Category: USA

As with most good things, they generally must eventually come to an end and with me winning only $3 USD out of a potential $655 million USD ($93,834,000.00 AUD) – today marks the penultimate day for the Taco’s & Toucan’s travels ~ 2019 trip.

I spent most of the morning ensuring all my electrical items were fully discharged and then recharged to their maximum capacity. As you can well imagine, travelling with two cameras, an iPad, headphones, laptop, mobile phone and Omni Charge 20+ portable power pack can take a bit of time to ensure they are fully charged and functional, as going to use them is not the best time find out there is a problem with the device or equipment.

Around noon I found myself in the nearby city of Denton, both cancelling my T-Mobile mobile phone contract and procuring a couple of pairs of jeans at Ross – Dress for Less, which has been my go to off-price department store for discount/outlet priced clothing for ages.

Lunch was a simple “Managers $8.99 Special” at Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, which consisted of a sliced BBQ Beef Brisket sandwich with all the fixin’s, waffle fries, a diet Coke and self-serve soft serve ice cream, which I passed on as I only do real ice cream. I’m pleased to say the brisket was done to perfection – moist, falling apart, tender and with a nice bark.

I got back to the house fairly late in the afternoon to meet up with Mike & Bek, one of their groomsman – Will, and his wife to head out to Mr Chopsticks pretty ordinary Asian for dinner and then on to the University of North Texas (UNT) campus, which I can now honestly say I’ve attended the same college as my ex-wife Ruth.

We were actually there for the Astrology departments’ 9PM screening at the 100 seat, 40-foot domed Sky Theatre, that features the Digistar V planetarium projection system, presentation of immersive visuals synced to Pink Floyd albums, with tonight’s being The Dark Side of the Moon.

It was just over ¾’s of an hour in which you could get sensory overload, especially with the at times psychedelic and trippy visuals, but I found it to be a unique and fun experience in which I’d love to return for their screenings of The Wall and Wish You Were Here.

We got home a bit after 10PM which coincided with Qantas opening online check-ins for my 3 flight 26½ hour journey home, that departs around this time, tomorrow night.

Today was more of a “clean up & consolidation” day in which I’d sort out all my bags, purchases and travel documentation in preparation for my homeward journey on Saturday.

Over the years, I have found it best to take the time and make the effort to pull everything apart that you’ve carried or collected on a trip, inventory it and then repack it all neatly and securely, with the aim of minimizing loss or damage.

This endeavour, including the removal of all clothing tags/labels/pricing and subsequent refolding took most of the morning to complete.

It was at this time that I felt like I could eat the horse and chase the rider, so a SOS text was sent to Bek to find a decent feed in the local area. Although not quiet local, i.e. 11 kilometres (7 miles) away, Rockfish Seafood Grill was a great feed none the less. I availed myself of the $4.99 a pound Crawfish Boil and it was brilliant.

After lunch I chased up some gear for a mates ¾ Ton Dodge Ram that he sent me literally a shopping list for, which took a few hours.

I tracked down young Mikey to grab all the ingredients required for his proposed dinner menu, as it was his wish to cook for the entire family tonight .

He knocked up pan seared breast of chicken with mashed potatoes and a warm green runner been, bacon, garlic and cherry tomato salad with a chicken broth dressing. Got to say, it was a pretty decent feed and I had a ball being Mikey’s “sous chef”.

Had to laugh though as experience is a pretty good teacher., Mikey learnt a pretty valuable lesson in why you gently place items into hot pans, rather than dropping them from altitude like a B-52 bombing run.

For mind, the best thing about the meal is that in three months Mikey has gone from seemingly only being interested in chicken strips or pizza, to wanting to get in the kitchen, settling on a menu and then getting his hands dirty from prep to plating. I hope he continues with it as he looks to be having fun with it and he’s pretty good at it.

I thought I get out of the house nice and early to hit the road and sort out a couple of things with my Ranger ute as well as the Harley and then check out Fort Worth at my leisure, but as they say in the classics – the best laid plans of mice and men.

I walk up to the rental car and press the key fob to unlock it – computer says no. I get absolutely nothing, nada, zip, bupkiss, farq all from the vehicle – it was dead as doornail. I use the “safety key” to open the vehicle and find the battery completely dead. I jumped straight on the “dog & bone” to contact Avis for emergency roadside assistance and to arrange for a replacement vehicle for me to collect in nearby Denton.

As you can imagine, all this takes time and as such I decided to change up my route as it was 10:40 AM by the time I actually got going. The irony was also not lost on my that of all the vehicles I’ve been in on the trip so far, including the busted arse unroadworthy mini-buses, the newest one with the least amount of mileage was the one I had the most issues with – go figure.

I left the rental agency, headed north on I-35 East and then dropped down I-35 West for a straight shot down to the Unites States 15 largest city – Forth Worth, that was established in 1849 as an army outpost. With clear roads and light traffic, it took less than 30 minutes to find a parking spot and wander over the iconic 40 hectare (98 acre) Stockyards historic district, just in time for their daily re-enactment of a cattle drive with some decent size and well fed longhorn “hamburgers on the hoof”.

I wandered around for a bit taking in the historical Western architecture as well as Billy Bob’s Texas, which promotes itself as “The World’s Largest Honky Tonk,” before settling on a bite to eat at Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que located just over Stockyard Boulevard.

For rev-heads like myself, one of the “Sistine Chapels of Speed” would be Summit Racing Equipment’s purpose built 6.5 hectare (16 acre) building which includes a large 3,000 square metre (32,000 square foot) retail superstore in Arlington, that opened in 2017. Whilst I wasn’t able to purchase what I was looking for off the shelf or have it arrived before my departure on Saturday, it was one of the best ways to while away a couple of hours.

A traffic free ½ hour drive over towards DFW Airport saw me pull into Texas Harley-Davidson to try and sort out an oil pressure and temperature gauge set up and a better mounting solution for mounting the amps in the panniers. With what I figured to be well over 300 new and used bikes in inventory, I had a fun time checking out the various rides to see what either the previous owners or the dealership had done to them, which gave me a couple of ideas for my ride.

Just in case you’re wondering, the most expensive bike in the showroom was the 2019 FLHXS Street Glide Special Touring that was customised by the dealer and could be all yours for a measly $59,999.00 USD ($87,174.00 AUD) plus on road costs.

By now it was close to 3:30 PM and with dinner engagement booked with a great friend of the family – Don Eades, for 5 sharp, I decided to take the 121 onto I-35 East to hopefully beat any traffic. As luck would have it, I was able to sit on 70 mph (113 kph) basically the entire way to Mike & Bek’s, for the first time ever.

Dinner was a pretty decent effort with great company and conversation at the Prairie House Restaurant over in Cross Roads about a ½ drive away, made all the more enjoyable with Bek behind the wheel of Don’s red convertible Mustang that’s never had the roof raised.

Just for shit’s & giggles on the way home, I purchased a couple of tickets in the $367 million USD Texas Lottery Mega Millions and $288 million USD Powerball draw, just to see if I can keep travelling for a little bit longer.

Whilst it’d be fair to say the day started out less than ideal, it got a whole lot better as it went along and ended brilliantly with friends and family – not a whole lot more you could ask for really.

Today Dallas, well northern Dallas technically as I’m 58 kilometres (36 miles) from the city centre, awakened to more intermittent torrential downpours starting around 3:10 AM this morning and lasting until mid-morning.

The rains put the kibosh on trying to resolve the A/C drain repairs, as there was no way I was climbing an aluminium ladder in rain storms with the amount of lightening that was around – no Fro for this Bro!! No real dramas though, I had the hot water relief valve to sort out.

With the amount of renovations, repairs and re-work I’ve completed over the years, as well as the advice and assistance I’ve provided my mates with their new builds, it comes as no surprise to me that the “quality” of “workmanship” is solely reliant on builders enforcing the sub-contractors race to the cheapest and quickest solution for most works undertaken. This is especially prevalent with the so-called hidden trades of plumbing, electrical, heating & cooling.

The legacy of this was borne out at Mike & Bek’s place with me having to cut the hot water system drain pipe to be able to remove the Temperature and Pressure (T&P) Relief Valve. A simple two dollar PVC barrel union was all it would have taken. So instead of it being a simple 5-minute and $16.22 for the valve, it would have cost at least an hours labour for a plumber, plus their callout fee, plus parts.

No matter for me, not that I make things ½ pregnant with any of my house repairs or projects, it took me a couple of hours to not only replace the valve, but also to plumb it correctly so that it’s a 5-minute job should it need replacing in the future. Most of the time was spent acquiring the parts required for the job, if the truth be told.

Lunch was a pretty ordinary affair at El Fenix, which hopefully does not rise from the ashes, should it burn down. The Lunch Menu offering of a Chicken Chipotle Enchilada and a Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada for $8.99 could best be described as baby or retirement centre “food”.

The afternoon was spent trying to track down some door sill protectors for my Ford Ranger, as well as sourcing a better solution for the mounting of the Boom Audio amps in the panniers of my Harley, than the double-sided tape the manufacturer ships the bike with, which is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

By some stroke of Unicorn fairy dust, I also managed to update my corporate wardrobe and replacement bed linen before someone fronted me and demanded my “Man Card” back for crimes against Manderstanding and Metro-sexuality.

Here we are on another slack attack Sunday, the 10^th one of the trip so far, and I really had no wish to do anything at all.

The day started with updating the blog with the couple of days I lost in transit from Costa Rica to the United States. I also had a bit of laundry to freshen up my socks & jocks supply to last me the next week while I’m here.

While I was in the laundry, I thought I’d help out by throwing on 3 large loads for Bek who was working today, then get them dried, folded, stack & packed so that she can hopefully put her feet up when she gets home.

I gathered up the rest of the “Christner crew” and headed over to the Brisket Brew for a feed. Have to say that for a joint whose name is the business; their brisket burger was a dry argument that was also oily from them heating up the meat on the griddle.

In an interesting twist, it seems the final episode of Game of Thrones has caused some angst over here in the United States of A Miracle. The media is all abuzz with reports of professional support networks, including councillors and medical professionals, being available for those who may requiring them due to the shows closing.

Dr Fitz prescribes taking two teaspoons of concrete and harden the farq up!!!

For dinner Mike knocked up his Crawdad Étouffée for dinner, while my contribution to the meal was fresh French Vanilla ice cream topped with frozen peanut M&M’s.

BTW – we managed to survive the evening without viewing Game of Thrones or requiring professional medical assistance.

Need to give myself an uppercut for agreeing to a 6:15AM flight, but as I’m often heard to say – shit happens.

I was up at 2:30AM to shower, read the online papers and sort all the fiddly stuff out that’s associated with international travel. To say I was a bit anxious about this particular leg of the trip, considering my last landing in the U.S., would be a huge understatement. I have no control over US Immigration, so I wasn’t sure why I was worrying about it so much.

I was in the hotel lobby at 3:15 to cancel the 3AM wakeup call that didn’t eventuate, which fortuitously corresponded with my transfer driver lobbing up. I reckon he must have been on a promise with the missus, as he was consistently punching 120 kph (75 mph) on 80 kph (50 mph) posted roads. No matter for me as I was glad to beat most of the queues with checking in.

Checking in also marked a milestone with all my travel. It was the first time that I would be Skiplagging. What is this you ask? When booking this flight, it was $859 USD one way direct to Dallas, but when making booking with the continuing flight to Los Angeles, it was $229 USD in total + $41 for seat selection + $30 for one checked bag.

I know for certain that all incoming US international flights have to pass Immigration and Customs on first port of call, this case it being Dallas, I’ll simply collect my bag from the carousal and head to the rental car agency and “forgetting” to catch the continuing flight, hence the term Skiplagging.

American Airlines flight 2436 departed on time at 6:15AM and was scheduled as a 4½ hour flight, but once airborne the Captain announced that he was pedalling a bit harder in trying to beat a weather front in to Dallas and we should arrive ½ an hour earlier, which true to his word, we did.

With a fair amount of trepidation, I hit the Immigration Visa Waiver station, grabbed my perceived lottery receipt and fronted Officer Perez in lane 1. “What’s your purpose here sir – business or pleasure?” Visiting family, I respond. He swipes my passport – “Enjoy your stay sir”.

Fair dinkum, 6 1/2 minutes from de-planing to collecting my bag and clearing Customs – it’s amazing to see what happens when you don’t have a big X on you visa waiver receipt.

I take hold of my brand new 2020 Dodge Ram Durango GT 4 door 4×2 with all the bells and whistles, including the optional 6.4 litre V8 Hemi & 8 speed auto ….. all that and more for $28 USD a day.

I head out into torrential rains that followed me all the way up to where I’m staying and as freeway visibility and speeds had reduced to non-existent, I pulled over at an Arby’s to grab a quick bite to eat.

Whilst waiting for my order, some fella with grandma’s nasty tablecloth for a shirt, blue jeans and high heel cowboy boots waltzes in with a six shooter and a Bowie knife strapped to his hip and announces loudly “Break time is over, you have an important customer here now.” I’m like … WTF.

I’ll give the server her dues as she greets him cordially, adding “How are you sir?” He comes back with “I woke up this morning as an American and that’s all anyone could ever wish to be!” I’m like ….. DILLIGAF tosser. Never in all my years in the U.S. had I heard such shit and judging on how some of the other customers visible cringed at the statement – neither had they as well.

I collect my meal, but am missing a cup for my post mix drink. I ask the server for a cup, to which she responds “Why?” Yeah, I know, I can’t help myself sometimes and respond with “it makes the transportation of liquids, especially hot ones, convenient.”

I get to Mike & Bek’s fanging for a beer and after a quick run down to the shop for a grocery run, I have that well in hand. Young Mikey gets the evening meal going and with assistance from all the family, is able knock up a pretty good garlic & lime marinated pork loin fillets with green leaf salad with toasted pine nuts, mango, and Spanish onions dressed with a lemon/lime, honey and mango juice vinaigrette.