I have seen lots of mobile homes, where the not so well off live, sometimes in mobile home parks, sometimes outside towns on rural blocks - looking sad, forlorn, tired.
And lots of casinos - but not casinos as we think on them in Australia. These are not luxury complexes where the rich go to play and the middle class go to pretend they are rich. Not - these are tin sheds with no windows where the desperate go to turn their backs briefly on the hardships of life only to end up in more hardship by losing what little money they have left. Very depressing.
And - you can buys guns in Walmart! But I couldn't find curry anywhere.
Back in Canada now!
And I just finished reading "Banff" - a history of the first national park in Canada. In this book, Eleanor Luxton covers the geologic and early exploration history of the area first, and it occurred to me that it too was a road trip book. The original native peoples were nomadic, constantly moving with the changing seasons and the hunting. The first European explorers where road trippers without roads to guide them - searching for furs, minerals, road and rail routes. Banff was a town established by the Pacific Railroad Company as it built the first rail line across Canada, and it was established as a tourist town to service the needs of the tourists the rail company hoped would come to see the beauty of the Rocky Mountains and to soak in the healthy sulphur hot springs.
"Banff" is also a celebration of the beauty of the Rockies. In the introduction, Luxton writes:
"Nature is the constant reality for those who live in the mountains. The mountains with their many moods draw our eyes to their majesty; the forests show us life being renewed even after devastating fires. Most of us have laughed at the antics of wild animals. We have been happy or sad at some of the things nature had done to us, but we would not give up any part of it."
Just started reading this book:
I am pretty sure I am going to love this one!
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