Around the USA in 150 days (Or how we toured the USA on a budget) Driving on the wrong side

April 27 - Day 2

I was up early, had breakfast (cereal and milk we bought yesterday, in plastic bowls that we brought in our luggage-our kids are breakfast freaks and need to eat the moment they open their eyes!!) then set off to pick up our car. Walked from our motel around the corner past MacDonald’s again, and down Harbor - a long walk.

I walked past Disneyland, many motels, a strawberry farm (they grow what must be the world’s biggest strawberries right here in Anaheim - before Disneyland came along in the 50’s, Anaheim was mainly a fruit growing area), convention centers, and lots of buildings under construction.

The latter were very intriguing to me as a wooden construction looks so different when it is being built to the typical brick construction we are used to in Perth. Wooden construction is used in most parts of America for not only houses but also for some larger buildings up to 2 or three stories high. (Georgia is a notable exception where they use bricks made from the local red clay).

Picked up our car (a late model sedan) and paid by Mastercard. Now the moment I had been dreading. I was an experienced driver in Australia, but suddenly all my confidence was gone!

It is a very disconcerting experience the first time you get into a car and find that everything you are used to is reversed! I had expected to be thrown by driving on the wrong side of the road. But here I was sitting on the wrong side of the car, with the gear shift on the wrong side of the steering wheel, and all the other controls reversed - well almost! Just to throw you completely, the foot controls are the same as they are in Australia. So you have to reverse everything you do with your hands, but not what you do with your feet.

When I had finally figured out how to get moving (it was an automatic transmission, which helped), I slowly drove to the gate and waited a long time until there was no traffic coming in either direction, and moved out onto Harbor Blvd.

Once I was on the road and moving, I found driving on the right hand side of the road was not that hard - you just follow the the car in front! It was made easier by the fact that I only had to do two turns on the way back to the motel - a right turn out of the car hire lot, and a right turn off Harbor to get to our motel (when driving on the right, right turns are easy as you don’t have to cross opposing traffic lanes). But even so, I still managed to drive straight through a red light on the way!

I was just beginning to feel a little bit confident, driving slowly and being careful to watch all around me for unexpected situations, when I suddenly realised that people were waving and shouting at me and cars were honking their horns. I looked in the rear-view mirror to see why, and realised that I had just passed though an intersection controlled by traffic lights, not at street level on poles (which I was used to) but hanging on wires some 20 feet above the street. I had been so careful looking around me, that I did not think to look up!

The family were very happy to see me and the car (I think Nola was a little worried, I had been away for a couple of hours), we soon had the car packed with our things, and set off to drive to our new motel, the Park Vue Inn.

When we arrived at the intersection of Harbor Blvd I was suddenly confronted with the next big driving challenge - doing a left turn.

Now turning across traffic lanes to the other side of the road is something I could do in my sleep at home. But suddenly I froze. I knew what I had to do, cross 2 lanes of traffic and get to the other side of the road. When you are used to driving on the left, a left turn to the right hand lanes goes against the grain and is terrifying. I waited for ages for a clear break in the traffic in both directions, much to the chagrin of people waiting behind me!

As if that wasn’t enough I now found there was a median strip down the middle of the road which stopped us turning into our motel! So I had to drive to the next set of traffic lights and do a U-turn (not allowed at home, but in America it is the norm), which again made me nervous.

(At this stage of our trip, if we had any insight into the 10 lane freeways, soaring bridges, near vertical mountain roads, deep valleys and desert tracks we were to drive on, through, over, around and under we might just have quit on the spot! Thank heavens we didn’t! - Nola)

We moved into our new room and then went for breakfast at Chao’s restaurant, just in front of our motel. We had their advertised 99c breakfast - scrambled eggs & pancakes with maple syrup with whipped butter/cream and bacon - all the same plate! A greasy, sweet, sticky combination that would have perhaps been a bit much for us if we hadn’t been so hungry. (This was our first taste of the American "sweet tooth" diet).

Chris and Josh at the Motel pool (you can see a glimpse of the Disneyland monorail in the background).

After our meal we went out to explore our new temporary home. The motel had it’s own laundry, as well as a swimming pool (not huge, but adequate), and had a nice "lived-in" feeling. The kids wasted no time getting into the pool, while Nola and I looked at used camper adverts in the L.A. Times.(See photo of Chris and Joshua at left. Note: you can see a glimpse of the Disneyland monorail in the background).

Later in the day we drove down Harbor (we were still afraid of getting off the beaten track, as we did not have any sort of decent road map) and found a Target store where we bought swimming gear for the boys (they went swimming earlier in their underwear!) plus a few essential items for ourselves. Our first impression of American shopping was that everything was very cheap.

We also tried to buy a kettle, as we were dying for a good cup of tea! We had brought tea bags with us from Oz, but you also need boiling water to make good tea.

We searched the aisles for anything resembling a kettle, electric or otherwise, in vain. When we asked for "an electric kettle" the shop assistants gave us a very odd look.

We finally settled for an electric jug, stainless steel with a wide opening at the top, the type you would fill with water to use to heat a baby’s milk bottle in. Not the ideal appliance, but if you left it on high for a long time it got almost hot enough to make a good cuppa.

Tomorrow - Disneyland!

Costs
hire car $41
Target $45

Next - Disneyland

Previous - Anaheim

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