OE USA: A New Zealander's Travels in the US (Part VI)

OE USA: A New Zealander's Travels in the US (Part VI)
by Andrew Bates

Arizona and New Mexico

Question: What is there to do in Arizona and New Mexico?
Answer: Keep Driving.

According to Peter Cresswell, Winston Churchill once said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” I held this mind as I made my way toward Texas. To be fair, the scenery wasn’t too bad—it really was much like that in the Road Runner cartoons, and the red sunset in the desert sky was breathtaking. I stopped off in Lordsburg, New Mexico and went for a three mile run (it was still hot at 10pm) before hitting the pubs ... err, pub—population: twelve truckers and two barmaids.

At nine the following morning the same three mile run was almost a crawl—the sun was up and my two lite beers the night before had left a taste in my mouth that only got worse as I plodded on. I hit the road and had gone fifteen miles when the steering wheel started knocking and I was forced to pull over. Inspection of the right front wheel revealed it had delaminated. I nursed the van back to the Lordsburg Ford Center and spent another USD150 getting two new front tires, having them balanced and mounted, and correcting the timing. Not too bad considering the money I had spent three days earlier, and that I was worried I would be stuck there at least another night.

Having driven through El Paso, I spent that night in Fort Stockton, driving past the Sul Ross State University turnoff a few miles before I hit Fort Stockton. I recognized this as being SOLOist Larry Sechrest’s place of employment and, since I didn’t have access to the internet, gave SOLOHQHQ a call and was given Larry’s details by Jeff.

Unable to contact him by phone, I guessed he might be in a lecture and decided to head back to the turnoff and go what I imagined would be only a few miles to SRSU. I really should have looked at the map. Sixty miles later I rolled into Alpine, almost out of gas. I found the Business School on the campus and was informed that Larry was out of state.

San Antonio

I drove the 90 to San Antonio that afternoon, being stopped numerous times by border patrol guards who asked for my passport as soon as I opened my mouth. I checked into a motel not far from the downtown area and paid the highest sales and hotel tax I have encountered, 16.75 percent. This caused some conflict as the hotelier did not give me a receipt and said he would give me one the following morning. I could not believe the tax could be that high and thought he was taking advantage of my being new in town. Nevertheless, I accepted it, as it was still cheaper than all the other hotels close by.

After surfing the net and clearing some long ignored emails, I went out for a run through the nightlife area, much to the amusement of the local drinkers. I was running round the streets hearing a lot of laughing, chatter, and other socializing sounds, but couldn’t see anyone about. It was then that I ran over a bridge, saw the river and discovered San Antonio’s lovely Riverwalk. Bars and cafés are set along a walkway that runs a foot above the river level. I couldn't figure out how they prevent flooding or prevent the river level from dropping too far below the footpath, but if this could be ascertained it would be an idea that could be transferred profitably to New Zealand cities like Hamilton or Christchurch.

The San Antonio Spurs had just won through to the NBA finals and the scene was pretty lively, but I found my accent getting me nowhere as the music was too loud in every place along the Riverwalk. Never have I been so annoyed by headbanging caterwaulers. In line with the restrictive Texas drinking laws, I was forced to go home empty-handed at 2am. It was probably a good thing that night as I inadvertently found my way to the Alamo on the way home.

Corpus Christi, Austin

The next day I took off to Corpus Christi in search of sea views and a beach to relax on. People had warned me not to waste my time going to Corpus Christi and they were right. Even the water in the river running through the town was less brown than that running up against the Mexican Gulf beaches. After a few hours of tiki-touring I filled my tank with the cheapest fuel in the US (then USD1.829/gallon) and headed back to San Antonio and up to Austin.

I arrived in Austin between 8:30pm and 9pm. Unfortunately, they were having graduation, an extended legislative session, and a big football game at the time, and I didn’t find an affordable motel until after 11pm. Never one to miss a night out I drove the 46 blocks to the downtown area and was walking to the 4th and 6th street bars when the skies opened. Inside the pubs I got talking to a guy who read Ayn Rand and was impressed that a foreigner could quote the Founders, and to a Reno girl who had visited Hamiltron and yet still loved her time in New Zealand. The night was otherwise uneventful.

The next day I met up with Maria Martinez from the conservative think tank Americans For Prosperity, which had a stall at the FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas. Back in Vegas, Maria had taken a liking to my saying that the AFP’s proposed "bill of taxpayer rights" legitimized taxation, and that their support for a voucher system in education would only serve to reduce the number of schools existing independently of state funding. She had taken my photo with them and asked me to get in touch if I made it to Austin.

Maria showed me her office near the Capitol buildings, then took me round Austin University and then to the Lake Travis boating club. We then went up to the famous Oasis restaurant, with its many decks overlooking Lake Travis from under great big umbrellas. The new chef’s nachos were a taste sensation and the single martini I drank had me slurring and swaying. While approaching her forties, Maria is a slender woman with a build not too dissimilar from our very own Julia Brent. Given the effect my Martini had on me[1], I readily agreed to Maria’s suggestion to walk around the garden and gift shop at the restaurant before heading to the car for the ride home. Two nights later, the restaurant was struck by lightning and burned down.

After stopping off at a bookstore where Maria read Roark’s courtroom speech, Francisco’s money speech and the first chapter of Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, Maria noted that she had some libertarian friends whose house we could go to that night. On the way there, we stopped to pick up some drinks and Maria made a suggestion as to what our hosts would like as I approached the shop fridge. A nearby Englishman made some remark about my woman telling me what to buy. I suggested he wouldn’t find the beer he was looking for in the fridge and should go over to the shop counter where the warm beer was. He remarked on my Australian accent so perhaps I had offended him.

When we arrived at the libertarians’ place I was offered chips and dips and various sausage varieties, all of which tasted great. I’m afraid that’s about all I can say that was positive about the experience. I was soon being given Badnarik propaganda and being shown a DVD about how Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand. This, one watcher remarked, was “a really good documentary,” and “better than Michael Moore’s supposed ‘exposes,’” according to another. I managed to keep the sausages down. In fact, I stopped watching and just drank more and more beer and gutsed the rest of the chips and dip.

If that wasn’t enough, when I mentioned I was an atheist I was accosted by a whack-job Christian who had gone to Israel for two years with no money and no intention to work, with the rationale that his taxes had paid for Israel’s existence until then and they owed him an existence. He kept coming after me, crossing all sorts of conversation lines, to tell me that I was still one of God’s children and would be saved no matter what I thought.

This evidently pissed off the other people there (all Christians), who believed that you had to believe to get the Pearly Gates Pass (as the typical quid pro quo story goes). They had heard me say that I was an atheist and left it there, but had to tell the whack-job to pull his bald deranged head in (politely, of course, being Southern folk). To be fair, the libertarians were both annoyed with the whack job and as friendly, generous and hospitable as every other American I met, but the Schwartz view of libertarianism gained a new credibility with me that night.

After a run and some war movies the next day (Veteran’s Day, I believe), we went to the airport to pick up Maria’s daughter Amber and her boyfriend Steve, who had just graduated as a military pilot. We then went to a farm where we fed the cattle and were treated to some home-cooked pies, both chocolate and coconut, by a friend of Maria’s who appreciated what Maria had been doing in trying to get the state out of education.

That evening, Amber, Steve, and I went to a gig of a famous musician whose name escapes me (Bob someone?) in some well-known English-themed pub, and then went out for a moonlit cruise in Steve’s boat on Lake Travis. The music was good and the sailing was magical but the beers, the food and all the day’s activities had taken their toll on me. Shortly after handing the tiller back to Steve in the early hours of the morning I fell asleep to the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull.

Dallas & Fort Worth

The next day I made my way to the Dallas / Fort Worth area. I had planned to meet a friend from the Mises Institute there, but he had gone to Oklahoma for a family reunion the previous weekend and been forced to stay on when an elderly family member had passed away. I drove round downtown Dallas the first evening I arrived, and while I found some impressive skyscrapers to stare up at, I could not find any pubs to visit. I drove the thirty miles to Fort Worth where the situation was reversed, and found much to see and do around the main square. Quite apart from the skyscrapers, an architectural highlight for me was visiting the Dallas Theatre Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as I described here.

My stay in Dallas was capped off by a visit to Hong Zhang in the medical centre where she worked. From the van, the downtown view of the akyscrapers overhead had been imposing, but the view from her tenth floor office a mile away was better. Hong and her husband then took me out for dinner at a Chinese smorgasbord restaurant and I enjoyed the conversation with them and their smart son.

Houston

On Friday I headed to Houston. The motorway to the downtown area heads straight in, then winds around the skyscrapers. Never before have I been so happy to be stuck in traffic. The view was picturesque as the setting sun reflected off the glass and steel structures. I found a cheap motel, went for a run, then hit the downtown area where I got talking to some old women who were in town celebrating the victory of their Cleveland Indians over the Houston baseball team. We explored the town a bit before I decided an early night was what I needed to prepare for my Saturday night in New Orleans.

[1] I initially wrote, “Given the effect it had on me,” forgetting that I just described Maria’s appearance and not the strength of the Martini.

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