Thoughts from USA Visit

I’ve recently returned from 3 weeks visiting Porterville in Central California, the food bowl of California. Here are my initial thoughts from an Australian/Tasmania perspective:

1. I’m glad Australia has consumer laws that require the price shown, is the price to be paid. In California, the price shown is the price before Tax and before staff wages. I might see a Burger for $7.50, but when I go to purchase the burger, its closer to $9. This adds up considerably for a family meal.
2. Lots of people buy bottled water for drinking. Apparently something happened with the water supply a while ago and now its no longer trusted. Transporting water by truck in small bottles is not great for the environment.
3. ICE is everywhere and everyone drinks cold Tea and Coffee. Which is understandable when the temperature is in the 40s. But the same is not the case for north Australia with similar temperatures and very little ICE available for drinks.
4. Before renting a Tesla, check if there is a supercharger near by! Porterville had none, and the nearest one was 30 minutes away!!
5. Food Businesses expect you to customise! The menu is only the base selection, then you add or delete. If you order directly from the menu, the person will wait for you to provide a modification. In Australia, I would expect a response like, “I’ll have to ask if its OK”.
6. VISA Paywave and Apple Pay are not common, cash is still very much used. We went to a very large department store, Wallmart and we couldn’t use the checkout as the machine needed a physical VISA card to swipe or cash!?

I’m very happy to return to Tasmania, we are far ahead in many basic services, if only we also had rockets that land:-)

Have you visited Califonia, anything I missed?