Rhonda Bracey: At Random

April is one of those months. In Australia, it is autumn and the weather can be absolutely beautiful or pretty miserable. In the US, it is springtime and the same can be said about the weather.

We arrived in Chicago on the night of April 13 to a city that had just experienced 80F weather, so the night was warm and balmy. No need for the polar fleece jackets at all. The weather report for later that night was thunderstorms and pretty gloomy weather. April 14 (Good Friday) dawned fine and sunny – blue skies, little or no cloud – and with no evidence of the thunderstorms predicted the night before.

We had picked up the rental car the night before (another Chrysler 300 from Thrifty… with the extra charges) and stayed overnight at an Extended Stay America hotel (always good value for money) close to O'Hare Airport.

The drive to Manistee was expected to take 4-5 hours, but Chicago is one of those cities where there's ALWAYS construction happening on the freeways, and so it was that day. By the time we got to Michigan City in Indiana it was nearly lunchtime, so we stopped for a bite to eat and asked some local police the best way to get to Manistee from there without going on the Interstate (I didn't have a map this time).

After a bum steer from the local cops, we finally stopped and bought a map from a gas station and got on the right road heading north instead of due east as the cops had told us!

It was a pretty drive and a beautiful sunny day, and we arrived in Manistee around 5:30pm local time. We went straight to my cousin Shelley's kitchenwares shop (The Ideal Kitchen, River St, Manistee, MI), which she'd opened only three days before. The shop is fabulous and she's carrying an extensive range of good quality items. Tim (Shelley's husband) was there and the twins arrived soon after. Lots of hugs, laughs, and chatter.

We checked in to the local Microtel Inn and Suites and dropped off our stuff before heading over to their house for dinner (home-made hamburgers done on the char grill outside – yum!) and lots more talking.

The Tim Tams went down a treat. I don't know what it is about Tim Tams, but everyone in the US who's ever tried one loves them! We taught them how to bite off the ends and use a Tim Tam as a straw. Tim used his as a 'straw' to suck through some whiskey, Shelley sucked up a chocolate liqueur (Temptation?) through hers, while the girls sucked milk through their Tim Tams. Too funny!

Next day we took a long drive through upstate Michigan, driving from Manistee up Highway 131 Petoskey and then on to Mackinaw City and the Mackinac Bridge. Again, the weather was superb. Everything is starting to green up – the buds are appearing on the trees, the grass by the side of the road is already green, and some flowers are blooming – daffodils mainly.

I thought I'd be a bit scared going over the Mackinac bridge as it's very high and about 5 miles long, separating Lake Michigan from Lake Huron and the main part of Michigan from the Upper Peninsula. But it was fine. The bridge has a low gradient to its peak and is not scary at all. Then again, it was a fine, sunny day with light winds. I don't know whether I'd feel the same in a raging blizzard…

We intended having a bite to eat in St Ignace (pron. St Ignus), but it was closed! A 70F day, fine, sunny, warm… and almost everything was closed. The locals weren't too friendly either. I stopped in one general store type place and asked if they had fudge (the girls had recommended we get some). "Noop" was the only response. When I asked about pasties (recommended by Tim), the answer was also "Noop". That was it. No suggestion on where I might get some, no "can I help you with anything else?", just "noop".

So we turned around and went back to Mackinaw City (6 miles away across the bridge) which was open. We found a pastie shop and had a pastie with taco sauce and sour cream. Very big, but nice. Origins are the Cornish Pasties brought across by the miners who worked the copper and iron mines close by. As far as we could tell, pasties just aren't available anywhere else in the US. These were nice – very meaty.

We headed back to Manistee via Petoskey and then Highways 72 and 22 following the shores of Lake Michigan down the west side of the Michigan peninsula. The road only touches the shoreline in very few places, so we were mostly travelling through farmlands and woods. Very pretty, helped by the fact that it was a GORGEOUS day for a drive.

Saturday night dinner at Tim and Shelley's was chicken in a crock pot. Delicious. The girls paraded their prom dresses (the prom is next Saturday and they graduate in May; they're both off to College in Grand Valley (?) in the fall – one to study Business, the other Education).

We spent Sunday morning at Tim and Shelley's. Again, the weather was gorgeous and we sat out on the back deck in the sun for quite a while. Easter Sunday lunch was 'big-ass ham' with all the trimmings – and it was delicious. Shelley's a great cook and her plans to run cooking classes in the store are a good idea.

All too soon our time with this lovely family was over and we headed south on Highways 55, 115, 10, and 127 to central Michigan to stay with Shelley's Mum and Dad (and my aunt and uncle) – Lois and Harold – for the remainder of the week.

For the entire week the weather has been fantastic – blue sunny skies, with hardly a cloud. The days with Harold and Lois have morphed into a bit of a blur. Lots of talk, laughs, terrific meals, and cards… Euchre and a new game called "Jokers and Marbles". The girls against the boys – and by Wednesday night the scores were 5 to the girls and 2 to the boys.

On Tuesday night, Brian (cousin) and Cathy came by and lots more talk and laughs, especially some of their stories about the Caribbean cruise they all went on a few weeks ago to celebrate Harold and Lois' 50th Wedding Anniversary (which was actually last year). And on Wednesday night Bruce (cousin) and Nancy and Brian and Cathy came over. Liz (Brian and Cathy's daughter) stopped by as well. We watched the DVD from the cruise and saw Harold getting his "Mr Sexy Legs" award!

On Wednesday we drove to a mall close to Lansing (Meridien Mall) and did some last shopping as we leave the US on Saturday. It was such a warm and beautiful day that we stopped by an ice-cream stand and had some HUGE ice-creams – Traverse City Cherry Fudge hand-dip for me, and Blueberry soft serve for my LP.

I'm writing this on Thursday morning (April 20) and the weather today is also expected to be fine, warm (75F) and sunny, and looking out the window across the farm right now, that seems to be a very accurate prediction.

Update: Thursday we went to Owosso for some groceries and a late lunch of ribs at Eddie O'Flynn's! Mmmm… Then to Joanne and Bubba's on Lake Victoria for raspberry pie and some card games. No wonder so many Americans are big… all that food! It all tasted wonderful, but the serves were so big. I ate my four very large ribs, then left the pork tenderloin and whole chicken breast and took them in a 'doggy bag'. Way too much food.

Friday was our last day with family. We left just after noon and headed to Chicago, stopping in Portage, MI for last minute shopping at Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. We arrived in Chicago around 5:30pm so with the stop it was about a 5 hour drive. The weather reamined gorgeous and the construction areas on the interstates weren't too problematic.

We had dinner at Chilis after checking in to the Extended Stay America near O'Hare Airport. Unlike previous trips to the US this was the first and only time we had Chilis – usually we eat there quite often.

Photos…

I’ve said my piece on hotel room pricing (1 and 2)and car rentals, but there’s two other things that get me about pricing in the US:

1. Exclusive pricing
2. Wine pricing

By “exclusive pricing” I mean the way that almost all US establishments charge you MORE than the ticketed price, which means you pay way more than you expect to. This includes supermarkets, restaurants, and of course hotel rooms and car rentals.

Everything includes a ‘little extra’ for taxes and other charges of various sorts and values. In Australia, we have to ticket the ‘inclusive’ price. So if an item has taxes applied to it, those taxes are included in the price to the consumer and so ‘what you see is what you pay’. The tax component is a separate line item on the bill, but it is part of the ticketed price. If you go to a restaurant in Australia and the menu item is $14.95, then $14.95 is what you’ll pay.

Wine pricing is in another realm altogether, and our current and previous experiences in the US would indicate that we get absolutely ripped off at home. Let me explain… There’s an Australian wine that we like (Penfolds Bin 389), but which we rarely buy except for special occasions because it’s not a cheap wine by any stretch of the imagination. Over the years the price has climbed steadily and last I looked it was hovering around the $40 mark in a discount bottle shop.

Now, in previous years we have purchased this same bottle of wine, same vintage etc. in discount stores (like Costco) in the US – for less than we pay in Australia!

Yesterday we went for a drive from Manistee, Michigan to the Mackinac Bridge in the far north of the ‘mitten’. We drove through some gorgeous little towns and villages, and were about as far away from Australia as you can get. One of the dots on the map we drove through was a village called Alanson, and as we went through I saw a sign on the outside of the liquor store that advertised Penfolds Thomas Hyland Chardonnay at $8.98 (US). The Thomas Hyland range is not bad and that was a good price, so we decided to stop there on the way back and see if they had any Shiraz or Cabernet in that range.

They didn’t have any Thomas Hyland reds, but they DID have a couple of Bin 389s and some Bin 407s and some other Penfolds reds. So obviously we looked at the price of the Bin 389 and found that it was ticketed at $21.52 US, which roughly translated to around $30 Australian! We bought two bottles TO TAKE HOME TO AUSTRALIA with us because there is no way we can buy it that cheap there.

I talked to the store owner and he said he marked up his buying price by 25%, which means he bought it for about $15 US, which means that it probably landed in the US for between $5 and $10 a bottle after you take into account all the middlemen. And this wasn’t a mistake for a couple of bottles lurking in the back room – this was the current (2001) vintage and he’d only priced it recently.

I decided to check one of the Australian discount liquor stores online this morning – Vintage Cellars have the Bin 389 2001 vintage out for $49.99 AU a bottle!!! That’s $36.42 US according to http://www.xe.com/. And they have the Thomas Hyland Chardonnay out for $22.99 AU a bottle – $16.75 US. Meantime, this guy is selling Thomas Hyland for less than $9 US a bottle, and Bin 389 for less than $22 US a bottle.

This is not an isolated instance – we’ve encountered it before. What I want to know is WHY an Australian living in Australia has to pay much more for Australian wine, than someone living in Alanson, Michigan, or Monterey, California, or wherever… It’s nothing but a blatant rip-off by our wine companies and over-taxing government.

We arrived in Chicago last night to balmy 70+ degree weather; despite the prediction of overnight thunderstorms it's expected to be over 80 here today. This morning it is fine, clear, and very sunny. Today we're driving from Chicago to Manistee, south of Traverse City, Michigan and with the weather as it is, we're really looking forward to the drive. We'll spend a couple of days with my cousin and her family in Manistee, then go to her parents' place in central Michigan (just north of Lansing). So Easter will be spent with family in Michigan.

Last night we stayed in an ExtendedStay America room near O'Hare Airport in Chicago, so it was always going to be more expensive than hotels further out.

Normal price – less than $80 US for the room (bit less with a discount). So it was half the price of the Wyndham Resort in Palm Springs. Did we get half the value? No way! In fact, we got WAY more than expected.

Let's look at what we didn't get – no pretty boxed shampoos and conditioners (though soap is provided), no hairdryer, no extra pillow and blanket… and that's about it. What we did get at ExtendedStay that we didn't get at the Wyndham included:

• tapware and drainage in the bath/shower than worked properly
• a mini-kitchen with sink, fullsize fridge, microwave, 2-burner stove top, crockery and cutlery for two people, basic cooking utensils, toaster
• two desks
• a TV with better reception and choice of channels
• an airconditioner whose temperature we could control (unlike the Wyndham where there was no control over the temperature if you wanted it less than 69 degrees)

More evidence of the rip-off nature of the larger hotels. Oh, and did I mention that the Wyndham applied FOUR taxes to each night's stay? These taxes (including a spurious and questioned "resort fee" of $8 a night) added another $30 plus to the bill – for each night. That's nearly the total amount we paid for that Motel 6 room back at Paso Robles! 

Am I p***ed off? You bet!

I purchased an 30GB MP3/data storage device while I was in California (MUCH cheaper than Australian prices, even with exchange rate differences) and spent a blissful 3+ hours flying from LA to Chicago listening to the dulcet tones of Bill Bryson reading from his own books. I'm not really that into music, but the thought of talking books for such situations is pretty attractive. I don't have to have the light on in a darkened plane to read, yet get the benefit of the book anyway. Now I have to find out how I can stop chuckling in the funny parts without disturbing the person sitting next to me! That 15 hour flight back to Australia is not looking quite as daunting as before.

The cry rang out and the pseudo and real Aussies (four of us out of nearly 50) gathered by the pool at the Wyndham and availed ourselves of the free drinks from MadCap Software… which is what any good Aussie does! Aussie animal stickers and tattoos were attached to various parts of people's anatomy and clothing, and Vegemite was refused by those who'd tasted it before and eagerly snatched up by those who hadn't – boy! are they in for a surprise or what?

After cleaning out the bar of the freebies (as all good Aussies do), we headed in to the balmy Palm Springs night and found ourselves in the Los Casitas (sp?) Mexican restaurant just up the road. Pitchers of margaritas were swiftly brought to the tables to quench our thirst (it was a long walk… NOT!), along with corn chips and salsa. Not long after, some quesadillas found their way on to the tables too, and later some prawn (real Aussies don't call them "shrimp"), chicken and beef fajitas. And all along the other people in the restaurant (poor souls!) found themselves subjected to the rousing chorus of "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!"… often!

After sorting out the bill (whatever it was + 17% gratuity divided by 45 people), we stalked into the night and crossed the road to the "Lost Highway" karaoke bar. More drinks were consumed, more rousing shouts went up… And some of us who really do want to attend the Wednesday sessions, slipped quietly in to the night and to bed.

Others – perhaps not so dedicated… or perhaps just drunk – kicked on. At least one person didn't return until 2:15am, just a little the worse for wear (you know who you are!). We'll see today who is hoarse and who's not there!

Well, yesterday (Sunday) was a BIG day for me. For years I have not been able to get on such things as ski chairlifts, let alone cable cars. But yesterday I actually got on the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and took it to the top without collapsing in a screaming heap! Of course, having good friends and my partner with me helped a lot, and there were times when it was a little scary and I closed my eyes (like each time we went through one of the pylon stations and the car got a bit of a sway up).

But I did it! And enjoyed it – probably because the views were absolutely fantastic and the weather was brilliant and there was no wind. It was a great ride and I highly recommend it. Not bad from someone who's usually pretty phobic about these sorts of things!