The Grand Tour’s Jeremy Clarkson Writes About Montrose Colorado
Jeremy Clarkson from Amazon's motoring show, the Grand Tour, writes about his time at the Montrose, Colo. airport.
Recently, we learned Amazon's the Grand Tour was in Colorado filming an upcoming episode. While here, presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, tweeted from the Grand Junction Airport, Telluride, and Gateway.
We know from Clarkson's tweets, they filmed a segment at the Telluride Airport.
With so much happening at airports, why would Clarkson's trip to Colorado end differently than a less-than-pleasant trip to the Montrose Regional Airport?
Mr. Clarkson, best known as a presenter on the BBC's Top Gear and now on the Grand Tour, is also a journalist. After returning from the States, he wrote a piece for the British newspaper, the Times, describing his run-in with TSA in Montrose. And like those who travel, he learned that TSA agents are just people who the government deems OK to touch you inappropriately.
He starts out by describing Montrose as the normal "small city in America," you know, the ones with "a Walmart and a Home Depot and a few terrible-looking restaurants where you can get fat." Stating the men drive "huge cars and pick-ups" and all women have "enormous hair."
I should note, if you're unfamiliar with Clarkson's humor (or is it humour?) he has a light animosity towards American's. I think it's a British thing. I digress.
As he continues to say Montrose is "connected to the worldwide web of travel," considering the airport, begins to tell the tale of his 22-hour journey back across the pond.
After handing his passport to the TSA agent "with Star Wars hair" he heads to the security line, where he says, "in Montrose, this is something they take very seriously." While waiting in the queue (waiting in line) "for the British" he proceeds to be screen by a man "who is 400 years old and not sure whether he’s a surgeon or a scaffolder, so he’s dressed up as both, with rubber gloves and a hi-vis jacket." (I'm pretty sure a "scaffolder" is what we'd call a construction worker?!)
Clarkson humorously describes the "400-year-old man" looking at his passport, them at Clarkson, back at the passport, and so on. Which leads Clarkson to go through the scanner, where his bracelets set it off. He states that in any other country in the world, that would lead to a little pat down.
"... but not in Montrose. No, sir. Here, a very serious man also dressed up as a scaffolder and a surgeon took several minutes explaining what he was going to do, which was basically to search me in the way a 1920s nanny would search her charges for nits. I was told to think of it as a free massage — an intimate one, by the sounds of it ..."
After his "serious sexual assault," Clarkson made his way to board the plane, last, because that's where the British are placed.
On behalf of all the American's who despise the TSA as much as you do, Jeremy Clarkson, hopefully, this doesn't deter you from visiting the twisty roads of western Colorado again.