That's Chicago.
You may say, 'What's he doing here?' and 'What's he doing on a boat?'
I'm actually on a boat to show you Chicago.
The reason I'm here isn't really Chicago. It's only part of it.
I'm here for Route 66,
the most famous road in the world.
How many other roads do you know that people sing about?
It's just one of those magical places that you always long to see.
Ever since I was a wee boy in Glasgow
I've fantasised about getting my kicks on Route 66.
To me, it was a magic trail, heading west through the heart of America,
into the land of broken dreams and Hollywood endings.
# SPENCER DAVIS GROUP: Gimme Some Lovin'
The highway that built a continent, defined a nation,
running from Chicago to L.A.
Route 66 is a story of America,
written by the people, for the people,
over eight states and 2,500 miles.
I love that.
It's a tale in tarmac of presidents and paupers,
cowboys and Indians, diners and drive-throughs.
It's framed in a landscape from 100 movies
with a soundtrack OF the greatest music in the world, rock and roll.
Sounds good, doesn't it?
Oh, my gosh. Whoa...
We're gonna have lots of fun, meet lots of people,
see lots of nice things.
Come with me.
Come on. I dare you.
If you come with me, I'll do dirty things.
# Well, it goes from St Louis Down to Missouri
# Oklahoma city looks oh so pretty
# You'll see Amarillo
# And Gallup, New Mexico
# Flagstaff, Arizona
# Don't forget Winona Kingstam, Barstaw, San Bernadino
# Would you get your kicks on Route 66? #
The first leg of my trip is through the great state of Illinois,
home to Abraham Lincoln, real soul music,
secret Amish communities, and devastating tornados.
It all starts here, in one of my favourite cities in the world.
# MUDDY WATERS: Mannish Boy
This is Chicago, the windy city.
Soaring above Lake Michigan,
these grand canyons of concrete and steel
make for a hard and handsome place.
It's the city that gave us Al Capone,
President Obama, and, of course...
the blues.
Once a wild frontier town,
it grew rich and taller when it became the engine
of America's expansion into the west.
There could be no more fitting start
to a road they call The Main Street of America.
(CHEERS)
Chicago's a rather beautiful place.
It's funny... When you mention Chicago, people never say beautiful.
Once you've been here, and you've seen the architecture,
it really is a mind-bender.
There was a huge fire in 1871. The place was made of wood before that.
It was all wooden buildings, and in 1871, the whole thing burned down.
The entire place.
All that was left was a water tower. I'll show you it later.
We'll go down here and I'll show you it. It's still there.
(HORN)
How are you? (LAUGHS)
It's all right. I go to anywhere.
(LAUGHS) The taxi driver likes my bike.
I think this is the water tower here.
It looks like a wee white church with a tower,
but this was all that was left after the great fire.
Now you can hardly see it. It's so swamped.
And that's why Chicago is such a nice looking town,
because they started again in 1871.
Chicago's attitude to architecture is breathtaking.
Even in this economic climate,
they've recently built 40 new skyscrapers.
and sometimes... Well, stick around and see what you think.
We're coming up to the Chicago Tribune building. If you look...
See these vertical stripes?
That was supposed to give it height.
Look at it. It's like... It's like King Arthur's castle.
Now, the owner of this building, in the old days...
His name was Colonel McCormick.
He'd been to Ypres, where the battle was in The First World War.
That one that the old British guys used to call wipers. Y-P-R-E-S.
He found a bit of stone,
that had been blown off the cathedral by the Germans in the war,
and he kept it as a souvenir.
Then he got the idea to collect more bits of famous buildings,
and he instructed his staff, wherever they were...
by well-mannered means, to collect pieces of famous buildings.
There's one of my favourite things... I'll show you along here.
Now, what they do with the stones is this.
There's a... Look, Edinburgh Castle.
This is a wee bit of Edinburgh Castle.
How they managed to get a big chunk like that
with well-mannered means from Edinburgh Castle, I don't know.
Notre-Dame...Fort Santiago...
See, they're all different ones.
Ah, there it is! My favourite.
Injun Joe's cave. Mark Twain.
My ultimate hero.
All of these stones...
How did they get them by well-mannered means?
See, this used to be my favourite corner.
Come here and I'll show you where that bugger spoiled it.
I used to come to here.
You see that nice white building...
and you go right around, like that...
And then Trump stuck that THING in the middle.
Trump pulled down the Chicago Sun building,
and built that piece of shit.
Bum. He wants to be the president!
The place would be a toilet if he became the president.
Chicago's probably more famous for one thing than any other. Gangsters.
# FUN LOVING CRIMINALS: The Fun Lovin' Criminal
During the rolling '20s, newspapers all over the world
were full of tales of wild gunfights and even wilder parties,
all fuelled by illegal moonshine.
Just across from the whiskey-laden Canada,
and at the heart of the nation's rail and road networks,
Chicago was perfectly located
to become the crucible of organised crime in America.
And it was all presided over by one man, Al Capone,
who ran his empire from the top
You have to go to a speakeasy if you're in Chicago.
I know this isn't what you expected.
Big, flashy... This is a restaurant now,
but speakeasies were like this. They were restaurants.
Fancy places at the front.
It wasn't always that wee door that you knock
and the wee square window, 'Who are you? Who sent you?'
They had fronts like this.
This one's actually being done up at the moment,
but it's pretty much the same shape as it used to be in the '20s.
In the 1920's, America made a criminal mistake.
They answered to the Christian Temperance society
and shut down boozers everywhere. Every pub was shut.
It was illegal to make, sell, or transport alcohol.
As a result, you know, everybody needs a wee drinky-poo...
# COLE PORTER: Let's Misbehave
This would be like this, of course...
..and you get in.
You're out of the restaurant now, and you're into the boozer.
As you move further on, it becomes more and more secretive...
..and much more interesting.
If the cops came...
..you're gone.
And, do you know, in the middle of all that prohibition,
Al Capone... How people believed him I'll never know.
This was a guy in his 20s with a big scar on his face.
He convinced the authorities to sell non-alcoholic beer.
He made gallons and gallons,
barrels of non-alcoholic beer, had them delivered to here.
As soon as the police had inspected it,
his mates would show up with big veterinary syringes,
that you usually shove up elephant's bums,
and they were full of ethanol, pure alcohol.
Into the barrel, and off we go again.
# Happy days are here again...#
But do you know the funniest thing?
has got nothing to do with booze.
It's the sell-by-date on a bottle of milk.
It was during The Depression.
The schools were bankrupt, the public schools.
He donated $1m for milk for the school children,
but insisted that the date was put on the bottle,
because he hated the sour milk he was given to drink as a child.
And that exists to this day.
Isn't that the strangest thing?
There are plenty of bigger cities than Chicago in the world,
but there are few taller. This is the skyscraper capital of the world.
Brace yourselves. It doesn't get much higher than this.
Standing at 1,450 feet, this is The Willis Tower.
You might know it as Sears Tower, the tallest building in America.
COMPUTER: Welcome to the top.
This has got the most spectacular views...
Now, I'm gonna show you something. I'm gonna be a real daredevil here.
This is a real heart-shaker.
See this wee cubicle here?
The floor is made of glass.
So, from 110 storeys up...
This is the creepiest feeling you'll ever witness.
It's straight down.
110 storeys to the street.
says, 'Don't, don't. Get off.'
But I've always liked heights, ever since I was a wee boy.
Now...
where those yellow taxis are on that street there...
that's Route 66.
# If you have the chance to motor west
# Take the highway
# That's my way we love best
# Get your kicks on Route 66...#
Listen... Do you hear that?
(TRAIN HORN) It's a train.
The loneliest noise in the world.
(TRAIN HORN)
Seldom in your life will you see Route 66 from this angle.
That's Route 66.
And that's the way we'll be heading, out west.
California, here I come.
# THE WHO: I Can See For Miles
# Money, who needs it?
# Just to live my life free and easy
# Put the toothbrush in my hand
# And let me be a travelling man...
How are you doing there?
# Cos I'm a roadrunner, baby...
The thing that makes Route 66 unique
is it's a road with its own soundtrack.
Some call it the blues, others call it soul.
Me? I call it rock and roll.
# I'm a roadrunner, baby
# Can't stay in one place too long...
That's why I can't leave Chicago before going to Bronzeville.
# Mess with me and I'll be gone
# Cos I'm a roadrunner, baby...#
Between the end of The First World War and the 1930's
tens of thousands of black men and women flocked to this Chicago suburb
to escape the racism of the south.
These are the very streets
that Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf turned the blues electric
and gave birth to rock and roll.
# HOWLIN' WOLF: Killing Floor
# I should've quit you
# A long time ago...#
But that's not the only music that was born in Bronzeville.
You may find this difficult to believe, but I'm going to church.
It's a new experience for me, for many many years.
This is the Quinn Chapel, which is a very famous place.
It's the oldest black congregation in America.
It's been here since the 1850s.
The congregation used to be mostly freed slaves and abolitionists.
I didn't realise that at its height
the slavery industry, if you like to call it,
had four million people. Men, women and children.
This is the time. The story is that he rose with all power.
But the most important thing about this place
is this is where gospel music really began in America.
# Oh, we call him Jesus
# Oh, Jesus
# Jesus
# Oh, Jesus
# Power in the name of...
Before its abolition 150 years ago
escaped slaves would flee to this very chapel,
in the hope of finding a new and better life.
# Power in the name of...
What I find amazing, though,
people in this room were still refused the right to vote.
# Power in the name of
# He's a brave Lord
# Glory in the name of...
There is a palpable joy of community in this chapel,
of racism
that artist Preston Jackson tackles in his work about Bronzeville.
Beautiful accent.
I don't know why it is that I'm so turned on by that.
It's like... It's music to me.
Oh, thanks very much. It's the only one I've got.
I'll change it as soon as I find a better one. OK.
Can I have a look at your work, please? Sure.
These are all bronze-cast,
and they're not hollow, so, you know, it gives a lot of - Oh, yeah.
I love this. I don't know what it is about this guy.
He's so alive. Yeah.
I think it's his tie that's doing it.
Yeah, the wind blowing. He's cool.
She's saying, 'Please, don't talk to me. I'm busy.
I got to make some money here,' you know?
And your trifling ass, you know?
I love these dense cast-bronze pieces.
There's a real sense of pride in what they're portraying,
but not everyone feels the same way I do.
Some of the work may rub people the wrong way, or uh...
Good. It's never been politically incorrect, you know?
But rubbing people the wrong way is a good thing, I think. I do, too.
You know, in America, we definitely still have problems.
You know, that we have to address.
Even the president today...
He really underestimated the effects of racism,
how deep that runs. Yeah.
I underestimated it, too.
# ETTA JAMES: Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
As a child in the '50s,
Preston remembers taking family vacations to the south.
To get there, they had to use a travel guidebook
unlike any other you've ever heard of.
What's The Green Book? If you were going to travel - anywhere -
out of your neighbourhood, you've got to study that Green Book.
That Green Book told you where you can sleep, where you can eat,
where you can... The black doctors that are in a particular town.
What not to do, where not to go...
just for your appearance,
after sun go down, not to be there.
Many times it saved your life, you know?
If a town was like Anna, Illinois.
Anna, Illinois... It's spelt A-N-N-A.
Ain't...No...Niggers...Around.
What?! That was the name of the city.
It was very horrible. That takes my breath away.
couldn't live in the hotel that he was playing. Oh, no, no, no.
I met Natalie Cole,
and I said, 'I was reading about your dad,
that he couldn't live in the hotel.'
She said, 'He couldn't go in the front door.'
He had to go in the kitchen! That's right.
Then he got his own TV - Nat King Cole, for God's sake!
I mean, rock and roll came from right down the street.
All of this stuff happened. Rock and roll is black.
Yeah. Elvis and Pat Boone had very little to do with it.
# Bop bopa-a-lu a whop bam bo #
AS PAT BOONE: # Tutti frutti, oh Rudy #
That's what I said. That's so funny!
I said on film, have you ever heard Pat Boone doing Tutti Frutti?
And he obviously doesn't know what it means. I know it, man.
Cos he's got his bible in one hand going...
AS PAT BOONE: # Tutti frutti, oh Rudy
That was so damn funny, you know?
It was so brilliant.
Oh, yeah, and then The Twist came, you know?
Then he was like... He was like this.
That's Chicago.
It ain't London, it ain't Paris,
but it is all-American, alive from snout to tail,
and I love that.
But now, well, it's time for me to saddle up and hit the road.
I've got my helmet with my little microphone,
got my jacket, got my chaps with a nice cold crotch for the hot work.
I'm just about to go on Route 66, a life's ambition of mine.
Come along with me. You'll have a laugh.
We'll see things we'll never forget.
We'll see things we'll never want to remember, I would imagine.
I've no idea what we're going to see, but we're going to Pontiac.
I don't know where it is, but we'll be there. See you there.
Route 66 begins. (LAUGHS)
# On The Road Again
There are no two ways about it,
if you want to feel like you're in a movie, hit the open road.
because as soon as that horizon opens up,
you're in your own vista-vision heaven.
At long last, you too can feel like Peter Fonda in Easy Rider.
But don't expect an easy time of it.
I'm heading into tornado country. The forecast is bad.
I've got a feeling my ventilated chaps
might prove to be no match for that kind of weather.
Now, if you've never seen a giant, you're about to see one now.
He lives just up the road here.
It's the silliest story you ever heard.
I'd like you to meet Gemini Giant.
He came here in 1965.
The guy who owned this place, the Launching Pad...
I don't know if the place is called the Launching Pad because of Gemini,
or if Gemini is called Gemini because of the Launching Pad.
There was a restaurant convention,
and the guy went to the convention and found this.
He's 28 feet high and he bought him for $3,000. (LAUGHS)
'Darling, I've got you a present.'
Look at the size of him.
I absolutely love him, and I wish there was many more of them.
Originally, the idea of these big guys...
on Route 66...
was to attract people off the interstate highway.
But you can't see the interstate highway from here.
I don't know how many people it attracts, but...
it certainly wouldn't attract me to eat.
But that's Gemini the Giant.
# Sitting in La La, waiting for my ya ya #
You see that railway line I just crossed over there?
I hope it's the same one that crosses Godley.
That's the next little town we come to.
In the old mining days, in the 1930s,
there was a brothel here, but the lovely thing is...
Godley is in two counties, one on each side of the street,
and there's a railway line that used to cross over.
They built the brothel on the railway line,
and it was a house on railway wheels,
where all the brothelling would carry on, on a Friday and Saturday night.
When they heard the news that the police were going to conduct a raid,
everybody would leap out of bed in a state of undress
and push the house... (LAUGHS)
..from one county... (LAUGHS) ..into the other.
These bare-arse people pushing a house across the str...
Across the street (LAUGHS)
I can't imagine what it must have been like
with the hookers and the bare-arse patrons.
I love that.
96 miles down and I've already seen a giant and a brothel.
Not a bad start. Pontiac, here I come.
From roadside monuments to Rock and Roll gems,
all the way through to books like The Grapes Of Wrath,
Route 66 has inspired countless wastrels throughout its history
to create great fun and silly art in equal measure.
How many other roads can you think of have their own resident artist?
That's who Bob Waldmire was. He was like the prototype hippy,
who would spend the year travelling the route, chasing the sun,
all the while sketching these highly detailed posters.
Bob died of cancer recently,
but to my absolute joy, I found that his spirit lives on.
This is how he travelled.
He built it. It was an old school bus.
He put solar panels on the top and fitted an oven.
He's got a shower and everything.
It's a bit of a squeeze to get you in, but come have a look.
It's just the cosiest place.
All of his wee favourite things are still here.
I don't know what would've happened in an emergency stop in this bus.
Isn't it amazing, and a great way for an artist to live?
Rise Up (Easy Rider)
Some say that God is in the detail.
Well, I don't know about that,
but I can absolutely see what kind of man Bob was.
It's a shame. I would have really liked to have met him.
Well, I am...consumed with envy at this vehicle.
And if you aren't, look into yourself.
# Free and easy rider
# Driving circles round the sun...#
# RAY CHARLES: Hit the road, Jack
We're not in Kansas any more, Toto.
# Hit the road, Jack and don't you come back
# No more, no more, no more, no more... #
Welcome to Route 66. I've 2,500 miles to cover,
with only 150 miles on the clock. I've still a long way to go.
Welcome to Normal.
What a rotten name for a town.
(LAUGHS)
I notice it's red or beige.
America is littered with these small towns,
where you suspect everybody knows each other,
and neighbours share lawnmowers as freely as they share spouses.
Not that I'm actually suggesting they do that in my next destination.
And now I've come to Atlanta to meet Bill Thomas,
proprietor of the rather delightful Palm Grill Cafe,
and Illinois' prize-winning piemaker and chief.
Rhubarb. Rhubarb. I think I'm a peach.
A peach man? All right.
Peach is my favourite, too. It is? Yes. I could tell.
All the best.
Oh, my God. It's delicious. Isn't it the best?
Who does the big giant belong to?
To the town. To the town of Atlanta.
Oh, I love them. I absolutely love them.
There seems to be fewer and fewer.
There's a donut shaped one, too, in L.A.
A great big donut-shaped one. Yeah.
I've seen pictures. When it rains, it looks as if it's been dunked.
It gets wet on top and looks like a dunked donut. That's good.
Well, I can see why you're the champion.
Now, that crust you're eating... Yeah?
This is really unusual. It uses vegetable oil.
Have you ever done that?
No. No butter? No. No butter.
I always chopped up butter into little wee cubes,
and then with the flour... Right. Right.
But you actually do it with your fingers? Yes.
That's the very old-fashioned way. For the consistency.
I am. I'm impressed. That's not the easiest thing to do.
He's a beauty.
Oh, there should be more. They should be...
They should be up and down the M1.
Instead of those signs saying, 'Slow down',
or, 'Take it easy', 'Check your speed', 'Have you been drinking?'
The signs should be in his hands.
He should be holding the sign up, like that.
'Smile.'
'Kiss your wife.'
'Stop slapping your children. You're driving erratically.'
You know that way fathers do. They lean over the driving seat
and they whack every leg that sticks up.
That's caused more bloody accidents in Britain.
It's a funny thing, which really irritates me...
..is the loss of Americana in America.
They don't trust their own taste, which is a shame.
That's what attracted people to America...
Cowboy hats...and Cuban heels...
Shiny lipstick, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Fred Astaire.
They seem to have been giving it away,
and I think that is a shame.
130 miles down,
and we're about to enter the state capital, Springfield.
There are 38 Springfields in America.
Which one is home to the cartoon family The Simpsons, I have no idea.
This Springfield, however, has one resident
who is even more famous than Homer,
President Abraham Lincoln.
Widely regarded as the greatest president in American history,
Lincoln not only held the country together during the civil war,
he also ended slavery in the states.
Not bad for a self-educated man from a one-room shack in Kentucky.
Welcome to the Abraham Lincoln home.
Thank you very much indeed. You're welcome.
It's always very strange
when you're in the very place where a great person used to live.
You can touch things that they have touched. It is so strange.
There's a lovely story
that he was well-known to have spoiled his children,
and he was often seen pushing and pulling them along in a cart.
That was considered very unmanly in those days.
I like that.
I remember, as a young man myself, pushing my children around,
and people thinking that I was a bit of a hippy, all fringes and stripes.
People found me very odd,
so goodness say how did they find him in the 19th century?
The more I've learned about Abraham Lincoln,
the more I like him...as a person.
Now, this is not the original wallpaper.
I know you'd be looking at it and saying, 'Is that his taste?'
No. You ain't seen nothing yet.
This IS the original wallpaper, chosen by his wife.
They think maybe it was a French company. I love it.
I bet they were a really modern couple,
for their time.
I've got something great to show you.
One of the most important rooms in the house...
..if not THE most important.
This is what was known as 'the outhouse'.
As you can see, it's got three pots, small, medium, and large,
depending on the size of your backside, I guess.
You didn't want to go plunging down that hole, I tell you.
Do you know what,
I can't help thinking of him sitting there with that big hat on.
I'm not much of a one for rules,
but one thing I would encourage anyone to do on a road trip
is go off the map.
That's where you'll find the real America they don't tell you about.
I'm heading 70 miles south of Springfield
to the Amish town of Arthur.
Now, I'll be the first one to admit,
that beyond the Harrison Ford movie Witness,
I know very little about the Amish.
A persecuted religious sect forced to flee 19th century Europe,
they are, for all intents and purposes,
self-exiled from the rest of the world.
They rarely, if ever, allow cameras in their properties,
so this is a real privilege for me.
There's the bread if you want to start with the bread here.
Local furniture manufacturer Mervyn has invited me into his home,
to discover what really goes on
beneath the bonnets and hats of movie folklore.
There is one condition, however.
He would rather we didn't focus on his face while filming,
which would make our camera man's job a bit more interesting.
Is that your hat? Yeah, that's my hat.
Let me see you with your hat on. (LAUGHS) OK.
Cos I think you're not an Amish until you get that hat on.
(LAUGHS)
Tell me something, why do the Amish have no moustache?
Uh... I...
I really don't know. It's just one of those customs, I guess...
Yeah, cos I've never seen an Amish with a moustache,
just a beard around here. It's just one of those customs like...
We, kind of, all try to be alike. Yeah.
I guess they feel like it's not necessary to have a moustache.
Some do and some don't. I think it's absolutely necessary.
(LAUGH) OK.
And what about clothes for Amish people...
Do you buy clothes in town or do you have them made?
A lot of them make their own clothes.
We can buy shirts, and in this area we're not allowed pockets on shirts,
so if they've got pockets, we take the pockets off.
You're not allowed pockets? No.
Not on the shirts. Why's that?
Well, I guess it's one of those things. Another of the rules.
(LAUGHS)
Fortunately, there are no rules about who drives the buggy,
and Mervyn's bravely allowing me to take the reigns.
Got the hang of it? Yeah.
Pretty simple, isn't it?
But do you know what I find very impressive, Mervyn,
you keep talking about the rules for this, and the rules for that,
and you seem very comfortable with it. Oh, yeah.
You seem very easy with it. Yeah. It uh...
It's something you get used to.
From the outside people think it's kind of fanatical,
but close up you seem very comfortable
and happy with what you're doing. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
It's nice to keep
and just do your own thing, you know? Yes.
So, you got any children, Billy?
Five. Five? Yeah. Four girls and a boy.
How many children have you got? We got five children.
We had six, and the youngest one actually passed on.
Oh, that's - We had an accident when he was...
..14-months-old. 14 months? Oh, that must've broken your heart?
Yeah, it was a sad situation.
I was out in the barn and I...
I was just using the motor to move a hay-bale
and I backed over him. Oh, no.
It's been 20...
The second of April it was 20 years ago, so...
And you still think about it a lot. Oh, I bet you do.
But, you know, life goes on, and...
You've just got to make the best of it sometimes.
Of course you do.
Now, when it comes to getting married to another Amish person,
how do you find a wife?
An Amish person?
Yeah, how would the average Amish guy find an Amish wife?
What I did... I met her at a certain place, my wife,
and we got acquainted, and then we started dating each other.
What, did you meet her at a sort of community...thing, at a dance,
or a get-together or something?
Well...it was probably where it shouldn't have been.
We're all humans, just like the rest of them.
Absolutely. I like some of the conclusions you've come to,
like having no pockets. (LAUGHS)
There's something nice about that.
I'll have to hire you to do the driving for me, then I can sleep.
Absolutely. I'd happily be your roadie. (LAUGHS)
Oh, bollocks.
Greetings from Illinois, on Route 66.
Since leaving Chicago, I've clocked over 300 miles,
and we're about to enter tornado country.
# THE ALLMAN BROTHERS: Midnight Rider
Forget everything you think you know about bad weather.
Tornados are nature's weapons of mass destruction.
The average amount that hit land at this time of year is 116,
which is terrifying enough,
but since I got here there have been 292.
I'm heading straight to the outskirts of St Louis,
where five of them hit just a few days ago.
# And I don't own the clothes I'm wearing
# And the road goes on forever...#
Oh, my God.
Hello. Hi.
Look at this. My G...
These used to be houses, these piles of rubble.
The funniest thing is I don't even know how many houses this is.
There's no evidence of how many houses were here.
There's somebody's bath.
Extraordinary.
I've never been this close to this kind of thing before.
The tornado was half a mile wide,
and it ripped through here at 166 miles per hour.
30 seconds later, all of this was gone.
That's all it took. 30 seconds.
Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
What was the noise like?
They say it sounds like a freight train coming through.
My dad said it sounded like a train was going right by the house.
He said that the instant his ear popped he knew it was coming.
Is that when he was still up here?
He said it was as he was going down the steps.
He made it down just before it hit.
Oh, my God.
That's the thing that got me, there wasn't one single death.
Nope.
So you just go through all this rubble
hoping to find precious things? Yeah.
Yeah, we found a couple of very valuable things, so we're happy.
Oh, that's lovely. We found her engagement ring.
You found your engagement ring? It was at my parents' house here,
loose on my nightstand, and she found it in the rubble.
And that's it? I hadn't been wearing it.
I'm going to touch it for luck.
It's definitely one of the luckiest pieces of jewellery I know, so...
Wonderful. And my wedding dress survived too.
You're wedding dress survived?! My wedding dress survived.
It had a little bit of mud on it and a small hole in one of the seams,
but all that can be fixed.
All of that can be fixed easily, cos I watch Bridezilla.
I know all of these things. (LAUGHS) Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
I've watched Bridezilla before, too.
Oh, that's wonderful. Do you know, one of the things that strikes me,
the mood is high. Yeah.
The optimism is extraordinary.
Yeah. My parents, the first few days, were very upset, you know,
that this is such a devastating thing,
but now my mom's talking about, 'Oh, I want a big new front porch.'
So she's redesigning the new place? She's already ready.
I know that one. I'm married to a woman like that.
I'm sorry for your misfortune.
Lovely to meet you. Thank you. You, too. Good luck in the future.
What a mess.
So count your blessings, and don't complain about the weather,
cos this is how weather can get.
This is America at its best,
good people doing good things for each other, just because they can.
No tears, no complaints.
Just stoicism and optimism.
It's really pioneer spirit stuff,
and it's that, even more than the roadside giants,
that I love Americans for.
Next time, I take 66 into the beating heart of America.
(SINGS) It's a lovely day in Kansas today.
There's gonna be big guns...
Get out of here, you big Jessie.
Sassy, brassy hunters... What do you want me to shoot?
Obsessive compulsives...
Oh, God!
A soul-singing legend...
(SINGS)
And the biggest rocking chair you have ever seen.
(LAUGHS)
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