[usa4] dallas

The freeway from Dallas Fortworth Airport to the centre of Dallas is lined with neon. Its a kind of concentration of modern America; everything is big, everything is brash, and everything is conveniently located at the side of the road.

The sun was setting over Texas as the plane came into land; bringing to an end a day which at that point I had already seen twenty-one hours of. Through the plane window I got my first lesson in just how vast the US is. Its big... everything is big. In the Yellow Checker Shuttle en route to the hotel we pass the Texas Stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys. It holds over 65,000 people, but in proximity to the ranging freeways it comes across no more monumental than a converted portacabin roadside cafe.

I'm joined in the Shuttle by some sterotyped American co-travellers; a woman speaking continuously on her 'cell' and another woman who takes up the rest of the vehicle... and there are six seats in the back. In the twenty-second hour of my day I check in at the Quality Inn under the gaze of an old man in a huge stetson and aviator glasses; I'm too tired to work out whether he is real or a waxwork. The girl at reception tells me breakfast is 'from six through to ten'. "I won't be making that then" I reply and retire to room 300 and a bed the size of my whole room back home.