When does an observation become a generalisation?  If you’ve been in one taxi in Paris can you say that all Parisian taxi drivers are rude?  If you’ve spoken to one Texan about his big RV can you say that all Texans are proud of their big RV’s?  If it rains every day you’re in New Hampshire can you say it always rains there?  Of course you can!  Travel is all about seeing new things, going to new places and meeting new people.  We make observations along the way, that’s part of the fun, whether others agree or not.  Here’s a few of our observations (and generalisations) in no particular order after 76 days travelling through America.

State parks – Possibly the best part of travelling around the United States like we do is the quality and quantity of state parks.  They are unbelievable!  These parks, which usually are placed in a scenic area, provide a wide range of recreational options including hiking, camping, boating, cycling and fishing.  They are fabulous for families and often feature playgrounds and kids’ stuff.  Most of them having camping facilities and they are almost all in beautiful natural settings amongst the trees or on a creek or beach.  And there are so many – to give you an idea, North Carolina has 55 and even Vermont has 38.  America’s state parks rock!

People are big – Australia has a lot of big people, by one report Australia has the second highest proportion of overweight and obese people in the world – behind America.  Everywhere you go it seems people are just so big and it can’t be good for them.  Which leads me to two other observations…

Waffle House (and other fast food chains) – I wish I had invested in Waffle House as a lad because these fast food restaurants are everywhere!  Of course we see all the other well-known chains as well, and some we hadn’t heard of before, but fast food is clearly a part of life in America and everyone partakes (some people much more than others).  One of Julie’s and mine sacred rules on this trip is No Fast Foods and so far we haven’t broken this mantra (and won’t!).

Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Super Dollar – No self-respecting town can exist without at least one of these discount stores and frequently they can be seen at opposite ends of the same block.  We’ve visited one or two of these stores out of desperation in small towns (panic – we’re out of milk!) and they are a sad scene.  One person we spoke to said they have ‘ruined’ the small towns of America because they have forced out the small owner/operator mixed business store that sold better quality food, vegies, etc.  People are buying cheap – frequently unhealthy – food at these stores which can’t be good.  Pox on the Dollar stores.

Three wheeled and five wheeled motorcycles – There are a lot of motorcycles in the US, which is fine (although helmets are not mandatory and most go without, which is a worry), but a surprisingly high proportion of them are three wheelers.  We don’t really get that in Australia.  And often you see motorcycles pulling a little trailer with their gear.  So on many occasions you actually get five-wheeled motorcycles – three on the bike and two on the trailer.  Cool.

Big RV’s in Texas and Florida – We all know that size matters.  But the RV’s we saw in Texas, usually owned by Texans, and Florida, usually owned by Snow Birds who spend their winters in Florida, are obscenely big.  We accept they aren’t camping, they go to an RV site and plug in for months at a time with all their home comforts.  Some of them pull their toy trailer which carries things like cars, motorbikes, boats, canoes, bicycles and even fences for their pets.  If I ever even hint at wanting one of these monster setups Julie has permission to shoot me.

Pets – We had pets as a family, rabbits, birds, turtles and most importantly Jello, our beloved family dog.  But Americans are obsessed with their pets, almost always it’s their dogs, and travel with them as if they are their children (which in some ways they are).  Pets are everywhere, in restaurants, in the toilets, on the walking trails (sometimes on the trail and sometimes in a backpack), campgrounds, super markets, the lot.  The great American campground activity is walking the dog(s) in the evening and morning.  Nothing else matters.

Vermont (and New Hampshire) – We loved Vermont…and New Hampshire was right behind them.  Unfortunately we were on a bit of a mission while we were there and the weather was crap but we want to go back someday and do them in style.  We loved the mountains, all the magnificent lakes, the fast flowing rivers, the covered bridges, the people and the general slower life style.  If you haven’t been, get there.

The Adirondacks – same as above but in New York.  We don’t fish and we don’t do snowmobiles (but we could learn!), otherwise this is recreation heaven.  Year round, whatever you want in the great outdoors, it’s all here.  They also have a very cool wooden chair of the same name that you see everywhere.  Chairs are important (see below).

Front porches – You can tell a lot about a man by his front porch.  Front porches are a major feature in homes all across the south and even a bit in the north.  I’m sure this has to do with the climate and general historical lifestyle but most homes have big front porches and almost all homes have rocking chairs on them.  We loved the rocking chairs, sometimes just for show but we reckon most of them were in regular use (usually by very old people).  We also saw many two person swinging love seats which hang by two ropes and other comfy chairs.  If a porch had a swinging love seat AND a couple of rocking chairs we wanted to move in.

BIG yards – OMG, people in rural settings have huge yards, usually in the front of the house, sometimes bigger than Yankee Stadium, no fences between the neighbours, gently sloping down to the road or a creek or a grove of old trees.   But when you have a BIG yard there’s one thing you need…

Ride-on mowers – Another great career would have been to own a distributorship for ride-on mowers because everyone has one.  On any day of the week, around every corner, someone would be on their ride-on mower mowing the BIG yard.  We’re talking hundreds, probably thousands, of these things in perpetual use.  We’ve seen houses with two ride-on mowers and on many occasions we’ve seen them parked at the end of the driveway with For Sale signs.  Ride-on mowers make the man.

Big Bend National Park – People occasionally ask us what is the best part of our trip so far.  This is a tough question because it depends on the criteria, frame of mind and a hundred other factors.  But one place we really loved was Big Bend National Park in southern Texas.  We expected it to be all about the Rio Grande as it snakes its way along as the border between the US and Mexico.  Well, it did that but the national park also featured spectacular mountains and beautiful vast deserts.  The combination of river, mountains and desert make this a truly great place to visit.

Too many fences and too many rules – one of my favourite things about Australia is that when you go off travelling in the remote bush there are very few fences and as long as you use discretion and some common sense you can camp wherever you want.  In the US that is almost impossible because there are fences everywhere and if there aren’t there is usually a small sign that in big letters says POSTED.  In small print it will say no trespassing, bugger off, get lost.  And there are so many rules! There are rules posted when you enter a shopping mall, rules and useless information for a walking trail (‘This trail averages 3 feet wide and is uneven in places’), endless rules before you enter an attraction, rules on multiple pages that you have to sign before entering a camp (‘If you see a bear, do not aggravate it’).  America is the land of rules.

Pastel coloured houses – we first started seeing them down on the gulf coast around Galveston Texas, large multi-story beach homes painted in beautiful pastel colours, just fabulous.  This feature of homes, particularly holiday beach homes, spreads all along the gulf coastline and all through Florida.  We also saw it up the Atlantic coast in Georgia and the Carolinas.  Some colour choices were all wrong, and yes – you can have too much bright pink on a three story beach home, but in most cases they were tastefully done and looked great.

High School nicknames – After a month or so we started compiling a list of all the high school nicknames as we drove past them.  Almost all schools will have large signs out front announcing the name of the school and then saying ‘Home of the Cowboys’ or whatever that may be.  The names usually reflect the area or the state, such as in Florida we got a lot of Dolphins and Hurricanes and in the mountains we got the Mountaineers or one good one was the Mountain Panthers.  A couple of our favourites are the Brahmas, Lumberjacks and Red Storm.  Not sure about the Eskimos or the Fighting Vikings (is there such a thing as a non-fighting Viking?).

Booze is cheap! – This one is really for Australians who pay a fortune for their alcohol.  Americans don’t know how good they’ve got it on this one.  For instance, 18 x 12 ounce cans of my favourite Coors beer can be bought for only $11.99 (sometimes a bit more).  That is less than half what we pay for a common domestic beer in Australia.  Outrage!  And Julie pays only $14.99 for 1.75 litres of Gordon’s Gin.  In Australia that same amount would cost about US$60 (around A$80).  Suffice to say Julie is really enjoying her time in America.

America is a land of endless dimensions and more faces and features than could possibly be contemplated, which is part of the fun of travelling here.  We also loved all the different church steeples, how every community – no matter how small – has a post office, the ice cream (!), the fabulously friendly people, the constant curiosity of Tramp and the wonderful national parks (“America’s best idea”), amongst many.

If you want to add to this list of observations and generalisation from your own experiences please feel free to send me a comment.  If you disagree, fine, be that way, I’m happy to hear all about it.