#AMTHINKING: ON THE ROAD, ALL THE WAY TO THE WEST COAST.

Louisville, KY, Water tower

Louisville, KY Vote here if you think that the Louisville water tower is the world’s most glamorous pumping station.  What do you call this type of architecture: Belle epoque? Roman empire revival? Epic kitsch?

Midland, TX The architecture of the Midland Super 8 is less spectacular, but if you want to see men with ripped muscles, this is the place. It’s a hotel for oil workers. In the lounge, men in hardhats are eating their dinner out of Styrofoam boxes. They leave their dirty boots out in the corridor – does the hotel have a shoeshine boy who comes around nightly? You know those angelic voices in the elevator announcing the floor. Well, in Midland, it’s something between a drill sergeant and a construction foreman’s  snarl.

El Paso crossing

El Paso, TX I WALKED to Mexico from El Paso. You pay 50 cents at the border, no questions asked. Walking back into the US is another story: line-ups, short for American pedestrians with documents, very long for visitors with or without papers. No line-up in the bicycle lane. Yes, there is a bicycle lane, and we were considering turning back and buying a used bike so we could use that lane.

USA Today. I had a hard time getting that paper en route (I love their continental weather map). I thought  tabloid news had a large market in the land of Trump, but I guess print is dead, and those news are now on Tweet.

American coffee culture: I am Casablanca shocked. Starbucks is everywhere now, and I mean everywhere, right next to MacDonald’s and Super 8 in the most godforsaken little places.