USA Trip

[yamaico]

Beer is a personal thing, I prefer the Mexican Tecate. Mexicans wont touch Carona.

So true, Mexicans treat Corona like we treat Fosters, it's for tourists with no taste buds. I prefer Modelo or Carta Blanca when it comes to Mex beers. The best supermarket cheap beer in the US to my taste is Mickey's Big Mouth from Wisconsin. Cheap but good.

I wish I could go, but probably wont get around to it until the dollar drops back down to 50cents.

I'm planning on going over for a friends surprise 50th birthday party in Oakland, Ca in June.

Mickey's - can't believe that Mark. Great beer, used to get a six pack on the way home from work ($3.99). One of the only beers over there with a screw top. Screw the top back on if required to avoid getting pinged for an open container.

My advice on top of all the other great stuff is to be careful crossing the road, particularly your kids. Look left, then right, then left - not the other way as we do here. Lots of tourists get seriously injured or worse just crossing the road.

Definitely travel some back roads and eat at the diners along them. Not only is the food good and cheap but the locals, many of whom have never been to a big city, will be fascinated by the accent. Not only will you have a good time but you will be great ambassadors for Australia (or Austria, England, New Zealand or wherever else they may think you are from).

Enjoy.

[Tahitian_Red]

My first advice is to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. 

Lots of local beers that taste great.  Not much VMX going on this time of year. 

Santa Barbara, Moro Bay, Hearst Castle, Big Sur, Carmel/Monterey, Santa Cruz (for the goofiness), Hopefully Maverick's is running when you go through (just north of Half Moon Bay), Golden Gate, Napa/Sonoma, Lake Tahoe.

Enjoy and please forgive us if you run into an idiot or two. 

[firko]

Mickey's - can't believe that Mark. Great beer, used to get a six pack on the way home from work ($3.99). One of the only beers over there with a screw top. Screw the top back on if required to avoid getting pinged for an open container.

It's gotta be a Klub Kevlar taste thing Pete . When I first arrived the US in early 1975 I stayed with friends of friends and the old granddad who lived with them gave me his 'American Beer 101' lecture and demo, all in the name of education of course . Because the old bloke was living on a GI pension he didn't have a lot of dough so he could only afford cheap beer, even Bud, Coors and Olympia were out of his price range. He introduced me to such delicacies as Lucky Lager, Eastside and Mickeys. Mickeys was $1.99 a six pack when the popular beers were $3.99. Lucky was 99c a sixer at my local Alpha Beta supermarket!

Well I got a real taste for Mickeys and loved the big mouth re-sealable bottle, often for the reason Yamaico Pete said. For the next six years there was rarely a time that I didn't have at least a six pack of Mickeys in the 'fridge as well as my beloved Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada Ale. There was another beer that I liked called Ranier Ale which was an old fashioned ale not unlike Resches DA. Old time beer drinkers in the US called it 'The Green Death' because it came in a green can and was considered crap beer (usually by folks who thought Coors Lite was good beer, go figure ).

Just writing this post has made me all nostalgic....I wonder if Dan Murphys sell Mickeys.  
                                                                               

[PERM250]

This has been a great post lot of info. that will help a lot of people .Mark to answer your question about mickeys malt is no you can,t buy it here any more you used to but they stopper importing it i tried to get some about 3year ago. think dan murphy and first choice sell there own boutique beer. i allways get this in the states and ghirardelle chocolate great stuff.

[firko]

This has been a great post lot of info. that will help a lot of people .Mark to answer your question about mickeys malt is no you can,t buy it here any more you used to but they stopper importing it i tried to get some about 3year ago. think dan murphy and first choice sell there own boutique beer. i allways get this in the states and ghirardelle chocolate great stuff

For such an obscure beer I can't believe the response Mickeys has got on here . It truly is one of the best kept beer secrets in the world.

*There are a few things that I got a taste for besides Mickeys and Ghiradelli chocolate. Kathy my ex had a passion for Sees Candy stores which are very much like our own Darryl Lea http://www.sees.com/

* Schats Sheephearder bread from Bishop California. Try this and you'll have a hard time eating sliced cardboard again. We spent a lot of time in Bishop and would go to the bakery early in the morning and buy hot loaves of this great bread. Great with real butter and Vegemite for some cross cultural eating delight http://www.erickschatsbakery.com/

* I always bring home Jelly Belly jelly beans for trinkets for the natives. I'm a bit adicted to Pina Colada and Buttered Popcorn flavours .http://www.jellybelly.com/

*I miss decent Mexican food. The stuff you get here has no resemblance to anything remotely like the real thing except maybe for Cafe Pacifico in Riley st Darlinghurst http://www.cafepacifico.com.au/ and then it's only equal to a Joe Average suburban Tex-Mex joint in the USA. There's a great Mexican place in the Mission district of San Francisco ( sadly I can't recall the the name) that I visit every time I'm in town. You know it's got to be good when everyone in the place is a local and they're all speaking Spanish, the food's to die for. I also miss a decent Caesar Salad with anchovies. Most Aussie versions have crap creamy dressing and chicken....a proper Caesar doesn't come with chicken. Thankfully I can get Caesar Cardini Caesar dressing in Coles and Woolies so I can make my own.

[Slider29]

Top stuff here fellas. I'd like to think that I can put some of this great info to good use
here and hopefully if I get over to the U.S. We have Canadian friends and when they visit they bring Cheese Wizz and real maple syrup ,...yum

[Rossvickicampbell]

cheapest way to call home is to actually buy a phone card from the US to your respective country - absolutely cheap as chips and we couldn't use all ours up talking - well the wife could!

[Rossvickicampbell]

Now I am gunna ask a silly question - but in light of all the information flowing through here and will take it off thread so it isn't a hijack - have any of you guys been to France - taking my wife there in May?

[jimg1au]

you must go to normandy the d-day beaches are good
 st malo is a nice little city on the water south of normandy.
try and learn some french as not all french people are tolerant to non french speaking people.
beware of pickpoctets in paris
.dont take taxis unless it is an official cab.
and the gypsies they will rob you blind
.long line ups at the tourist spots
went there for a week did normandy and south the drive on the lhs but used to that now.see some of the country side its lovley.you can see when you are comming up to a small town they all have huge churches.stay in a old castle if you can the 1 we stayed in was firat built in the 14century
jim

[Lozza]

Now I am gunna ask a silly question - but in light of all the information flowing through here and will take it off thread so it isn't a hijack - have any of you guys been to France - taking my wife there in May?

Which part of France do you want to go to how long are you going to stay? The Loire Valley would be a place to go the culinary heart of France. Cote d'Azur coast is very nice as are the Alps.
Pickpockets/gypsies are all over Europe, forget learning much French, your French will be unintelligable to most of the French. Older people will tend not to speak Engish but most young people will. A French phrase book and learn the phrase "I'm Australian can you help me please", but the 2 times I have been to France the stereotype of the French refusing to speak English is nonsense. Most French think people who live in Paris are snobs so don't worry about them. If you have time hire a car and drive or a ride on the TGV sounds good as well. May will be very nice in the Alps and warm most other places.

[albrid-3]

Has anybody done the So-cal trip to the USA, 6-7 top the race tracks, take your riding gear and they supply the bikes or the Cape York Trip, which one.

[jimg1au]

lozza
went to a seafood jount in southern normandy girl spoke french to us and then did not return yes it was full and yes they were short staffed but if it was a bloke he would have got a blast from me after 45min now 9.30 pm no drinks or food orders taken just about to walk when another girl came over and was nice as pie to us.went to mischeln restrant in st malo they even had an english menu they gave us the french one first though.
jim

[firko]

It's been a lot of years since I was in France but I found the Parisians rude and not all that willing to speak English, even though I suspected that they understood me. I had a much better experiences once away from Paris, especially in the Burgundy wine district. We had a hard time with the language when we first got to Beaune but by a stroke of luck met an Irish born local Catholic priest in a bar who took us under his wing and showed us the Beaune the tourists rarely see and the language barrier seemed to disappear the more bars we visited. We stayed in a little village near Beaune in a B&B for 4 weeks and still didn't put a dent in the wineries and restaurants. I stayed in contact with the priest for years, in fact he stayed with us when he visited California....a real piss pot Irish skallywag.

The Champagne-Ardenne region is also worth visiting, once again for the wine and food. I met an Aussie who worked at the Mumms Champagne winery who hooked us onto a tour of the cellars that stretched for miles under Reims. She showed us areas which the WW2 French Resistance used as their regional HQ, it was so bloody interesting and the Champagne beautiful, I recall that we drank a 60 year old vintage.

France is a great place once you get used to the people. I've long had the dream to go back and may include it in my UK trip in 2014.

[head]

Has anybody done the So-cal trip to the USA, 6-7 top the race tracks, take your riding gear and they supply the bikes or the Cape York Trip, which one.

I have done both and the USA experience is awsome. If you like cutting laps on a MX track, there is no question which one to do. We did Glen Hellen, Milstone park, Lake Elsinore and Cahuilla Creek. Cahuilla Creek was that good we did it twice. Huge sandy motocross track on the side of a hill.
Cheers Neil

[albrid-3]

Thanks Neil, My Son rang me last night and asked if I would be intrested in going to the USA to do exactly what you have said, I have never been outside Australia and we are looking at August this year, so its an organised tour.