Gettysburg

A freezing Pennsylvania morning opened with Scuzzlefark rounding the troops up for the impending assault on the battlefield tour of Gettysburg, the largest battle of the US Civil War.

The Roadtrippers, keen to avoid another chain store breakfast, were determined to find a classical diner in the rural United States and were delighted to stumble across Betty’s Country Kitchen in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. It was a classic diner that harked back to the days of Twin Peaks.

John Thomas was particularly keen on the biscuits and gravy for breakfast – a particularly unique American breakfast of biscuits (basically a scone) and gravy (a rather nasty concoction of white sauce and sausage chunks). Putting on a brave face and insisting that the meal was quite tasty, JT quickly turned whiter than the sauce and left over half of the congealed mass on the plate. The rest of the group might have given JT a bit of curry over his insistence that he had chosen well but he persisted with his dubious claim.

The Doctor’s choice of blueberry pancakes seemed a safe bet until our hostess Betty indicated that each pancake was ‘the size of a plate’ and were also half an inch thick. Undeterred, the Doctor promptly ordered two of those puppies, didn’t eat hardly any of it and we used the rest as biofuel to power the Truck of Justice on to Washington. Like every other item of food in the US, they were bound to have corn in them.

Next stop Gettysburg.

It is quite clear that at some stage during this trip, each member of the Road Trip We Can Believe In will have what we have named the Andy Williams Moment. Without going into too much detail, there is a scene in The Simpsons when Nelson is determined that on the road trip with the boys that he gets to see Andy Williams live in Atlantic City.

For Skuzzlefark, Gettysburg was his Andy Williams Moment. To the random observer, seeing four blokes follow a guy with an anorak, map and a smile as big as Texas traipse across an ancient battlefield was probably something to behold. But for us it began as a chore rather than a moment to savour. But the cold winds that swept across the grasslands that is America’s bloodiest home soil battle, you could not be taken aback by how over 150,000 Americans slaughtered each other over three bloody days in the name of states rights or civil rights depending on where you hail.

But as pointed out by our resident civil war tragic (Skuzzlefark), the actual fight began when both the Northern and Confederate armies converged on this Pennsylvanian village in search of quality footwear. Little did they know that if they went to the local footlocker store on Main St you could pick up a decent pair of Dunlop Volleys at less than cost - as they had a sale on, - and were happy to take bulk orders.

Post-battlefield, the trippers retreated into Gettysburg town for lunch and were delighted to stumble across the best café we have found so far in the US. Scanning the menu board, The Rabbit managed to embarrass the group by asking, in hushed tones that the entire café could hear, for a chai tea. We seriously thought about leaving him in Gettysburg, gaffa-taped to a streetlamp.

In recognition of the quality of the dining experience, the suitably bemused waitress was presented with an official Aussies for Obama Fair Dinkum Best Meal certificate. The Don, The Doctor and The Rabbit managed to lavish so much praise and attention on her that she said she was “moderately uncomfortable”.

Leaving Gettysburg, the trippers headed straight for Washington DC. Samantha, our GPS guide, brought us into the suburbs easily enough but it turned difficult with roadworks and many roads blocked off due to official convoys that she apparently didn’t know about. DC traffic was the worst we have seen so far and Scuzzlefark was getting a little hot under the collar by the end of the 2nd hour of traffic jams but managed to wake up the crew with a spontaneous u-turn across 3 lanes of traffic to get to the hotel.

A grand day was finished up with an Aussie BBQ in the DC suburbs with some fantastic expats who gave us a great round up of DC, the bizarre governance structure of the DC/Virginia/Maryland dynamic and some good tips on places to check out.

Eight hours in a truck. A snap shot of America.

The drive from Chicago to Pennsylvania was never going to be an enjoyable trip. The 750km journey across the American Corn Belt was always going to be an arduous task. Eight hours in the Truck of Justice was a test of how best to pass the time away. Thankfully for some, a three hour cd documentary on the American civil war was one way to pass the time away. Before the guts of the journey began, a brief stop off in South Bend, Indiana to visit the Democrat campaign office, home of the Joe Donnelly for Congress campaign and the University of Notre Dame (home of the Fighting Irish and the US’s most prestigious Catholic University) was enough to satisfy the demands of The Don. He revelled at the opportunity to meet with his people, especially after he quietly endured the drive through the Pentecostal Bible Belt days earlier.

The rest of the journey through the miles and miles of corn fields across Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania was fairly uneventful. We did manage to drive though the entire state of Ohio without touching the soil, even though several occupants’ back teeth were floating.

The hours did provide the pentagon of Road Trippers the opportunity to pontificate about the American political industry, current polling, food and the ubiquitous napkins under every bottle of beer.

Our conclusions were thus: Americans are really into cheese, processed meat and salt. Upon our return we will all get new livers and liposuction. One day we shall return to the states and introduce fruit and veg to our ally’s diets. Ok let’s not get too carried away and bite off more than we can chew, let’s just start with fibre.

Moving from fibre to moral fibre, American radio is shit. When it is not out of range, it is always a mad radical preacher telling his sheep that the bible tells us not to vote for Obama, shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity spend most of their time living in denial as their religious right fantasyland is falling around them as poll after poll shows that enough electoral votes will fall in the Obama camp. According to the political half wits on the radio, Obama’s plan to redistribute the wealth from 5 per cent of the highest income earners to middle America is socialism, and that the world is about to end if the America doesn’t wake up on election day and vote for John McCain - a candidate that most of the republican base have little affinity for him or his maverick politics.

What is clear to us though is that across television (apart from Fox News) radio and print, the Obama campaign is consistently on message, a message that all boils down to CHANGE WE NEED. Whereas McCain/Palin are all over the shop just like the Coalition was in the dying days of the Howard Government. If McCain spent less time attacking his opponent and defending his running mate’s wardrobe expenses and more on talking about anything other than the economy, they may hold on to most of the states in the south. This is something some betting agencies have recognised and started paying out, like Irish bookie Paddy Power did last week. Meanwhile we have Palin, now distancing herself from the McCain camp and preparing for the 2012 campaign. People, the wheels are falling off the conservative bandwagon.

A striking contrast to Australian party politics is the ability to energise their base in a manner in which Australian political parties can only dream about. Trying to get an ALP branch member to put up a garden sign, let alone pay for one as they do here, is a very, very tall order. Non-compulsory voting has meant that political activists in their millions are registering as Democrats, calling voters and getting out the vote. Blogs, buttons, bumper stickers is the by-product of a political industry that is geared towards getting the message out to voters that the Democrat/Republican brand is king.

Across our eight-hour journey, and indeed since we left Dallas, we have seen two Americas. Urban America is voting Obama, maybe less for whites in the south, but in rural America, they are resiliently going to vote for McCain/Palin.

Day Two in Chicago

Following a long lie in, the Don went and caught up with some local Chicago based family whilst the rest of the gang headed down town to do the tourist stuff.

The Rabbit took us on a misguided mission to find the Boeing building which we found the following day. It’s a very boring typical office building with no redeeming features at all.

We headed to the Millennium Park to see how Chicago made Melbourne’s Federation Square look like a total white elephant.

However its worth pointing out that Vics actually did a better job in the end because Millennium Park was finished two years after the year 2000 in a major embarrassment.

Chicago’s cool buildings combined with this impressive park and Chicago’s answer to Adelaide’s Mall’s Balls make this a seriously cool city.

In a truly unexpected moment we paid a whirlwind visit to the internationally acclaimed art gallery where we attempted to prove to each other that we knew something about the subject.

Despite Chicago’s large population The Rabbit bumped into The Don and his relatives in the art gallery and both road-trippers claimed they were only in the art gallery to look for a toilet and went on their respective ways.

Afterwards we visited some blues-brothers landmarks including the Daley Plaza where about 56,000 police, soldiers, firefighters and highway patrolmen pursued Jake and Elwood for their various atrocities.

We met up with The Don and got a tip that we should go to the outer suburbs for some ribs at a place called Smoque. Unfortunately the queue for the place extended out the door and we decided to head to an Italian restaurant down the road.

This was a move worse than Hitler’s decision to create a war on two fronts.

The food was enormous in quantity and barely edible. However the worst aspect was musical, not culinary. The piano accordion player proceeded to play 50’s classics while drunk and attempting to sing at the same time. While the road-trippers were under-whelmed by their Italian experience in the ‘burbs, at the table next to them a young couple signed up to a lifetime of romance.

We settled the bill in record time and made a break for a traditional Chicago blues bar. The classic blues was headlined by a talented diva mixing between Janis Joplin and Dusty Springfield. Meanwhile the bar workers were putting the drinks away faster than the road-trippers could order next drinks.

After a suitably large gutful of beer and blues we headed home at the end of another day of American adventures.

Sweet home chicago

After we all woke up with ridiculously large hangovers we piled into the Truck of Justice and forced ourselves to drive back into downtown Springfield, IL. Driving through the wet Illinois capital in search of a car-park, we passed several liquor houses where we over-consumed the night before which was a sharp reminder why our heads were pounding so much. We parked the car and headed into the Abe Lincoln Presidential Centre opposite the Old State House where Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the Presidential primaries 18 months before.

The Lincoln Centre was informative, but was bordering on piss weak world with all the wax mock ups of a 6ft 3 man you can fit in a museum. It did wet the appetite of the Token Civil War Tragic Skuzzlefark with more civil war stuff than you can poke a bayonet at. Once the Don had set off one of the security alarms in the bedroom of the child Lincoln, the boys new it was time to hit the road and head for Chicago.

The Don has thought to bring a copy of the BluesBrothers soundtrack which made the trip just slightly less than most painful journey ever made by five blokes with enormous hangovers. With the corn fields flying by at 100 kph, the tunes of Sweet Home Chicago and the skyline of Hankcock and Sears buildings appearing in the distance, our headaches were momentarily forgotten as we looked forward to our adventures in our first big US city.

Once we checked in to our hotel we went to the hotel bar to meet the locals and get a feel for the town.

We were told there was a decent Italian restaurant down the street which we quickly moved to and were treated to the best feed we have had in the US so far.

Spurning our usual diet of Coke, fries and burgers we had osso bucco, pasta and red wine. We then found an Irish bar for a quick pint before bedtime.

Chicago turns out to be a very big city but Chicago also seems to be the frustrated younger brother of New York, never seeming to live up to the standard of its bigger older brother. But the people of Chicago have gone a long way in stepping out of the shadow. If Sears Tower is a huge expensive “two fingers” to NYC, then the rest of its skyline, a blend of modern, gothic, art-deco and art-nouveau demonstrates a city that has class and a strong independent stature that all Chicagoans should be proud of. Wow – that’s the most intelligent musings uttered on this trip so far. We don’t know what’s come over us.

In the morning we caught the underground and had lunch with a political consultant who is an expert in foreign affairs and is advising the Obama campaign.

He was kind enough to answer our silly questions and was honoured to receive an official Aussies for Obama stubbie holder as a token of our gratitude.

We hopped on a Chicago institution – the famous L down town train. Jake Blues was right, they do go by so often you hardly even notice. We headed down to the suburb of Clinton and to the Obama Illinois head office and got to meet some more of team Obama.

The office was in a bunker under the city, as if its operations were clandestine. We were buzzed in and descended into a maze-like floor packed with volunteers and organisers all running around with something to do. With the hand-written sign at the front door that read welcome to the Illinois Democrat Head Office and the temporary set up suggested this was a get in-win-get out operation.

One of the first people we came across was actually a Greens member from Sydney which was a bit of a disappointment – until we told the FBI that she was importing hemp from Byron Bay.

The girl at the front desk was kind enough to give us quick tour around the place and we met some of the people behind the operation and she introduced us to a highly strung volunteer from the Labour Party in Britain who gave us a big lecture on why Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were failing the Labour Party.

We pointed out to her that this was a road trip we can believe in and not a road tip we can concede in, and told her to take her whinny pommy attitude back to England we’re its spurred years of failure and misery on all its national sporting teams.

Following our pommy-bashing, we felt refreshed and thanked the staff for giving us the time of the day and returned to ground level and joined Chicago’s Friday night home-time foot traffic and walked back up the Magnificent Mile continued to look up at Chicago’s beautiful architecture, admiring the view along the way.

Friday night in Chicago rocks. Before we headed out, our pentagon of travellers was formed when The Rabbit joined us from a long overnight flight from Liberia via Australia. Once he freshened up, if that is at all possible after that journey, we headed out to hit the town and hoping no-one would hit us. The locals advised us to head up to the 94th floor of the Hancock building for a drink and see the city lights before we hit the town. The view was spectacular but the smell of piss on the outside of our beer bottles was slightly off-putting to say the least. So we headed down the 94 floors and tackled Chicago from below.

We headed to Pippens, a small Irish-Italian Amercian bar for a warm up drink and never left. Having an Aussie accent may be irritating to our sheep shaggin’ cousins from across the ditch, but in the US it’s the ticket to a great night with locals. G’daymateowyagoinbuymeabeercobber.

We met some girls from Cincinnati over for the weekend, some middle aged folks up from Ohio, a local who bought us a round of beers simply on the basis they heard our accents and countless others who all in their own little way made for a great night out in the Windy City.

Springfield

After our outdoor adventure though the Ozarks and the mountains of Missouri, it was high time the road trip got back in touch with civilisation. After we strolled into downtown Eminence for one last look at this bustling metropolis, we prepared for our journey north with some breakfast with the locals. Actually we had breakfast while the bemused locals watched us eat.

After tumbling out of the Ozarks we moved though central Missouri at a cracking pace as we were keen to get to our next destination - mainly to avoid a lynching from the locals as we passed through Bible belt–USA. Everybody say Amen!

However we did happen to have a brush with fame when we passed though the township of Cuba, MI. The Doctor demonstrated his keen eye by spotting the local Democrat campaign office which was housed in the local Electrical Trade Union headquarters. But even before we walked in the front door, we managed to drop our beer-filled esky out of the back of the truck of justice. During the grizzly cleanup operation, some of the Road trip members managed to get beer on their clothes, which resulted in us greeting the local campaign team smelling precisely like a bunch of Aussie piss-wrecks.

Upon meeting the local Democrat operation it became abundantly clear that the small town operation in Missouri is no different to a typical local ALP branch meeting in Australia. There was the middle aged male candidate running simply to have his name on the ballot, the middle aged baby booming lefty women whose politics were lefter than the party and some boring middle aged man who simply just liked to talk endlessly just so he could hear the sound of his own voice. Then there was the young Democrat campaign organiser who was praying that they would just all shut up and make some campaign calls. But they weren’t making calls, because they were here to meet a celebrity from another generation. Singer-songwriter Carole King was touring the Democrat campaigns across the Red states to lend support for the lonely democrat volunteers. After some inspirational words and a quick chorus of “You’ve got a friend”. Cue the Doctor – who managed to slip in the queue ahead of some well and truly overstimulated middle aged women to ceremoniously present Ms King with a Certificate of Appreciation from the Aussies for Obama (see pic). To say she was confused was an understatement.

After Cuba we continued onto the interstate and passed though St Louis and the giant arch, the gateway to the west. Every global city has an icon. St Louis has the arch, Melbourne could do with a giant M. But more on that later. We had to get to Illinois and the state capital Springfield for a quiet night.

Quiet night my arse. We pulled off the interstate just outside the home of Abe Lincoln to check into a freeway chain hotel. We freshened up and headed across the road for dinner and beers at a famous American establishment named after owls. One beer led to six and before we knew, we were having a hoot of time. Every election is a fork in the road . We met ours that night. Do we call it a night and retire early to rest up for our big drive to Chicago, or do we hit the town to see what Springfield had to offer? Rest assured we hit the town very very hard.

Two rules have been established by the roadtrippers so far. 1. Always sit at the bar. 2 Always befriend the bouncer. By the end of the night we had a republican barmaid shouting us shots of whisky and an Irish-American democrat bouncer now fully committed to the road trip he could believe in. Hi Murph (this page is now his homepage on his blackberry). Once the Irish bar closed, it was onto another. These forks in the road are gonna be problematic.

Little Rock to Southern Missouri

An early rise saw the boys get to the Clinton Museum almost right on opening time. This was for all of the members of the Road Trip You Can Believe In a great moment. Being in Little Rock alone was great but the museum brought it all home. Not only did the woman handing us the audio tour equipment tell us how much she loved our accent but it was just great to be in a place with all that Bill.

In the years ahead The Don, Scuzzlefark and The Doctor will be able to show their kids a photo of the three of them sitting at the US Cabinet Table of the United States of America engaged in furious debate. Unfortunately the room is a replica and the Don had taken his shirt off but it is still a memory they will hold onto dearly.

After raiding the Clinton gift shop, where they unfortunately don’t sell the original Clinton bumper stickers, the team went in search of our first Obama campaign office. It was eventually found in the Offices of the Postal Workers Union of America. The brothers and sisters of the CEPU had engaged in a bit of relocating you can believe in for the Team Obama.

By any expectations our visit to the office went very well. The campaign staff were pretty happy to see a group of crazy Australians who had travelled across the world and we were pretty happy to finally be amongst it. They gave us some Obama memorabilia, we presented them with an official Aussies Barracking for Obama certificate and we shared campaign stories.

We got a short tour of their facilities and found that a campaign office is a campaign office whether its located in Melbourne, Australia or Little Rock, Arkansas.

Meeting people who where so motivated and passionate about their cause always puts a spring in our step and we set the GPS for Eminence in the Ozark mountains.

Eminence is the other end of the spectrum from where the trip will finish. It is one of two towns in Shannon County, Missouri. Shannon is the biggest County in the State and is basically all wilderness. It has a population of 800 but an amazingly low $12,000 annual income. The only jobs are in a small mining sector and a little larger logging industry. Most people still live as they have always done, subsistence farming, hunting and fishing for their meat and they simply burn wood for heat.

The trip there was marked by two things. One was JT, who had arranged to meet some family friends in Eminence, was getting a little antsy in the pantsy about the time the other boys were taking to drive there.

The second was that as the Truck of Justice left the interstate for the increasingly smaller backways the McDonalds, Taco Bells, Arbys and Wendys were relaced with Baptist, Church of Christ, Assembly of God and Lutheran Churches. At one point we counted an amazing 29 churches in 49 miles. It provided the unique opportunity to develop a new game called church cricket. The most common Church (Baptist) was out and the more unique a church was the higher the runs the batsman was awarded. Readers might be able to assist the group at this point, if the Word of Life Church is six, what should you give the Tabernacle of the Testament Church?

Well before we got there we realised we were deep in the Bible belt and probably out the other side. A pastor on the radio we had on was warning people to not fraternise with “worldly people”. We decided that if challenged about this we would tell them the joke about Doggy Style Beer.

The houses had turned into shacks and caravans, and out front of these McCain-Palin yard signs were proudly on display like a Nuremburg rally.

We were right not to stick that Obama-Biden bumper sticker on the Truck of Justice. Aussies for Obama can now confirm that Arkansas is a southern state, and will not be voting for Barack Obama.

Despite our trepidation our visit was a roaring success. The people we caught up with were brilliant. They took us back to their amazing two story log cabin they had built themselves in traditional style and then out to dinner at the local restaurant. It would take more time than you or us have right now to give enough credit to the “cabin”. It was filled with incredible memorabilia from a previous life diving in the Caribbean, civil war antiques and the world’s most spoilt Coon Hound. It also had a collection of working antique revolvers and rifles which were in full working order. Skuzzlefark nodded knowingly when it was pointed out that the brass used in the handles of some of the revolvers showed them to be of Confederate issue. What a nob.

After a nice dinner where the trip learned a great deal about drifting, gigging, camping out and bluegrass music (it is also fair to say JT managed to bore even our hosts with questions of their fishing exploits let alone the rest of the group) the trip retired to the Hotel.

The night ended with a few bourbons and cigars around a campfire by the river near our Cabins as the group reflected on what had been a top notch day in a forgotten part of the world's biggest economy.

Dallas to Little Rock – The Road Trip Begins

In the morning The Doctor visited Starbucks for a well-earned caffeine hit and the waitress admitted that no-one had ever ordered an espresso before - despite it being advertised on the menu - saying “but Sir that is just a shot of coffee”.

We visited the book depository which the Doctor’s brother had once referred to previously as the book suppository which sounds a little painful.

The depository contains a museum about the assassination of JFK (we still think it was the same Russians that took Harold Holt) which was amazing and The Don tearfully made it his business to read every word available next to every exhibit and listened to each second of video - and then followed it up by buying almost everything the gift shop had to offer.

After taking in Dealey Plaza and the spot on the road where Kennedy was shot, we made our way back up the road to meet our date with destiny. We picked up the legendary Truck of Justice which instead of a Dodge Grand Caravan with a table in the back unfortunately turned out to be a Honda Odyssey without a table in the back.

It does however have a full 16 cup holders which seems a bit strange – why didn’t they just go to a bit more effort have enough holders for a full slab? We also struggled with the basic concept of opening and closing the electric doors. Passers-by could already tell we were 'not from around here'.

Once we worked out how to open the doors, we made a quick stop to Wal-Mart where we discovered the delights of American retail. Thanks to their anti-worker policies everything’s cheap and everything's there under one roof including banks, fast food and plenty of junk in the trunk.

With the road trip now under full swing the Doctor tried to lighten the mood by inventing a new car game. The concept involved taking a photo of a body part on Pam’s fancy digital camera, handing the camera to the opposing player and challenging them to identify it.

Unfortunately JT was not keen on this game at all and insisted that swapping seats in the Truck of Justice TM every 30 minutes was more entertaining which shows what a total loser he really is.

We crossed the state line out of Texas which we have delighted in telling the proud Lone Star locals is about 1/5 the size of the state that Skuzzlefark and The Doctor were born in back in Australia.

Despite Dallas being a Democrat town Texas hasn’t voted Democrat since a young Karl Rove met a young George W Bush. Considering that in all the time we were in Dallas we did not meet one white person who told us they were voting for Obama this doesn’t look like changing. They were either GOP’ers or not voting at all.

By late afternoon we pulled off interstate 30 to drive though a place called Hope. Our main motivation for visiting a small town in Arkansas was to pay our respects to a town that gave us William J Clinton.

We arrived in Little Rock at 9pm and all a little weary. To be fair, the late nights, jet-lag, 500 kilometres worth of driving on the wrong side of the road and Fox News’s Sean Hannity’s radio program took its toll on us all.

We checked into our hotel and headed up the main street to grab a bite to eat and sample some more local ales. As opposed to Dallas, Little Rock really seemed more like how a southern city town should be. While it is a small town, its wide streets and grand architecture of its government buildings seemed more like the movies than Dallas seemed like the TV series.

The local bar, The Flying Saucer, was packed for a Monday night and had a great young vibe. It was appropriately named as the roof was adorned with plates across the ceiling of those who had drunk more than 10 pints (including many from Australia) and over 100 varieties of beer on tap, it was a good way to end the day of travelling – something we’ll have to get used to.

The Doctor was particularly taken with a local Pale Ale named Doggy Style. He said drinking it makes you end up on all fours. Interestingly this joke in very poor taste was completely blown out of the water by the table of crew-cut blokes next to us who cheered and wolf-whistled at every woman who walked past. In their defence no less than two lots of women stopped and sat down with them for a chat in response.

The night ended on closing with the group keen to get some sleep for the trip into the wild unknowns of Missouri.

Dallas

Touchdown.

The road trip that we can all believe in finally began to take shape with the last of the Trippers arriving on Sunday afternoon after the advancing party did the level best to drink Dallas dry on Saturday night. The quest in search of the essence of democracy and, failing that, full strength American beer had now officially begun in earnest.

After having a quick nap to ease the jet-lag for some, and the hangovers for the others, the boys headed to a Mexican cantina in Dallas where we were introduced to a Mexican beer called Dos Equis (which we quickly renamed 'two eccies') by a very friendly Barman called Bob. In between working at a local Market Street Bar, Bob runs a credit repair business. Apparently this business is doing reasonably well right now.

We moved on to a Texan steakhouse where we were introduced to over-sized American meals, filet mignon - sans bacon - and Zinfadel wine from the Napa Valley. It was all very classy, fine wine, fine dining, white table cloths, and more chambre shirts than a Network caucus meeting. But if you’re thinking we had deserted our working class values, our table conversation was far from anything high-class. We really must learn how to swear quietly in this country.

We headed to the Greenville section of Dallas were we had been informed there was a collection of relaxed bars and pubs. We found ourselves at a great place called the Cavern, a great place in anyone’s twang.

We mixed well with the locals and met some great characters including a archetypal hefty republican who thought Australia’s Health system was ‘communism’ and a funny and cryptic bloke who handed us business cards with ‘Director of Controversy’ as his job title, who was kind enough to give us a copy of a photo of a young Jack Kennedy that his grandmother took when they were at Stanford studying and completing other extra curricular activities. We also met a former West Point graduate who is now studying a master of politics and hopes to join the US State Department with a posting to Australia.

He paid a tribute to our road trip quest by playing AC/DC for us on the guitar.

The manager also took a liking to us and gave us Jagermeister shots in between each bottle of Mexican beer. Unfortunately this has the same effect as it does in Australia.

The night ended with us all returning to our hotel room for a game of in-house rugby. Distance, jet-lag, sleep deprivation and alcohol can make men do very strange things...

The Official Beer of the Road Trip

We have decided on Coopers Sparkling as the official beer for the Road Trip We Can Believe In.


Unlike official beers for other road trips, this is not the beer we will be drinking but the benchmark to which all American Beers will be judged.

What the manufacturer says:

The ale by which all others should be measured. With its famous cloudy sediment and its distinctive balance of malt, hops and fruity characters, the old 'Red Label' is a tasty slice of Coopers history.

Little has changed since Thomas Cooper produced his first batch of Coopers Sparkling Ale in 1862.

It's still brewed naturally using the century old top fermentation method and it still tastes great!

Sparkling Ale contains no additives or preservatives.
Alc/Vol 5.8%



What Aussies Barracking for Obama says:

This is a tough challenge for any American beer to match.

A popular Australian breakfast beer Coopers Sparkling is also perfect any time of the day - knocking back a six pack at the beach, drinking a slab with mates over a BBQ, preparing the Beer Goggles at the Espy and it is even better for watching Australia kick the world's arse at sport.

It seems to bring out a special quality when combined with watching Rugby - encouraging all pub drinkers to attempt line-outs, AFL spekkies, starting headbutting competitions with fire-hydrants and doing the old 'crouch-touch-pause-engage' with the 112 tram to Albert Park Lake.

Strong enough to sterilise the barbie or clean sump oil from engine parts but delicate enough for washing fine china - its has even more uses than WD40.

Sparkling Ale contains the special ability to instantly wipe your memory and teleport you to the nearest souvlaki bar.

Alc/Vol - plenty

Who we are

Name: Matt

Nickname: The Doctor

Birthplace: Perth

Place of residence: Melbourne

Preferred candidate in primaries: the fat kid from Hey Dad

Hobbies: bathing in Texas tea

A communications professional, Matt has been known to articulate complex government policy with a particularly effective and succinct style including such strategic phrases as "because I said so", "I know you are but what am I?" and "that's it - I'm dobbing".

A pillar of the Melbourne establishment with his MCC membership and a sado-masochistic obsession with Melbourne Football Club, Matt enjoys pretending to have a social conscience and fooling progressive thinkers with constant references to 'community', 'inclusiveness' and 'I really want to go to that four hour poetry reading and interpretive dance recital on The New Social Paradigm - Exploring Contemporary Juxtapositions of the Tasmanian Asparagus Growers Collective in the 21st Century.'

Matt is looking forward to seeing how conservatives in the United States deal with their underclass, particularly left handers and people who chew with their mouths open.

Name: Steve

Nickname: Skuzzlefark

Birthplace: Perth

Place of residence: Melbourne

Preferred candidate in primaries: Jeb Bush

Hobbies: Quokka Soccer

What can you say about Steve?

You could say that as a child he was rescued from a refugee camp on the outskirts of the town of Owerri in the aftermath of the Biafran War (his father had been aide-de-camp to the leader of the Biafran forces, the inspiration for the Frederick Fortsyth novel The Dogs of War, General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu) by the maid to a reasonably unintelligent KGB sponsored Belarusian investment banker looking to start, ultimately unsuccessfully, a high tech synthetic industry in Nigeria?

Perhaps. But more accurately he is originally from Perth, drives a four wheel drive with a tray, appreciates tailored suits, owns a rural property (with water rights) and perhaps most controversially is known for occasionally bringing light beer to social gatherings.

Name: Stephen

Nickname: The Don

Birthplace: Warragul

Place of residence: Adelaide, Melbourne or Canberra depending on his monthly cycle

Preferred candidate in primaries: Rowdy Roddy Piper or Wesley Snipes

Hobbies: Flying

A full-blooded ranga who hates the rangers, The Don is a feisty competitor who is no fan of weak beer.

He has tried hard to improve his image in recent times but while you can take the boy out of Warragul you can’t take the bogan out of The Don.

He is a man of many contradictions. He loves trade unions but hates gay unions. He loves soccer hooligans but hates hockey mums. He loves Irish republicans but hates the American version.

But don’t worry, everyone thinks he’s mad – even the taxi driver.

Name: Tom

Nickname: John Thomas

Birthplace: Adelaide

Place of residence: Melbourne

Preferred candidate in primaries: Jake the peg

Hobbies: taking it waaaaay too seriously

Raised and educated in Tonga, Tom is a leading international expert on small pacific islands, along with Bob Sercombe. Now residing in inner city Melbourne with his partner and cat, Tom is the inaugural member and patron of the Tongan Republican Movement.

In 2008 he invited Malcolm Turnbull to join him in a bipartisan Twin Republics Campaign. Tom's reputation for taking often unorthodox views was evidenced by his highly publicised expectation that Suharto's leadership of Indonesia "will continue for at least a decade", a comment he made on the eve of his demise.

In his spare time, Tom is a little-known author of political thrillers with his most recent work 'Notebook' sparking front page reviews. His next work is reportedly an analysis of the voting trends of soccer moms and NASCAR dads in the US on political pollsters in Australia.

Name: Brer

Nickname: The Rabbit

Birthplace: Adelaide

Place of residence: Sydney

Preferred candidate in primaries: Jed Clampett

Hobbies: Driving with the handbrake on, eating lignite, global warming.

Brer was raised by Johnny Young and the Young Talent Time team.

After he was excommunicated for impersonating Bevan on a Christmas Eve special he became totally committed to carbon offsetting.

In 1999 he changed his name by deed poll to Loy Yang. In the winter months when he’s not starting bushfires in the Daintree (the leaves are too wet), he spends his free time burning petrol in his backyard.

It was his idea that morning FM radio presenters should laugh at their own jokes to help ratings.