It's the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence.
The semiquincentennial of the United States of America.
To reflect the current President, I'm going to make it all about me.
I've been to the USA 25 times.
Let me tell you about all of them.
🇺🇸 1) 17th July 1976(New York and Vermont)
I first went to America in the month of the bicentennial. I was 11 and had been given permission to miss my last week at primary school so the family could go on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. We spent most of it in Canada staying with my Mum's penfriend but one week was spent driving round Lake Ontario in their car and camper van, and it was amazing. We entered the USA via the Thousand Islands Border Crossing, where the dressing comes from, and spent the first night at the nearby KOA campsite. I still have the litterbag, as you can see.
For an interesting diversion we drove across the top of New York state to Vermont, finding a pitch in Burlington on the banks of Lake Champlain. We took the gondola to the top of Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in the state, and went to Stowe to see the ski lodge where the Von Trapp family lived. Unfortunately we were two years to early to buy an ice cream from the original Ben & Jerry's. The next day we headed into the Adirondacks and stopped at High Falls Gorge, where they tied a sign to our front bumper in the hope we'd drive around advertising them. I nabbed it and kept it instead. Five miles further on was Lake Placid, home to the 1932 Winter Olympics and pencilled in for 1980, where I looked through a window and saw the ice rink where Robin Cousins would win gold.
The long drive through the mountains continued, now heading southwest across New York state. I had my very first McDonald's meal and was excited by their special Olympic scratchcard offer where you won prizes if a US athlete won a medal at the Montreal Games (which had just begun across the border). Gold for a Big Mac, silver for fries and bronze for a Coke, not that we ever won. I also enjoyed playing pinball and pool at the five American campsites we stopped off at. Finally we headed west on Route 90 aiming for Niagara Falls where all the good stuff was on the Canadian side so we drove back across the border at the Whirlpool Bridge. Just before we crossed I got my fingers shut in a car door, yeeeeeeouch, and if I'd known any swear words I would have used them.
🇺🇸 2) 22nd July 1976(Niagara Falls)
After some absolutely incredible stuff I can't write about because it happened in Canada, it was time for dinner. "Why don't we go to Howard Johnson's?" said Mum's penfriend, but that was an American brand so we'd have to go back across the river. Brandishing passports we headed for the Rainbow Bridge near the American Falls and wow, that was an unforgettable view upriver. The border guards on the US side nodded us through when we mentioned our visit was food-related rather than giving us the third degree. I can't remember what I had for dinner but it was probably fried, fatty and excessive. And barely two hours later we were back on the Rainbow Bridge where I stopped at the white line painted across the sidewalk and had an idea...
🇺🇸 3) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
I jumped into Canada and then jumped back into the USA. And then I carried on.
🇺🇸 4) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 5) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 6) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 7) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 8) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 9) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
I was probably getting some funny looks by this point but I didn't care. I'd realised that by hopping back and forth across the border I could tot up a ridiculous number of visits to America that would create an excellent anecdote for years to come. I was probably thinking secondary school at the time but it's continued to serve me well... at university, in at least one interview, over several beers in several pubs, upon meeting umpteen Americans for the first time, and of course today. And so I carried on.
🇺🇸 10) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 11) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 12) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 13) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 14) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 15) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 16) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 17) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 18) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 19) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
🇺🇸 20) 22nd July 1976(Rainbow Bridge, Niagara Falls)
Twenty seemed a reasonable place to stop, also my Mum hated standing on bridges and was probably getting the heebeegeebees from her son bouncing up and down 200 feet above a raging torrent. We spent the next fortnight doing excellent things in Canada instead, and my '20 visits to America' total was maintained until the millennium.
🇺🇸 21) 6th August 2000(Orlando, Florida)
Now aged 35, it was time for a 'big kid' trip to Walt Disney World Resort. I'd been to the downsized European version but why not do the real thing and do it properly with an Unlimited Magic Pass? Arriving at Orlando airport first class in a 747 and departing in a red Chrysler Convertible was the cherry on the cake. Throughout the week we ticked off the Magic Kingdom (for It's A Small World and the Main Street Electrical Parade), Epcot (with its Lake of Nations), Animal Kingdom (for the Kilimanjaro Safari) and Disney-MGM Studios (for Catastrophe Canyon), then switched brands to do Universal Studios. You are never too old.
At the end of the week we drove to the Kennedy Space Center, observed Space Shuttle launchpads and brushed up close to a Saturn V rocket, because America's about bold as well as brash. I remember we ate dreadfully throughout the trip (i.e. normal for America), including seven consecutive breakfasts of pancakes and sausage, so the vegetables they served in economy on the flight home were very welcome. If you want full details I blogged the lot (with dubious photos) in 2020, so that's all I need tell you here.
🇺🇸 22) 27th April 2002(New York)
Next came a week in the Big Apple with BestMate, barely six months after 9/11 so security had ramped up somewhat. We landed at JFK and took a yellow cab to our digs on Roosevelt Island, ending a very long day in a bar in the East Village. Over the forthcoming week we sat in Central Park, took the subway, crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and headed to the top of the Empire State Building. We also spiralled round the Guggenheim, dipped into the Whitney, stared at the Statue of Liberty from Pier 17 and stood on the Ground Zero Viewing Platform where the World Trade Center was being cleared away. We were really ticking all the boxes here.
Our last night was opening night for the new Spider-Man movie so we spent $10 to watch it at Loews on 42nd Street, returning to Roosevelt Island in the very cablecar Tobey Maguire had just bravely rescued. I made sure I bought lots of cinnamon TicTacs before the flight back, and BestMate grinned all the way home because he'd just met BestMate'sOtherHalf for the first time. I have no surviving photos from this trip which is a damned shame, but as trips to America go this was probably my most successful.
🇺🇸 23) 28th December 2002(San Francisco)
This was BestMate's 30th birthday and he was spending it in America, so damn right I was getting on a plane and flying 6000 miles to the West Coast to spend the evening dining and bar-hopping. I'd started blogging by now but trying to wangle a trip to an internet cafe meant my reportage was very limited. What you missed me writing about was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, climbing Twin Peaks, shopping in Abercrombie & Fitch, riding the cablecars, driving down crooked Lombard Street, walking through the giant redwoods and taking a tour of Alcatraz.
BestMate'sOtherHalf was in hospitality and managed to wangle us a table at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, recently voted the Best Restaurant in America. Owner Alice Waters served up local produce to a different set menu every evening so I was worried what we'd get, but thankfully 30th December's offering started with beetroot salad and continued with duck and lemon eclairs so was an excellent experience. America is many places with many traditions and many cuisines, which is why visiting several parts of the country helps to avoid a narrow-minded view.
🇺🇸 24) 7th April 2004(San Francisco)
By now BestMate was living in America so I needed another trip to San Francisco just to see him. In better news I stayed at his place where there was wi-fi so managed to blog this trip pretty much in real time. It's all there if you fancy, also 20 photos on Flickr, but let's just mention Golden Gate Park, the Legion of Honor, Coit Tower, Haight Ashbury, Napa Valley wineries, the Museum of Modern Art, an evening with Carol Channing, Monterey Aquarium, Big Sur, the terrace at Nepenthe and pitchside seats at a Giants baseball game.
🇺🇸 25) 16th April 2006(San Francisco)
BestMate was still in America so I flew out again, this time with a rather shorter list of sights to see. The main reason for going mid-April was to attend the 100th anniversary commemoration of the great San Francisco earthquake, which meant being up at 5:12am and standing in the middle of Market Street while the Mayor gave a speech. If Gavin Newsom ever gets the Democrat nod, I might have seen a future President speaking.
The other highlight was walking down to Point Reyes Lighthouse, as seen in John Carpenter's film The Fog, which is still the furthest west I've ever been. Again my week away was blogged in real time rather than being written up properly later, so my reportage is a bit sparse. And on 24th April I took the offer of a jeep ride to the airport, queued along my final freeway, took my shoes off for a scowling security guard and boarded a Boeing home from gate 91. I haven't been back to America since, partly because BestMate returned to the UK shortly afterwards and partly because the USA's no longer such an appealing destination.
But hey, 25 visits across the country's 250 years isn't half bad, even if most of them were jumping across a line on a bridge in 1976. For me the bicentennial beats the semiquincentennial, which is simply an egotistical parade of one man's achievements, and I suspect a lot of Americans will be feeling like that today.
