Into the Heart of Country (a trip from NYC to Binghamton)

Going out into the country from here, the experiential difference with Australia can be guaged from road signs that I initially find puzzling. In New Jersey I see signs saying, 'Bridge Freezes Over Before Road Surface'. Huh? Yes, it's true apparently. Because the road is laid over the earth it doesn't freeze as easily as a bridge hung in mid-air. It basically means watch your driving over bridges in winter, not something I've had much to do with in the temperate or tropical Australian cities, or in Alice Springs where I can only remember one bridge. In Pennsylvania the message becomes more succinct: 'Bridge Ices Before Road', or even more sharply: 'Bridge May Be Icy', no explanation.

Not that ice is a problem at this time of year, when the air is hazy and summery. Pennsylvania is beautiful.

and the native stone

flat like this, makes for beautiful dry-stone walls.

There seems to be so much woodland out along this route to Binghamton; much less acreage cleared, compared to Australia. It's surprising really, given the US's extra 200 years of settlement and 10 times the population. Is it because Australia is less arable that the early settlers felt they had to render so much more of it productive to agriculture and clear it?

I hope this part of the world (now in northern Pennsylvania) stays as natural as it is, but people will tell you of the gas field bigger than anything in Texas under here. Lawns carry placards saying, 'Friend of Natural Gas' or have a slash through the circled word 'Fracking'. Some say that they don't mind 'fracking' 'as long as there's some regulation...Others were against it, but then realised it'll 'pay for the patio'.

And there are traces of the Indians here, as we get into New York state again

'Indian Castle' - was that a permanent village? But I'm intrigued by the spelling of 'Chenango'. We'd been hearing locals pronounce it for days, and thought it was a river named after a German immigrant - Schnagel. They must close off the 'o' so quickly it folds into an 'l'.

'Reconciliation' is not a word that you come across here, as you would in newspapers and in dinner-party conversation in Australia. And pacification of Native Americans is so bound up with the proud history that I wonder if the proud history could be unwound enough to allow a concerted effort at the attempt. In Australia a plaque like this would probably contain an element of atonement in the historical inscription (although perhaps we err on the other side; do accounts of the Barrow Creek attack, for example, where the Kaytetye attacked the Telegraph Station in 1875, express sympathy for the families of Stapleton and Franks?)

However, I did notice that The People's Free Press, which I was given at a Lawn Sale, carried a protest from the Onondaga Council of Chiefs on Behalf of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois League) about the codename Geronimo being used for the operation against Bin Laden. This had previously struck me. No tears for Bin Laden, but no Australian institution or individual in public life would get away with equating an indigenous leader with the country's bitterest modern enemy.

Finally, we arrived at Binghamton. It seems to have known better days.

but was a once-proud city. I prefer its size.

You can see the country from here.