To Infiniti and beyond

Much as I enjoyed it, I think we left Central America just in time. It may sound a tad spoiled, but just getting out of the sun and heat for a few days has made a nice change. And there is probably no better place in the world to avoid sun and heat than Seattle. Seattle fervently denies that it is actually the world's wettest city, but it must rank fairly highly on any such list. It rains a lot, and considering its late May, its really pretty cold. I'm still coming to grips with the Fahrenheit thing, but 55 degrees is not warm. I think it converts to about 12 Celsius.

Apart from the welcome cold, there are other things we were beginning to miss in Central America. Belize and Honduras are certainly cheap, but as far as hotel rooms go, you get what you pay for. I think Kate fell out of love with that part of the world when, on our second last night, she woke up and realised that the tickling feeling on her lips was being caused by the legs of a passing cockroach. For me it was the breakfasts - in countries that don't really do dairy, every morning breakfast is a choice between pancakes, omelets and, an idea presumably imported from America, fryjacks. A fryjack comes into being when you take a large bread role, fill it with eggs, bacon and, in Belize anyway, beans, and then deep fry the whole thing. You can actually feel your arteries constrict as you eat it. Great for a Sunday morning, but not an everyday food. So the simple continental breakfast that our hotel in Seattle provided was a pleasant change.

And, again at the risk of sounding spoiled, I am actually quite pleased that my skin is returning to a more normal shade. Reaching a level of darkness that helped me blend in with the locals was all well and good in Honduras, but in Seattle and Vancouver, where people are just emerging from a long and cold winter, it looks faintly ridiculous.

Having settled in for a day to enjoy our return to the pampered existence of a rich world harbour city on the pacific, it was time to settle our first task for Seattle, and arguably the most important task of the entire trip. It was time to buy the car. We had contacted a guy in Seattle who organises cars for travelers months earlier. Don was to find the car for us, check that it was in good working order, and organise all the paper work for registration, insurance etc. If anyone reading this blog is considering a buying a car in the USA for the purpose of a trip like this, I can highly recommend Don's services.

We already knew what car we were getting, because Don had emailed us a few options, and we had decided on a 2003 model Saturn Ion. Its not a car you can get in Australia, but a little research and some hints from knowledgeable sources back home (thanks Simon) revealed that the Saturn was actually replaced in 2003 in the General Motors line up by the new Astra - so we had picked, without intending it, an American version of my own dear car at home, which had been sold to fund its successor.

Don was to pick us up at our hotel and take us to the insurance agent and then to the dealership to pick up the car. On first seeing and speaking to Don, there was one unmistakable impression - he looked and, even more, sounded, exactly like John Goodman. I kept closing my eyes and imagining him saying 'Shut the fuck up Donny, you're out of your element'. Like most Americans, Don did love to talk, and the first thing he shared with us was that he had been out of contact for the last week because he had kidney stones, and that the kidney stones reached a point where his doctor felt the pain medication was making it worse, and so he suffered through them without pain killers. Apparently it was not a fun experience.

Don's main reason for telling us this story was to explain why he had left someone else to take car of our car and get it ready in the meantime. When Don arrived that morning to check out the Saturn, it wasn't running properly, and he didn't want to give it to us. Instead, we received what Don described as an upgrade. An Infiniti I30t. I suspect that to most of you, this means about as much as it did to me - nothing. As far as I know, this is another car that is not sold in Australia. But, given that we really needed a car, we didn't have much choice but to agree, and negotiate a new price, on which Don assured us he was losing money.

Before we actually got to see the car, we had to see an insurance agent. Insurance in America is compulsory, and its not cheap. Including collision insurance (comprehensive, in the Australian jargon) it came, for our car, to about $1100 for the six month minimum period. We only needed three months, but the company policy was that you had to buy six. I had been warned about the minimum insurance term, but luckily I'd also heard that there may be a a way to deal with it.

As the agent entered our details, she asked for our drivers licenses. This, I had been told, was the moment to 'deal' with the minimum term. Not being very experienced in this field, I have to admit being a little nervous. I wondered whether I should wink at the agent, but remembered that I can't really wink anyway, or whether I should say something - perhaps look straight into their eyes and say "Are you sure about the minimum term?". That seemed horribly corny, but I was also very worried that if the agent didn't get my meaning, I was going to look pretty stupid, and possibly be out $50. In the end, for lack of a better idea, I simply put $60 down with my license and looked away, hoping that, if this was not the way to do it, the agent would simply think I'd gotten out the money while I looked for my license and was about to put it back. But apparently my meaning was clear, and this was a well trodden path, because my money disappeared (to be replaced by $10 change!) and, without further ado, the insurance term was reduced to three months and we saved $500.

From there it was out to the car lot, to see this mysterious Infinity I30. I have to give Don credit where credit is due - this car was indeed an upgrade. Infiniti, as it turned out, is the luxury brand of Nissan, and the I30 is like an upmarket Maxima. And up market it was. Bose stereo, leather interior, electric sunroof, alloy wheels, and, to quote Don, 'knee deep in thousand dollars tyres.' The only problem is that it is not a car that gives you much street cred as a traveller. I gathered this from the strange looks we've been getting from anyone who we tell about our car. I guess its a little bit like meeting a Canadian backpacker in Australia who is planning to drive around the country in a Lexus.

Once we had the wheels, there was nothing more pressing to do than to take it for a good long drive and see how it ran. So the next day we took a day trip to nearby Leavenworth, about 180km from Seattle. The drive to Leavenworth is pretty spectacular - most of the way it winds through the Cascade mountain range, which still contained a surprising amount of snow, along a river that was raging with all the rain and melting snow water. I'm happy to report that the car ran perfectly, and looks like it will definitely make for a comfortable couple of months.

Perched in the middle of these mountains, Leavenworth is in a spectacular location, but the location is not the main attraction, though it undoubtedly provided the inspiration.

Leavenworth was founded in the late 19th century as a logging outpost. The main railway line was routed through Leavenworth on its way from the inland to the coast, and the town prospered. Then disaster struck - in the 1920s, the railway company relaid the line to a more economical and safer route. Without cheap transport, Leavenworth's logging industry disappeared almost overnight, and the town set into a long decline, which continued until the 1960s. In 1965, however, the town found a remarkable way to turn itself around.

I don't know how the town meeting in 1965 went, but I imagine there was some scepticism when Pauline and Owen Watson, owners of the electrical store, put forward their plan - the Watson's master plan for Leavenworth was that the whole town should remodel itself as a Bavarian alpine village, in the hope of attracting tourists. However that meeting may have unfolded, eventually the town agreed, and put the plan into action. Today Leavenworth is Washington State's very own piece of Bavaria, complete with beer halls, bakeries, dirndls and the alpine backdrop.

There are two things that I found impressive about Leavenworth. The first is the completeness of the transformation. Every last building in the town is built in the Bavarian style, including the banks and petrol stations on the outskirts of town and residential houses far off the main tourist streets. The second is the authenticity. Anyone who has been to the Lowenbrau Keller or the Bavarian Beer Cafe's in Sydney knows that the Bavarian theme, when not done carefully, can be more than a little kitsch. Leavenworth does not fall into that trap. The waitresses are wearing the dirndls , but not with short skirts and absurdly low cut tops, and if you want a weiss bier, you have to drink it in the right 500ml glass, and not in a 1 litre stein.

What might have seemed like something between a quirky idea and plain silliness in the 1960s has turned out to be, unquestionably, a stroke of genius. We drove through other towns on the way there that had clearly suffered the same fate that Leavenworth was facing, and without a themed makeover, they looked poor and almost abandoned. Leavenworth today attracts over 1 million visitors a year, and its annual Maifest, Oktoberfest and Christmas markets are regularly featured on TV and in lists of America's top tourist attractions.

In other news, I should mention that the second round of the O'Brien v Albrecht mini-golf challenge was played on Leavenworth's (Bavarian themed) mini golf course. The first round was played in Auckland and ended in a draw. In round two O'Brien played an almost flawless game, carding no less than 14 pars, and leaving Albrecht chanceless. She moves to a 1 game lead in the series. The next round will be played next time we see a mini golf course.

Also, the one thing our car is still missing is a name. We haven't been on holiday long enough to rediscover the creativity that years of working in the city killed, so we are not making much progress. There is a picture with this blog, and the number plate contains the letters YMG - so please, give me some suggestions! I'll try and announce a name in the next post