Places we won’t rush back to

We have been to lots of fun places and seen some scenery to die for.  Those places get lots of mention, I post pictures of them and we go on ad nauseum about how much we like them.  But Nick Russel reminded me that there are also some omigod-I-hate-that-places which never get mentioned.  So this post is dedicated to all those places that we won’t willingly ever go back to.

Reno to Salt Lake City

This forlorn stretch of highway still stands out in our minds as one that we never want to experience again.  Periodically we will be going down some mind numbingly boring piece of pavement and one of us will say “at least its not as bad as that stretch between Reno & SLC.  Even the run from Medicine Hat to Swift Current is downright exciting compared to this gawdforsaken chunk of pavement.

Cruising in general

I know some people really like getting onto a butt ugly floating apartment building with 45 hundred of their closest friends and eating cafeteria food to excess for a week but I just don’t get it.  First off “boat” implies something graceful and elegant – the ultimate combination of form and function.  By that definition cruise ships are definitely not boats.  Then there’s all the people jammed into what could be any mall anywhere in North America.  Unless you happen to be on deck you can’t tell whether you are in the Mall of the Americas or off the coast of Florida.  Mind you, if it wasn’t for the active stabilizers you would know right away because the clumsy excuse for a boat that you are riding on would induce non-stop puking in the hallways between the overpriced trinket stores. 

Idaho

Will somebody please explain snow removal to the government of Idaho?  When we made our annual trek down I-15 we could always tell when we entered and exited Idaho without reading the road signs.  Just like you can tell when you enter Saskatchewan from the west by the way your teeth start to vibrate, you can recognize Idaho by the dismal state of their winter roads.

Mexican border towns

We detest the transition from the US to Mexico.  There’s a no-man’s land for about 20 miles north of the border and 40 miles south of the border where the human and man-made garbage piled alongside the roadway makes us wish we were somewhere else. 

The green slime lake from hell

St. Annes something or other is its official name but it will forever be the green slime lake from hell for us.  Try to imagine if you can skiing for a half an hour looking for a small clear spot on the lake where you can drop without instantly turning your body into the slime creature.  The fact that we were staying in a campground “managed” by a raving lunatic hasn’t improved our memories of this miserable excuse for a lake.  The only saving grace was that we were visiting good friends there but I think even they have since given up on this hole.

Tourist traps the world over

It doesn’t matter whether it is a herd of Mexican beach vendors, the sleazy pimps handing out business cards on The Strip in Las Vegas or main street in Banff.  Tourist traps are the same the world over and they all give me gas.

Overpriced restaurants

14 bucks we paid for a cup of coffee and a draft beer in that frog casino in Las Vegas.  What’s that about?  There were some really nice restaurants in that section with really good value but we got seriously hosed when we stopped for a drink while we waited for Don & Darlene.  It doesn’t happen often because we are pretty canny restaurant customers but it pisses me off when it does happen.  I’ll put overpriced wine in this category too.  No matter what they tell you nobody can really tell the difference between 10 dollar wine and 100 dollar wine if you take away the bottle.  There’s good wine and there’s bad wine – the price on the shelf doesn’t guarantee a damn thing.

L.A.

Its not so much Los Angeles as the way they drive.  You can be zipping along an interstate barely keeping up with 4 lanes of traffic at 70 MPH, come flying around a corner and the whole bloody issue stops.  Not just slows down but actually stops.  And an hour later maybe you haven’t moved a mile.  How the hell can that happen?  And eventually you crawl around a curve or over a hill and then everything takes off again.  I hate that.  I can’t imagine living like that and I will go a long way out of my way to avoid driving through it.

OK – Nick was able to list 10 places that he detested and I was only able to come up with 8.  That plus the fact that I cheated by using items like “Overpriced Restaurants” just confirms what I have suspected all along.  Which is that I am just naturally a more cheerful type of asshole than you usually meet.