Читать книгу No One Said It Would Be Easy - Des Molloy - Страница 37

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was now simply for the poor and disadvantaged … with a few nutters thrown in for good measure. We saw the dregs of the greatest nation on earth. We also saw what seemed like mums fleeing bad home situations in the middle of the night, dragging sad little kids with them. I do recall an interesting interplay with a fellow traveller early on in the ride. The guy behind tapped me on the shoulder and said: "How far is it from London to Windsor?" Musing on this odd question, I thought for a while and said “About 30 or 40 miles, I think”. My geographical ignorance only came to light a bit later when I realised that he probably meant in Canada as we drove through London. Windsor duly was reached about 120 miles later. How was I to know they had their own London and Windsor?

Pretty shattered, we finally reached Terre Haute, Indiana, in the middle of our second night at maybe 4.00 am. It was bitterly cold outside but cosily warm in the small terminal waiting-room. Way too early to look for Lawrie, we settled in for the remainder of the night. With no one else there except the night clerk, we stretched out on the empty seating. Almost immediately he was on us. “You can’t lie down Bud … you gotta sit!” Every time we slumped to the side and fell into an exhausted sleep, he would poke us awake. This seemed irrational and didn’t endear him to us or us to him. Even if Head-office rules did preclude sleeping in the public areas, we felt he could have demonstrated some leniency. It was almost like it was a crusade … if he had to be awake, so did we! Ultimately dawn finally rescued us and we could escape this tyrant and stagger off into the sub-zero murk that is a mid-west winter. I recall neon signs proclaiming it to be 15° Fahrenheit and 7.45 am.

Lawrie was looking good and it was great to have the brotherhood finally together. He and Roly hadn’t previously met. Now we could get started and have our adventure. The pleasure of seeing my good mate was tempered slightly by the news that he hadn’t a whole sack-load of money to tip into the coffers. This was a trifle that we could address later. Apart from a few hours in Miami I had never been to the US and had nothing to judge Terre Haute by, but my observations of the time record disappointment that for a city of about 70,000 it seemed soul-less. I was astonished to learn that most people ate out at least once a day and that the Central Business District was dominated by franchised eateries. This was something I hadn’t encountered before and would be decades before this blight would also be endemic in New Zealand. McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell etc. all fought to capture your trade with lurid neon signs and tempting offers. There were