbour. None at all.

I did get this beauty, though. On a bustling street right in Darlinghurst, there was a little apartment above a newsagent, topped with what looked like a rooftop refugee camp. The picture can't do justice to the crazy low-rent clutter that filled that tiny space.

And one more from The Rocks... and still none of Jodie and me. Maybe next time.

There for the taking

My brother Jules is standing at the foot of the Stairway To Knowledge. If you squint, you can see it written on the wall there.

But did he climb the Stairway To Knowledge? No he did not. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.



(Okay, neither did I. You know... it was getting late and the babies were cranky... If it wasn't for these pesky kids, I'd be enlightened by now! )

(You really have to say that in a Scooby-Doo villain voice. Never mind.)

Oh boy

After a month in Australia, I'm back in the USA – with two intact children and several medals for bravery.

Blogging from the other side of the world was a logistical nightmare, hence the slacking. I'll make up for it in the coming days (or weeks) with countless random and out-of-order posts. But there will be plenty of pictures to balance out the incoherence, so stay tuned...

Bright sunshine-y

A week of rain makes you really, really grateful for the sun. This is the Queensland I remember.

Monkey

On Wednesday, my brother turned 31 and got bitten by a monkey in India.

Aaron – you should know that when Mum called with the news, I gasped, and Nathan laughed. I trust this leaves you ample time to adjust your Christmas list.

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The Deep South Tour – 2008

In general, the Americans were quite dismayed when they heard that Jules and Shelley would only be seeing Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and a teensy edge of Florida on their first visit to the States.

It reminded me of my first six months in New Orleans, when people would ask, "So where else in the US have you lived?" and I'd say, "Louisiana is the only place I've lived since I left Australia."
"Oh," they'd say gravely, "I'm sorry. The rest of America is Really Not Like This." (Trust me, I could hear the capitals.)

If I had limitless funds and a nanny for the two-year-old and someone else to haul Kickbaby around under their shirt, I would've loved to take Jules and Shelley to other cities I love, like Portland and Seattle and Santa Fe and Atlanta and New York, and to places I'd love to see – like Savannah and Charleston and Chicago and Washington D.C.

But with Berry and Kickbaby in tow, we improvised our own itinerary – one that will never quite be replicated by anyone else, ever.


We made Jules sick with the American Breakfast at Waffle House; we made Shelley sick with rich soul food at the Praline Connection (Australian stomachs just aren't built for Southern fare); we stalked the wedding cake house on St Charles Avenue in the Garden District so Shelley could get the perfect picture (the upside-down one just didn't cut it); and we compiled a veritable photo essay on the hazards of New Orleans' crazy footpaths.


We sat out a pouring should've-been-sunny Saturday in Perdido Beach, we built sandcastles with Berry, we went all over New Orleans' famous French Quarter by day, and by night Nathan (a French Quarter bar expert if ever there was one) took Jules and Shelley to some of his favourite haunts. There was jambalaya at Napoleon House and a streetcar ride down St Charles and frisbee in Audubon Park and the best Southern-diner food ever at Camellia Grill. And last but not least, I enthralled Shelley with the appalling-ness of Wal-mart. She berated herself for leaving the camera at home at least 18 times in that one trip, especially when she spied the jumbo jar of pickled pigs' ears. You think I'm joking; I'm not.

It was an unconventionally action-packed two weeks – certainly not the way Fodor's or Rick Steves or Lonely Planet would've done it.

And all I can say about that is: thank goodness.

Royal...

Can you choose one favourite street out of your whole country?

I can. My favourite – of all the avenues and streets and roads and boulevards and circles and ways in America – is Royal Street, New Orleans.


To me it feels at once like a lovely mystery and like coming home.

I was going to write all the reasons why, but even in my head they sound like a tourist-book tallying of attractions and histories and quaintnesses... and that's really not what it's about.


It's just that when I'm on Royal Street, I want to stay.

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Back to New Orleans

We went back to New Orleans. It's been almost two years and thousands of miles since Hurricane Katrina sent us to the other end of the country, but despite all the changes it still felt like an old friend. A bit like coming home.

New Orleans was the first place I lived after moving to America, and it took me a long time to realise that really, New Orleans is a bit like a country of its own. You won't find a city like it anywhere else. I know, I've looked.




The people and the buildings and the culture and the city as a whole have all taken a battering, through Katrina and ever since. But it's the kind of place that's hard to keep down. Some parts of it will never be the same again, but I'd like to think in the end the optimism and irrepressible spirit of the people will win out.

Busy days

Poppy didn't realise he needed help with his accordian, until Berry came along. And this little kitten didn't realise it needed an enthusiastic new friend... Surprises for everyone, in Breaux Bridge.

Welcome to Louisiana

Crawfish are big in Louisiana, but not this big.

This monster welcomes people at Lisa and Rocky Sonnier's famous cabins and restaurant in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana -- and it's just one of the place's many quirky charms.

Mike Rowe filmed an episode of Dirty Jobs here, about making "cracklins". Fabulous, I'm told, but a bit bad for you. That's the cracklins, not Mike Rowe. Although.....

West Texas

Right about here, Paula let out a big sigh and said, "Oh, this is horrific."

And that's west Texas for you....

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Somewhere in Colorado...

Six hundred and thirty miles. Thirteen hours. More than half a day. And did I mention 630 miles?

That's how far it is from Tremonton, Utah to Pueblo, Colorado, and we drove it all in one day. This time Berry regained her Toddler of the Day award (improving on her previous day's performance) and we had Bob The Builder playing all day, instead of The Wiggles.



Thirteen hours of anywhere gets very boring, and Utah and Wyoming are long on endless plains and short on Starbucks, which makes staying awake a bit tricky. But at least we had fabulous things waiting for us at the end of the road.



Joe and Christy, Nathan's godparents, are fabulous artists who live in this amazing place just outside Pueblo, Colorado. They have llamas living across the street and acres of wildlife all around. What artist wouldn't love to live here?




Joe took us for a trek around the back of their land and casually (too casually, I thought) mentioned the bears they see roaming around up there. BEARS! Bears, bears, bears. I've been quite preoccupied with the dangers of bears and cougars and mountain lions and other non-Australian wildlife threats, ever since I moved to the States. And particularly since I read about bear attacks in Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods. In his book about Australia (In A Sunburned Country), Bryson is hilariously liberal in detailing how Australia is crawling with the most dangerous animals on the planet -- and ok, you can argue that. But very few of Australia's- most-dangerous will take your limb off for choosing the wrong path on a hike. Kill you in seconds with poison, yes -- but they'll leave your limbs in place. And I'm quite fond of my limbs.


Anyway, that gave me some pause for the rest of the hike, especially when Joe pointed out where one of their neighbours had been leaving large roadkill out for the bears to eat. Like they needed encouragement or something... the bones were picked disturbingly bare.

Christy is a transplanted Southern belle, so after our scary/pretty walk, we had the most incredible southern fried chicken and potato salad and all kinds of other things you should never eat if you want to live a long time. It would've been a fantastic dinner on any day, but it was especially, heartbreakingly good after miles of Denny's dinners and McDonald's salads.

That night we slept upstairs in the fabulous house that Joe built. Usually when people say "I built this house" they don't mean with my own two hands -- but that's what Joe means. It's an incredible place. And in the morning, just to make sure our stay would be completely unforgettable, this was the sunrise.




I'm telling you, those llamas are living the good life...

Running around America

A towering formation over the playground where we stopped in Green River. Berry might remember it for the biggest slippery slide she's ever been on -- I'll remember it for the fantastic rocks.

(It's taken me so long to get an internet connection tough enough to upload all my roadtrip photos -- things are going to be kind of slow coming round on the travelling stuff. But I don't care if you don't.)

Where it all started

For anyone who's ever wondered what the very first Starbucks looks like.... this is it. Turns out it opened in 1971... for some reason I thought Starbucks was older than that. We went to this one (again) on our third-last day in Seattle, right after we said our goodbyes to Pike Place Market.

It's true what they say: Seattle really does have a Starbucks on every corner. I don't drink it myself, but I'm told any coffee is good coffee when you're cold 80% of the year...

Seattle's also home to "the largest Starbucks in North America" (to quote the excited girl who served me there). I took my mum and dad to that one -- by accident, not as a tourist attraction I swear -- when they visited from Australia. I don't have a picture of that one, maybe because it's too big...

Nobody was hurt...

...but this semi lost its trailer and the whole load on one of the many, many bendy roads we drove along on the way to Bend, Oregon. What a mess.

Berry and a Lake

A few days ago we stopped in Oregon by a very, very windy lake. It was impressively beautiful, but Berry was nearly blown away.

Oh Oregon

Oh Oregon... you are so pretty. Don't let it go to your head.

Chikins

These were for sale in the crazy little middle-of-nowhere shop by the service station and the Artistic Taxidermy stand.

I think they're priceless.