Santa Cruz

Unlike the previous debates, which have had my full attention, I'm afraid this one only got about half. Partly because I was watching over the internet, but mainly because someone was cooking me the most fantastic meal downstairs, and I could smell it and after a while couldn't bear not being near the food and had to abandon the politicians. The dinner was... extremely spicy home grown tomato, courgette, cinnamon and chilli soup, spicy italian sausage, marinated chicken wings, farfelle with garlic, home made garlic and paprika bread, salad with garlic dressing... and to finish a fruit salad with 86% cocoa chocolate! Wow. A lot of garlic and absolutely delicious.

I noted down some thoughts, as follows.

The first thing that struck me was that neither Obama nor McCain seemed as comfortable talking to "the people" (they were answering questions from the floor) as they had been in a more formal one-on-one debate. I didn't find either as articulate or as succinct in their answers, and there was a fair amount of rambling from them both.

The second was just how old McCain looks, even when he's not standing by the side of a man who is 25 years younger, a foot taller and infinitely more attractive. He shuffles when he walks. He looked slightly unstable on his feet. And you really can see the tumour on his face (or at least, some sign of where it was). Speaking of which, the doctor I met on the train said "people just don't survive melanoma - he's going to die and it's going to be soon". And we all know where that would leave us if he is elected.

The third striking thing was how similar so much of the content was to both the first presidential debate, and the VP debate. The same "facts" kept being trotted out: McCain wants to give $4bn to the oil companies. Obama voted 94 times against tax cuts. And after each of these attacks, the other tried to defend himself instead of answering the next question, while apologising by saying he knew people don't like this "back and forth" and finger pointing.

I did catch the point at which McCain called Obama "that one" but am surprised people are making so much of it as it seemed to come more from rushing to get his point out than any maliciousness.

The general concensus seems to be that Obama won, but with a caveat - that he did so only because he is already in the lead and it would take a dramatic improvement or a killer line of attack for McCain to be said to have won. I would agree in as much as I think Obama didn't do his best, he failed to say anything really inspirational in my view. But I suppose that, as in football, one shouldn't complain if one's team wins despite having played poorly. In fact, one should be rather grateful.

The train from Denver to Emeryville (for SF)

34 hours of train is a lot of train by anyone's standards. Not to say it was boring - far from it. In fact, I only managed to read about 100 pages of books because there was so much to see, and so many people to talk to. So, there is too much to write to really be able to tell you what it was like. Instead, I will write about the people... and a little about the food.

The photo is of the one meal I took in the "dining car" (always makes me think of the chattanooga choo choo). Unfortunately you can't see quite what a disappointment it was. They were sold out of the only vegetarian option (veggie burger), so I had to take the macaroni cheese from the children's menu. It came in... 3 minutes! As did my dining companion's steak burger. It was a small bowl of overcooked pasta, with a very small amount of cream sauce. Where was the crispy cheesy topping?! Maybe kids aren't supposed to care about that.

The rest of my food I brought with me - the on board meals are expensive and (as you might have guessed) not that great. However, on my seriously long haul from Seattle to Chicago I have a sleeping car, which is fiendishly expensive, but includes all my meals in the dining car. So, watch this space for a detailed (and if I remember, illustrated) discussion of Amtrak cuisine.

No Amish this time, but a good and varied collection of people nonetheless. 2 English gap year students doing NYC to SF in one go, a computer game idea generator from Barcelona via Montreal, a train nut who spent hours (literally) telling me about California's historic inter-urban railways, a bossy mum with her recalcitrant son - she drove him mad making him do things like give up his seat so I could sit next to her and talk, a crowd of Serbian students, a black doctor with a white wife, a Glaswegian son-in-law and a Chinese daughter-in-law (and a passion for Obama) and a woman who had lost the sight in each of her eyes but in two different ways...

I am struck by the easy sociability of Americans, and ashamed when I find myself ill at ease or worrying about being rude.

De Tocqueville wrote about the pleasure two American strangers have on meeting one another, and how this contrasts with the English, who exchange only the most necessary pleasantries before making their excuses and going their own way. This was (incredibly, 170 years later!) illustrated on the train. The lounge car attendant asked me, and the man in the queue behind me, where we were from. London. And Manchester. We smiled nervously at one another and asked politely what the other was doing in America. Then the conversation stalled. Yet I imagine he was as swept away by the openness and friendliness of Americans and found himself in long conversations with them, as I did.

PS update on 10th October - I forgot to write that we journeyed along a river for quite a long time, passing a couple of camp sites, and lots of people out in boats or on the shore enjoying the great outdoors. As the train went past, literally half of those along the river pulled their trousers down and mooned us. Is this some kind of great American tradition?

PS on VP debate

For a far funnier and more entertaining account of the debate, may I direct you to the Guardian's liveblog - concise, true and made me laugh out loud.

Boulder, Colorado V

VP debate tonight. And it has left me a lot more optimistic than the Presidential one last week (which is a shame, since most pundits seemed to think it was unlikely to have any impact on the outcome of the election).

Palin did ok. She had much better eye contact with the audience (i.e. the camera) than Biden, whose eyes were fixed on the moderator (and therefore downwards, as he and Palin were on a raised stage) for at least the first 15 minutes. And she did a creepy winking thing which some people might like. Her strongest card seemed to be on taxes... which it shouldn't be, given that in fact the Republican tax proposals favour the wealthy minority, while the Democrat ones favour the middle classes (no one cares about the poor, perhaps because even the poorest Americans consider themselves middle class - the opposite phenomenon from the UK). But everyone hates taxes, and the Republicans are the traditional party of tax cuts - regardless of who they actually benefit.

But asked about anything other than taxes or energy policy (she considers energy her strong suit because of being from an energy producing state) she mainly avoided the question. In contrast, Biden had a well informed, and to the point, answer to every question thrown at him. He did not hesitate, as Palin did, faced with difficult questions. He was specific where she was general and woolly. He even managed to choke up when talking about having seen his son severely injured and wondering if he would pull through. On all the important issues - the economy, health care and Iraq - I think he won, both on content and on delivery. He was likeable, believable and passionate.

Perhaps the most striking thing was one significant area of agreement between the two candidates - that the Bush years had been a failure, and that things needed to change. People watching the debate with me wondered aloud if Palin was going off message on this one, because she showed no reluctance to admit, and detail, these failings and then to present herself and McCain as "mavericks" who would do things differently. This seems like dangerous territory, especially as, as Biden emphasised, they are setting out few specific policies to distinguish themselves from the current administration. Their rhetoric is about change, but the policies are not there.

Finally, I was disappointed by Biden on foreign policy - which is his area of expertise and experience. Perhaps he was playing politics, but his attitude seemed cynical, it seemed realpolitik-al... When talking about Iraq, he argued for American withdrawal on the basis that the Iraqis have a budget surplus and a huge army trained by the Americans - why should taxpayers be paying to protect Iraqis when they should be doing for themselves. Nothing about the greater legitimacy of an indigenous army, or the preferences of the democratically elected government. Similarly, on Palestine, he said he had consistently argued against elections in the West Bank, because he knew Hamas would be elected - essentially denying others the democracy he celebrates in America.

Photos

At Ellie's suggestion I have worked out how to add photos. They are all supposedly labeled but I can't see that - hopefully they are self explanatory anyway. I've added an old one to 10th Sept which I meant to do ages ago but forgot (sorry).

I've put this photo up because I didn't have anywhere else to put it, and I guessed that everyone else was like me and had always wondered why there are 57 varieties of Heinz!

Boulder, Colorado IV

The reason I came to Boulder is that it is possible to go "hiking" (what we would mainly call walking I think) within walking distance of the city. In the mountains. Which is quite an attraction after the miseries of American public transport and the flat expanses of the midwest.

On Monday I practically ran up into the rockies, so full was I of enthusiasm for finally getting some exercise. It was too hot but it also felt wonderful to get to the top, and I rewarded myself with my first blueberry pancakes of the trip. Someone asked me if I always hiked alone but I didn't think much of it.

So yesterday I woke up early to try to go again. But I was absolutely aching all over, and decided to postpone in favour of a guided hike to an abandoned quarry in the evening. I got to talk to a lot of nice people over the course of a couple of hours of walking, but more importantly I learned of previously unthoughtof dangers: rattlesnakes! And bears! So close to the city! Everyone else agreed they would never hike alone at this time of year, everyone knew the woods were full of bears stocking up on berries before going to hibernate, and everyone knew what happens if a person comes between a bear and her cubs (heaven forbid!).

Undaunted I set off early this morning to try and walk up a canyon. I got as far as the signs warning not to let dogs off their leashes at this time of year (dogs increase the risk of "bear encounters" apparently) and was only feeling slightly nervous when... I got a huge nosebleed (heat? altitude? over-enthusiastic yomping up a hill? or just bad genes?). Spent a while mopping up the mess with my sock until a kind woman passing gave me some tissues! Then went mournfully home.

On the plus side, it meant I didn't have to feel bad about spending the rest of the day sitting by the side of the creek on the edge of town, reading and dipping my feel in the (ice cold) water.

Boulder, Colorado III

My canvass round was a series of streets on the very edge of town, just where Boulder meets the Rockies. Brand new streets, opposite others still under construction (including a development of zero carbon homes). Large suburban homes with garage space for three cars each. Immaculate driveways. And crazy numbering e.g. 4th street has 4 houses, with the numbers 4854, 4860, 4866 and 4872.

You might therefore be surprised that almost everyone I spoke to was a Democrat - and not just a Democrat, these people love Obama and were keen to thank me for giving up my time to work for him (no one has ever thanked me like that in the UK).

The only slightly sad thing was: I was supposed to be registering people who, according to my list, were not yet registered to vote. But everyone I managed to speak to was pretty convinced they were registered - some had even received their postal ballots already. So I left registration forms with them - better safe than sorry - but it seemed overkill to make them fill them in there and then, just so I could go back to the office with some completed forms.

So, although registering voters seemed like a really tangible way to get involved, it has turned out rather less so. I might volunteer for data entry duty tomorrow...