Speed or precision; Trailers; When were you Est; Pacific vs Atlantic; Bottle openers; Runaway trucks; Elusive elks; Flatland
“Do you want me to drive with speed or precision?” asked Sid. “I can’t do both.”
Trailers. There are some BIG trailers out here. Usually with names like “Solitude” or “GreenField”. Then they all turn into crowded RV sites and winch their sides out and watch TV. I am not understanding this yet.
Est. People think that the whole of Britain is very old, but actually lots of towns aren’t that old, or haven’t been towns for very long, or have replaced all their boring old buildings with new shiny ones. In the US it is much clearer when a town was Est, and they helpfully put it on signs too. They also tend to keep their original street layout, and as many of the buildings as they can assuming that they haven’t burned down. Mystic was Est in 1654 and here on the Johnny-come-lately west coast towns are Est around 1880. I think we have 3 buildings in Bishop’s Stortford which are older than that. And the traffic jam outside Aldi.
After 2 weeks of sailing on the east coast, I look at the Pacific with new eyes. I see rocks, hostile coastlines, far-apart harbours, cold water, and I don’t like it much. I have become an East Coaster without realising it.
In our somewhat downmarket hotel tonight the bottle opener is on the bathroom door, positioned in such a way that you can open a bottle of beer while enthroned. There are many jokes about weak beer but I have never seen such a fine illustration.
We were driving over some fairly serious hilly twisty roads on the Pacific Highway 1. They have runaway truck lanes labelled, without irony, “Runaway Trucks. No Stopping.”
We have seen many signs for elks and mooses but no elk and no moose. Thus is the way of all Beware Of The Wildlife signs.
Have you ever read the book Flatland? It is about beings who only exist in two dimensions, so you can stop them moving by drawing a line in front of them. Rather like humans in fact, except our lines need to be 3-6′ tall. We are not really three-dimensional movers. Unlike birds. I had this thought while thinking about the effect that drones have had on security around prisons and private estates. I am not sure why.