DATELINE: Chicago, Illinois
After three relaxing days exploring, imbibing and dreaming at waterfalls in Portland, we parted ways with Rachael, our native guide and superstar driver, to catch the ‘Empire Builder’ train back to Chicago. It’s been emotional. And tiring. Mostly tiring. 50 hours in transit does funny things to your brain.
Our cab to Portland’s train […]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Portland, Oregon
In downstate Oregon the other day, I had been talking to Mr and Mrs Comfort-Inn about their disappointment over Mitt Romney’s exit from the race. They didn’t think much of the Republican frontrunner John McCain. Would they be voting for Mike Huckabee then, the more conservative alternative to McCain?
“Well, he did do well […]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Medford, Oregon
After 24 leg-weary, election-less hours hanging out in San Francisco, barking at the sunset with Pier 39’s sea-lions and shopping with the Haight’s hippies, today it was time to move on again. Driving north from Oakland we stopped at a cheapo roadside place called Straw Hat Pizza in Williams, California. They have little […]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Oakland, California
When we planned this trip, it always had definite bookends: the Iowa Caucus, at the start, and then Super Tuesday as the grand finale, the closest America has ever got to having a nationwide primary. With so many states voting on one day, it seemed like when the dust settled on 6 February […]

[Read more →]

DATELINE: Berkeley, California

The University of California at Berkeley is to political activism what Manchester is to rain; historically, it’s drenched in the stuff. It drips down the walls and gets into the water supply. Going back to the Vietnam protests and the formation of the Black Panthers in nearby Oakland, it’s famously a hotbed of […]

[Read more →]