Some say I was reared by hamsters in Patagonia, others say I was fostered by the mad woman at the foot of our stairs..I’ve been away a while preparing for my new role. Once there was Stig now there’s Stiglet ( I almost claimed the name Piglet but given that the current pandemic has killed 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the population I thought it was in bad taste) plus it was a bit too elliptical a connection even for me.



Christened as such during the Maiden Voyage of Harley D



I have now got the hang of the distance my “behelmeted” head needs to be to avoid smacking P in the back of the head on acceleration. The chin guard was also in danger of giving him permanent bruising of the left shoulder blade.

So we've have been quiet since the skiing incident in January awaiting the arrival of Harley and also news on P’s contract which has been extended for another year; so continued blatherings until May 2010.

We haven’t been idle however. I have contemplated yoga…in order to try to contort my right hip back into the place it occupied before skiing and we have also been trying to re-discover the sense of ermm awe and wonder we felt when we first arrived in Texas. And so we have the bike ride from Mineral Wells State Park along the state (trail) way to Mineral Wells past the Texas Memorial to the Vietnamese War which comprises a helicopter on a stick



a johnny on the spot (portaloo) and a re-creation of the Holloway Wall which contains a replica of the engraved stone for every soldier who served in Vietnam from the area, the originals are languishing somewhere in a US army storage facility and the filing system is not up to par.

We arrive at a brick factory and the start of Mineral Wells, 5 minutes into which P is convinced we are cycling down Clough Road in Hull even though Mineral Wells was, and was being the operative word, a spa town. We reach the locals bijou residences and it never ceases to amaze me how downtown America can accumulate so much rubbish and keep it in the yard ..more of that later.

And here we are



As I said it was a spa town and this was the second hotel in the US to get an outdoor swimming pool – opened in 1929 at the boom time in it’s mineral water industry and the day after the Great Depression started…you’d have thought they might have felt it in their waters…

Anyway by the 1960’s the town and hotel had run it’s course and was duly abandoned, leaving the hotel still with curtains, carpets and chandeliers.







We cycle back and I am sorry but I cannot resist it any longer …photographic evidence of just how much CRAP Barack’s people hoard ‘Cos it’s gonna come in handy”







For my scorn it should be noted..I took all of these pictures on the move in case the locals ‘din’t larke it’ and shortly after this shot I looked down to see a huge hole on the path, jiggled over the bumps, tried to avoid another hole, swung my handlebars around to career into a ditch but determined:

a) not to drop my precious camera and
b) not fall off since said ditch was festooned with rocks, cacti and fetid water, and then there was the possibility of trespassing and getting shot.

Enough adventure you might think, but as we pass back through new stylish, corrugated/plastic sheet building Mineral Wells, P decides the Chicken Express looks inviting and I still suffering shotgun and cacti avoidance trauma agree, despite never having touched so much as a Colonel Sanders deep fried reconstituted fog horn leghorn.

We had been away from the people for too long….as we pull into the car park we are overtaken by a “pimp my ride” Lincoln with pearl silver body work, metallic blue roof and multi coloured YSL interior. Mom, sticks her gum (chewy) on the dashboard, shimmies across the car park, calling back to the toddler she leaves in the unlocked car

“Hey Claude don’t you be leaning outta thayt window, you’ll be breakin' the glase”

Phil suggests I go in to pick my food while he pimps “ma rarde”.

The menu is in Texeze - I don’t know what I want but YIKES I don’t want DEEP FRIED CHICKEN GIZZARDS. I sidle out of the queue to inform P that he can choose but he must not under any circumstances pick

DEEP FRIED CHICKEN GIZZARDS.

In he goes and he takes a loooong taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarm. Emerging with a box and a nervous expression:

- They all turned round and looked at me strange in there

- No shit Sherlock when you walk in wearing full Hull Kingston Rovers summer strip and a pair of red mesh cycling gloves that any gimp afficianado would be proud to exhibit.

And to top it all we are sitting at the table with our gallon bucket of coke and all you CANNOT eat deep fried chicken knock knees when a family emerges and the little girl shrieks:

- Look Mooooooooooooooooommy some peepull eatin’ outsard.

HOW WEIRD IS THAT…. DUDE???

How soon we forget. But it is that it easy when you can stay home and lose yourself in a beer and this scene from your balcony



So you’d think that would have been sufficient reminder but this Harley chick needs to do some speed and where better …..Granbury when it is General Granbury’s birthday. Who?

Oh that General Granbury




Where the rest of our biker comrades. (I’m working on the boots and P is taking rogaine intravenously to develop the hair)



Let their softer side show doing this:



And this



On our return to the car park we meet the biker boys who recognising us as twin souls obviously it was our flask of tea..present us with their business card:

The Warriors of Christ Church, Prison Reform Group…



We shoot out of town only to pass their church and into Horseshoe Bend. And we thought the bottom had fallen out of Mineral Wells…it was like being on the set of Deliverance just after a bad day at the pool hall and suddenly we were stuck and had to go back the way we came…only this time, they were all out, someone had clearly forgot to lock the door to the cells that day. I didn't take photos, but am desperate to say something very political and rude on the lines of "Hell it's the most advanced 3rd World Country I've ever experienced"

Oh and we have been having a few storms lately

It’s a comin….



It’s comin



And finally flying solo to Washington DC during Cherry Blossom season to see the eldest girlie who is visiting friends and to get all cultured out.

The view from the café in the National Gallery:




The light tunnel through to the modern section of the gallery where I finally began to like some modern art, Mark Rothko and the odd Miro to name drop a few









..can’t warm to Picasso …(still recovering from his pornographic etchings in Barcelona. P is still in a neck brace after straining neck to work out which end was clinching what).

And the blossoms..yes I know they are Magnolia



Satisfied?



Not content to be cultured we tried to be politicized too..The Capitol Building



And from the inside



And this is where the fundamentalist Christian thang began then????



George W(ashington) being assisted in his entry to heaven. Imagine….

- Excuse me sir but are you related to the guy with the trumpet?
- You’re not then STEP away from the yellow line. Ar’ll deal wi’ choo in a moment.
- Gabriel what choo want man?
- Well why din’t you say he was with you? In you go.
- Leave your firearm by the door
- Yes even you.


Enough of the political twaddle, though we got to sit in the Gallery and listen to a bill being proposed.

The Library of Congress:




Roisin’s corner where she performed with an orchestra for distinguished SUITS, 3 years ago.



Finally a bit of nature…the butterfly room in the Smithsonian....indulge me













And in case you thought I was over egging it about the accumulation of crap…the contents of someone’s car in a “wealthy” part of Fort Worth




Our state hopping starts again soon:

Georgia and the Carolinas.