Queens

New York, and the last city of our tour. The GPS did a major HAL coming in to New York but amidst a lot of honking horns, a man waving his fist at me and some diatribe from me towards the unit, we managed between the two of us (Carole and me) to find our hotel, then to the Avis return depot at LaGuardia Airport via the petrol station where I received the legendary New York surly service. I complained to Avis about the GPS (loud enough that she could hear me) and received a $50 refund for my inconvenience. It was the least they could do.

Driving in America's been fun though. You can do relatively little in America without a car, it seems, including getting from one end of a mall to the other. The car (a Dodge CaraVan) was spacious, comfortable, powerful and I want one.

Tomorrow, the New York subway...

Entering the Twilight Zone

Rod Serling could have created some gripping moments with the GPS, had it been invented in 1960. This thing usually conveys us safely from one set of coordinates to another, naming all the streets and points of interest and apparently having a special satellite up there just watching out for us. We trust her (yes, her), smile forgivingly at her sometimes strange pronounciations, share her sense of effortless accomplishment when we reach our destination. Then just occasionally she does a HAL; directing us to keep left, then springing a right-turn, introducing a full-reverse arrow thing on to the map screen, giving a different instruction to what's clearly marked on the display, our little blue car icon careering off the chosen pathway into a dark tangle of unknown streets. We switch to old methods, scrabbling with maps, reading road signs that are OUTSIDE the car, turning aside from The Route.

There's a silence then she says "Recalculating", but what she really means is "What are you doing Dave ?" It's touch and go. We've even switched her off a couple of times recently. The errors are getting more frequent, and more bizarre. Should I worry ?

Torrent

The Niagara River flows towards Canada, reaching the border at the famous dropping point. Consequently, trying to see Niagara Falls from the American side is rather like trying to focus on the tip of your own nose. We didn't appreciate this subtle piece of geography until we got there, noticing that for most Americans Niagara Falls (the town) is little more than a petrol and toilet stop on their way to the Canadian town also called Niagara Falls. This town (the Canadian one) looms across the river, a jumble of high-rise buildings, towers, casinos and conspicuous wealth.

By contrast, the American Niagara Falls town (city, actually) is a down-at-heel urban sprawl with the through-road to Canada clearly marked but little in the way of direction to the US side of the Falls. For foreign visitors driving on the other side of the street in a car that in other countries would suffice for a community minibus this was confusing and stressful, but we eventually found the Niagara State Park with its associated attractions. Various lookout points give views of water disappearing over an edge, and glimpses of splashing torrents below. There are two parts to the Falls; the American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls. The Horseshoe is the one on all the photos, and that's the one you can't see at all from the American side. I felt underwhelmed, frankly.

More satisfying were the walkway beside the bridal veil falls and the Maid Of The Mist boat trip. On the walkway we got drenched in spray and nearly blown off our feet by wind. It reminded me of so many family walks in Peebles. One section of the walkway is named the Hurricane Deck. Directly under the waterfall and in the teeth of the displacement-generated wind I got a sense of the raw power of the waterfall, but of greater interest to me was the very prominent NO SMOKING sign on the railing beside the cascading water. Who says the Americans have no irony ?

The boat trip took us into the Horseshoe Falls where the thundering noise, flying spray and churning turquoise water, coupled with the experience of being surrounded on three sides by towering torrents, was another experience of nature's power unleashed. I had felt this in the desert, and at Yosemite when we reached the top of Glacier Point and looked over a rocky edge to a 4000 foot sheer drop to the valley floor. Having lived all my life on two small islands I'm moved by the scale of America; its size and its extremes.

Fresh from yet another wonder of the world we undertook a five-hour car journey (an inch or so on the map) to our first New England destination. A beautiful evening with the sun setting over cornfields and autumnal forests, the light slanting across red-painted hip-roofed farmhouses with giant grain silos and - honestly - old tractors parked out in the golden fields.

I've been through the desert with a GPS called Sally

Garrison Keillor (about whom more later) does a great send-up of these devices. It takes him on unwanted detours, argues with him and willfully misinterprets his instructions, but is infinitely patient and forgiving, faithfully taking him (eventually) to his stated destination. We've named ours Sally, and I never want to be without her again when I'm driving. We tell her where we're going and she gives step-by-step instructions to turn left or right on to this that or the other road, anticipating lane-shifts and monitoring traffic flows, giving progress reports and even devising routes that involve as few left turns (think about it) as possible. Amazing. When I divert off her chosen route (as is my habit in life) she pauses just long enough for effect, then says 'Recalculating' with a weary sigh. She tirelessly recalculates, devising ingenious ways to get me back on track whilst giving the impression that my mistaken turnoff was, after all, the best route to our destination. A true friend.