...things to remember not to forget, USA

Time is getting away from me...there was a massive big canyon that dwarfed the clouds, there was a town full of ghosts perched on the hillside, there were massive mesa rising out of a baking plain dotted by numerous red columns of whirling red willy-willies, though they don't call them that. I don't know what they do call them, but they lasered their way across the flat expanse between the mesa and looked like they should be called 'Finger of God'. There was a little carpark off the highway with a lonesome toilet block, but when you got out of your car a cliff edge fell away beneath you and revealed a huge expanse of pink rounded hills in a grey dusty valley, like a jumble of giant pink and grey pearls.

There was a glassblower in Flagstaff who personally apologised to us for George Bush, and a biker in Williams who didn't like bagels. They were, he told his Vietnam Vet companions over breakfast, 'too tight. I prefer something looser. Like cake.' There was a bagel cafe in Flagstaff with every inch of wall covered in framed 'In Memorium' photos of dead dogs. If they came in alive they got a big biscuit.

There was baking dusty desert with Joshua trees, and pine forests with snow on the ground, and these two things were within an hour's drive of eachother.

There was a choice of eight dressings, but only one kind of salad.

Oh, and did I mention there was a bloody big canyon?

But there is no time for all that now, because last week, I went to Venice. I mean the real one, not the Vegas version. Stay tuned....