My 3D Adventures

Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W1In the last month I’ve been getting completely re-excited by 3D, or stereoscopic photography and gaming.  Recently Fujifilm released the first ever commercial 3D digital camera (I saw it on The Gadget Show), and after a week of realising I didn’t have the money to buy it, I bought one anyway.

If you’re unaware of stereoscopic photography, or at least sketchy on the details, the camera basically just takes two photos: one for each eye.  Then, somehow (and there are about 5 different viewing methods) each image is presented back to each eye.  The most common method for viewing a stereoscopic image is probably anaglyphs, which is the typical red-blue or red-green filtered image popular in the 60s.  However, because each image is being filtered and differently coloured images are being shown to each eye, it destroys the effect of colour in the scene you perceive.  In modern cinemas 3D films are presented with differently polarised light and filtered glasses, which is a better approach for colour but does result in a certain amount of ghosting, as each eye may see some light from the other eye’s image.  If you’re particularly adventurous, you may also be able “free-view” images presented side-by-side, by going cross-eyed, or making your eyes go parallel.  This is a similar technique to viewing a magic eye picture.3D Fancy Dress

So my apologies if I’ve been rampantly snapping your mug with my new toy, but be assured it’s all in the interest of raising awareness of stereoscopic photography.  I love how it adds such a sense of depth to your pictures, very much like pausing a live scene in front of you.  I can feel a lot more like I’m back there at the moment of the photograph.

Fujifilm are also running a 3D printing service at fujifilmreal3d.com, where you upload your stereo images and they send you printed lenticular sheets.  This is the same material a lot of 3D DVD covers are currently using.  There is quite a lot of ghosting but if the parallax (the seperation between the images) is right, the effect can look good.  I have ordered a few prints and will hopefully get the first batch soon.

The camera is still very expensive (retailing for about £400) but I managed to get mine from eBay for £300.  I trust those “as new” condition items, if the seller’s feedback is good.

I’ve uploaded a few of my favourite 3D photos to my gallery here on my website (www.davidaddis.com if you’re reading this on Facebook), in (red-blue) anaglyph format as it seems to be the most accessible at the moment.  In the future, I would love a WordPress gallery that archives MPO files, and then allows the user to choose the viewing format.  I am a programmer, so maybe I should make one?

This is not an advert for Fujifilm by the way, I am just very enthusiatic.  🙂

Geared Level 80

One cog away...
One cog away…

Are you totally stuck on Geared for iPhone?  On level 80, by any chance?  I was, for days!  It seems totally impossible at first, but after a while I discovered several tricks (that seem like exploits in the game) that allow you to finish the level.  Read on if you’d like to know what they are…

First of all, soon after loading the level, you are able to place cogs almost on top of other existing cogs.  If you place several more of your own cogs (in distant places), this ability will disappear.  Is this a bug in the game?  Maybe.  But it does seem to be vital to completing this level.  So the first step is to (straight after loading the level) place two small gears almost bang on top of the two central blue gears.  They will fall down into the gaps below them.

You can then place the big gear above the yellow gear, and drop a smaller one in from above to connect it to the two lower-central blue gears.  Now the four gears directly above the yellow gear should all be turning.

On the left hand side, drop in two small gears to connect the lower-left gear and the one directly up and to the right of it.  Try to keep these as low as possible so they don’t interfere with the large gears we will place next.

Finally place two large gears in the top-left and top-right.  You may have to fiddle with the top-left gear to keep everything turning and not clashing with the small gears we placed.

Now you should have the same setup as this image.  Just place your final small gear above the bottom-right gear to get everything turning!  And even if the gears in the top-left are clashing, the level may complete anyway, which seems like exploiting another bug!

I felt a bit cheap completing the game this way, as if I had cheated.  But I couldn’t see a more legitimate way to finish the level.  Has anyone else managed it?

Edit: There has now been an update which addresses the gear placement issue, making this solution no longer possible.  Also, there *is* a valid solution.  But after googling it I thought I’d tried it already!  Perhaps the update made it easier to place the gears correctly?

*** UPDATE ***

After buying the add-on packs for geared, and investing an even more worrying amount of time into the game, I went back to level 80 to look at the proper solution.  It’s certainly pretty difficult, and requires very precise placement of the big gear at the bottom, but with some trial and error it is possible.  You will want to get to this state:

And then just move that small gear on the bottom-right into the gap above it to connect all the gears.

Phew!  I think that was the hardest level!  Even after the add-on packs, the immovable gears, and the crazy falling obstacles.  🙂

Apple Slice

New York is a melting pot of diversity, overflowing with people. It seems to be much more European than other cities we’ve visited, more cultural in some ways, but with the classic Americana missing – people won’t help you across the street or offer you a lift into town, but you’ll be drawn into the hot subway to see the mass of attractions downtown anyway.

So it seems like a city built outside of the USA. You can forget some of the sweeping generalisations I previously made about Americans. Politeness isn’t the top priority here, in fact after 24 hours we felt like the city was downright hostile. But with an exciting and alluring undercurrent.

After our long train journey from Niagara, we set about finding our hotel, and went through the subway. It really is hot down there, all the time, and you’ll need about 3 different wardrobes to stay comfortable. Or I recommend a zip-up jacket so you can strip as soon as it gets stuffy. Some of the trains themselves are air-conditioned, but not all. We stayed at On The Ave, a short walk from the red line metro, and a convenient launching place into the rest of Manhattan. We checked in and were given room 911 which I thought was quite amusing, especially as we’d be there on the anniversary of 911 as well.

On The Ave is great but really expensive – over $200 a night!! Back home I’m saving the pennies for a PlayStation 3, yet here I’m spending nearly it’s full RRP every night on a hotel room. Other things around here are expensive too – snacks, drinks, meals are all heavily marked up. Not the America we saw driving up the country.

On our first full day we went to see the Statue of Liberty. I don’t know about you but I always thought it towered over New York like the giant Jesus statue in Rio, like an enormous overlooking protector. But compared to the skyline it’s actually rather *small*. It’s still an incredibly characteristic and charismatic shape, and reaches into the sky in such a way as to warm the heart of even the most unpatriotic cynic.

That evening we also tracked down the Chrysler building, which has a cool spikey top, and went up the Empire State Building. It’s not as high as the Willis Tower or the Toronto CN Tower, but it has such a cool chic marble interior, and a great view of New York in every direction. That night the top was lit up orange.

We wanted some drinks in a bar before calling it a night, and popped into TGI Friday in Times Square – and just a few potato skins and 6 drinks later, we had spent $100! We were both aghast, but drunk enough just to pay it and move on, to find a cheaper bar if possible.

Then I was struck by a strange drunken urge to have a really lavish night out. I can’t explain it exactly, but at some point when my enthusiasm and drunkeness are in perfect balance, I want to just go mad, to see how much I can drink before I die. And I’d drink the world dry if I had to. After more mojitis (for some reason, I’d stuck purely to cocktails), I thought I might stay up all night, and I was feverishly trying to convince Sarah to join me. But perhaps she sensed the self-destructive path I had set myself on, and stopped drinking. Although when the barman announced free shots for all the girls who danced on the bar, I convinced her to get up there with gusto. And I think secretly she did enjoy that a bit.

Then it got around to 3am, and realising we *had* agreed to meet my friend Andy (from Lionhead) and his fiancée in the morning, we called it a night. Though Sarah was definitely the voice of reason to my impromptu party animal.

New York is very well serviced for museums! The next day it was chucking it down with rain so it was ideal to explore the American Natural History Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The former we explored with Andy and Marion (this is where Night at the Museum was filmed, btw), and saw a fascinating light show in the planetarium – the sweeping elegance of the universe marred only by our disgruntled hangovers.

We saw some very famous paintings. This might sound odd but it was exciting to see paintings I actually *already knew*, and being an amateur to the world of art I knew that meant they were important. The most famous was probably the self portrait of Van Goph, which had a queue of 10 art buffs waiting to have their picture taken with it. Nerds.

There was a comedy show on that night – and we had bought tickets on the spur of the moment in Times Square. Now we’d had a bad experience with discount comedy in London – on one occassion we were stuck in a room with a sexist biggot who thought all his jokes about rape and child molestation were hilarious – and we were wary this would happen again. But we headed out to the club, Dangerfields, with an open mind. And we were amazed! It was excellent! They had 4 comics, supposedly famous from SNL but we didn’t recognise them. They were all good and there was one particularly good impressionist who could do Kramer (from Seinfeld) which had me in stitches.

I received merely scorn when I asked some locals for directions “to the Ghostbusters fire house”, but we rallied with google maps and found it! It was cool to think such a classic geek-chic building was right in front of me. Now it really *is* a fire station, but there’s a nod to the film in the shape of the Ghostbusters logo just inside the main entrance.

The next day we met up with Andy and Marion again to queue up at Nintendo World for a copy of Scribblenauts. I wasn’t especially keen on queueing with nerds (enduring the midnight launch of Halo 3 was bad enough – I actually felt my virginity growing back), but half of them were tiny Japanese girls so it was ok. Andy and I met the developers (and Andy couldn’t help telling them we were also in the industry) and got the cartridges signed.

There was just enough time to take a whirlwind tour of Bloomingdales (not the best place for buying menswear, FYI) and gawped at the $100-$400 price tags on everything. Then we stocked up on American sweets, and got the train to the airport.

There’s still so much of New York left to see and experience – but I feel like we got a really good slice of a few things. And it was a good way to finish up our trip through the USA. I’m writing this on the plane, about to land at Heathrow, thinking it would have been easy to spend a week or two just in NYC.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my travel-blog, I’ve liked writing it and it’s been a handy way to reflect on what we’ve done. I hope no-one’s read it purely out of some misguided sense of loyal friendship – only that it was quite readable and perhaps even entertaining. If you’re travelling the states or doing a trip vaguely similar to ours, I’d love to hear about it!

^_^

Dave

Shipwrecked with Smurfs

Looking around us, blue coats yelp as we are sprayed repeatedly with fine streams of water, and we are surrounded by a thick mist and whooshing roar of a powerful natural phenomenon. This is Niagara Falls!

We’ve had some lazy days on holiday, and probably our time in Toronto was the pinnacle: we got off our greyhound coach at 6am (noticing we’d gone through yet another timezone), and trudged to our hotel. But awesomely: it was The Hilton. Months earlier we’d found a suspiciously good deal on the internet and gone for it, aware that it might well be bogus.

We got there at about 6:30am and inquired about our reservation. I was convinced at this point that we’d been swindled but incredibly, all was fine. Our 4-star room had been paid in full! And they even let us check in then (8 hours early!) to start enjoying it. We found our room, and went straight to sleep. A greyhound seat being a poor substitute for a bed.

Waking up at noon we then went to the pool, and chilled out and read books. This, my friends, is a holiday. Perhaps we squandered our brief time in Canada. But we certainly did enjoy it. And we still had time to go up the CN Tower (and look down through yet *another* glass floor), and walk around the docks. Toronto looks very diverse, and I’d love to go back at some point to try the hippo tour bus that also goes on water.

The next day we started our Niagara Falls tour, and headed South, then East to the Niagara peninsula. Our tour seemed a bit disorganised and quite random – why did we stop at a vineyard?? I’m here to see a big waterfall! We also stopped at the niagara whirpool, found just down the river from the falls, and an enormous floral clock. I said very dryly to Sarah, “What did he mean, four o’ clock, it’s only half one.” But my humour was lost on our tour companions, who merely gave me condascending glances.

As we got near the falls, I went through the process (as any new visitor does) of comparing my expectations to reality. The falls isn’t a single long, thin waterfall. Actually it’s two different waterfalls, the “American Falls” and the “Horseshoe Falls”, the latter being the more famous (and let’s face it, America: the more interesting) one. They are both much wider than they are deep, although the horseshoe falls is still deep – over 50 metres.

We took a boat ride out called the Maid of the Mist, and were given free blue raincoats. But I was disappointed to find out they were little more than bin bags with holes cut in them for your limbs. We set off to farewells of “Enjoy your free shower.” Pah, I thought, I could take a little bit of fog.

Going past the American Falls we realised how big they really are, with people scattered around them like ants, all drawn in by the fury of the white rocketing water, as we were. Then we got close to the Horseshoe Falls and I realised it was actually going to get quite wet. The falls kicked up a LOT of spray and we were headed right for it! But we grinned in anticipation, pulled our makeshift bin bags over us and headed in. The boat positioned itself in the centre of the horseshoe and the falls roared around us, and I felt quite in awe. The water had a fresh airy taste and it was thrilling to be drenched in it. And very funny to look around at everyone, resembling smurfs, on the sodden deck.

We got back on dry land, found our suitcases, and attempted to locate our hostel. Our lonely planet book had recommended a “central” one – unfortunately central to downtown Niagara, not the falls itself. So we started walking, intending to hop into a taxi if we found one.

We walked, and kept walking, and nearly got arrested for jaywalking before I hopped back on the pavement, and realised we’d taken a dent out of the 1.6 miles to our hostel. With all our things it was quite an effort to walk though. But have you ever started a thing, got so far, regretted it, then realised you might as well just finish it? And so our baggage-laden walk became like a bad book, and we knuckled down to do the whole thing. At least it saved a few dollars.

I’d never been in a hostel before, and I was impressed to find a full kitchen, approachable other guests and a full entertainment room downstairs. The room was basic though – it didn’t even have a bidet. We played pool, then spoke to an Italian couple who kindly gave us a lift back to the falls.

And it looked just as good at night, when they shine coloured lights onto the falls. I took a few high-exposure photos (don’t worry people! I will put them on facebook soon) and got quite damp from the ever-present spray that reaches over the banks.

I have occasionally wondered if I am slightly autistic and this conversation with Sarah only reinforced that thought:

Sarah: “When do you think they started lighting the falls?”
Dave: “Well, probably since Sunset.”
Sarah: (Pauses to chuckle) “No, I mean, which YEAR??”

What do you think? Maybe I need help. Although I insist her question was ambiguous.

Only two streets away from Niagara Falls is a road called Clifton Avenue, which is a tiny bit like Las Vegas, transplanted next to an amazing natural phenomenon. It comes off as especially tacky next to the natural beauty of the falls, but we still had some late fun there playing glow-in-the-dark mini golf and going to a karaoke bar, though neither of us were quite drunk enough to sing (if only they’d had some Flight of the Conchords, that would’ve been a slam-dunk).

We got back to our hostel via the slightly unpredictable falls shuttle, and slept in our basic but comfy bed.

And now we’re on the Amtrak train to our final destination: New York. And for I think the first time in my life, I’ve upgraded from basic/cheap/coach/economy tickets. It’s business class! Where our legs have the freedom to stretch, and gold-plated flunkies fetch me tea and croissants at my vaguest whim. Although, I am a bit of a socialist, so I feel slightly guilty.

St Louis and Chicago

My stomach is a battlefield, my intestines the trenches. Corpuscles run in fear as mustard gas erupts around them and arteries wince as more saturated fat rains down from the sky.

I think it’s safe to say I’m having a hard time adjusting to a holiday diet – after a huge dinner out one night, and countless desserts, I have completely lost my appetite. It may be because back home I generally eat plain bread and sandwiches, and here I’ve subsisted mainly on doughnuts and fatty treats. Now I have no idea when I should eat – I just do because it feels right – but I enjoy more extravagant meals anyway.

And extravagant, rich, buttery foods are available everywhere. Now I’m actually trying to avoid them, but when the standard stop for a Greyhound coach is at the local McDonalds, it becomes difficult.

We’ve now completed the Route 66 part of our journey – we’re in Chicago. This is technically where 66 starts, running all the way to LA, so we’ve essentially done the first half of the road backwards.

St Louis, our final driving destination, was great. It felt like a big city but without a lot of the congestion, and had a lot to offer eager sightseeing tourists (like us). We went up the enormous “Gateway Arch”, took a trip down the river, and saw an American Football game. I can’t honestly say I understood what was going on most of the time, but I enjoyed the atmosphere at the stadium, and the hot dogs sold outside were terrific.

We had a chance to try a local delicacy – frozen custard! It was very nice, actually a lot like ice cream (and you can get it flavoured with all sorts of other things).

We had an interesting greyhound coach up to Chicago, because we were packed on without about 10 ex-cons who had been freed that day. At first it was pretty scary, and we didn’t even ask what they had been arrested for, but they were just pleased to be going home. I did have to avoid some threatening gazes that came my way though.

Yesterday in Chicago we took a water taxi to the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower), the tallest building in the states, and queued for hours to go up it. I should tell you that I have two fears: heights and spiders. I suppose my absolute worst nightmare might be to be dangled from a great height above an enormous spider, but anyway, the Willis Tower Skydeck seemed specifically designed to torture people like me. They’ve built glass floors into overhanging ledges from the 103rd floor of the tower. And being the glutton for punishment that I am, I just had to go over it. Sarah did well and stood near the end quite early on (though she did admit that it was quite scary) – I had to kneel down and back onto it, only snatching glimpses of the sheer 1,000 foot drop below us. There’s a good photo (that I can’t post yet) of us above the ledge, pure fear visible in my eyes.

After we descended we ate at Giordano’s, who make stuffed pizzas with your choice of ingredients, went to the Threadless retail clothes shop, and went to a late night blues bar. After only 24 hours in Chicago, I felt like it was a very cool place.

Today we got up and frantically tried to dry our clothes which we had washed in the bath yesterday, although all my underwear was still soaking wet. I jammed it all in the suitcase anyway, acutely aware that I may open it in Toronto to find a bundle of mouldy boxers.

We just had time to hire bikes and cycle from the beach (yes, Chicago has a beach – with proper sand) to Navy Pier. It’s a tourist fest, a pier jammed full of restaurants, stalls and cheesy attractions, but still worth a look.

Now we’re on the Greyhound once again, faced with a 14 hour trip to Toronto, going through Detroit and London (the one in Ontario). I’m not looking forward to the 3am stop, but at least sleeping on a coach saves accomodation money.

Cruise Control

Most of my driving duties have been stripped away from me: we’re driving an automatic, so there are no gears or clutch, and when I turn on cruise control, I don’t need to touch any pedals at all – just steer. It’s a pretty cool feature actually, and it means we can go at the speed limit the whole way without babysitting the accelerator. But still, I’m starting to feel superfluous to the driving experience.

We’ve just arrived in St Louis, the final destination for the actual driving part of our road trip. To get here we’ve been through some other small towns, like Miami (the small one in Oklahoma), Joplin, Springfield and Kansas City. Some places we go through seem little more than excuses for rows of fast food restaurants and gift shops.

Some places have been very cool though, Springfield had some interesting and quirky art galleries and shops to look in (did you know that 35 states have some sort of community called Springfield? Probably why The Simpsons chose it), and Clinton was a quaint little village you can imagine from remote crime dramas on Channel 4 late at night, where everyone knows everyone and the whole town is based around 1 square in the middle.

Being on the road everything is improvised. We usually don’t know where we’re staying until hours before. It’s incredibly liberating but a little scary too: every night runs the risk of making us sleep in the car.

But it also gives us the freedom to just show up and try things out. Yesterday we decided to explore Kansas City, which is an odd place because it’s the capital of Kansas, but straddles the border into Missouri as well – and in fact all the interesting bits are on the Missouri side. We got there and found a hotel at the last minute, then after a little research found a jazz bar and went out for dinner. It was great to explore the central plaza at night, which was all lit up, and full of fountains (KC has as many fountains as Rome).

This morning we just followed our noses, and found a leaflet for an urban segway tour. That’s right! Those strange upright scooters that seem to defy balance. And after an hour of messing around on one, I can say that they are AWESOME. They’re very easy to ride, it intuitively just goes in the direction you lean. And they balance perfectly, it seems to constantly compensate for your body and itself. Shame they’re nearly £5k in the UK!

Now we have just over a day to look around St Louis. Time to try the local delicacy: frozen custard!

Davy’s On The Road Again

Driving somewhere new can be exciting; as can driving a new car, or a different kind of car, or under different road laws. So when all of those factors come together you experience a thrill which is equal parts childish excitement and grown-up fear of responsibility. As I cruised on our first strip of Route 66 to Tulsa, I was acutely aware that I might crash or turn the wrong way, but also high with excitement, and perilously close to shouting “Yee-ha” like some sort of newly indoctrinated cowboy.

Sarah and I only got about 10 miles down the road before realising it was getting late, and dark, and we wanted to actually see the road we’d come all this way to drive, so we found an Econolodge by the road (in “Chandler” which made us think of Friends, especially as we were heading to Tulsa) and stayed there for the night. The restaurant had closed early so it was M&Ms for dinner, but we did manage to procure some hot water and make some proper Tetley tea, which was incredibly satisfying.

The next morning we hit the road and found a small village called Stroud – a banner announcing it as “The Place To Be”. No-one else seemed to think so though, as the streets were deserted and most of the shops boarded up. We walk up and down the street then get back in the car.

We drove through a couple more small towns, and admired some of the classic car garages with pin-up letters on the boards outside, some seedy looking cafes, and the odd historical monument. There is a particularly revered big round barn, although we didn’t quite see the attraction of it ourselves.

Only about half an hour later, we got to Tulsa, and found some free parking so we could look around downtown. It was mid-afternoon on a Saturday but the streets were almost entirely empty. It was a bit spooky but we persevered onto a place called the Gypsy Coffee House, which came recommended by our Lonely Planet book. We were pleased to step inside and see other customers, in fact it’s quite lively in there.

We left Tulsa – still seeing only a handful of people outside – and got a little lost, since our GPS (an app for iPhone called Copilot) kept directing us to the I-44 instead of Route 66. But we manage to get back on the mother road and head further northeast.

Going past a Walmart we just had to stop, and were pleased to find out they really do sell everything. We loaded up on microwavable food – some hot pockets and steamed veg – figuring we could try to find a motel with a microwave.

Then we had an interesting challenge of finding a motel, and deciding if we wanted to stay there based on the 2 minute drive through the town while we get there. We pass through some towns like Chelsea, most of which seem to be little more than service stops for traffic, then found one called Vinita which seems ok. We booked a room at the Vinita Inn. Now this is a classic American motel with all the rooms connected together, doors facing outward (like from My Name Is Earl). There were a few flies buzzing around, and the air con is a bit loud, but it’s only $40 for the night so we’re happy with it.

We bumped into a few other guests who ask us if we’re there for the rodeo. What, here? It seems odd because it’s not a major city. But we say we might go and see it, just out of curiosity.

We ate our improvised but tasty dinner and go in search of the rodeo. Everyone else must have driven because we had to walk through a building site. And half expecting some sort of trumped-up cattle market, we walk through the gate to find a stadium packed full of people. There’s a buzz of excitement and I get the feeling we’re about to see something good.

And it really is good: cowboys riding bucking broncos, lassooing steers, and speed riding around barrels. One cowboy is hurt badly when he’s thrown from a horse, and he lies crumpled in the middle of the arena for a minute, motionless. So imagine the cheers when he’s helped to his feet, although he hobbles off looking concussed.

The night culminated in bullriding, which looks very, very difficult. The men are thrown around and do well to stay on for just a few seconds. Throughout, two presenters made introductions and banter to keep the whole thing going.

Impressed, we scrambled back through the building site to our motel. We had a beer with some other guests and talked about Oklahoma and the UK. It’s difficult to explain the full history of Ireland, but answer some other questions. We told them we were going to New York and they seem unimpressed: “Why d’you want to go to that den of misery?” they reply. We tell them because our flight is cheapest from there.

Branching Out

It was really raining heavily in Oklahoma City, but it was also really hot, so our first impression was that the city was like a broken shower.

It took a little while to orient ourselves and while I was looking confused for a second some guy came out of nowhere to talk to me:

“Hey, where y’all from?”
“England”
“What’re your plans now?”
“We need to find The Grandison inn”
“It’s just down there, here I’ll take you”

At first I think we’ve got lucky, and I have to admit I was just about to get Sarah and say we could get a lift. Then he became a little too insistent and warning lights went off. He also did not seem like licensed cabbie.

“C’mon man, it’s two blocks that way”
“Oh… Well then actually we might just walk”
“Nah c’mon, I’ll take you there for a couple of bucks”
“No, seriously, I’m sorry but we’ll be fine”
“But I really need the money”
“Sorry, uh, but no…”
“PLEASE”
“Sorry, really, no!”

At this point I’m backing away and trying to make some distance. We look at the map and realise he told us the wrong direction anyway. And it was quite a but further. Holy crap: what would have happened if we’d got in his car? I didn’t want to dwell on it too much.

So we find the right direction and head off. It had dried up now leaving the odd puddle and a red hot Sun overhead. I jumped between shadows and we dragged our suitcases over bumpy pavements trying not to jaywalk too often.

We got about halfway, really hot and flustered, and looked up a very long street towards our destination, and all of it was steeply uphill.

And then, an official looking car pulled up beside us. And an official looking man in a blue uniform is asking us where we’re going. Great, I think, we’ve gone from getting mugged to getting arrested.

But some comprehension falls on my mind, and we realise he’s just offering us a lift. For free! And he’s a member of the fire department, so he’s legit and isn’t trying to pick up an unwilling cab fair. So I swipe all my suspicion thankfully to the side, and get into his car, with much gratitude.

He takes us to The Grandison, which we then realise is a beautiful Victorian house, and we meet the owner. Suddenly everyone is being so kind and I feel very good inside. We go to see our ‘Treehouse’ room, and find out it’s just about the most silly but cosy love nest imaginable: everything is fashioned like we’re in the branches of a tree, and previous occupants have graffitied the walls with “Leo loves Kathryn 4 Ever” notes and drawings. There are also a lot of quotes from the bible scribbled on the wall.

We chill out for a bit (and I can finally shave), and we decide to go to “Bricktown”, a cool central suburb of Oklahoma City. Some family members of the hotel owner kindly offer to give us a lift in.

Originally the plan was to go to Mickey Mantle’s Steakhouse, but after we’re seated we balk at the prices. $35 for a steak! I’m sure it’s good but we’re on a budget so we apologetically leave. It’s quite embarassing as we pass the counter on the way back, but preferable in the face of financial ruin.

Instead we go to Zio, a lot like Zizzi back home – and much more economical. Sarah orders a huge aubergine meal and I chuckle as she tries to eat even half of it.

Next we popped in to Murphy’s, where they feature “duelling pianos”, essentially two guys playing requests (of absolutely any style) and embarassing people on hen nights and the like. It was very amusing when one hen got invited to sit on the piano while she was played a song all about tumultuous married life.

The next morning we scrambled out of bed after the best night of sleep ever – a bed being infinitely more comfortable than the greyhound seat the night before. We took a shuttle to the station to commence the 2nd leg of the journey, and the initial reason for everything: hiring a convertible and driving up route 66.

In high spirits we marched up to Dollar car hire, and inform the guy behind the counter of our reservation. And in the blink of an eye, all our hopes are dashed – they don’t have any convertibles. Our hearts didn’t just sink. They crashed out of the sky, and splashed into the ocean, coming to a rest on the sea floor. He only had SUVs! Thanks, Dollar, but that’s not quite the experience I had in mind!! And why couldn’t they find a reasonable substitute, or at least TELL ME in advance??

Severely disappointed and simultaneously abhoring everything Dollar stood for, we asked at Avis, Empire and Hertz but with no luck. And I didn’t expect any, I’d done all this research already months ago. We had one more option – to go to National & Alamo down the road. We took the free shuttle there, figuring it was worth a shot.

On-site we found a pokey cabin, and ask about hiring a car to Chicago. Success, they can do it! But surely not a convertible..? Our assistant peers out of the window and the fleet of cars. Yes they can!!

And the price? Dollar quoted me $900. So I expect about a grand, and mentally prepare myself for $1100. And a number comes back which I don’t hear the first time. $1900…?!

A lady fiddles with the computer and sorts out some discounts, but she can’t get it to less than $1820. For a while I consider just paying it anyway, since we came all the way here. But we find some alternatives; what if only I drove… What if we took it just to St Louis? That’s about half-way to Chicago.

And that’s more reasonable, $1200. Or at least feasible. So after a lot if deliberation, we take it. I jokingly suggest we’ve set some sort of record for booking time, and the lady glumly nods. But she does seem to like us, and has applied every discount under the Sun at this point. It’s odd that the rental is based on distance instead of time though. We still get it for a week, but have to drop it at St Louis. Technically we could drive it to Chicago and then *back* to St Louis for the same cheaper price.

It’s a lot of fun getting into our new vehicle and we put the top down immediately. It’s a sexy Chrysler Sebring and I try to get a feel for the controls. The brake is super sensitive and just wafting your foot near it causes the car to come to an immediate stop, lurching the seat belt into your ribs.

After a shaky start with my iPhone’s copilot app trying to direct us the wrong way down two one-way roads, and the pressure of totally alien road laws, we get going back to Bricktown. We take the water taxi, look around, and indulge our inner tourists for a few hours.

We also took the chance to look at the Oklahoma bombing memorial. Before 9-11 this was considered the worst act of American terrorism – when a truck bomb was exploded next to a federal building in 1995. The memorial is a huge rectangular shallow pool where the road used to be. And the 168 people who died are signified by glass chairs showing where they would have been. It’s a very sombre and peaceful place. The American Elm which survived the blast is called the “Survivor Tree”, and you can see how it’s been physically blown away from the detonation site. One side is entirely charred.

Glad we could finally get a convertible, but wishing it was slightly cheaper, we put down the top and drove to the North to join Route 66 and start phase 2.

If you’re reading this on Facebook, check the full blog at davidaddis.com for some attached images.

Greyhounded

We arrived in Flagstaff at about 4:30pm on Wednesday, waved goodbye to Elin, and got dropped off at the greyhound station. Immediately two very friendly guys started quizzing us on where we were from and our travel plans. It was nice, if a bit intense, so we chatted along quite happily.

I wanted to take a picture so I reached into the usual pocket and was confused by the absence of my camera. I checked all my pockets. And my rucksack. And Sarah’s bags. Ok, time to panic. I had lost my camera with hundreds of photos already, and all the really good grand canyon ones. A horrible gloomy feeling descended on me; a mixture of guilt and anger: had someone stolen it?

I rang the coach company who had taken us from the canyon to Flagstaff. I spoke to someone straight away who went to search the bus. Minutes passed, mentally hoping he would return triumphant. Eventually he did return, but had not found any camera. He said he’d scoured the whole bus.

I had to come to terms with the fact that I’d lost my camera, and gigabytes of photos and video. I felt slightly sick. And around us as this was happening, the intense conversation about our travel plans and peoples’ distant Irish heritage was continuing. It took all my effort not to scream. I wanted them to understand this was not the time for an interrogation, it was the time to be angry and kick dustbins.

During all of this a native American Indian had arrived, explaining he’d hitch-hiked from Las Vegas. That was impressive (it had taken us a flight and a coach ride). What was more impressive was that he wanted to sing a native song about travelling. So he did. Right in front of 5 total strangers, about 1 minute after meeting all of us.

After the song he seemed to take a very great interest in Sarah, complimenting her on her hair and eyes. He then actually attempted to solicit her. For money. He had a cheeky grin like it was a joke, but it had a disturbingly serious undertone. Maybe I should have been the overprotective boyfriend at this point, but we just chuckled and pretended it was very funny.

Coupled with the camera loss this was about all I could take. I really thought I would explode any second.

And then, like light shining down from the heavens, with a full choir singing in the background, the original coach pulled up, the driver smiling at me. And as he got close he held up my camera. I thanked him profusely, gave him ten dollars, and got my brain back on the track of enjoying the holiday.

We had to wait a little while for the greyhound station to open, then we went in to collect our carefully planned prepaid tickets. One of the friendly guys with a big hat said he’d look after our suitcases while we went to find some dinner, so we left him in charge and started looking for the local Safeway. I was a little concerned we’d come back to find Sarah’s suitcase wide open and her new fan with her knickers on his head, but thought Big Hat Guy would probably prevent that.

We loaded up on delicious foreign snacks; it was really fun picking out things that we half-knew from films, and brands that have different names (like Lays instead of Walkers).

We got back and boarded the bus. This, I thought, would be the toughest part of our trip – 18 hours on the coach, from Flagstaff to Oklahoma City, about 900 miles. It was crowded so I asked someone to move so Sarah and I could sit together. He complied, in total silence which I thought was weird, but I thanked him and we sat down. We set off and both fell asleep fairly quickly, despite the cramped seats and baby gurgling behind us.

Then all the lights came on, blinding us awake. It was the first of many stops. I thought we’d be going for 6 or so hours at a time, but as we progressed I realised we would only do 1 or 2 before taking a break. This was good since I could stretch my legs and go to the loo, but I did also yearn for us to take a big bite out of our journey, rather than nibbling away at it.

We stopped at some well-known cities, like Alburquerque and Amarillo but barely had time to look down the road. As anyone who has used public toilets knows, the quality can vary wildly. But the thing about American ‘restrooms’ seems to be that there is always a huge gap on the sides of the cubicle doors. This means that you feel ever so slightly exposed when you use one. In one station we stopped at, there was a cubicle with no door at all. You’d have to be feeling pretty brave (or extremely desperate) to use that one.

At Amarillo we were half-way through a conversation with a local about Chicago when we noticed two guys behind him getting arrested. An officer dressed in green (which we later found out to be customs and border patrol) was putting two men in handcuffs. They seemed disappointed, not angry, which I thought was odd. Then they were discretely taken away.

We asked a fellow passenger about this and he explained they were probably “illegals”. He seemed totally au fait with the situation but it made me feel a little sad, reminding me that I wished everyone could just live where they wanted. Or rather, that there was no reason people would ever need to desperately leave their hometown.

By this point we’d met quite a few other passengers. We all had one thing in common: we had business in a very different part of the coutry. Some were headed to Oklahoma, some even further to Chicago. But it was interesting how the bus had scooped us all up together for a day. We waved and smiled our goodbyes after drawing into Oklahoma City, which was unexpectedly raining very heavily, and started trying to find our next hotel.

Definitely the Grandest

Grand Canyon Village is surprisingly well supplied. I thought it might be a rag-tag collection of log buildings and archaic coin-operated telescopes, but actually it has all the mod cons you could want – a full (free) shuttle bus service, multiple runways and helicopter pads, a variety of clean and modern cabins, and a choice of restaurants. The people there also seem like a close-knit village – presumably because they are – but they welcome visitors.

Our first taste of the canyon was at Bright Angel Point on the South Rim, well known for its sweeping majestic views. And as we got off the bus we raced each other to the edge for our first few glimpses.

We were surprised. We knew it would be big, but it effectively opened up a couple of extra dimensions in our mind as to just how big something can be. It doesn’t just stretch across one gorge, the canyon is a massive collection of hills, outcrops and ledges, and gashes its way through the ground using many cuts in every direction.

It’s also not just barren rock; some bits look quite fertile and are covered in trees – requiring the government to occasionally start controlled fires to prevent it becoming too thick. On the way towards the canyon we drove through an extremely thick forest, in total the size of Switzerland.

It was baking hot so we slathered on the lotion and also sought some shade. But it was difficult to pull ourselves away for long, and we kept returning to the rim for more views. It’s also like crack for photographers; I could barely let my finger off the shutter before I saw another scene I had to capture.

The canyon is some 270 miles long but the shuttle only serves 10 miles around the village, and we decided to walk back to Bright Angel, our hotel, from Mather Point. The rim is wavy so it offers many different views as you go along. I’m not sure how many photos I took but I had to tear myself away a few times or we’d never make it back by sunset.

It was only 2.5 miles back to Bright Angel but it took us a while due to stops for photos and to record a video of a squirrel looking through peoples’ bags. I thought if I could send that to You’ve Been Framed it was an easy £250.

And when we got to our hotel room we were really surprised. En suite, with a lovely bath and shower, cupboards, great comfy bed, and everything was in good condition and clean. From the outside they have preserved the log cabin look, so we half expected a bed full of termites.

After a shower we headed out for the sunset at Hopi Point, the highest served point on the South Rim. I thought we’d missed it at first (because the first shuttle filled up with other tourists) but we made it with a few minutes to spare. And the views from Hopi were even better than Mather Point. An enormous golden disc releasing plumes of purple and orange before plunging us into darkness made it even more magical.

Eager for a hearty meal, we then returned to the centre to the Arizona Room, and enjoyed exactly the steaks we had been looking for. It was very popular though and we had to wait for a table. They gave us complimentary “corn bread”, which is a bit like sponge cake but even better. I’m not sure exactly what’s in it but I intend to bake a vat of it when I get back. It was very cold when we left (at only about 10pm) and we had to get back inside, but not before enjoying a view of the stars – the big dipper affronted us as we left the restaurant. I think it may be the highest and least polluted place I have ever been.

We knew we would have a difficult decision the next morning, and we did as the icy cold hand of consciousness wrenched me from peaceful slumber at 5am, in the form of my iPhone’s ‘robot’ alarm. We threw on some clothes and went outside – even colder than the night before – and searched for a shuttle.

We saw one headed in the wrong direction but figured a sunrise would look good at Hopi anyway. And predictably, the sunrises are far less popular than the sunsets, so we joined the much smaller queue and clambered on.

For me, the sunrise was more majestic than the sunset. Because you start with dim cloudy mountains in every direction, and slowly shards of light grow over them to reveal their full contours and depth. And the full distance becomes aware to you. Looking at the canyon is a bit like looking at a very long word. You can’t concentrate on the whole thing at any one time, you must focus on a bit then move onto the next.

We took a helicopter tour of the North Rim, and while it was great looking from one rim, it was even more awesome to go *over* it and look down. We could also explore one of the many side canyons. I was slightly distracted by the very cool Eurocopter that we flew out in – it had a full LCD dashboard and an intercom so we could talk to each other easily. I was used to wearing headsets from many hours of late night gaming so I was the most talkative when we were in the air.

Somewhat exhausted from our morning, and feeling like our eyes had eaten too much rich food, we waited for our minibus to take us to Flagstaff. While we were waiting we met a Swedish girl called Elin who’d been couchsurfing for the last few months, something totally new to me. It sounds great if you’re lucky to meet good hosts. It was fun to practice speaking a little Swedish again, and watching some IT Crowd on the way, the time flew by.

As the canyon parted behind us I felt like the locals summed it up very well when they said, “It might not be the world’s longest or widest canyon, but it’s definitely the grandest.”