I was so jet lagged yesterday I swear I was hallucinating. And so I know that I'm actually putting this up on day 24, but on day 23, I couldn't do anything. And I'm still calling it day 23, just for continuity. Hope that's okay.
Anyway, we're home now. And driving back over the moors near our house yesterday, seeing smoke-like mist on the hill tops, hearing the wildlife and the babbling brook in the woods next to our house as the afternoon got quiet made me realise that we have it pretty good here too.
When you go away for three weeks, you can learn a lot, not least what your house really smells like when you get home. For the record, ours is okay. I've also learned that when a holiday is this good, it's hard to go home. I've learned a good bit about America and Americans too. I know I know - whatever I say about America and the American people will be a generalisation. And I don't think I have anything to say that hasn't been said by the millions of other people who've had something to say on them.
America is full of normal people going about their lives in a completely normal way. I'm so glad we got out of the cities and saw these smaller towns where real life was going on. There were small towns everywhere where kids rode their bikes, people played in unfenced yards and neighbours walked across to chat to them. In Nashville we stayed in a proper suburb, along one of those mailbox lined streets where front yards all joined. It was so peaceful, so nice.
The landscape of America is beautiful. I knew I loved mountains (not to climb or do anything athletic with, just to look at), but I didn't know how much I loved them until nestled in White Mountains, or faced with the awesome snowy face of Mount Washington or driving through the mist and virtual rainforest of the Smoky Mountains and some jaw dropping vista opening up out of nowhere. And trees. I knew I loved trees, but the places we visited were blessed with an abundance of them, more than I've ever seen. And the tallest I've ever seen. And in my book, the taller the better. New England was a bit like someone took the Lake District, Sherwood Forest and The Highlands and threw them all together in one place, making all the lakes bigger, the mountains taller and more sprawling and the trees taller and more plentiful. I would have loved to have got further into the Smoky Mountains but half an hour's driving had got me hardly any distance. I would like to go back and walk the Appalachian Trail some day. Paul, the aviation guy we met at the airport on our way home, is going to walk it when he retires in a couple of years. 2,700 miles he said. I would love to do that.
They have everything here: snow, mountains, deserts, sun drenched coastline, rolling countryside, forests, lakes. They've welcomed so many immigrants over the years that it's not hard to get a slice of other cultures if you visit the right places. I get why you might never go anywhere else. And I've also started to get why so many Americans seem so proud of where they're from.
American pride is a very real thing. Their flag is everywhere, not just on court houses, schools and municipal buildings but in people's front yards and out front of some shops and high on the roofs of houses. I never met any of these flag owners of course - who knows what they're actually like. But I get the impression, it's all in the name of pride. In England, the St George's Cross has been hijacked by morons and, understandably, decent people are reluctant to fly it. It's a shame. But then maybe that kind of display of pride isn't how things are done over here. For example, in Boston, there were so many people wearing jumpers that just said 'Boston' on them. And they can't all have been tourists. They were workers and people on their rush hour commute and people on their way to the baseball. But these weren't team colours, these were sweatshirts declaring the pride in their city. Imagine walking round Manchester with a sweatshirt that just said 'Manchester' on it. You'd have to be either a tourist or a student. If you weren't, you'd be mocked or mugged. I'm not saying we don't do pride over here, but the American version of it is overt and visible and I like it. Perhaps we should take more pride in our pride.
Whenever I go on holiday I always try and take something back with me. I don't mean souvenirs (of which there are many from this holiday), but some little way of life I can meld in with my own. Normally, that's just a bit of tranquility that I try to retain as long as possible but which tends to dissipate within an hour of getting back to work.
- I want to drink more coffee. Good coffee, and not too strong like the tar at work.
- And I want to be chipper more. I don't want to be insanely friendly to everyone, don't worry. Just, more chipper day to day.
- I want a more positive outlook. Twice I went up to the desk in hotels and asked to change rooms because I wasn't happy. I would never have done that in England. But there was something that made it permissible in America. Even before I got to the desk, I knew the people I spoke to were going to look at a solution for me, not focus on the problem, why it had happened or why I was unhappy. And I was right. Both times they moved me to better rooms, no questions. Maybe it's emblematic of a better outlook all round, or maybe it's not. But it felt that way. And I'd like that outlook too.
- I want to take up a team sport. Loads of the people I met seemed to play something, even the old guys who got together at the bowling alley in Cape Cod as soon as it opened. None of them were very good at it, which bodes well for my meagre ambitions. Just to get together with friends and have a go at something. Apologies in advance if I rope you into it.
I know it's not all good. I saw everything through the rose tint of a holiday. I saw a few Trump posters and met a few supporters here and there and it didn't please me to see them. But then, I remember driving to A&E the night before we left England, my thumb bound in tissue, and seeing as poster urging me to vote Conservative. In West Yorkshire!? I was horrified. But thankfully some upstanding citizen had had the good grace to deface it. But it just goes to show, we can say what we like about Trump and the frightening potential of America's population to elect him, but we haven't done much better on our own turf. Most people didn't vote Tory and most people won't vote Trump.
And on Trump, I'll just say this. Trump isn't going to make America great again. America is already great. It really is. Of course, there are things that aren't great: healthcare, poverty, drugs, guns. But those aren't things Trump is going to address. America doesn't need Trump. I hope its people don't elect him.
But let's not forget, there is a part of me that will forever be American: the tip of my thumb. More important than any of the above, my thumb rebuilt itself here, fuelled by American food, air and enthusiasm. I imagine my cells adopted a positive attitude to their task and took pride in their work. The cut is becoming a scar, silvering over like a little sheriff's badge at the end of my thumb. My left thumb. My American thumb.
